Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Joel shoves the muzzle of the gun under my jaw, forcing me onto my toes. Pain shoots up my neck as I struggle to breathe. “Got any industrial-sized garbage bags?” he asks, his tone casual.
I swallow hard. “Pantry,” I manage to squeak out as I gesture to the hallway.
“Damian, go find some… or anything else we can use to dispose of the body.” Joel’s cold, piercing gaze stays locked on mine as he issues the order.
Damian disappears into the hallway. The second he’s gone, Joel jerks the gun higher, tilting my head back so far that my toes barely touch the floor. “Bridger, you and Damian are taking Lucky to Vegas ahead of us. I gotta finish some business here.”
My heart pounds so hard I swear it’s about to shatter my ribs. My throat stretches tight, making it nearly impossible to speak.
"Take her upstairs and get her dressed," Joel continues, a cruel smirk spreading across his face. "Or don't. She’s nice to look at."
“I can’t go to Nevada.” My voice is hoarse, my mouth bone-dry. “The opening of the bakery is—”
Crack.
The slap comes so fast I don’t see it coming. My cheek burns hot, the sting radiating down my neck.
“Shut the fuck up.”
White-hot rage surges up my spine, burning away the shock. My glare locks onto his, rage pulsing behind my eyes.
Joel chuckles. “Oh, you’re a little spitfire, aren’t you?”
He leans in, so close I can feel his breath on my skin. I can smell the rancid stench of cigarettes and whiskey. The muzzle of the gun trails down my throat, dipping into the scooped collar of my tank top. My entire body turns to ice.
“I could forget about the money,” he murmurs, tugging at the fabric, “and take my payment out of you instead.”
“Please stop.” I say through clenched teeth, lifting my chin in defiance.
Taylor gasps. My father mutters a curse under his breath. None of them move.
Joel grins and dips the gun lower, hooking under the neckline of my shirt. In one sharp pull, he yanks it down, baring my right breast. He hums in amusement. “Look at that big, fat titty.”
The cold metal presses against my nipple, dragging over the sensitive skin. Bile rises in my throat. This can’t be happening. Push him away. Make him stop. The words scream through my mind, but my body won’t move.
“You getting wet from this, Lucky?” he sneers.
I want to rip his skin off. I try to shift away, but he moves with me, crowding me, owning my space. Still no one stops him. No one is doing anything to get him away from me.
He looks over his shoulder and laughs. “Hey, Taylor. What do you think?” He leans down and sucks my nipple into his mouth, slurping obnoxiously. Then he releases it with a loud, wet smack.
I jerk back, but the gun crushes harder into my skin.
“Should I take my five hundred grand out of her pussy?” He rips down my other strap and bites into my other breast, hard enough to leave a mark.
“For five hundred grand it’s going to be her ass and mouth too. Thousands of times. Yours too, Taylor.”
“You can’t do that!” Taylor screeches.
“Shut up, Taylor!” My voice shakes, but I force the words out. “I’ll go. I’ll go!” My hands scramble to pull my shirt up, to cover myself. “I’ll go,” I repeat, my breath heaving, my eyes wet with tears.
Joel backs off, leisurely leaning against my desk. “That’s what I thought.”
I look down at his knees, unable to face him. I can’t lift my eyes. He folds his arms over his chest and chuckles at me.
The door creaks open. Damian steps back in, black garbage bags clutched in his hands. I don’t look at Joel. I don’t look at my father. I look at Damian.
Would he have stopped Joel if he had been here? I search his face, desperate for any reaction, any sign that he saw me. But he doesn’t look at me at all.
Joel waves his gun in Henry’s direction like he hadn’t just been a living, breathing person minutes ago. “Bridger, grab the bags and get rid of it.”
Then his attention snaps back to me.
“Damian, take Lucky upstairs. Get her dressed and go. I’m giving you two days.”
Two days? It’s only a seven-hour flight.
Before I can ask why, Damian clamps a rough hand around my arm and yanks me toward the doorway.
“Don’t,” he growls.
Shivers rack my body as I step over Henry’s corpse, my knees buckle, my gut wrenches, but Damian keeps pulling me forward, dragging me through the dark kitchen and into the front of the bakery. “Show me where you live,” he says, voice low, controlled.
