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~ Cara ~
I don’t have any shoes on.
The foolish thought doesn’t slow me. Adrenaline pumps through me, rocking my battering chest to fuel my legs, sending them off the floor as I escape the dark hall, sprinting around furniture to race amidst the shadows. Cold stone slaps my bare feet before being softened by plush rug. Heavy, brisk steps thud behind me in determined pursuit.
I’m breathing too hard. Too reckless.
It hurts. Everything hurts.
He killed Mom.
“Cara!”
Chilling sweat dots my tight skin. Desperate gasps rouse my head. I leap over an abandoned throw pillow to clear the living room. My desperate, huffing breaths deafen me. I can’t slow, can’t afford to look back. The front door beckons from twenty feet away.
They might kill me too.
The menacing steps are gaining fast. Way too fast.
I’m a survivor. That’s the only way to make it on my own.
I’m not going to make it.
Without giving myself a second to think, a hasty heartbeat to doubt, I surge off in another direction.
Unlike Paige, I know where the knives are.
Soft, motion-sensor lights gradually brighten the gleaming counters as soon as I dash in. I have seconds but don’t hesitate, jerking open the exact drawer and snatching the first handle my damp fingers contact just as a male hand appears in my vision.
It’s survival instinct. Nothing more.
I whirl, my heart vaulting off my chest. The knife slashes out.
It’s a blur. In slow motion. In explosive color.
There’s a shout.
Not mine.
Ivan’s.
Crimson drips from the tip of the sharp blade.
Somewhere in my burned focus, I realize it’s a carving knife I’m clutching, similar to the many Bob uses. Only it wasn’t Ivan at the other end of the dangerous steel.
It was Damian.
His eyes. They’re glinting as sharp as the weapon in my panicked, trembling hand. Blood seeps out of the angry gash on his forearm, trickling down his wrist to the pristine floor. He staggers back a step, not so much for self-preservation but in stunned dismay.
I watch the weapon, still aimed with threatening intent at him, as though it’s not my small, sweaty hand wielding it. It’s shaking so violently it might very well fall off my suddenly numb fingers. Jagged agony pierces me at the sight of Damian’s blood briskly staining his skin.
“Drop the knife, Cara.” Damian’s voice is gentle, soothing a wild, spooked animal, gaze glued to mine and not the deadly steel between us. “You know I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I don’t know you.” The sounds rushing out of my throat are as beaten, as wobbly, as lost as the rest of me. “You kidnapped me.”
“I didn-”
“You tied me up!” I shout over his ready denial. “You terrorized me!”
Something that might be genuine remorse flashes in his eyes but is gone so quickly, I’m not sure it was there in the first place.
“I’m sorry. It was a mistake.”
Movement has me slicing the knife to the side, pointing at the other man. Ivan immediately freezes with his hands up.
“Were you going to bring me to the senator?” The knife weaves unsteadily in the air as I demand for answers, too terrified and hysterical to think straight. “Was that why you drugged me?”
Ivan doesn’t so much as blink. “I didn’t know who you were.”
“Liar!”
“Cara.” Damian hasn’t moved, his alert gaze not daring to leave mine even as his blood slowly colors my world. “Ivan is not going to hurt you. If I wanted to hurt you, don’t you think I would’ve done it by now? We’re on your side. I want to protect you.” Drip. Drip. Drip. “Please put the knife down.”
“Protect me?” I bite out in disbelief and gesture with the only thing I have on my side. “This protects me. You’re a killer.”
“I’ve never killed anyone.”
“Did you kill Mrs. Fernandez, too?” The words are acid scorching my throat. “You and your father. You’re both the same.”
“Listen to what you’re saying.” The forced calm is gone. In its place is a roused volcano gurgling in warning. “I was with you when she died.”
“You think I’m naïve? People like you don’t do your own dirty work. Just like your father.” My hand tightens on the weapon as I take a step back in retreat. “I’m leaving. And neither one of you are going to stop me.”
There’s panic now where there wasn’t when I made him bleed. “You need to stay here with me. It’s not safe out there.”
“I know what’s out there. I can’t say the same here.”
To avoid getting close, I have to go around but can’t risk turning my back on them. I drag one foot back carefully, a desperate mouse in the trapped gaze of hissing snakes, not trusting either of them. Brandishing the knife in clear view, I dare another step. One more. The men track me with wary, sharp eyes, neither one of them so much as exhaling.
The penthouse is massive with the kitchen at one side of the open space, a distinct advantage at the moment. I round the huge block that makes up the island, every tense muscle on guard and braced to take off at the slightest provocation.
“You can tie me up.”
