Chapter 14
Leah
"Please, I did it for you."
Wilson actually expects me to tell him it's okay, that I understand. I don't understand at all.
"You did it for me?" My eyes blur with tears. "How can this be for me?"
"He was going to hurt you if I didn't help him."
"Shut the fuck up, you imbecile," Victor grunts it like talking to the staff is beneath him. "Just do what I said. She's not a fighter, get her ankles and let's go."
"Wilson, look at me." My voice shakes. "You don't have to do this. Whatever he's said to you isn't true."
"He's said he'll hurt you if you don't go, and that's true. He'll have someone come for you, Leah. I can't let anyone touch you. I can't."
"Jesus, you are pathetic. Get her up." Victor looks down at me with dead eyes. "Everyone is going to be fine. Trust me, I have a deal you won't want to refuse, Leah. Tell her where May is."
Wilson's face goes white, and the breath goes out of me.
"What do you mean? I know where May is. She went home. Right?"
Wilson shakes his head. "She's waiting in the car for you. Listen, we do a little business with Victor, and then you two get to carry on. Believe me, this is the best way. You just have to do as you're told and everything will be fine."
"Shut up. Look, Leah, you fuck up, and it's your precious May who gets hurt first, then you. You understand that, right? Good. Gag her, let's go."
"I'm sorry." Wilson wraps the knotted cloth around my mouth as tears burn my eyes. "Just do what he says. Sign the papers, do what he asks with the accounts, and it's all done."
Then we're down the hall, at the back entrance. Wilson wheels me to the car and opens the door. I stop fighting the tears when I see May.
Her hands are taped like mine, her mouth covered with silver duct tape. She's been crying, but she's not hurt. One of Victor's posse sits across from her in the back of the Bentley.
"Put her in, let's get this done."
Wilson lifts me, and I glare at him as he buckles me into the back seat. His mouth is next to my ear. "Please sign it, then you'll be safe. It will all be over. I promise."
May and I look at each other, unable to speak. Victor slides into the seat across from me. The driver's door slams, and I flinch.
The Bentley pulls away, smooth and silent, and the dark room from a few weeks ago rushes back. Bile climbs my throat.
Victor smiles, looks from me to May, then back.
"The two little princesses in the tower, all grown up and out in the big world. Not all it's cracked up to be, is it? You traded one devil for another, you just don't know it yet."
He reaches down to a black satchel on the floor and pulls out a thick stack of paperwork, clipped at the top.
I lean left as the Bentley takes a turn and nearly topple into May, who's shooting daggers at Victor. She kicks at him, fighting the tape, getting nowhere.
"Here's the situation." Victor leans his elbows on his knees, black eyes moving between us. "You think my father and I are the villains? Our fathers built that company side by side. Brothers, near enough. They swore that if anything ever happened to one, the other would take care of his family."
He snaps his tongue against his lips.
"Then your parents died. And the company should have come to my father." His voice flattens. "It didn't. Your daddy willed it to a stranger, a man who cut him loose and kept him on like a servant."
My legs are taped at the ankles, twisted at an angle that shoots pain up my spine.
"He built that company and got nothing. Two spoiled girls to raise instead, and barely a dime of his own.
" Victor's nostrils flare, red climbing his cheeks.
"My mother left him over it. I grew up under your roof, watching my father take orders from the man who'd gutted him.
He was emasculated, humiliated. There was no way out, for him or for me. "
Victor cracks a pained laugh and pulls his phone from his pocket, thumbs flying.
"You think you've both hit the jackpot with those two? They're using you. At least my dad put in his years, fulfilled his obligations. Those two? They're going to get you both right where they want you, leave you, and take the spoils. You're both so stupid you barely deserve to live."
Victor's wrong, and the worst part is how badly I need him to be.
Allister's hands are the gentlest that have ever touched me.
I'll never let you fall, he told me the first night.
But Wilson put a crack in me before any of this, and Victor's poison runs straight into it.
Some small, traitorous part of me is afraid.
May shakes her head, her eyes telling me we've got this. I want to scream that her sunshine and her hope won't get us out of this. Not this time.
The car exits the freeway, heading for the industrial edge of town, where our father kept his warehouses. He was a good man, the kind who called me precious and meant it, even if the business that paid for our tower was never the clean kind.
"So here's the deal." Victor waves the paperwork at us.
"You make good on your father's promise.
You sign over your shares of Daddy's stocks, both of you.
Not the cash, I'm not greedy. You'll still be rich.
A few clicks and we're done, and you can hand the rest to those two clowns for all I care.
" His voice drops. "You sign either way.
The only choice is how hard you make it.
Because if you don't?" He jabs a finger at May.
"Thomas here has a talent for hurting people in ways you can't imagine. "