Page 90 of Corrupt Me

The end of Angelo’s gun poked me in the side, right on the edge of my breast. “What if I told you to choose?”

Tristan’s glower darkened. He didn’t like Angelo’s insinuation. “I would advise against it. You won’t like the outcome,” he said with an eerie calm.

“I admire a man with balls, but you’re outnumbered, my friend.” Angelo leaned close to me and murmured near my ear. “Your boyfriend owes me a debt.”

I swallowed, attempting to find my voice. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Right, that would be his brother. Doesn’t change your importance, sugar.” Angelo turned, allowing me space as he lowered his gun and gave Beefcake an order. “Tie her up. We wouldn’t want our dear Everly to get hurt.”

Tie me up? Not a chance in hell.I was claustrophobic as fuck, and the thought alone gave me hives. The struggle was on again.

But the hulk-sized man behind me didn’t seem to care about my phobias. He restrained me easy enough as if I was nothing more than a toothpick.

Tristan’s fingers moved to his back, and I captured his gaze and shook my head ever so slightly. My protective neighbor whipping out his gun would only get him killed, which would put me at Angelo’s mercy. No one knew we were here. No one would rescue us. I’d be lost in whatever world Angelo tossed me or, more likely, sold me into.

I should have known Tristan wouldn’t obey my silent plea. It took only a blink for Tristan to uncloak his gun, using it to knock the guy closest to him in the temple. He went down, and before his body thudded to the ground, Tristan had the gun pointed at the second man, the safety off, and the weapon cocked. “Let her go, or you’ll have more than spilled blood to clean up,” he demanded, his tone dropping to arctic levels.

But while Tristan had made his move, so had my captor, releasing me, only to produce a gun of his own, the barrel jabbing into my temple. “Boss?”

I went still, every muscle in my body afraid to move. Pretty sure I stopped breathing. My throat constricted as I stared at Tristan. His fingers flexed on the trigger.

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Malone,” Angelo reasoned, but I couldn’t tell if he actually cared about his men or getting Tristan to obey.

My mouth dried, and my stomach twisted with adrenaline-pumping terror. I could see what it cost Tristan to ease the gun away from Angelo’s man, his hands going up in surrender. He clenched his jaw so tight I could nearly feel the pain his teeth had to be feeling. “What do you want? Name your price.”

Angelo’s victoriously smug grin sent a streak of hot anger swimming in my veins. Seeing Tristan in such a vulnerable position at someone else’s mercy when he was such adominating force shook me. I hated seeing him like this, and that hate was solely directed at Angelo.

A Cheshire grin spread over the boss’s lips, intensifying his scar. “Let’s talk business.”

Tristan’s eyes stayed on me as he followed Angelo into what I assumed was an office. They left the door open, but I could only hear murmurings. I stood in the corner, my leg bouncing as Beefcake loomed over me. He wasn’t letting me out of his sight, but I couldn’t stop staring at the door Tristan disappeared into. My breath caught in my throat as I strained to listen.

What would Angelo have him do?

Not knowing what they were saying or what Tristan was agreeing to was driving me mad.

It felt like an hour had passed before he emerged out of the office with Angelo behind him, but it had been only ten minutes at the most. The negotiations for my life didn’t take long, leading me to believe Tristan agreed to any terms Angelo set to keep me safe.

I couldn’t read his mood, his expression indecipherable.

“Tristan.” His name came out a cross between a plea and an apology.

“It will be fine.” Hardness lined every inch of his features. He wasn’t the same man who had been with me an hour ago. This Tristan I didn’t recognize. He’d become someone else all to save me.

No one stopped me when I went to him, gripping the front of his shirt. “You can’t do this. I won’t let you.”

His hands framed my face, the pad of his thumb running so softly over my cheek that I nearly cried. Tears definitely threatened to shed. How could his hand be so steady when I was shaking from the inside out? “It’s one job. Behave,” he murmured, brushing his lips over mine as the first tear fell.

I shook my head, clinging to his shirt when he tried to step away from me. Tristan’s mask only slipped for a second, a single blink, so quick I feared I imagined it, but I could still taste him on my lips.

Unholy fury swarmed me. I needed the rage over the fear if I planned to survive this night, especially once Tristan left. “How do you know it’s only a one-time thing?” I turned to Angelo, facing the devil. “If he does this, you’ll never ask him to do anything again.” In no position to barter, I still needed to hear it from Angelo. Not that I believed a word out of his crooked mouth. Still…

Angelo grinned, flashing his teeth. “Sugar, every time you open your mouth, it makes me want to keep you.”

I wiped roughly at my eyes, sucking back the emotions consuming me. “I’m already taken.”

The boss pursed his pompous lips, his white scar flashing under a ribbon of moonlight streaming through the ceiling. “Hmm, that part is a little murky to me.”

I had very little to barter with, yet it didn’t stop me from trying. “I’ll stay willingly,butyou never ask Tristan for anything again. You can even tie me up.”

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