My foot hesitates mid-step before meeting the floor. I stare at Damian clear across the room, severe light eyes seeming to glow. The wild bid came out of nowhere.
“Me and Ivan.”
Hands still stuck in the air, Ivan whips his head toward his cousin in surprise, but Damian’s eyes couldn’t be torn from me.
“You can terrorize me,” Damian goes on, disturbingly composed once more, “but you’re already accomplishing that. You drew first blood.” The crimson flow hasn’t lessened, but he holds out his arm anyway, presenting the deep slash like an honored badge. “I’d say that would make us pretty even.”
“Uh...D? I don’t know about you, but I’m not so keen on being tied up by a paranoid girl with a weapon, not unless it’s a play whip and there’s blindfold involved.”
Is it weird that I can tell Damian wants to roll his eyes?
“Fine,” Damian agrees. “Cara can chloroform your ass then. Fair’s fair.”
That pulls a frown from Ivan. “When you say ass, do you mean that in the literal sense or symbolically?”
“Shut up!” I ought to slap duct tape over their mouths. “I’m not interested in your games.”
“There are zip ties in the drawer, third one down to your left. You can toss some over. I’ll tie one wrist to a chair or to whatever you want. All I ask is that you let Ivan go. He’s got nothing to do with us. He’s no threat to you.”
He says it so casually, in the same manner as Love’s customers asking for extra ketchup.
Ivan spins to me to nod vigorously in wholehearted agreement.
“The only one going is me.”
“Where would you go, Cara? Think about it. You’re in nothing more than a T-shirt. You don’t even have socks on, much less shoes. I’m going to bet there’s nothing underneath that cotton.”
The thought crossed my mind, but I can’t afford to dwell on it. When Damian hadn’t returned to bed, I grabbed the first thing in the duffel bag, an oversized gray T-shirt, the front sporting the word weekend over a steaming mug depiction. No way did it occur to me I’d be making a run for my life in it.
I can go to Paige, except that’s the second place they’d look for me after Mrs. Fernandez’s, and the absolute last thing I want is to bring trouble to her doorstep.
“You don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
His voice lowers, reminding me of the intimate things we did not an hour earlier, sending a different kind of shivers through me. “I know you can, but I’m asking for the honor to do the same.”
The laugh shoots out of me without a lick of humor. “Pretty words, Damian. Too bad they mean nothing to me.”
“You’re right.” He doesn’t look away, doesn’t acknowledge the other man’s avid gaze ping-ponging between us. “Words mean nothing without action. Allow me to prove it.”
“How are you going to do that?” I ask sardonically. “Have your father arrested?”
“His reach is quite impressive, so no. That wouldn’t be effective. There’s really only one way to guarantee your safety.” Resolute jewel eyes imprison my attention. “You’ll have to marry me.”
It takes a long second.
This time, the laughter is genuine.
My body shakes with it, maniacal tears moistening my eyes. I’m barely holding on to the ridiculous knife as I fight not to double over.
Hysteria. That’s what this is. Mine and his.
“You can’t do it, D. You can’t. There’s got to be another way.” Ivan’s alarmed dispute penetrates the otherworldly fever obscuring my head. “We can give her a new name. Send her off to another country. One with diners and shit.”
For some reason, that gets me roaring.
“You must be losing more blood than it looks. Marriage is no joke, man,” his desperate plea goes on. “First kids, now a wife? We need to get you to the emergency room. I think you banged your head against the headboard too many times. I knew that was going to happen once you got her in bed. You should’ve gone with the padded bedframe like I suggested.”
I didn’t notice I dropped my guard until sticky, all-business fingers confine my wrist a split second before a firm arm abruptly jerks me back against the lengthy male body, effectively trapping my other arm with the rest of me.
“Drop the knife, Cara,” the familiar voice ghosts over my ear, arousing my senses. To prove he can make me, Damian’s big thumb begins applying forceful pressure on the delicate part of my wrist.
I try to throw him off, but his much larger frame is all around me. Reflex has the knife clattering to the floor. Damian’s foot-shove sends it sliding out of reach.
“Thank fuck,” comes the eased release several feet away. “Good work, Double D.”
Damian hasn’t let go. Both of my arms are incapacitated against my chest by his, oozing blood smearing on my skin.
“Go home, Ivan. I’ve got this.”
“Don’t be stupid, man. She can’t be tru-”
“I said I got this.” The unbreakable hold tightens. “Let the doorman know there’s to be no one allowed until I say so. While you’re at it, I want you to start making arrangements for the wedding.”
A dragged-out pause tenses the air, clearly a wordless argument ensuing between the two men. With him solidly behind me, I can’t see Damian, but heavy strain palpitates from him into me.
