Page 4 of Beautifully Damned
Makari and Loan hoist her toward the backseat roughly. Her screams turn brittle, terrified, when she sees her guard collapsed in the dirt, knocked out from the sedative gas we pressed against his face. They shove her inside, and she tries to scramble out again. The door slams, and strands of her long blonde hair get snagged, pulling taut as the men slam the locks.
I inhale deeply from my cigar, the smoke curling in lazy spirals around me. The show is just beginning. War has started. And the Turks don’t stand a chance.
I stride toward my car and slide inside, leather creaking under me. I catch the rearview mirror and watch as the van takes another twist, then another, then another. I told them to keep her off balance. To spin her around until she forgets left from right. We wouldn’t want my collateral to find her way back too soon, would we? The first pale fingers of light stretch across the horizon, but they hold no hope for Ayla Aslan.
I arrive before she does. My car ride to the estate was direct, unlike hers. She’s still being spun through back alleys and looping highways, dragged through ghost towns and red-light districts, blindfolded by concrete and confusion. I want her to wonder if she’s even still in the country.
I settle into my office chair, staring at the long stretch of glass overlooking the woods. I pour a finger of whiskey, swirl it slowly in the glass, and take a sip.
No one ambushes the Bratva. Ahmet Aslan tried. Now he gets to watch everything he loves crumble. One. Piece. At a time.
Ayla’s scream cuts through my thoughts. I rise, taking the stairs down slowly. There’s no rush. In the hallway, just outside the east wing, she’s held between Makari and Loan, arms pinned tight to her sides. Her dress hangs in shreds, streaked with mud. One of her shoes is missing. Hair tangled. There’s a line of dried blood along her temple where it must’ve hit the car frame.
Panic devours her face. Her chest rises and falls too quickly.Delicious to watch. This is the daughter of the infamous Ahmet Aslan?
To my right, I see Lola, my future sister in law, being held back by my brother’s hand across her stomach, her expression stone-cold as she stares daggers at me. She’s a peculiar creature. Sometimes she has a heart, sometimes she’s almost as sociopathic as me.
Ayla tries to back up, but there’s nowhere to go. The men tighten their grip as I step forward.
Closer.
Closer.
“You’re making a mistake,” she chokes out. “My father—”
“Your father,” I say smoothly, “is a dead man walking.” I say it like I’m giving her the weather report.
She’s shaking. I can feel the tremor rising off her skin.
“And you, little lamb,” I whisper, lowering my head so my mouth brushes her cheek, “are the first sacrifice.”
“P-please—”
I catch her chin between my thumb and fingers, forcing it up to make her look at me.
“Begging already?” I click my tongue, amused. “I expected more fight from a lion’s cub.”
Poor thing.
So fragile up close. Sohuman.
I lean in until my lips graze the shell of her ear. “Welcome to hell, Ayla.”
A pause.
“You’re mine now.”
I don’t linger on the rush that coils through my veins at that word—mine. That warmth in my limbs isn’t desire. It’s power. And revenge tastes better when it screams.
She’s wailing. Loud, broken sobs tear from her throat. The sound grates like nails on a chalkboard. I’ve heard dying men sound more composed.
“Enough.” My voice slices through the room.
She chokes on her own sob, stifling it into silence.
“Go upstairs,” I order. “The bedroom on the left is yours.”
Makari and Loan let her go, and she collapses instantly, knees slamming into the marble with an uglycrack. She lets out an awful, helpless sound. Her hair falls forward in thick strands, shielding her face like a curtain. No one offers a hand. Eventually, she pushes herself upright. Her legs are shaking so violently she nearly folds again.
