Page 12 of Breaker

“He’s here,” Clyde says quietly from next to me.

Rune sucks in air, then stands, gripping my hand and bringing it to his mouth. His soft, warm lips that have been places a father’s mouth should never touch, brush my skin. My mind wants to interpret the gesture as loving, maybe even fatherly, but it’s mixed up with something a lover would do, and a slithering sensation moves through my gut.

He doesn’t love me. He never has,I tell myself, yet again.

I am my mother’s daughter.

Rune’s features shift yet again and he shuts a down all emotions, slamming it all behind a solid wall of disdain. He grips my hand. “Come,” Rune says as he guides me from his office. “Let’s get you upstairs.”

My chest squeezes, like it does when he leads me anywhere private. Clyde follows us to the foyer, stopping at the foot of the stairs as Rune leads me up to the second floor.

“I don’t want to stay here,” I say. “I want to go home.”

Rune grips my hand, “You are home, Cora. Where you belong.”

Chapter 4

Cora

Ithink I mayhave gone into auto-pilot again. White walls flash past. The marble railing along the massive staircase and the white figurines on stands along the wall are just a blur as we walk down the hall. The blue runner under my feet, nothing but a hazy mist of patterns as Rune takes me to my old room.

When we reach the door, he throws it open and shoves me through. My teeth gnash together when he closes the door, the quiet click of the latch catching crashing through the silence.

“How many of them did you let touch you?” Rune says, one hand still on the doorknob, another flattened to his red tie, hatred making his breathing ragged.

Fear slides like ice through my veins.

“How many of them did you letfuckyou?”

I shake my head as I step back, aware of the fact he’s angry because I allowed them to touch me. I think he’s scared that I may have liked it a little too much. Enjoyed myself and their every touch. Rune knows I only spread my legs for him to stophim from hurting me. And here, I willingly slept with the men he hates.

Rune steps forward. I slide a step back. His strangled voice and barely contained rage makes fear and horror weave around my lungs like thorny vines. “You fucked thosefourmen inmyclub like a fucking whore.”

The way the last word hisses out from him makes me wish the helicopter had fucking crashed.

“You’re so much like your mother.”

The words hurt more than they should. I hated my mother, but Rune hated her more. To the point he murdered her and my father. Yet for him to tell me I’m just like her, stings. He’s implied it. Let his hatred for her bleed into me, but he’s never said it. Not out loud.

His hatred for Caroline Julian, for the men, piled on top of all the things he’s done, are going to ruin me.

If I let them.

“Is that why you like me so much,Papa?“ My voice turns to honey, but every word feels jagged, knowing they’re going to cut me in the end. “Did you fuck her traitorous cunt like you fuck mine?”

He reels back, hand drawing up into a fist, and I brace myself for it, yet it doesn’t come. The pain of his hit remains clenched in his fist as he lets his hand drop to his side.

“Is she ready?”

Over Rune’s shoulder I see Clyde slipping into the room, and then a familiar face in the doorway. I start, so confused that I shake my head.

“Dr. Morgan?” I ask, my heart picking up pace. “Why is my gynecologist here?”

Clyde steps next to me, placing his hand on my lower back. The touch hits me as harsh as a kick to my spine as the realization settles.

I turn to Rune. “You have got to be kidding me.”

His jaw pops, but he says nothing.

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