Chapter 4
SUNDAY
Where the fuck am I?
I can’t move. My limbs are restricted. I can’t see.
I listen for any other sign of life and hear the steady tick of a clock somewhere behind me. My eyes are blinded by fabric, a blindfold for sure.
My heart is frantic, my breathing erratic, and then a low voice hisses in my ear that tears my soul to shreds in a heartbeat.
“Welcome home, Josephine.”
I stiffen, every nerve on me on edge as the voice from my past derails me, burning down my brave new life with one touch of the flame.
Santiago De Sauro. My worst nightmare is living and breathing, and he is right beside me.
I’m fucked.
His fingers slide around my neck, cruel, dominant, possessive. The thumbs pressing into my vocal cords, restricting my air.
“You’ve been a bad girl.”
I pray he finishes the job because if he does, I will consider that a win.
I don’t fight. It would only excite him, and I welcome oblivion, praying for it in fact.
Then he releases me, air charging into my lungs, bringing me to life, although right now I would rather be dead.
He whips off the blindfold, and my eyes immediately close, the light blinding me, the sight in front of them too awful to contemplate.
His fingers trail a path down my face, the heavy rings on his fingers pressing into the skin, deep enough to hurt, not deep enough to disfigure. Yet, anyway.
He grips my chin hard and forces me to look at him. His voice cruel, domineering, savage.
“Open your eyes if you want to keep them.”
They open on command—his command and as I stare into the face from my nightmares, I accept it’s already game over.
Santiago De Sauro is the vilest man I have ever had the misfortune to meet. He is the reason I was hiding in the first place, and I should never have left the safety of the compound.
Of course he was going to find me. He makes a habit of nurturing grudges, and when I escaped his clutches, he would have been pissed, and now I’m about to pay the price for that.
“My beautiful Josephine. So pretty; always so pretty.”
His lips press against my locked ones, and I shake my head.
His finger jabs between my lips, forcing them open, and as his tongue enters my mouth, I want to throw up so badly.
His hand slides under my t-shirt, probing, cascading over my skin like molten wax. Burning, unwelcome, and leaving an imprint I doubt I’ll ever recover from.
He reaches my breast, pinching my nipple hard, all the time biting my lips, my tongue, while grasping my chin hard.
It’s a cruel assault on every sense I own; my body rebelling at his touch but resigned to the inevitable.
He always wanted me. To be his latest plaything. Somebody to torture on repeat under the guise of a relationship.
It’s why I ran the minute he laid out his ultimatum. I took the coward’s way out, and my father has paid the price for that. The guilt is lying heavily on my soul, and I will never forgive myself. Perhaps now is the time to accept my fate and set my father free from his chains.
He finally steps back, his gaze cruel and unrelenting.
“It was never going to work, Josephine. I was always going to find you, and you may as well stop trying to escape the inevitable.”
My mouth is dry and tastes of him, and the urge to vomit is overwhelming right now.
“Please, let me go. Give this up; no good will come of it.”
He steps back, a thoughtful expression replacing the cruel one. His eyes flash and he grabs a chair from the table nearby and positions it in front of me, sitting astride it, intimidating as fuck.
“Now why would I do that when tormenting you is way more fun?”
I don’t know why I bothered trying to appeal to his better nature because he doesn’t have one. He never did, and I can’t believe he’s been haunting my dreams for what appears to be my entire life.
We attended high school together. He was the creepy kid who slunk in the shadows. Perving on the girls and manipulating situations to his advantage.
He always had a thing for me. I shut him down numerous times, and if I thought when school ended I would never see him again, I was sorely mistaken.
Santiago entered his family’s business and quickly rose to the top of the tree when his father suffered a heart attack.
Suddenly, the creepy kid from school became king of all he surveyed in the town and had an army of malevolence to fight his battles.
He was intent on retribution, and anyone who slighted him in the past suffered for it, and I am one of them.
He targeted my father’s chain of waffle houses, demanding protection money. When my father refused, he torched one of the restaurants and then another, causing my father to agree, albeit reluctantly.
But it wasn’t enough. He wanted me to pay and went to my father and told him the only way to settle his debt to him was to give him me.
My father was broken. I saw it in his eyes. Lose me or his empire. His livelihood.
It was an easy decision for him to make.
He contacted my brothers, who are serving in the military, for help. They arranged for a safe house that turned out to be paradise on earth. For me, anyway.
I became a member of the Twisted Reaper MC academy program. A broken angel to repair under their watchful eye.
I only have myself to blame for what is happening now. Why was I so stupid to call my father? It figures they would be tracking his phone. It’s why I’ve had no contact since I left.
As Santiago gazes at me with a cruel smile, I prepare myself for my world to blow apart.
“Request denied.”
His eyes glitter. “I will not leave you alone, or your father. The only way he escapes is if you are my wife. We marry in the proper way: the big wedding, the party, the celebration. You will look happy about that and play the perfect blushing bride.”
As he reaches out, I flinch, and his eyes flash with anger.
“You will learn to crave my touch, to bend to my will and be the perfect fucking wife even if I beat it into you. This is your life now, Josephine until I am bored with it. If you desire to stay alive, you will do exactly what I tell you to.”
I say nothing, but a spark of hope flares inside me—he is giving me time. Time to send a message. Time to regain the upper hand and time to plan my way out of this madness for both me and my father’s sake.
I’m aware that Santiago likes to do things properly, and if I play this right, I may have a small glimmer of hope of surviving this and ridding the world of this man for good.