Page 84 of Betrayal (Corrupt Empire 1)

Chapter Sixteen

Aiden

The burner phone buzzed on my desk. I checked it. Anthony texting to say it was done. A week had been and gone. Now it was time to check if he’d really followed through. Social media was the first place. There it was, plain as day. Avery. Her video trending on Twitter. Shared all over Facebook and Instagram. And there was nothing the police could do about it.

I’d made sure to tell Anthony to get it to his boyfriend in the first instance. Likely the police had sat on it this whole time. Idiots. Now Avery was viral.

I left the office, locking the door behind me. She was on the sofa, drawing with a film on the TV. Things between us weren’t strained, but I knew she was waiting for me to give her what I told her I would.

I picked up the remote and switched it to the news channel. She looked up, then her eyes fell on the screen.

“The missing heiress resurfaces. A video of her was posted in the early hours of this morning and has since gone viral. Twenty-year-old Avery Daniels, the heir to Daniels Holdings, has been missing since Mitchell and Kathleen Daniels were found murdered five weeks ago in their penthouse. Speculation as to what happened to Avery and her parents has been making headlines. This new development—”

“What did you do?” she asked.

“Just made sure they had proof of life and now the world is watching, waiting for the next move.”

“Aiden, you said the video was for the police only.”

I shrugged. It had been, but I needed to make sure everyone knew she was still alive and not doing anything under duress.

She shoved the drawing off her lap, stood and walked away to the window. The sound of the reporter in the background blared in my head, but all I could see was her. The way her dark hair lay across her back. Her curves. Everything about her enticed me.

“I don’t even want to know how.”

“It’s not hard when you’re already worldwide news.”

“I didn’t sign up for this. I hate being in the public eye and now I’m plastered everywhere all over again. Do you have any idea what it’s like when you live under constant scrutiny? It fucking sucks.”

“There’s a lot of things you didn’t sign up for.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t sign up to be yours and look what happened,” she muttered.

Avery wasn’t in a rational mood to talk about this. I’d successfully managed to piss her off again. I had no desire to fight with her. Fighting always led to one thing and I wasn’t going to fuck her yet. One more fight and I’d lose my control. One more battle between us and I’d be fucking lost.

After I’d shown her my true desires, I’d been sure she’d run away despite what she said. No. Avery surprised me. Instead of telling me to do one, she’d been accepting. What kind of girl with so little experience wanted a guy to tie her up, restrain her and fuck her?

I warned her I wasn’t gentle. Warned her sex with me wouldn’t be vanilla. She pushed anyway. She demanded. Insisted. I had little choice but to tell her I would give her what she wanted.

And when she fucking told me I’d been the only man to fuck her mouth, I just about fucking died on the spot. She let me have that piece of her and it made it so much fucking sweeter.

I wanted her every way I could have her. But she had to say yes. I wouldn’t force her. No matter how much I wanted to take the last part of her virginity. No matter how much I wanted her to give me control, I’d never fucking force her. Not after what I’d been through. Not after what I’d seen. I vowed never to force a woman in my life. I wasn’t a fucking rapist like those sick shits in Avery’s family. That was my hard line. I might have twisted desires, but rape wasn’t one of them. Neither was pain.

l

The sound of her sobbing broke my heart into a thousand tiny pieces. Every time she cried my soul howled.

“Let me help you, Miss Lockhart.”

Tina was with her. I peered around the door. She lay on her bed. Bruises mottled her face and torso. One eye was swollen shut. Blood splattered the sheets from various cuts across her body.

“No, no, Tina, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. You need help.”

She allowed Tina to take the first aid kit and start cleaning up the worst of the cuts on her body.

“I want it to end, Tina. I need it to. I can’t keep doing this. I thought if I just let them then they’d get bored and I could keep him safe, but it’s worse now.”

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