“Loser shit?” I snarl. “You have no idea what I’ve been through because of you, you fucking idiotic piece of trash. They pumped me full of drugs. They abused me. They made me rape women. They made me into a monster.”
“I told you,” Xavier shakes his head. “It was necessary.”
“Fucking necessary?” I snarl. “They could have killed me.”
He shrugs carelessly. “Every boy needs to go through his own trials before he can call himself a man. I was just giving you what life gave me.”
“And then you stole everything for me,” I hiss. “And left me for fucking dead.”
“To be honest, I thought you were dead,” he smirks darkly. “No word from you in years... Yeah, I thought you died the first night in the docks.”
“So you just took over my goddamn life? You have no right to everything you’ve taken from me,” I spit out. “You’re living my goddamn life, with my fucking betrothed, with my fucking money, in my fucking house.”
Xavier comes up to me, smiling at me and revealing two rows of perfect white teeth. “What are you going to do about it?”
I snarl, launching myself at him. In moments I’ve got him backed up against a wall, but all the bastard does is laugh at me. I want to rip his fucking head off.
“You kill me now, you have no hope of ever finding Rain again.”
“I can find her on my own.”
“If I die, she’s as good as dead,” Xavier shrugs. “And so are you.”
Reluctantly, I take my hands off him, but not before slamming his back against the wall and snarling, “One day you’ll fucking pay for everything you did to her. To us.”
“You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better,” he laughs out loud at me. “But we have more important things to do now than worry about your cute little revenge plan. We need to find Rain. I say we start at the asylum.”
“No,” I hiss. “We start at the orphanage. I have a feeling about it.”
“A feeling,” he laughs out loud again. “I see you’re just as much of a little bitch as you used to be, Heath.”
“We’ll split up then,” I get out through gritted teeth. “I’ll take my men and go to the orphanage. You take yours and go to the asylum.”
“No,” Xavier shakes his head. “I don’t fucking trust you on your own. You can take my men, and I’ll take yours.”
Reluctantly, I nod. I know his plan serves both of us—if he finds Rain, my men will ensure she’s brought back to me. If I find her, I assume his men will do their best to bring her back to Xavier. But I don’t give a damn. I’ll kill every single one of them with my bare hands if I fucking have to. There’s not a chance in hell my woman is going back to the bastard that has tortured her for years.
“We strike tomorrow,” Xavier mutters. “Tell the men today and prepare them.”
“Fine,” I spit out. “And once we find her?”
“We’ll deal with that once we see if she’s alive.”
The horrible possibility of finding Rain’s no longer breathing body forces me to catch my breath. I can’t bear the thought of finding her dead.
“Fine,” I say again. “Get the fuck out of my face now, I don’t want to look at you any longer.”
“The feeling is fucking mutual.” Xavier heads to the door and I pull out the syringe in my pocket, loading it up with the drugs I need to keep me going. My uncle looks at me over his shoulder, his hand on the door handle. “That shit’s going to kill you, Heath.”
“Yeah well, if it does, it’ll do the one thing you didn’t,” I hiss in response, plunging the needle into my forearm and groaning at the familiar burn of the drugs entering my system.
Xavier merely shakes his head. For a moment I think he’ll say something else, but then he just shrugs and leaves the room.
There was a moment there when we were still nephew and uncle, but now it’s fucking gone.
He’s nothing but my enemy and I won’t stop until I’ve painted the walls with his fucking blood.
Chapter four
Chapter 9
RAIN
The next morning comes sooner than I would have liked.
I wake up shaking already. I barely caught a wink of sleep. The whole night, I was painfully aware of my impending punishment.
As a maid unlocks my cuffs, I rub my wrists and stay deathly silent. My only hope now is Heath finding me before Xander does his worst, but I have a feeling it’s already too late.
The maid helps me get ready, washing my hair and body until I’m squeaky clean. I beg for her help a few times, but her faraway expression tells me there’s nothing she can—or will—do for me. She’s working on Xander’s strict orders, and she’s probably just as afraid of him as I am.