Page 3 of Sinful Sacrifice

Men like him don’t just kindly forgive loans.

He catches my chin in his hand and tightens his grip when I attempt to jerk away. I shiver when he brushes his thumb over my cheek.

“Aren’t you going to ask what I want instead, Pippa?”

“A high five?” My reply is ballsy. He could easily lower his hand to my neck and strangle me.

He raises my chin. “What if I said I want you?”

I breathe in through my nose when he plucks his thumb along my bottom lip.

“Too bad,” I whisper against his thumb. “I’m not a means of currency to pay someone’s debt.” Tearing out of his grasp, I attempt to stand, but he cups my shoulders and pushes me back down on the chair.

His face hardens as he dips in closer. “You’d be surprised how many men would be perfectly okay with accepting you as currency.” He works his jaw, as if surveying me like I’m an item for sale. “In fact, as much as you don’t want to hear it, that’s how your father saw you when he sent you in here.”

My stomach tightens, and I stay quiet.

“Did that cross your mind?” He skims his fingers down my shoulder. “That whoever came in here would find a different way to make up for the missing money?” Each word is sneered and deliberate, driving the fact into my brain as deep as he can.

“My family’s safety was the only thing on my mind.”

“What about yours?”

I turn my head, hating the truth in his words.

He pulls back, standing tall. “Get up.”

“What?”

“I said, get up.” When I don’t move fast enough, he stalks behind me and jerks my chair out from beneath the table as if I were weightless.

I struggle as he drags me up from the chair, forces me to my feet, and steps away to open the door. I snatch my purse at the same time he pushes me through the doorway.

He shoves the cash inside my bag. “You think of running, you won’t get far.” He stays behind me, a possessive shadow, while walking me outside.

The sun beats down on our bodies when we land in the parking lot.

“Where’s your father parked?” he asks.

I scowl. “I drove myself.”

“Fun fact about me, I fucking hate liars,” he snarls. “I watched you on camera before I came into the room. Saw you exit his car. I was only curious if you’d be honest. You failed.”

He leads me straight to my father’s red Volvo. The window is rolled down, and my father drops the crossword he’s holding when he sees us.

Damien doesn’t give him a chance to react before he sticks his arm through the window, curls his massive hand around the back of my father’s head, and slams his face into the steering wheel. The horn blares, drowning out my father crying out in pain.

“What the hell?” I yell, pulling at the back of Damien’s blazer to stop him, but he doesn’t budge.

He gives my father another steering-wheel face-plant, releases him, and steps back. My father pushes up his now-cracked glasses and scrambles for fast-food napkins to cover his bloody nose.

He grunts, dropping the napkins when Damien snatches him by the collar, tugging him closer.

“Don’t you ever ask her to do this again,” Damien yells. “Do you fucking hear me, Paul?”

My father violently nods.

“If I find out you do, your punishment from me will be worse than anything you can imagine.”

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