Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
I either gave him the money and he threw me to the men anyway.
Or I didn’t, and he kept hitting me until I bled out.
I was going to die one way or the other.
Death was always a risk in this line of work. I knew that going in.
But it had never seemed as real as it did in this moment.
There was no hope. Not unless Roman came to take me back.
Would he?
I wanted him to. I wanted to believe that Roman was going to storm the castle and save me, but why? Why would he? Because he held me so tenderly after he fucked me? Because he took care of me in the shower?
No.
Just because he wasn’t a monster, despite what his reputation would have others believe, didn’t mean he cared about me. I wasn’t his girlfriend; I was his prisoner.
Even if he came to get me, that wouldn’t have changed.
No, I needed to realize that I was on my own. Like always. It was on me to save myself, to protect myself.
Life had shown me over and over that no one else could be depended on, and I needed to remember that.
“What’s it going to be?” Mateo asked, ripping my head back again. “Are you going to be a good girl? Or are we going to have a little fun first?”
Fuck him.
He wasn’t getting my money.
Mateo wasn’t going to let me walk out of here anyway, and I wasn’t going to let him become one of the richest men in the world.
“I’m not giving you the money. You’d only snort it all or shoot it up anyway.”
Mateo hit me again. And again. But his blows were growing weaker.
“You hit like a girl,” I seethed, and he responded with an uppercut straight to my gut. I coughed and doubled over, trying to protect myself.
He pushed the laptop in front of me, and then wrapped my hair in a fist, lifting my face up to stare at the screen.
“Log in,” he demanded.
“How?” I asked.
“With your fucking username and password,” he shouted.
“Asking nicely doesn’t change the fact that my hands are tied behind my back, dickweed.”
One of the men by the door barely stifled a laugh, and Mateo’s eyes shot over to him.
“You better be careful. Once the men stop respecting you, it’s only a matter of time before you’re tied to a chair with an asshole hitting you like a bitch.”
Mateo glared at the men, both of them standing on either side of the door, expressionless, fingers still resting on triggers.
I honestly had no idea which one laughed at him, but I didn’t need to know that to know the cracks were already showing.
This was why no one gave drug addicts power.
“If you try anything, one of those men is going to put a bullet in your fucking brain,” he said as he grabbed a large knife from the back of his pants and cut through the ropes at my wrists.
I brought my hands around my body and rubbed at the chafed skin while glaring at Mateo.
“If you shoot me in the head, then you’re really not getting my password.”
“Shut up,” he said again, and this time he held the hunting knife to my skin. The blade was rusty, dirty, and covered in God knew what.
What kind of self-respecting man didn’t take care of his tools? I didn’t care if he was a carpenter, a killer, a sniper, or a soldier. It didn’t fucking matter. It was disgusting, and just another example of how Mateo was not cut out for this world.
He didn’t have what it took to be a leader.
The fact that this little weasel was going to kill me pissed me off more than anything else. I held onto that anger.
Anger was good.
Anger helped you fight.
Fear, on the other hand, genuine fear, could paralyze you, especially if flight was not an option. Your instincts told you to play dead, to do what the crazy man said, do whatever it took to survive.
Fear might have its place by sounding an early warning or getting a person through a no-win situation.
But for me, in this situation?
Fuck fear.
Fear was my enemy.
Anger, however, was useful.
Anger got shit done.
I recognized there was a very good chance I was not going to survive, but I would make sure Mateo regretted ever laying a finger on me. I would be damned if I let this fucker take what I built.
“Log in,” he said again, pressing the knife harder into my throat. The dull blade grated against my skin, but it didn’t cut.
I reached out to the keyboard, my hands shaking as I typed in a username, MrsIvanov69, and a random password.
The page refreshed with little red letters telling me it was an invalid login.
“I’m not playing with you, bitch,” Mateo warned.
“Awe, really, but this is such a fun game.”