“Stop lying to me.”

Tears glistened in his eyes. “I needed to know who you really were. I’m sorry. I’ll get my things and go.”

“Tell me what you saw.”

“You told me you looked up everything you could find about me and my background, but I don’t know anything about yours.”

His refusal to answer only made me angrier. “I do a background check on all my employees. None of them get to know more about me than I want them to.” If he was able to break into my laptop, was it possible he had the skills to erase any traces that would connect him to my enemies? “This is your last chance. Tell me what you saw.”

“Um… your name on an envelope.”

“And?” There was no way in hell his face was so ghostly pale because of that.

He shook his head frantically. “I… I don’t want to die.”

Angry as I was, the pain in his voice made me want to comfort him. “Then why did you disobey me?”

Anyone else I’d found in my office would already be dead. I wouldn’t have wasted time interrogating them, but Henri had the power to melt my anger away with his sad eyes. I’d never hesitated to mete out justice before, no matter how scared a man might look. I was totally fucked up over Henri. There was no way in hell I could kill him. Punish him, yes, but I couldn’t do anything to truly hurt him. If he was not who I thought, I’d have to get Lance to do it for me.

“I… I…” He swayed on his feet, and I caught him just as he started to go down. I lifted him into my arms and headed to my room. Henri had started to come around by the time I placed him on my bed.

He tried to sit up, but I shook my head. “Don’t move.”

“What… what are you going to do to me?”

I considered that. The best thing I could do was send him somewhere he would be guarded until the war with the Landrys was over. After that I’d let him go, making sure he knew what would happen if he gave up any of my secrets. Fuck. He was making me soft. I couldn’t risk compromising my family’s position because my heart wanted something my head knew wouldn’t work out.

Right or not, I wasn’t going to do that. What I was going to do was make sure he knew that when I told him something was off-limits, there would be consequences if he didn’t listen.

I stepped into the adjacent bathroom, got him a glass of water, and wet a washcloth for him to lay across his head. Why was I caring for the man who’d violated my privacy? What the fuck was wrong with me?

You never should’ve taken him, never should have brought him home.

He’d seen me near the Landrys’ hideout the night Charles had been killed. It was perfectly reasonable for me to keep him close by, and why the hell not fuck him if he was with me?

What you did wrong was fall in love.

My heart pounded. Was I really in love?

No way. That couldn’t happen to me, especially not now.

I laid the cloth on his head. “When you feel like it, drink a few sips of water, but go slow.”

He looked at the water and frowned at me. “You… I…”

“I need you conscious so you can tell me what you learned and how you got into my computer.”

He drank a little water, glanced at me, then looked away.

“The longer you make me wait, the worse your punishment is going to be.”

“P-punishment.” His chest rose and fell rapidly.

“Yes.”

24

Henri

Why the hell had I ever gone into that office? What would Remington do to me when he found out what I knew? The only thing that kept me from passing out again was his expression. He looked like he wanted to fuck me more than he wanted to kill me. “I recognized your name, or I thought I did. I remembered the… murder investigation.”

“I suppose that made the news even wherever you were then.”

“Birmingham.”

He nodded and made a circling motion with his hand, encouraging me to keep talking.

“Can I please sit up now?” I’d be much more comfortable if he weren’t looming over me as I lay in his bed.

Remington shook his head. “No. Raise your arms above your head.”

“What? Why?”

He raised his brows and glared at me. Fuck. I was completely at his mercy.

He unbuckled his belt and yanked it through the loops. I trembled as he wrapped it around my wrists then secured it to one of the rails in the headboard. He slid a finger slowly along my throat, down my chest, and across my abdomen before tracing the outline of my cock behind my pajama pants.

I sucked in my breath as my cock started to swell under his fingers. How was I able to get turned on when I was so scared?

Tags: Silvia Violet The Theriot Family Romance
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