I walk out of The Frosted Spoon and open the door to the upstairs apartment.
I dart my gaze up and down the street, looking for anyone who could help me.
When I first rented this place, I thought it was great that it was separated from any of the other apartments above the stores along the rest of the block.
Now, not so much. The road is dead empty.
I need someone to see me and call for help.
“Go on, go up,” he murmurs at the bottom step. Every fiber of my being screams at me to fight. To run. To do something.
Instead, I step onto the first stair, just enough to make myself taller, and spin to face him.
He’s still taller. Still bigger. But I don’t care.
“You’ve never seen me before? You don’t know who I am?
” I seethe. Maybe if he had told Joel he knew me, things would have gone differently.
Maybe Joel wouldn’t have touched me the way he did.
“You didn’t want to exchange names, remember?” Damian says flatly.
My chest tightens. “You could have stopped him.”
His expression darkens. “I warned you I wasn’t the kind of guy you wanted any part of—and you didn’t care.” He steps onto my stair, closing the distance. I back up two more, moving higher.
“Did you know who I was?” My voice shakes with anger. “Did you fuck me to get to my father?”
Damian’s nostrils flare. “Believe me, I had no fucking clue you were that idiot’s daughter. If I had known, I wouldn’t even have fucked you with someone else’s dick.” His growl vibrates through my chest as he climbs the last steps, backing me against my apartment door. “Open it.”
“Can we just talk?” I beg.
He looms over me. “Open. The. Door.”
I press my back into the wood, my mind scrambling for a way out. “Look, Damian.” It’s the first time I have said his name out loud, and I hate that I like how villainous it sounds. “I can’t go to Vegas. I need to be here to open The Frosted Spoon.”
He stares at me, unblinking. “The what?”
“The Frosted Spoon, the bakery. I—”
A sharp pinch presses into my side. Cold. Hard. My breath stalls.
Damian’s voice is calm. “Don’t make me cut you open to get you to do what I ask.”
I swallow, my pulse thrumming in my ears. “I had nothing to do with that money. I can’t just give up my—”
A sudden prick of pain. A slow bloom of warmth.
“I don’t care.” His tone is impassive. “Get inside.”
My heart plummets as I twist the doorknob. Of course it’s not locked. Why would Taylor have locked it?
I step inside, and Damian follows, shutting the door behind us.
“Good girl.” The words are quiet, almost mocking. “Bedroom?”
I point down the hallway past the kitchen.
I spot my phone on the countertop, where I left it when I looked out the window after hearing the noise.
I would have rather faced a flood or giant mutant rats than what was really down there.
Could I run ahead, grab the phone, and lock myself in the bathroom?
Crazy talk. One of his strides is like three of mine, and by the time the cops get here, I’d be long dead.
As we pass the counter, his grip tightens on my wrist. He yanks me the opposite way, and I stumble, slamming into the wall. “Ouch, asshole.”
His lips twitch. “Your fault. Not mine.” He snatches my phone off the counter, pressing the lock screen. It’s an image of the prettiest cake I’ve ever made. His expression twists with disgust.
“What?” I snap. “You don’t like baked goods?”
Without warning, he slams my phone into the granite.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
It clatters to the floor in shattered pieces. “What makes you think that?” he asks, voice eerily calm, his glare cutting into me.
I suck in a breath, forcing myself to meet his eyes. “Why are you here? Why are you doing this to me?”
His jaw ticks. His hands snap shut, and his knuckles whiten. For a split second, I brace myself for a hit. But he doesn’t strike. Instead, he steps forward, caging me against the wall. It’s the opposite of last night.
Last night, it made me breathless.
Now, it makes me feel like I’m suffocating.
The air shifts in the space between us. My skin burns hot, but my lungs feel too tight. This isn’t the same man who touched me with quiet reverence in the dark. This isn’t the same man who made me tremble in pleasure.
This is someone else entirely.
Damian draws in a deep breath, his jaw tensing, the muscles flexing beneath his skin. “How am I the villain if it was your father who fucked up?”
I place a hand on his chest, stopping him from getting any closer. “Wait. What actually happened? Did Vick steal that money? Did he make a bad bet? Is Joel a loan shark? Did Vick borrow the money and not pay it back?”
