Page 55 of Dash

“What?” Face flaming with fury, I narrowed my eyes. “Is that why you kept texting and pestering me with your invitations even after I told you I wasn’t interested?”

Alexander shifted uncomfortably on his feet but said nothing.

“He made a hundred thousand dollars when he escorted you to the Met gala.” Dash scowled. “He would’ve gotten a bonus if he could’ve proven he kissed you, but he struck out. Then there was a ten million dollar offer on the table if he got you to marry him, and a fifty million bonus if he got you pregnant and you birthed a boy.”

“Marry me?” My jaw dropped. “Get me pregnant?A boy?”

“Wild guess.” Dash beamed his relentless glower on Alexander. “Richard wanted to hook into the LeBlanc family’s political network and this turd here needed to finance his next campaign. Along the way, Richard was working on buyinghimself a male heir.”

My nails sank in my palms and I could barely speak from the rage shaking me. “This is ridiculous. Outrageous. Medieval!”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Dash scowled.

“Do you think I’m a breeder cow you can own and impregnate at will?” I aimed my glower at Alexander. “Did you think you were going to get away with this?”Did my father?

“I’m a businessman, like your father,” he said. “He and I were playing the market.”

“And I was the commodity you two bet on,” I deadpanned.

Outrage made my blood boil. My nails were about to draw blood. My father had struck a deal with a worthless narcissist to marry me off, get me breeding, and buy himself an heir. It was fucked-up. Dehumanizing. Twisted. But why on earth was I so surprised? It was right up my father’s alley and it fit in with Alexander’s agenda. It was the way they played the game.

First, Father had schemed to get Dash out of my life. Now this. Had I owned a brain instead of a heart, I should’ve expected no less. Father had gone above and beyond to bust his record for shady deals. Even in death, he was reminding me of the shitty human he’d become.

“Easy now.” Dash murmured for my ears only, rubbing his hand in a soothing circle over the small of my back. “It’s not gonna happen, so don’t worry.”

“I have a signed contract,” a prissy Alexander announced. “It will stand in court.”

“I disagree,” Dash said before I could retort to such an egregious statement. “You had a contract that guaranteed you an income stream dependent on performance. You failed to perform. Your contract has been terminated.”

“Alexander, you’re scum,” I ground out through gritted teeth. “You’re a fucked-up piece of shit. I only went out with youthat one time because Father pleaded with me. I never liked you and there isn’t one single scenario in this universe where I would ever marry you, let alone have a child with an asshole like you.”

“Watch what you say,” Alexander snarled. “My family and I own this town.”

“Don’t know about the town,” Dash groused. “But I do know you own loans on a yacht you keep at the Riviera, a house in London, a flat in Dubai, three Lamborghinis and two skyscrapers downtown that are currently at fifteen percent occupancy. I also know you can’t pay back your slew of huge fucking debts, which means you don’t own shit.”

I gawked at Dash. His intel blew me away. How long had he known about this? What else did he know? For a moment, I wanted to give Dash a piece of my mind as well. But my rage was misdirected. Instinctively, I understood Dash had tried to protect me from knowledge he knew would cut me deeply. This meant that Micah could be right. Did Dash still care for me, at least a little bit?

“Good talk.” Dash growled in Alexander’s direction. “Let’s not do it again.” He offered me his arm. “Time to eject the hell out of this shitshow.”

Still shaking with fury, I settled my hand on his forearm. I wished I could get on the Hell Express to visit my conniving father and tell him what I thought about his machinations. Turning my back on Alexander, I collected myself, and stepped forward with Dash by my side.

Alexander reached out and grabbed my other hand. “You can’t leave me hanging—”

Dash moved so fast all I saw was a blur. In one elegant motion, he whirled and smashed the knob of his cane over Alexander’s arm, breaking his hold on me. Smoothly, Dash reversed the course of the cane and smashed it against Alexander’s belly. The idiot bent over his stomach, croaking forair.

“You!” The fool fisted his hand to throw a punch at Dash.

Big mistake.

With a flick of his wrist, Dash delivered a controlled cane rap to the side of his opponent’s head right before he struck again, this time with a high kick to the chest. How a man who needed a cane for support could fight like Dash and deliver the perfect roundhouse kick was beyond me, but demonstrating his impeccable form, Dash’s patent leather Oxford struck true.

Alexander shot backward and crashed against the bar. With a wail, he slid down to the ground, where he lay, struggling for breath. Dash set the tip of his cane on the other man’s chest and, looming above him, glowered like a fiend from hell.

“I gave you fair warning.” Dash’s voice chilled my blood. “If you ever lay a hand on Thena again, if you ever utter a foul word against her, I won’t be so nice.”

Dash had moved so fast that only a few people near the bar even noticed the fight. The banter of the crowd and the music never stopped. Then there were the men who discreetly materialized out of the crowd, creating a human fortress around me and shielding the fight from prying eyes.

The men were different in looks and sizes, but they were made of the same stern stuff Dash was. With the exception of Micah and Trev, I didn’t know the others, but I had no doubt they were part of Dash’s crew. Their heads swiveling, their eyes alert, they scoured the space, looking for additional threats. They witnessed the fight, but they didn’t interfere. It wasn’t necessary. Dash was an army of one and the fight was done in twenty seconds.

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