Page 90 of Casino King

Despite being my weakness, he also makes me stronger.

When I’m with him, I don’t feel like I’m just living to get through each day. He gives me a purpose – to be his.

Closing my eyes, I send a silent apology up to my family. I can’t leave him. I need him.

“Good news,” a voice says, startling me out of my thoughts. “You get to go back to him.” The way he says it, though, makes it sound like it’s not strictly good news.

Another man comes out of the shadows and sizes me up like his next meal. “This is who he’s so taken with?” Circling me, he runs a finger around my shoulders, and I flinch away from him. “I can see the appeal. You’re quite beautiful. Especially in this dress.” His finger dips between my breasts and I clench my jaw. There’s only so long that I can stay quiet.

“I know boss said we can’t touch you, but you’re too sweet to not take a little bite of.”

“Touch me and you die,” I spit, and he smiles.

“I don’t think so, honey.”

“He’ll never let you live. Alec will kill you.”

He comes closer, and I take note of the scorpion tattoo on his neck, with its tail disappearing below the neckline of his t-shirt. His eyes are black. They pierce mine, and I feel like the prey – the scorpion ready to attack and sting me, rendering me immobile before devouring me.

“We took you once easily enough. Your friends were all too willing to hand you over to us for a little cash. Everyone has a price,” he says low, his finger now trailing up my thigh.

Jess and Kayla sold me out to these men. No wonder they asked me to go out with them. Jess kept feeding me drinks, probably lacing the last one with something, which is why I can’t remember how I even got here. I remember needing to go to the bathroom, and then there’s just flashes of light before it all went dark.

“Do you have a price, Tessa?”

“I’m not a whore,” I grind out, my jaw clenched.

“Of course you are. Every woman is when they’re with a man like him. A man like me.” He’s nothing like Alec. Comparing the two would be like comparing a juicy steak to a bologna sandwich. “You’re drawn to the darkness. The danger. You eagerly spread your legs, wanting a little taste, and hope he’ll keep you around long enough to get as much as you can out of him.”

Seething, my vision blurs with angry tears.

Who does he think he is? Judging me for wanting Alec. I don’t want him for what he can give me. I’m sure he could buy me whatever I wanted, but it’s him I want. It’s him I crave. It’s him I want right now to come and kill this asshole because I can’t. I’m tied up and can’t move. And if I wasn’t…I think I could kill him myself. I never thought myself capable until this moment, and I never wanted death to greet someone as much as I do this man.

I could do it for Alec. I could take away one life so he doesn’t have to.

These men took me because of Alec and some need for negotiations in their business, but I don’t blame him. I was the one who snuck out the other exit so Tito wouldn’t know. I just wanted a little freedom and to rebel against him so he’d talk to me.

I’m so stupid.

“You’ll get back to him soon enough. I just think you’ll be a little less…pretty when you are.”

Stepping back from me, he nods at the big man with the scar who yanked my hair back earlier, and he steps forward. In his hand is the same dagger as before with a hilt that has a dragon’s head coming off of it as if an extension of his hand.

He’s silent when he approaches me. He runs the edge of the blade down my sternum and then flicks the tip between my breasts, cutting into my skin. Jumping at the prick of pain, I don’t make a sound, refusing to give this man that satisfaction. He clearly enjoys inflicting pain on others.

Looking him in the eyes, I see nothing but evil.

“The Carfanos think they rule everything,” the man with the scorpion neck tattoo says a few feet behind the dragon knife-wielding one, “and it’s time to show them we need to be taken seriously. We’re not going to keep to the territory they say we’re allowed to have.”

“I have nothing to do with their business.”

“But of course you do. If you’re with one, then you’re their business.”

The dragon blade slips inside the rip that’s already present in the front of my dress, and he starts to slide it down, the fabric giving way with ease under the sharp blade.

My chest heaves and my nostrils flare with every breath I take as my heart accelerates to a stammering pace.

I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this. I don’t know how I’m going to stop him from doing whatever it is he wants to do to me.

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