21. Emery
Emery
My uncle’s steel eyes track me as I’m led into an interrogation room. While he has the influence to demand an office or someplace more comfortable to speak to me, he didn’t. This isn’t meant to be comforting for me. It’s a statement.
A sterile space with four bare walls and a metal table at the center.
Uncle Rick’s mostly gray hair is as neatly trimmed as his beard. Not one wrinkle mars his ridiculously expensive blue suit. Even here in this room, his very presence bleeds money.
The agent clicks the door shut behind me, not bothering to come inside himself as my uncle leans back in his chair.
His eyes drift in a slow perusal of disappointment as he takes me in.
When I was under his care, I was never allowed to wear something as simple as a T-shirt and jeans, like I’m wearing now.
The incessant tapping of his shoe on the linoleum has my insides swimming as I take a seat across the table from him.
Was there ever a time I thought that cold look in his eyes meant he loved me? Now, all I see is a monster in the flesh assessing his prey. A man with no heart and no mercy. A man who treated me like a girl who owed him for all he’d done for me.
“I’m waiting.” He smirks, watching me coolly.
“For what?”
“For you to thank me.” Uncle Rick’s smile grows, knowing damn well I have nothing to thank him for. “You made quite a mess slipping away like that, Emery. You got quite a few people killed for your mistake.”
I glance up at the camera in the corner of the room.
“They can’t hear anything I don’t want them to.” My uncle leans forward, resting his forearms on the table.
My throat tightens. I’m sitting in the middle of a federal facility, and there’s still no escaping him. No chance he’ll finally have to answer for his sins.
Tears sting my eyes as I consider all the pain I’ve caused. I was selfish to think only of myself the night I slipped away. I don’t doubt he killed every single member of his staff I snuck past.
But what was I supposed to do?
Stay?
He would have sold me to Eli, then what would have happened to Charlie?
“Where is my daughter?” It takes all my composure to settle the shakiness of my tone.
“Around, I’m sure.” There’s no sympathy—no warmth.
I tip my chin up, straightening my spine. “Why did you have them bring us here? You and I both know I wasn’t being held hostage.”
“You sure? If you weren’t their hostage, what were you doing with my enemies? Colluding? Being their whore? If that’s what you wanted, I could have arranged it with a higher-paying bidder.”
“Fuck you.”
Uncle Rick shoots out of his chair, circling the table and grabbing the back of my hair to force me to look up at him. Pain webs across my scalp.
“What was that? You seem to have forgotten who you belong to, Emery Zane.” He emphasizes his last name like that means anything to me anymore.
“I raised you. I supported you. And this is how you repay me? By letting some dirty biker knock you up. Using you like a worthless, disgusting piece of trash. You’re lucky Eli still wanted you after that—that he still wants you now when you’ve probably been passed around their filthy clubhouse like the whores they keep there.
Be grateful he sees the bigger picture.”
Uncle Rick releases my scalp, and tears prick the corners of my eyes. I hate crying in front of him because it only adds to his amusement. At the first traitorous tear, his smile grows.
He’s truly evil.
“I don’t care where you’ve been this past month.” His voice is sharp. “The only reason you were there that long is because I allowed it. Don’t think you’re in control just because I let you stay there as long as I did.”
Uncle Rick leans against the table, still towering over me in a show of power. Tears slip down my cheeks, no matter how hard I try to hold them back.
“Don’t cry.” He frowns, like it disappoints him that I’m showing emotion. “We’ll make this benefit us one way or another. Especially now that we know the asshole who knocked you up has become attached to you and that girl.”
“Charlie.” I hate that he refuses to say her name. “My daughter.”
I know better than to talk back when Uncle Rick is ranting and raving, but I hate how he acts like Charlie isn’t even a person to him.
He smirks, not bothering to respond to that. “While you’ve been gone, I’ve been thinking, and now I know how you can help me, Emery.”
A cold chill pummels through my veins. His smile is not happiness; it’s scheming enjoyment. It’s determination. There’s nothing comforting about it.
“What are you talking about?”
“The Twisted Kings have been causing problems for me for too long. I’ve let it slide over the years. After all, a little competition is healthy. But taking down my club was the final straw.”
Uncle Rick is talking about the strip club that he was using to move women. While he never directly involved me in his businesses, I saw the depths of his involvement from time to time. Especially when I got older, and he had me living in one of his casinos on the Strip.
Occasionally, he’d have girls moved into town to work at his strip club while he was negotiating with men interested in buying them. As the deals were about to close, they’d come to the casino to meet with my uncle face-to-face.
I can still hear the cries of the girls who begged him to show mercy and let them go. One time, I even tried to help. I snuck three of them out, but they were dragged back within the first twenty-four hours.