Audible, exasperated air ejects out of Ivan. “You call me first thing in the morning, or doorman or not, I’m coming the hell up. And you.” He glares at me without reserve. “If anything happens to this guy, I’m personally coming after you.”
A sigh breezes over me from behind. “Ivan.”
But I cut into whatever Damian had in mind for his loudmouth cousin. “Go chloroform yourself, you dick-sniffing psycho.”
“You fuck that mouth, D?”
“If you’re still here in five seconds, I’m going to let Cara come after you with the knife.”
“I’m going. On the serious? Don’t die on me.” With one last warning death-gaze at me, he slams out of the penthouse.
“Asshole!” I holler after him, an immature outlet that I don’t want to control.
“Cara. You don’t have to like Ivan, but for your own sake, it’s best you don’t antagonize him.”
A snort of disgust escapes. “I’m not afraid of him.”
“You’re not afraid of a lot of things. That’s the problem.”
He’s wrong. I’m always scared. Of my future. Of who I am. Where I’ve been. What I feel. Maybe I just hide it better than I thought.
“You need to let me go.” I wiggle in the cocoon that’s his arms for emphasis. “You’re bleeding all over me.”
“And who’s fault is that?” But he releases me, promptly snagging the abandoned weapon from the floor. He eyes me with trepidation and wariness. “You don’t want to kill me. You’d be a fugitive on the run with no means. You wouldn’t go far. You know what they’d do to a pretty little girl like you in prison?”
Swiftly, I shuffle away from him. “As if I’d make it through trial. Your father would whack me before the sun sets.”
“Whack you?” His lips twitch with amusement. “You been watching old mafia movies?”
I flick out a hand. “You know what I mean. Make me disappear. Poke a hole in the dessert. Tie a rock to my ankles and toss me over a boat.” My gaze falls on the bloodstained knife, gingerly backing up another step. “Slice me up like sushi.”
“Don’t forget shoving you off a very tall ledge.”
The glower I send his way has zero impact. “You’re laughing at me.”
“I would never laugh at my wife.”
From glower to nausea, that’s how quickly things are turning.
“I’m not marrying you.”
He’s not one bit daunted by my declaration. “We’re rearranging the arrangement, Cara. It’s the only way my father will leave you alone.”
“That makes no sense. If he wants me dead, your father wouldn’t care who I am to you.”
“Strange,” Damian says, pulling a clean kitchen towel from a drawer for the hot gash. “I was under the impression you met him for all of ten minutes, certainly not long enough to know him like his son, who’s known him all of his life.”
“He killed my mother, Damian.” The words, the painful accusation, pours out of my own bleeding wound. “Do you really think he cares about what happens between us? And how can you stand there, knowing what he did, and pretend it’s a minor detail?”
The sullied towel sails across the room to land with a plop in the sink. His light eyes glitter with solemn intent as he stalks over. I promptly jolt away, halfway to bolting, but he snatches my arm, spinning me around. A hard shoulder jams against my stomach. I’m elevated for a lost breath before folding over his shoulder.
Cool air drifts over my naked butt.
“We’re going to clean up, then you and I are going to bed. No arguments. It’s been a fucking long day, and I’m tired.”
“Asshole!”
A big hand smacks my bottom. “I thought Ivan was the asshole. I have to admit, I kind of like you like this.”
I’m fuming and bouncing on his shoulder as he makes his way out of the kitchen. My hands push against the solid muscles of his back, but it’s like my weight is nothing on him. One of his arms is hooked behind my knees to keep me in place, while the other is having a great time rubbing first one bare, smarting cheek, than the other.
Two can play that game.
His span is much longer than mine, but with my body draped over him and my arms hanging, I can just reach the waistband of his sweats.
A quick push has the soft fabric over his bare, stiff cheeks, trained muscles bunching with each step.
Hot, I thought despite myself. My mouth waters at the sight of the firm, juicy apple, wanting to take a bite of that deliciousness.
The sweats slink down his legs to his ankles, and he takes a brief break to kick them off entirely so he doesn’t trip over them.
He chuckles and rewards me with another spanking palm. I gasp as my innocent flesh flames under his hand.
It takes a bit of wiggling, but I slap that very define, very hot ass in return. It’s as tight as it looks, the rigid physique stinging my palm a little.
Another male chuckle.
Without warning, a slow finger trails along the seam between my cheeks, dipping lower, testing between my restless legs, only to scale back up. The moist digit drags deeper onto every inch of untouched skin and crevice, knowing, bold, unapologetic. Blistering shivers rack my body.
I begin doing the same with him.
“Don’t even think about it.”