Page 50 of Cruel Crown

His grip on my chin became harder, and he brought his head down so we were touching. His nose rubbed against my own. “I’m giving you the choice to beminebefore I fucking make you.”

Willing my eyes to close was hard because I was lost in his eyes. Lost in the way he made me feel, but I couldn’t just agree to his demands. There was so much riding on my shoulders, and I was scared.

He might have grown up with nothing, and I might have had everything, but still, no one had ever given me what he had given me. He gave me his loyalty without demanding mine in return. He didn’t groom me to obey him. He didn’t join my section for me to be loyal to him. He didn’t give me affection because his wrongs rested on my shoulders. He just gave them to me, and the only thing he asked in return was for me to admit that I felt the same.

“You’re asking—”

“To let me in,” he finished. He pulled away and held my cheeks in his hands. “I’m going to give you some time to think about your answer.”

My shoulders sagged in relief.

“You have until the end of the night.”

I started to laugh at his cynicism. “You are—”

He smiled at me. “Charming, unbelievably good-looking, a beast in bed.”

Shaking my head, I started to push him away when someone spoke, making us both turn toward the hallway.

“Was really hoping you two were going to fuck.”

“Did you find what I asked you to?” I finished pushing Gideon away and made my way to Bastian. He handed me my laptop, and he was still on the chat I had asked him to decrypt for me. I was usually great myself if they used anything to do with history, but when they used celebrities, modern music, and movies, I was clueless.

“They’re talking about me.”

Putting the laptop on the table, I grabbed the stool, sat down, and reread the message.

I’d always thought it was funny how Edwin went missing from Dallas. Then he was spotted eating a hot dog without ketchup. And no word on Cinderella ever again, until she was found sleeping and they just threw diamonds and called it a day.

“You really need to start watching television, or at least google what they are talking about.”

“Google? That’s the worst form of information. It’s heavily monitored.”

Without warning, I was lifted again, and Gideon sat down and then put me in his lap.

“Edwin and Dallas refer to a show where the family was from Texas and produced oil.” I turned to look at Bas while I pretended like sitting in Gideon’s lap wasn’t doing something to me. People called them hormones. I thought they were stupid because it made me feel a bit like I had been drugged.

“Everyone knows Chicagoans don’t put ketchup on their hot dogs, which means someone spotted me there.” Bas picked up where Gideon left off. “And Cinderella refers to Katia.” That one made sense to me since he was the oil prince, and Katia had been adopted into her family, making her a rags-to-riches story.

“‘Found sleeping’ is her dead, and ‘threw diamonds and called it a day’ refers to the jewels on her tombstone and the fact that our families paid the press to make the story die down.”

“What’s the deal with this?” Bas asked, looking at me more seriously. I thought Gideon felt the moment I went stiff because he rubbed my leg soothingly, and at that moment, I was glad for his comfort because I was about to ruin Bastian’s life.

“I’ve been tracking the people connected to the trafficking rings, and there’s a woman who’s on the anonymous chats. She goes by Goldie, and she claimed that Katia’s adoption had been very shady.” I licked my lips.

“Daph,” Bas warned.

“I think she was a gift from people her father got in bed with. I also think whoever did that blackmailed him into cooperating with their agenda, and when he refused—”

“They had her killed,” Gideon finished as Bastian stormed out of the room.

Quickly I went through the files Goldie had and stored them all. The least I could do was give them to Bastian. This was his family, and I didn’t want to step on something that wasn’t for me to unveil. Besides, I already had enough problems of my own.

Through it all, Gideon held me. I was shaking by the time I closed the laptop.

“I forced him to watch. I injected him with a sedative so he wouldn’t talk and held him down as she got mutilated and raped. It’s not something you ever get used to seeing, but I had a part to play, and even though it killed me, I played it. I threw up after every meal for the following month, and sleep was an hour or two here and there, but a sick part of me was grateful that wasn’t me, that even as bad as it got, I was still semi-whole on the outside. And as for Bas, I broke him. I knew what wanting revenge was like, and I knew that if he didn’t see it through, he would get killed trying to expose something that he didn’t understand. He was like a child, while all I lost was my appetite.”

I was holding on to the table for support while I let some of the ugliness that consumed me pour out of me.

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