Uncle Rick made me watch when he took them to the desert and shot them one by one.
Then he shoved me to my knees in the blood-splattered dirt and threatened to do the same to me for wasting his time and money.
He made sure I knew that he wasn’t sparing my life out of mercy; it was because he would make me pay for what I’d cost him.
I stopped fighting after that, knowing anything I did would result in someone else’s death. I wished he’d have ended it there. At least then, I couldn’t be the reason anyone else got hurt.
“I told you before, Emery, if you cause a problem, you will be the one to help me fix it. That’s what you’re going to do now.” His eyes gleam. “You’re lucky Eli is forgiving.”
“I’m not marrying Eli.”
“You think this will protect you from that?” Uncle Rick lifts my hand, dragging his thumb over the diamond wedding band. “Marriages can be undone, or I can find a way to undo them. You’d make a pretty grieving widow.”
I pull my hand back. “You’re not going to kill him.”
“I’ll do anything I want.” Uncle Rick’s voice sends a chill down my spine. “If he thinks he can steal you without my permission, then he’ll learn his lesson.”
“I’m not property.”
“That’s exactly what you are.” His eyes darken. “You are my property to do with as I wish. To marry off to whoever I choose. You are my niece—my blood. If you try to fight me on this, I will make you regret it.”
“Then you might as well just kill me now.” I roll my shoulders back, refusing to bow down to him like I’ve done my entire life.
“I never said I’d kill you.” He tilts his head, eyebrows knitting. “There’s no need for that anymore. Not when you’ve given me other means to incentivize you into cooperating.”
“How—”
The question dies on my lips as he lifts a hand, and a sound streams into the room through a speaker. Charlie’s screams ring out. I don’t know if it’s a recording or if she’s on the other side crying for me, but my blood runs cold.
“Where is she?” I jump out of my seat.
He curls his fingers into a fist, and the speaker cuts out. “Sit before you force me to do something you don’t like.”
My legs shake, but I listen because I have no choice. “Where is my daughter?”
“A product of you is a product of mine,” he says, not answering. “Which is why I thought it might be useful to have her here.”
“If you hurt her—”
“I’m not going to do anything to her. If anyone hurts her, it will be you.” He skims me over. “You’re going to do what I say. You’re going to help me. Or I’ll make sure you never see your daughter again. If you don’t want to be of use to me, eventually she will.”
“No.” Tears stream down my cheeks.
My eyes burn and my heart thunders. It’s one thing for him to threaten me—to kill me. But I can’t risk him hurting Charlie. She’s all that matters.
“Are you ready to listen now?” His eyes narrow.
I swallow hard, my throat burning as I nod.
“Good. I knew you could cooperate. You just needed the proper motivation. It seems your mistake will turn out to be helpful after all.” He stands, pacing the room. “I’m sending you back to them.”
“To the compound?” My voice pitches, but then fear overwhelms any excitement. “Why?”
“I need eyes in there—ears. The Twisted Kings have been smart, narrowly avoiding every trap I’ve set to take them down. I need someone on the inside to figure out where they’re weakest. You’re going to go back in there and get that for me. I need information.”
“They don’t tell me anything.”
“You’ll find a way to get them to open up to you.”
“I—”
“You know what will happen if you don’t.”
My mouth snaps shut, and he grins, knowing that so long as he is threatening Charlie, I have to do anything he wants.
“You want me to be your spy?”
“For now.” He shrugs. “Until I summon you back home.”
My gaze falls to the floor, my mind racing with what he’s saying. He wants me to spy on Hayes, on his club. He wants me to find a way to destroy them.
“Your heart is too big, Emery. Don’t let that get you into trouble,” he threatens.
“You saw how easily I got to you today. I could have done that a month ago, but I didn’t.
I waited until he trusted you so that when we had this conversation, he wouldn’t suspect anything.
You’ll do this for me, or I will make good on my promise.
You’ll do this for your daughter’s sake. ”
He circles the room until he stops in front of me. His fingers find my jaw, and he forces my face upward. “Do we have an understanding?”
I want to hit him.
To scream.
But Charlie’s cries echoing in my mind hold me back. I can’t fight this because he’ll win. He always wins.
“I understand,” I say, tears stinging my eyes.
“Good. Now go get me information that will destroy that fucking club.” He walks over to the door, pausing with his hand on the handle. “You’d do best to remember how understanding I’ve been in all this. It won’t happen if you try this again.”
At that, he swings the door open and strides out.
A moment later, an agent steps inside with Charlie in her arms, and I run to her. Charlie is crying, her mouth searching because she’s hungry. I wrap her in my arms and hum until she settles. But there’s no relief.
No hope.
To protect her, I have to destroy her father.
I have to destroy myself.