6. Camilla
Idrift in and out of consciousness, my head and body aching from whatever the hell Kaos injected me with. My dreams are filled with thoughts of them, of the men I thought would keep me safe, and of the questions that will likely plague me for the rest of my life.
Did they all know what Kaos was doing?
Was he just the only one who could face me?
Even as I think it, I know it can’t be true. Not with how Bishop held me, or how Kovu nursed me back to health despite his aversion to touch, or how Crew bent for me when I know for a fact he doesn’t bend for anyone.
It had to be Kaos working on his own, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
I thought we were finally getting somewhere. That the quiet, brooding man with shadows behind his eyes was finally starting to warm to me, but maybe that was part of the ruse. Make me trust him like I did the others. Even as I think it, it doesn’t make sense. If I trusted him, I would have walked out the front door with him. I wouldn’t have questioned his motives or where we were going, only that he would keep me safe, so there would have been no point in drugging me.
He drugged me because he couldn’t face me. Because he knew what he was doing was wrong, and he wasn’t unaffected by the decision he was making.
Footsteps on concrete drag me from my own thoughts, and I push myself up, making sure Kovu’s shirt and my sleep shorts are still in place. I glower at the chain around my ankle, the heavy weight of the metal making my bones ache beneath them. They didn’t have to do it up so fucking tight.
The door swings open, and Charles Davenport walks into the small space, making it seem impossibly smaller. He’s not an unattractive man, but it’s his personality that makes him ugly. His motives. His business dealings. All the things I want nothing to do with.
Part of my training was to know how each of the five families did business, how they made their money, but it was always his that made my stomach churn uncomfortably. He walks the line of sex trafficking far too closely for my liking, even if I know he can’t cross it because the Syndicate has rules.
His dark hair is slicked back, while his near-black eyes peruse my body as if he has every right to objectify me. I guess in his mind, he does. In his head, I belong to him. I’m his property to do with as he pleases, and just the thought of that makes my stomach recoil.
“Hello, Camilla,” he purrs, the very sound making me cringe.
I don’t bother responding, keeping my eyes set on him, my face cold and emotionless as I was trained. I spent years preparing for moments just like this, and I will not break for him. I will not give him that satisfaction.
“That’s okay, pet. I don’t want you for your voice.” He closes the door behind him and leans against it, but even so, his presence makes the cell feel so small that I can barely breathe.
“Why exactly do you want me?” I ask, my voice cool and detached.
He chuckles. “Isn’t that obvious? I’m sure your daddy taught you all about the business and why your territory is so valuable.”
“I understand that. I know why De Marco territory is sought after, but what I don’t understand is why you would make a deal like the one you made with my dad. Why you made a deal that you would have to wait almost twenty years to come to fruition. I’m certain there was a quicker and easier way to overthrow my father and take the territory for yourself.”
His eyes flash with surprise at how much I know about the situation and that I’m daring to question him. If he wanted some innocent wallflower to accompany him to events and bear his children, he definitely should have chosen someone else.
“And what would have happened if my mother gave birth to a boy?”
“You’re an inquisitive little thing, aren’t you?” His tone is amused, but his eyes don’t flicker from the clear contempt he has for me.
“I just want to understand how this came to be.” I shrug, forcing my shoulders to relax despite the tension radiating through my body.
“Very well.”
Charles takes a step into the room, and I try not to flinch, I swear I do, but my body recoils the closer he gets to me, until I’m huddled in the corner and a smug smirk tugs up the corners of his lips.
He takes a seat on the edge of the bed, the springs protesting under his weight. “Many years ago, when I first took over my organization, your father needed something he couldn’t get from anyone else, and I supplied it, with the condition that on their eighteenth birthday, I would be given his oldest child. If he had a girl, I would marry her, and if he had a boy, I would train him to become my heir.”
My brows pull together. Why the hell would he want to have a De Marco child as his heir? Wars have started over much less than that in this city, so I’m struggling to understand how this deal benefited anyone.
“It is difficult to find a woman who is built for this life, and I wanted to ensure I had a failsafe should I get to forty-five and not have any children of my own,” he explains.
“What did you give my father?”
He shakes his head. “That’s not something I’m willing to share, pet. I am showing you a courtesy explaining any of this. Don’t push your luck.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to stop the sassy retort that threatens to escape and give him a small nod of understanding. Being trapped with Charles is not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but I can escape this.
I will escape this.
I refuse to spend my life as a pawn in a game I never agreed to play.
“I’ll be moving you shortly,” he tells me. “You’ll be taken to my penthouse in the city, and that’s where you will remain until such time as I can trust you. If that day never comes, that’s where you will remain until you die.”
I open my mouth to ask what it is he expects of me, but quickly snap it shut when he shakes his head. There’s not a single part of me that’s interested in making this man happy, but pissing him off is only going to lead him to hurt me, and if I’m hurt, I can’t escape.
“You will be confined to your bedroom to begin with, and after the wedding, I will move you into my bedroom.”
“Wedding?” I squeak, the panic that I had finally managed to calm flaring back to life in my chest. The only way out of a mafia marriage is death, a lesson I was taught far too early in life.
Charles nods, a smirk toying on the corners of his lips. “Yes, pet. We will be married a week from Sunday in an intimate ceremony, and then you will assume your role as my wife, including spreading those pretty thighs for me anytime I want.”
Bile rises up the back of my throat, but I’m too shocked to find a retort.
A week from Sunday.
I have a week to escape, or else…or else I’m going to die married to a man who will almost certainly be the one to kill me.