Sold to people who would kill me or sell me on when I was no longer useful to them. So, basically, be tortured.
Eric would still marry me to get access to my inheritance, but there are some sick fucked-up people who would just love to get back at Jaxon Bortsov by fucking his wife, then probably sending her parts back to him in a box.
My throat clogs with tension. It flows down my body in vicious strokes like wildfire. “You are truly awful. I hope Jaxon gets to end you.” I have no love left for this man.
Dad laughs, a cruel sound of his pleasure in my demise. “Let’s take a walk, shall we, and see about that.”
Oh no. What is this now?“Where are you taking me?”
“I have a little surprise for you. Consider it a late wedding present.”
He beckons me forward and I move toward him. Dad grabs my arm the moment I’m near, and when we walk out the door, we’re joined by two hulking guards who flank us on either side.
I’m led down the hallway, then a wide staircase, and we descend until we reach a basement floor. But it’s not a regular basement. This place looks like a dungeon. Like the old ones you’d see in medieval castles, just slightly more modern.
We walk around a corner, then through a door into a lab-looking area.
My heart shatters all over again when my gaze lands on a large cage in the middle that holds a shirtless man inside with his arms chained above his head.
It’s Jaxon.
Before I’ve even seen his face, I know from the long black hair cascading down his back that it’s him.
Everything inside me stills, as if someone pressed the pause button on my life.
By the time we reach the cage and I see what they’ve done to Jaxon, I’m sobbing. He’s covered in blood and bruises from head to toe and has been beaten so badly that parts of his skin are raw.
My hands fly up to my cheeks as more tears come. Dad takes the chance to hurt me more by grabbing my neck and shoving me into the cage.
“This is what we do to beasts where I come from.” He laughs in my ear. “I told you this man will not be your savior. Congratulations on your oh-so short marriage.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jaxon
Krasota…
She was here. I could sense her. Sense her fear.
Hear her cries. Feel her pain.
My wife.
My awareness slowly returns to me, my thoughts trickling back into my mind like a lake that’s defrosting after the cold bite of winter.
Memories of betrayal come first. Then memories of the mistakes I made when I practically handed my wife over to the enemy.
Eric and Salvatore are working together.
Usually when things don’t make sense, it’s because they don’t and you’re looking in all the wrong places. Or you’re not seeing what’s right in front of you because you don’t want to believe it.
Even when I saw and heard the truth for myself, I still didn’t want to believe that Eric could do this to me.Destroy me.
Now he has Gabriella.
And I’m here.
I can’t even think about my father. I assume he’s dead. Helookeddead when I saw him slumped in his wheelchair.