Page 96 of Riot's Thorn
“Whatdoyou want?” I ask, reaching for the water and white pills. He could be drugging me again for all I know, but I can’t think straight with my head pounding, so it’s a risk I’ll take.
“You,” he says simply. The sounds of his clothes shifting and soft footfalls are my only clue he’s moving until there’s a presence directly behind me. I whimper when he covers my eyes with something soft. “You know, I’ve wanted you since the first time I laid eyes on you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were actually promised to me.” He sighs, placing his hands on my shoulders before creeping lower underneath my dress to cup my breasts. I twist to get out of his hold, but he pins me in place, holding my back against his front, where I feel his erection. “But after you gave yourself to that disgusting biker, I changed my mind and decided to make money off you instead.” He pinches my nipples and twists them painfully.
The door opens, and suddenly, his hands are gone. The air shifts, and I sense another body standing behind me.
“Welcome to my home, Parker,” another man says. This time, I’m certain it’s Bart.
“Bart?”
“Mr. Banks,” he corrects. “Just because you’re hanging out with inbred trash doesn’t mean you can lose your manners.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” I whisper, dread sinking into my soul.
“You did this to yourself, my dear. Your dad and I had plans for you. We were going to strengthen alliances and make both ofour companies a lot of money. All you had to do was keep your legs closed.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“Can you give us a minute?” Bart asks, but he’s not talking to me.
“Sure.” The other man bends to whisper in my ear. “You ruined yourself for the respect marriage gives you, so now you get to experience being passed around and fucked like the whore you are. I can’t wait to tear your ass up.”
A shiver runs up my spine, and I swallow hard. “Please. Just let me go.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Bart says after the doorsnicksshut. “I have too much invested in you.”
“You’re talking in riddles. Why am I here?”
“For that answer, we have to go back to when you were just a beautiful little girl.” He trails a finger down my arm, making my skin crawl. “Your grandfather and I had a plan. It took years for us to put things in place, and then, right when we were ready to start making moves, his heart gave out. It was an unfortunate complication.”
“What plan?”
“Your grandparents were so disappointed when your dad knocked up some piece of trash whore with big tits and a pretty face. They tried to talk sense into him and convince him to get rid of both your mom and you.” The way he so callously talks about ending my unborn life is disturbing. “But your dad wasn’t like us; he had higher morals and was determined to ‘do the right thing.’ We thought surely, after you were born, he’d see reason, because what young man wanted to be saddled with a baby? But again, he was a disappointment.”
I can’t make sense of what he’s saying. Dad never told me any of this. “I don’t understand.”
“I figured you didn’t know, or if you did, you only knew bits and pieces.” The mattress depresses next to me, and he places a hand on my knee. “Since your dad was determined to keep you around, your grandpa switched to Plan B, which was making you an asset. There are plenty of powerful men out there who need wives of a certain standing, so we approached your dad about promising you off in order to build business alliances—when you were of legal age, of course. But your bitch of a mom got in the way again, and your dad refused to put his foot down.”
“He loved her,” I bite out, turning to anger instead of fear.
He scoffs, his hand moving higher. I push it away, but it returns, and this time, he squeezes my thigh to the point of pain, making it impossible to get him off me. “Love? Love means fuck all in our world. Your dad did you a disservice by not teaching you that.”
“Agree to disagree.”
“You’re a dreamer like him.”
“What does any of this have to do with why I’m here?”
“Didn’t you ever wonder why you lived in a shit box of a house, clipping coupons and wearing secondhand clothes, when your grandparents were wealthy beyond imagination?” he asks.
“Dad said it was so I grew up appreciating the things I had.”
“Wrong. It was because your grandparents cut him off. It wasn’t until your grandfather had your bitch of a mother killed that they started opening up to the idea of a relationship with you and allowing your dad back into the inner circle of the company.”
Even if he’s telling the truth, I’ll never know because everyone involved is dead. “Grandpa wouldn’t do that.”
