Page 21 of Brutal Surrender

“What can we do to speed it up?” Charlie asks.

“Right now there are a lot of side effects to our formulation. But we could expand our research team so we can run more tests.”

Charlie turns to me, but I’m not sure I want to increase my investment.

“Alpha enhancers will sell like hotcakes,” Charlie says. “What omega or beta wouldn’t want to be more Alpha?”

“I’ll think about it,” I respond.

“We’ve got to get to this market first. The product doesn’t have to be perfect.”

“But it can’t be shoddy,” Yang Mi says. “Even though there are imitators of our omega blockers, people continue to pay a premium for ours because they trust the quality of our product.”

By the time we’re done with the tour and meetings, my headache is acting up. Charlie and Yang Mi prefer to stay at my estate rather than return to the yacht. I would, too, but I don’t feel like moving Ramona from the yacht.

“Esen finished interviewing our head of employment North America,” Ming informs me. “He can brief you when we’re back on the yacht.”

“I’m going to check on Ramona first,” I respond.

“You’re spending a lot of time with her. We could just as easily have Esen—”

“This woman almost succeeded in killing me. It’s personal.”

Back on the yacht, I make my way to the lower level. I’ve put Ramona through more hell than most people see in a lifetime. How has she not broken for me yet? When I think about it, she’s the toughest person I’ve come across.

And the most fuckable. I don’t know what it is about her, but I can’t seem to get enough of her. I don’t like that. It makes me feel she has something over on me. I have to get it out of my system. Then maybe the headaches and nausea will go away, too.

Jack walks in ahead of me and turns on the light.

“Oh, shit,” he says.

Looking past him, I see Ramona lying on her side, curled in a fetal position with her arms over her belly, foaming at the mouth.

Chapter 11

Martina

It’s happening. I’m dying. Grazie a Dio per quello. After all that I have suffered, my prayers are being answered.

Thank you to Brady for providing the abortion pills. I hope you do not blame yourself for my death and wish that you can be successful where I have failed.

To my family—my mother, father, Matteo, and most beloved Isabella—I am sorry I could not avenge your deaths. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Hands lift my body out of the cage. I am carried somewhere. Why? Are they actually trying to bring me to a hospital or something? That doesn’t make sense. Maybe Vincent just wants to throw me over the side of the ship so my corpse doesn’t start to rot on his luxury yacht.

Although my eyes are closed, I discern light. I am no longer in Vincent’s torture chamber.

I don’t want to die from drowning, but in my weakened state, there is no way I can stay afloat, let alone swim. God, please let me die before I am tossed overboard.

Prying open my eyes, I find myself in a sterile-looking room instead of the turquoise waters of the Jamaican Sea. I am placed on a hospital bed. There’s a hospital on the yacht?

My body wants to retch. My stomach hurts so bad. Without bothering to turn on my side, I vomit over myself.

“The bitch is dying on me,” I hear Vincent say.

He sounds furious. Good. Death this is my middle finger to you, stronzo.

“Dr. Das is on his way,” says a burly man I vaguely recognize from the day I tried to kill Vincent.

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