BEARing it All (Wylde Brothers 3)

How wrong she had been.

And over the years, he’d kept her away from the horror and violence of his world, showed her the parental affection she missed and craved. But once she turned eighteen, everything had changed.

He had changed, as if he’d been waiting for that date to roll around.

It was as if he had been waiting until she became legal—which was ironic, since everything he did was illegal.

He wasn’t the kind and gentle savior she had grown to care about. Over the next three years, he had grown even more possessive and obsessed with her. She knew what she was to him… a piece of property.

She was never allowed out of his sight, and if he was not right beside her, he made sure one of the men working for him was. There had been too many times that she wished things had been different and that she had made different decisions.

“You’re mine, Kenzie.” She knew he wasn’t speaking to her but to himself. She was just the person close enough to him that he could abuse with his body and words.

He lifted his hand and gave three knocks on the partially opened privacy screen that separated them from the front seat. Marek and Tank, cougar shifters, and Rook’s right-hand men, sat in the front seat and were just as sadistic and deranged as their boss. Seconds later, the privacy window went up completely, and Kenzie’s heart pounded wildly in fear.

“You’re afraid of me.” He leaned in impossibly closer, gripped her chin roughly, and turned her head, so she was forced to look at him. Closing his eyes and inhaling deeply, a low purr left him at what he saw and sensed. “I like that you fear me. It makes me feel powerful.”

All she could do was disconnect from the situation.

“Look at me, Kenzie.” He was angry, and it came through in the way he said her name.

She opened her eyes and stared into his cold green eyes.

“Tell me how much you love your Master.”

Never.

It was her one defiance, the one thing he could never take from her. Her virginity would never be Rook’s. He could never take that from her. In her mind, she’d always seen herself giving it to the one person she loved, the one person who innocently, genuinely… truly loved her back.

He growled low. This was the same tired story. He’d wanted her love since the beginning. She’d never give that to him. Never.

He slipped his hand under her shirt to rest the pads of his fingers over the raised scar from the one and only time she tried to escape.

“You remember when you got this, pet?” He pressed his fingers into the inch-long scar that ran right beside her belly button, and even though it no longer hurt, she tensed.

“Yes,” she hissed.

He’d since let go of her chin, but she was numb to his touch, numb to the acidic feel of his hands on her, but even that numbness couldn’t dispel the overall sickness that always filled her when he was near.

“That is my gift to you, one in which you can always look at and know you are mine.” He leaned in an inch closer. “And a reminder that if you try to leave me again, the consequences will be given in the form of me beating you into compliance and submission.” Rook tightened his hand on her waist, and Kenzie bit her bottom lip to hold in her cry.

Yeah, he’d taken a blade to her belly when she tried to escape two years ago. That had been the only time she tried to leave him. But she knew death was probably a far better outcome for her.

The next twenty minutes, he left her alone, periodically barking orders into his phone. His agitation was clear, and that worried her. When he was upset, she was that outlet he used.

The car slowed before coming to a stop. “I’ve got some business to handle inside, and I need Marek and Tank with me in case shit happens. You can either be handcuffed in the limo and wait for me, or I’ll allow you inside with Tank and Marek watching you.”

It may not have seemed like anything, but having more than one option, and one that didn’t consist of being restrained and left to wait for him to return, was a gift of sorts.

“I’ll go inside.” No way would she stay in the car, especially when her wrists were still sore from the last time he bound her and made her wait hours upon hours for him to return and release her.

He nodded once, but there was no emotion on his face. “They’ll watch you until I’m finished.” He pegged her with a hard stare. “You try anything, and you’ll regret it, Kenzie.” He got out of the limo and gestured for her to follow him but kept her by his side as they entered the disgusting bar. Marek and Tank flanked them, and she knew their focus was ever-aware of their surroundings.