His expression doesn’t change. “Does it matter? Let’s go. I have a job to do.”
“And your job is to go after people who owe Joel money?”
“Maybe.”
“And what usually happens when you find them?”
His gaze darkens. “Do you really want to know the answer to that?” His voice is quiet, deadly calm. The weight of his words tightens around my throat like a noose, and I swallow hard.
I’m five hundred thousand percent certain that if he wanted to, he could lean in and slit my throat, staring into my eyes the whole time. And if I collapsed at his feet, bleeding out, he wouldn’t even hesitate to step over my body. He wouldn’t even bother wiping my blood from his boots.
I drop my gaze, looking anywhere but at his face, feeling utterly trapped. I’m fucked. Nevada is the last place I want to go. Dredging my father out of the mess he created makes me sick to my stomach.
But I don’t have a choice.
Damian’s voice slices through my thoughts, cold and taunting. “If you don’t move and get dressed, I’ll take you as you are.” A cruel smile curls at his lips.
I don’t doubt that he would.
But if he’s giving me the chance to change, there must be something inside him, some scrap of humanity. Maybe I can—
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop.” He grips my arm, fingers digging into my skin like iron. There’s no room for argument. No words. No pleas. No chance of escape. He drags me down the hall like a rag doll, his grip unrelenting. “Nothing you say or do will get you out of this.”
He flicks the bedroom light on, his sharp hazel eyes scanning the space. His gaze lingers on my vision board, plastered with images of pastries and storybook bakery storefronts. His nose wrinkles in distaste.
He moves to my narrow bookshelf, lined with dark fairy tales, and framed gothic art prints. His eyes grow flinty, filled with an emotion I can’t place. I guess it must seem silly to him—this room filled with romanticized fantasies, with wishes and wants that hold no value in reality.
“Hurry up. Get dressed and pack a small bag.”
My heartbeat ricochets against my ribs as I quickly pull on jeans and a T-shirt, feeling his feral, wolf-like eyes tracking my every move. This is the same man who devoured me last night like I was the last woman on earth.
But now? Now his hunger is gone. Replaced with something darker. Something closer to hate. Humiliation burns hot across my chest, a knot of fire that’s impossible to swallow. After I get the money, I never want to see this asshole again.
Him or my father.
Damian yanks an old black backpack from the corner of my desk chair and dumps its contents onto my desk. Books, candy wrappers, and dozens of crumpled sketches of wedding cakes and holiday pastries scatter everywhere.
He throws the empty bag at me. “Faster.”
Before I can move, angry voices explode from just outside the apartment.
My pulse spikes. Frantically, I rip through my drawers, stuffing handfuls of clothes and whatever else I can grab into the bag without looking.
None of it matters. The only things I care about are my purse and my meds.
Without those, I’m screwed. I double-check them. Then I triple-check, just to be sure.
Damian snatches the bag from me, zips it up, and slings it over his shoulder. “Grab a coat. Let’s go,” he grunts, his fingers clamping down around my upper arm like a vice. His grip is so tight, I already know I’ll be black and blue within the hour.
As soon as my fingers brush my coat, my feet leave the floor. A startled gasp rips from my throat as I’m thrown over Damian’s shoulder like a damn potato sack.
Holy shit.
He carries me effortlessly, like I weigh nothing. Fuck, he’s strong. I instinctively clutch at his waistband to steady myself, my fingers gripping the fabric of his jeans. Warmth from his body seeps through my clothes, sinking into my skin.
I let out a frustrated groan.
Stop it, Lo. Stop thinking of him like that, you stupid psycho. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t shake the memory of the way he moaned when he came in my mouth.
Damian curses under his breath. It’s quiet, barely audible. But I swear I heard it.
Then Joel’s face appears beside mine, shouting threats. Without thinking, I grab my coat and throw it in his face. “Back off,” I snap.
Joel lets out an annoyed growl, but Damian doesn’t stop moving. “Joel, quit it,” Damian bites out. “She said she’ll go. I’ll text you when the money is in my hands.” His arm tightens around the backs of my thighs as he strides through my apartment and down the narrow staircase.
I swear. I swear his thumb rubs small, slow circles into the fabric of my jeans, right below the curve of my ass.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m just imagining it.