12. Downfall
Chapter 12
Downfall
Christophe
She’s trying to kill me.
She’s trying to fucking kill me.
Garrick cringes at the daggers shooting from my eyes, but Winnie just tips her lips into a ghost of a smile. Like she knows what she’s doing to my goddamn blood pressure.
Instead of the dress I arranged for her this evening, she has the nerve to show up in booty shorts and a fucking cropped top. Not only is the swell of her ass cheeks in full view, but the curve of her tits is also there for all the world to see. And of course. Of-fucking-course, she’s not wearing a goddamn bra. Or panties that I can see, for that matter.
She might as well have walked into the room wearing nothing at all.
I grind my teeth, my molars nearly cracking from the pressure. One step toward her, turns into two, then three before I’m brought up short.
“Not like you to bring entertainment to the house, Christo,” my uncle, Alain, rumbles as he pulls the thick, foul-smelling cigar from his teeth. “But I like what I see.”
I watch, unmoving as his eyes rake over every inch of her, lingering on her barely covered ass before going straight to her tits.
The man is disgusting.
He takes what he can and uses it until there is nothing left. Drugs. Businesses. People. Women. It doesn’t matter what the commodity or who he makes suffer. In fact, I think the suffering is his favorite part.
He made my father suffer every day before he was gunned down. I watched Alain twist the figurative knife in my father’s back, threaten, complain. Caused shit to sour at every opportunity.
Now he’s the head of our family.
I was too young to take over when my father died, so Uncle Alain stepped in to help. To teach me, guide me. He’s gotten comfortable with being at the top, sloppy on occasion, but mostly just really comfortable.
But he’s still a dangerous motherfucker.
I lock my shit down, smoothing all emotion from my face making it nothing more than a blank plastic mask. Winnie doesn’t need to be on Alain’s radar any more than she already is showing up here dressed like this.
Hell, if I had known he was coming to the house, I’d have kept her hidden away in her suite for the night. Maybe had Teague take her and her friend for a drive—to the next county over or maybe even another state. Anything to keep Alain at bay.
I can’t spare the time to pick apart the reasons behind wanting to keep her far away from him. Not now. Not when it’s going to take my full attention to distract my uncle. Because Winnie could very easily become my downfall.
I shift my weight and allow a lecherous grin to pull at my mouth. I have a role to play and a shit situation to finesse. “Had I known you’d be here tonight, Oncle , I’d have arranged for more entertainment. As it is, I planned only for myself.”
The confidence Winnie wore strutting into this room wavers at the lurid insinuation in my words.
I narrow my eyes as she meets my gaze. I need her to feel the threat of the viper standing next to me and act accordingly. Just a hint of submission, that’s all I need to get her out of this.
I drag my tongue across my bottom lip, tilt my chin toward the door at the back of the dining room. “Why don’t you wait for me in my office, doll? We can finish your interview when I’m done here,” I tell her, my hand dropping to my belt buckle.
My dick is not going to get hard with my uncle in the same room, let alone within arm’s reach. The motion is strictly to allude that her interview will be conducted on her knees.
Alain’s paunch bounces as he chuckles darkly. “Let the fille stay while we eat. If she’s good, we can both interview her. I don’t mind sharing.” He doesn’t bother with a subtle adjustment. No, the bastard reaches down and strokes his puny dick through his suit trousers not giving a shit who gets to witness it.
Winnie’s eyes widen as fear—disgust, more likely—flickers across her face. Her gaze lands on mine and I could be dreaming, it could be wishful thinking, but with just a look, she seems to get her shit collected and pulls her confidence back over her.
She’s putting her trust in me.
It’s foolish and misguided, considering I told her just yesterday that she’s going to stand on the auction block for sick shits like my uncle to bid on, but here we are.
“No.” I don’t manage to keep all of the venom from that single word. And though I’m the one lacing my response with poison, I don’t doubt for an instant Alain’s bite will be anything less than fatal.
He makes that decidedly French noise, the one that conveys disgust, disappointment, or derision depending on what the situation calls for. He pulls his chair from under the table and shoots a glare my way.
“You have a lot of your father in you,” he says, settling into the chair.
It should be a compliment.
From anyone else, that statement would be, but his tone is woven through with sharp, sinister threads.
Cold slides down my spine in warning, ice spreading through my veins.
He wraps his meaty hand around the delicate wine glass, the one that was supposed to be pressed against Winnie’s plump, painted lips, not his. But there’s not one fucking thing going according to plan tonight. “What are we eating, Christo? I’m famished.” His implication is clear as his gaze drops to the apex of Winnie’s thighs.
I drop into the seat at the head of the table, a position I’m sure it killed Alain not to claim, and spread my legs. Without even a glance in her direction, I pat my thigh and hold my hand out to Winnie.
For the beat of a heart, she hesitates, but then with a shaky swing of her hips, she closes the distance between us and perches her lush ass on my knee.
