Page 98 of The Brutal Arrangement

He didn’t dodge my fist as I hit him, passing him by on my way into the holding cells.

“He insisted.” The man stood, rushing after me. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t tell what was happening. I told her I wouldn’t let anyone in, and I put the two guards who brought her down in another cell.”

His words faded into the background as I reached the cell where Lucy cowered against the back wall. While the guard unlocked it, I stared at my wife and begged her to forgive me. To see me and know it was okay now.

“Lucy.” I yanked the door back and ran to hold her tight.

“Damon,” she whispered in pure relief as she wrapped her arms around me.

Hugging her so tightly that I feared I’d crush her, I lifted her into my arms to carry her out of here. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. If I knew this was happening, I would’ve stopped it all. I can’t believe this happened.”

“It’s okay,” she said, keeping her face burrowed against my neck, making her voice muffled and shaky.

“It’s not fucking okay,” I argued, carrying her out of the gruesome place she never belonged in. The only side of my darkness that I ever wanted her to experience was in bed, with my dick deep inside her and her crying out in pleasure. That was the only way she should know how primally twisted I could be. Never down here. Never as a prisoner or enemy.

“Damon, how can you trust that?—”

I whirled around at the landing of the stairs, hearing my grandmother’s voice and almost hating her at that moment. “I trust her because I love her! I trust her because she is my wife!”

37

LUCY

Damon didn’t ease up on his grip. He held me in his arms all the way until he could bring me to the kitchen. Under the bright lights turned on in here, he set me near the island so I could lean up against the counter. He tipped my chin up, inspecting me and so fearful as he inventoried me.

“It’s okay,” I told him, just so damn happy that he’d come. That he was in time to rescue me before his father could’ve told someone to hurt me.

“This is so not fucking okay, Lucy.” He shook his head, rubbing his hands over my arms as if he would never stop checking whether I was hurt.

“No. It’s… It’s okay,” I told him, stern and patient. “That wasn’t him. Your father wasn’t…” I shook my head now, hating that I had to explain to him what had once been so hard for me to accept about my mother. “Your father wasn’t your father. He wasn’t aware.”

Resting his forehead against mine, he exhaled a long breath. “I know. I saw. I saw it in his eyes when I came home and—” Again,he let out a deep breath. “I know that, but it doesn’t make this okay.”

“But it’s nothing you can change or control. Until he has more therapy or recovers or… whatever can be altered in his care plan, it’s something beyond what you can control.”

“What thefuckis going on here?” Maxim demanded as he entered the kitchen, Sloane walking in behind him, holding his hand. Saul was right behind them.

“No, Lucy,” Damon said, pointing at his brothers. “That is the control. We know that our father isn’t mentally able to lead. That’s why he’s not in charge. No one should have ever followed the orders to take you down there. None. If he was told about that voicemail Anton left on your old phone, the man in charge of that intel is wrong too.”

I cupped his face and kissed him, sweet and soft. “I know. I’ve seen how you have all tried to manage your father. I understand.”

He held my hands between us and let out another ragged sigh.

“Someone had better explain what the fuck is going on right now.” Maxim crossed his arms. “John called me to come home as soon as possible.”

I cleared my throat. “Your father burst into the apartment and accused me of being a spy. He ordered me to be taken down to the dungeon.”

Sloane gasped, staring at me with shock. Then she smacked Maxim’s arm. “What thefuck?”

“He wasn’t himself,” I added. “He was crazed, not with it at all.”

“That’s no excuse,” Maxim growled, sounding so much like Damon. “No one here should follow a single fucking thing he says.”

“Owen said he put the two guards who took her down in a cell,” Damon said, referring to the kind man who’d seemed so freaked out and skeptical when I was taken down to the basement.

“I’ll leave them to you,” Maxim said, walking closer. “Why the fuck would…” He shook his head. “What triggered this?”

“Security called me and said they’d discovered a voicemail that Anton left on Lucy’s old phone.”

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