Chapter 41
“Ihave to write lines?” she cried.
After holding her for about an hour, Jared had dropped this bomb on her.
All right, it shouldn’t have been such a surprise since she knew she was getting a punishment. Although that was yesterday they’d told her that. And then it had been postponed. She’d kind of hoped that it would keep getting postponed.
No such luck.
“Yes,” Jared told her. “I want fifty lines saying that you will not pull a weapon on Daddy or North.”
“On North either? That seems a bit crazy. I mean, with how annoying he is people must pull a knife on him all the time.”
She’d noticed he’d called himself Daddy and not Jared.
How did she feel about that?
She wanted him to be her Daddy so much that it was an ache inside her.
“While that might be true,” Jared admitted. “You are not to pull a knife on North.”
North shot her a look from where he sat across from Jared at his desk.
She was standing next to him, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
“Here is your pen and paper,” Jared said, pushing them across to her. “You may sit on the other chair and use my desk to write. I want you to number each line.”
She heaved out a breath. “This sucks.”
“Would you like the lines to go up?” North asked calmly. “Because it’s now sixty.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Wait! You can’t do that! You’re not my Daddy.”
“No, but I still Top you. Don’t I?” North asked her.
She wanted to deny it. But she couldn’t. Because North dominating her was the stuff of dreams.
The good ones. Not the nightmares.
Although if he was going to be stricter than Jared, she might start to rethink that.
With a grumble, she sat and started to write.
The men didn’t speak, both of them working quietly. She wondered what they were working on. And who had visited him earlier.
“I thought Rex would be home by now,” Jared said.
“I’ll go and try calling him.” North disappeared.
When she lived with Fergus, there were always people in and out of his house.
Most of them evil.
But Jared had only had one visitor that she knew of since she’d been here.
“Does your family visit much?” she asked Jared, glancing up at him.
“Lines are supposed to be written in silence,” Jared told her. “But no, I discourage that as much as I can.”
“Jared doesn’t like any of his family members except for his cousin, Tabby,” North told her as he returned. “I couldn’t get through to Rex.”
“I remember Tabby.” She hadn’t had a chance to talk to her much, but she’d seemed sweet and kind.
Unlike all of the other Bartollis.
“Jared got rid of the worst of the family,” North added.
“You did? Vincento? Robert? Matthew?”
“All dead,” Jared told her. “Along with Marcus and James.”
Oh, thank God.
They were the worst of the offenders. Especially Robert. She shuddered as she thought of that monster. He’d been Fergus’s younger brother. And he’d enjoyed helping Fergus hurt her.
Turning back to the lines, she felt relief course through her, taking away some of her heaviness. She hadn’t realized it until now, but she’d been worried that she’d run into one of those assholes while she was here.
And she wasn’t sure she could have coped with that.
Letting out a deep breath, she placed her hand on her stomach.
Calm down.
“Angie, look at me,” Jared said in a soft voice.
She raised her gaze to his.
“I will never let anyone hurt you again.”
Angie shook her head. He couldn’t make promises like that.
“I won’t. I promise. I take care of what belongs to me. And you now belong to me. Which means no one gets to hurt you. Certainly not my family. Understand me?”
He was serious?
She nibbled at her lip.
“Understand me?” he repeated in a firmer voice.
She nodded. “Yes.
“And if any of them even look at you funny, they’re dead,” North said casually, not even looking up from his phone.
From anyone else it might have been a throwaway comment, but she’d been around North long enough to know that he actually meant what he said.
“All right,” she whispered.
And then she went back to her lines.
Jared attempted to go back to his work. But he first had to control his anger.
What the fuck had his family done to her?
It was obvious that she was scared of the people that she’d named. They were scum just like his father, which is why he’d had them taken out.
“Is there anyone else?” he asked.
“What?” She glanced up, startled.
“Other than the men you named, is there anyone else that you’re afraid of?”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. Then she glanced over at North.
“Tell me,” Jared urged.
“I don’t know . . .”
“You will tell us now,” North told her. “Or I shall simply take out all of them.”
It would be a pain in the neck but it could be done. Jared nodded calmly as she gaped at them both.
“Antony.”
Unsurprising. His cousin had always been borderline, but he had a young family and a wife who had seemed to care about him. But maybe that was all lies.
He’d been here yesterday. Thank God he’d sent her to her room.
“He hurt you?” Jared asked. “They all hurt you?”
“They didn’t all hurt me. Robert . . . he was the worst. Some of them just watched. Antony was a watcher. But I . . . I saw him once with his wife. He shook her so hard that her head snapped back against the wall.”
Fuck.
He hadn’t realized that. He shot a look at North who nodded. Antony would be taken care of immediately. Sarah and the kids would be looked after.
“No one else?” Jared pressed.
“No. Are you . . . are you going to . . .”
“Kill him?” North asked. “Yes, of course. But don’t feel any guilt over that, Jared would have had him killed for taking his hands to his wife.”
“Absolutely.” Fucking bastard.
He blamed himself. He should have taken Sarah aside and talked to her privately. But there had been so much evil to clear out and Antony hadn’t been the worst of it.
Still no excuse.
“All right,” she said. “But I wasn’t going to feel guilty. People who hurt others, who hurt innocent people, they don’t deserve to live.”
No, they didn’t.
He was well aware that he wasn’t a good person. Neither was North. But neither of them harmed innocents.
It was something he took very seriously.
“Go back to your lines, baby,” he told her.
She nodded and started working on them again in silence as Jared fumed. He studied her face as she worked on the lines.
Angie looked tired. Worn out.
As though she needed a break.
“There! Done!” She held up the piece of paper triumphantly.
“Good job, baby girl,” he said. “Come show Daddy.” He pushed his chair back and then patted his lap.
North glanced up from his laptop.
Jared raised an eyebrow in challenge. Was he going to stay or go? He knew that this wasn’t something North was interested in. That he wasn’t a Daddy or a Little. But was he okay with it? Could he show her that he was okay with this side of her?
Jared wouldn’t have him upsetting her Little.
North just turned his gaze back to his laptop.
Good.
Considering the things that North had bought for her, Jared had figured he’d be good with all of this.
Jared waited for her to walk around with her list and then he lifted her onto his knee. “Let’s take a look, baby girl. Make sure you wrote it all. Hmm. It seems like you did. Well done.”
She practically squirmed on his lap.
Their girl was praise-starved. And probably touch-starved too. He did notice how she kind of melted into his touch.
North wasn’t big on casual touch. Or any touch that wasn’t play, sex, or murder, really.
So Jared would have to make certain she got what she needed. Especially as they were supposed to be building intimacy and getting her used to touch.
He cuddled her in close. “Now, what were you punished for?”
“Pulling a knife on you,” she replied.
“And what are you not going to do again?”
“Use a weapon on you or North.”
“That’s right. Now, I have an idea. I know that North bought you some things that you haven’t worn or played with yet. How about Daddy helps you get dressed into a cute outfit and you can do some playing here in the office while I work? Would my baby girl like that?”