Page 26 of Savage Kingdom

“Mate, make a stop, I need some clothes for…” I looked at her and realized I never bothered to know her name.

“What’s your name, doll?”

Her lip curled in disgust.

“You can call me whatever you want,” she said dismissively. “It really doesn’t matter.”

The van stopped, and before I got out, I looked at the driver. “She tries anything, shoot her brains out.”

The streets of Chicago were busy. I was staying just a few blocks from the Old Navy, at the Hilton with a prime view of Grant Park. No hole-in-the-wall roach-infested place for me.

Once in the stores, I got everything I needed—enough clothes to last us a few days. I wasn’t sure how much longer I would be here in Chicago, and I didn’t have the slightest idea of what I would do with her.

When I got back in the car, the woman hadn’t moved an inch.

I extended my arm, giving her the bag with her clothes.

“You want to know something?” I said nonchalantly. “Yoro’s going to be pissed off, right? And you’re right, I am looking for something. I think Morozov would be willing to make a trade…”

She took a deep breath, knowing where I was going with my threat.

“You can call me Daphne,” she said.

I smiled at her.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it, Petal?”

She looked at me funny. She said “you can call me Daphne,” not that it was her name, so there was a familiarity she had with that name, but it wasn’t her own. To fuck with her, I wasn’t going to use it either.

“Change,” I demanded as I leaned back, my eyes on her.

I could tell she was angry by the way her jaw clenched, yet she didn’t say a word. Daphne removed my jacket, throwing it at me. I caught it with one hand and raised a brow.

“It would have been easy to make my way out of here using just your pick-locking kit,” she said dismissively.

Not taking my eyes away from her, I searched my jacket, finding the kit still in the same spot I had left it after freeing her from the cuffs.

Daphne didn’t even look at the driver or myself, and I didn’t know why I was surprised. She took the baby doll that covered her body and removed it. She sat naked, her body gloriously displayed, and she didn’t fucking care. She looked through the bag leisurely, as if she didn’t have two sets of lustful eyes on her.

“Look away,” I said through gritted teeth.

Daphne tipped her head slightly to look at me through fanned-out lashes. The van made a turn, and light poured in the back just as Daphne reached for a blouse. Her body…it was covered in scars from her collarbone down her navel, and in between her legs.

Her face was smooth, flawless—a statement.

The scars didn’t disgust me; if anything, it only made my cock take notice. She was fake innocence with a road map to hell. I bet every cut, scar, and wound told a story, and at that moment, I wouldn’t mind knowing them all.

She ignored me as she put on the skinny black jeans I got her.

“If you are trying to shame me, it won’t work,” she said once she was already dressed.

I shrugged innocently.

Did I forget to mention I didn’t get her any undergarments?

“Let’s go, Petal.”

The momentI stepped out of the van, pain shot up my leg. I reached the car for support. I took a deep breath. The first sting of pain was the hardest. It was a wake-up call to your body that something was wrong and intrusion was happening.

---