Page 20 of Capturing the Ruthless Billionaires

This was their home. Their bloodline started here.

“Is this where you’re going to hurt Swan House?” Cara asked softly, her voice already stained.

“Bad people need to be punished, Cara-girl,” Cian said softly. “Do you remember Skulk Williams?” he asked gently this time, and Cara shivered before she nodded.

“He almost hurt you,” Lachlan said, wishing he had his hands on the man again.

“And we couldn’t let him get away with it, could we?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Because no one touches a dragon.”

“And you’re a dragon, Cara-girl.”

She nodded again, but slower.

Skulk Williams had been a twenty-year-old lowlife who hung around kids who were not his own age, and his intentions were not good either. Lachlan, Slade, and Cian had found him scouting out Cara. He had told his friends he was going to take her, use her, and cut her to pieces afterward. She had run to them, crying.

Those were the last words Skulk Williams ever uttered. To say they killed him would be putting it mildly.

“Don’t hurt, Alexandria, please,” Cara whispered. They would give her everything, but this.

Somehow they’d have to make Cara see that no one fucked with them and got away with it, including the Swan House girls. They might have helped Cara get to them, disengaged the trigger that unlocked their cells, and locked the gas canisters in her room. And maybe they were even trying to leave Swan House on their own.

But she… Alexandria, whose body their cocks remembered in brutal fucking detail, hadn’t left soon enough, and now she would be their collateral damage, innocent or not.

Chapter Thirteen

Alexandria sat on the ice-cold floor of the cell in the dungeon below the house she had grown up in.

The coarse fabric of the shapeless dress she’d been forced to wear scratched mercilessly at her skin, but she endured it. It made her feel something.

Five days ago, she’d tried to execute multiple escape plans for six people. Five of them had gotten away. Now, all she did was pray that Doctor Amanda had been able to get Rhea to The Console. If they were caught, her parents and the councilmen would have thrown Rhea in here with her. Or at least they would have bragged about finding her. The fact that they gave her five days to tell them her sister’s whereabouts meant they had no clue. Alexandria couldn’t be more grateful. She didn't care what happened to her anymore.

Alexandria knew without a doubt that Cara, dear, sweet, innocent Cara, would be just fine. Her brothers had wasted no time in flattening over twenty of Swan House, unarmed themselves, and managed to escape. Her brothers would keep her safe.

Cara is where she belongs.

But the pain of never seeing her again sliced through Alexandria with a serrated knife. It wasn’t as if her brothers would forgive her and forget what she’d done to them. They would not be friends, have barbecues, or make jokes about her crazy family.

She was their enemy by association, willingly or not.

And her? She’d needed three, maybe four, more minutes before the alarms were sounded. She was caught just at the moment of freedom. Her parents had been horrified and embarrassed and had looked at her with disgust.

After all we’d done for you. Giving you a life of luxury in exchange for a small portion of loyalty to your family. You’re a mean, disloyal, selfish girl who deserves to be whipped a thousand times for your insolence.

She was only alive because there was still a chance she was pregnant, and that mattered more than anything else to them.

Alexandria had silently kept the ‘jokes on you’ card to herself regarding her pregnancy. It bought her some time. But time for what exactly? If they waited to be 100% sure about the pregnancy, the arrival of her period would end any speculation. Would they then just kill her? Or leave her to rot here in the dungeon, where Cara’s brothers would have met their end.

The irony made her laugh, but it was mirthless.

To keep herself from going completely insane, she kept telling herself that Rhea and Cara were safe. Her sisters were safe. She might never see them again, but they had a chance to live good lives, and they deserved every part of it.

She glanced at the tall hourglass. Her time was up. Her parents and the councilmen would be coming to get her, ready to beat answers out of her about Rhea’s whereabouts.

More tired than she’d ever felt before, she lowered her head onto the cold slab of stone that was supposed to be her bed. She closed her eyes for a moment, except it felt like an eternity.

She couldn’t be sure exactly what woke her up, but it was something she felt in her sleep. A presence—dark, silent, and dangerous. More dangerous than what was going to happen to her here at Swan House.

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