“Have dinner brought in, Garrick.” My order is lazy and dismissive, as though I don’t have a care in the world. But my hand is firm and possessive as I reach for Winnie’s hip and pull her closer to me.
Alain watches the claim intently, a satisfied smile slashed across his face, interrupted only when he stuffs that fucking cigar between his yellow-stained teeth. He chuckles again and repeats his previous comment. “A lot of your father in you, boy.”
We eat the dinner I had prepared for Winnie and me, my uncle ignoring the fact that I have a woman sitting on my lap through the meal.
I feed her in between my own bites. I’d insisted she come to dinner hungry. I won’t make her stay that way.
Alain talks of nothing important, nothing that can’t be overheard by someone outside the family. But his mind is working the entire time. I can practically see the gears turning as he ponders and sorts through the evening.
It’s not until dessert that he takes visible notice of Winnie again. As I slide a spoonful of honey-sweetened galette past her luscious lips, Alain drops his spoon, sending it clattering against the plate.
His head pops up, gaze darting from Winnie to me and back again as recognition settles in. Whatever he’s been ruminating over through the meal, it’s finally clicked together for him.
He nods silently and pushes away from the table. Standing, he walks to the door without a word.
The silence is far more ominous than any threat he can issue. Though I know— I know —I haven’t said Winnie’s name, haven’t alluded to who she is, Alain figured it out. Fuck me.
Winnie goes rigid and my fingers press hard into her hip, warning her not to react. She might be innocent in the most enticing way, but she’s seen evil in the world. Hell, a rock could feel the danger hanging heavy in the air around us.
“Debts need to be collected; they cannot be allowed to stand. Took a long time for your father to learn that lesson. Don’t make the same mistakes he did, Christo. It won’t end any better for you.” Alain stalks out of my dining room, tossing a final comment over his shoulder. “I’ll see you both at the auction. Good evening, Miss L’Ourson.”
Time ticks by in reverse, expanding to fill the void left by Alain’s departure, as dread fights with fury. I hold my breath, my grip tightening even further on Winnie’s hip as I wait to hear the click of my front door. Voices drift back, Uncle Alain and Teague, though neither speak loud enough for me to follow their conversation.
When the door finally clicks and footsteps drift away, I push to my feet, bringing Winnie with me.
“What the fuck were you thinking walking in here in that?” I grind out, tension electrifying me.
“Who was that? Why does he know who I am?”
Ignoring her rapid fire questions, I demand, “I sent a dress to your suite. Where the fuck is it?”
“You never said it. How does he know my name?” Her voice is sure though she’s shaking so hard, her tits are quivering.
“Do you have any idea what you just fucking did?”
“What does he want with me?”
Each question is answered with another, rising in volume until our voices echo off the high ceilings. And with every non-answer I stalk away from the damn table, backing Winnie up until her trembling body is pressed between mine and the window.
She has to tilt her head back in order to see my face and, with her eyes wide and lips parted, she’s a fucking wet dream.
I don’t know if I want to throttle her for being so goddamn careless or strip her naked and fuck her up against the glass.
“Alain is my uncle and he’s a bastard on his best day. I work for him.” It kills me to say that aloud. I should be the one running this family, taking care of business. “And he knows everything there is to know about people who owe him money. Your parents?—”
Her gasp pushes her tits hard against my chest, cutting me off mid-sentence and scrambling my brain. Jesus, the feel of her body pressed against mine is enough to drive me insane, to make me think I’m fucking invincible.
My fingers dig into the ample swell of her ass as I palm it, pulling her closer still. I slide my free hand over the dip of her waist, higher and higher.
Her tiny, cropped shirt allows me easy access to her bare tit, the tight nipple beading up into a delicious little point.
I brush my thumb across the taut nub and fight the urge to bend and take it into my mouth. I want to lick it. Bite it. Suck on it until she comes from that alone.
There’s no ignoring the effect she has on me. My dick is hard as steel, trapped between us and begging to come out and play.
She plants her hands on my chest and pushes against me in a feeble attempt to put space between us, not that it does her any good.
“You feel that, honeybee?” I grind my dick against her. “That’s what Alain wants from you. He wants to fuck you. And when he finds out you’re a virgin? He’s going to do everything in his power to get you. He’s going to make sure your pretty pussy is his for the taking, and then when he’s done, when he is good and tired of you, he’ll let his men have their turns.” I wait for that chunk of information to sink in before I drive home the severity of Alain’s depravity. “Who knows what’ll be left of you when they’re done.” I stopped her from being used that way six years ago; there’s no guarantee that I feel like being a hero again.
“What choice do I have?” she asks.
The strength in her voice surprises me. I would have expected her to crumble—fall apart at the picture I just painted.
She inhales deeply and then pushes the air from her lungs, her shoulders settling in resignation. “It’s not the first time I’ve had to pick up the pieces of my parents’ bad decisions. I know how this goes.”
Jesus. Just when I thought she couldn’t get any more alluring…
She has no fucking idea how this is going to go.