Page 263 of Rage

The slap came quick, shooting Josephine’s head to one side. Scarlett’s hand burned, yet she relished the way strands of black hair fell over the Second Heir’s face.

Thatmakes me feel powerful.

Josephine’s low chuckle hadn’t prepared Scarlett for the way those horrible, yellow eyes flashed when they swiveled back to meet her. “It should. Not many can land a hit on an Heir and still have their life.” Scarlett gasped when Josephine struck. Like a snake entrapping a field mouse, her hand wrapped like a vice around her neck. She squeezed so hard, Scarlett could see black spots dotting her vision. Even the small little ember in Josephine’s eyes burned bright, red churning in its depths. “You owe me your life now that I’ve let you have it.”

“Bullshit,” she seethed.

“No?” A tilt of the head, a mocking laugh. “Your chauffeur put his life on the line turning his back on the First Heir. If not for the quick involvement of the Guild’s most enthused hackers, a bullet would’ve killed you faster than the Pigs.” Josephine tipped her head towards the farms, the line of laughing women and young girls finding solace in each other. Lambs led to slaughter.

“You give me my life and you forsake theirs. You’re not as kind as you think you are,” Scarlett wheezed.

“Who said anything about kindness, Little Dove?” Josephine wrenched the woman into her embrace. With Scarlett’s back to her front, she turned, forcing them to watch men in lab coats and poised smiles coming to collect their victims. “You’re all pretty pawns pushed to their limit by shadows that care little for them. You gave your love to Jordan Singh, a man who has done you no favors.”

Scarlett shook her head. “He loves me too.”

“Is that what he said when he raped you?”

Her eyes watered. “He’s not some Pig.”

“All men are pigs if you stab them just right.” Her gloved hand carefully moved from her neck, easing Scarlett’s hair over one shoulder. The cool touch of leather grazed the woman’s skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. “They squeal loud enough to make you wonder where they get their power. The same power used to break your wings, to make you think the cage they put you in is locked while the door remains wide open.”

Scarlett wrenched out of Josephine’s grasp and whirled on her. “So that’s it? Show me the truth and make me submit before you? Oh, how grateful I am! How merciful you are! Should I worship you like I would my Creator?”

“You are your own Creator. You worship only yourself.” Josephine said it so casually, it pulled a scoff right from Scarlett’s mouth.

Worship? She only knew how to worship the men who bargained with her body. She only knew how to worship the First Heir who had given to her gifts that he could easily take away…

The Silver Tyrant’s mischievous eyes had since grown full. They were soft—willfully so—but not pitiful. “I brought you here so you could see how easily disposable you are in my brother’s eyes. I brought you here because you know why Broken Dolls are sent to the Slaughterhouse. When they heal from their Alteration, when they bear the consequence of men and are regaled as filth for merely being able to carry the essence of life…” She shook her head, turned away, flashed a simple color of emotion that made her so terribly human it all but tore Scarlett’s heart in half.

“So, you brought me here to see all that and more. You also hope that I’ll change my mind; that I’ll take your hand as you asked.”

“You’re smart, Little Dove.” Josephine smiled as she said it, head still turned away. “You play pretend and live in your head. It’s kept you alive all these years, but aren’t you tired of hiding? Don’t you want to see your true potential?”

“A businesswoman through and through,” Scarlett laughed. “You may have won all of Europe, but you won’t win me so easily.”

“I offer you an easy way out. All you have to do is marry me. If you wish to keep your child, you will be protected. If you wish to get rid of it, I will have the best of the best at your service come morning. No matter how it ends, you would live in my estate.”

“As your prisoner.”

“As my wife.”

“And if I accept all that and choose to disregard your hand?”

“Then it’d be your choice.”

Scarlett shook her head. “You lie.”

“I’m not the curator of a Doll House. I’m not a Mistress that makes you balance books atop your head, tightens the strings to your corset, makes you dance for men as old as your grandfather. I’m a businesswoman,” she parroted, lifting her head coolly. “You are a wonderful creature, Little Dove. Men look at you and see a shell. I look at you and I see what lies within.”

“What do you see, Jinn?” Scarlett asked, her brows knotted with grief, her top teeth sinking into her bottom lip to still her pain.

“I see a queen. Someone who can turn those chains into jewels. Who can fill the streets with scarlet blood.”

Scarlett said nothing. Her hand merely rose, settling on her collar and its dainty little charms. She watched Josephine’s gilded eyes drop to her bosom and turn away, the reality of their dance as depressing as the truth.

Little Dove and Silver Tyrant.

Slave and Liberator.

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