Page 52 of Bound to Him

“Are you fucking kidding me? You’ve been fucking my sister?” Tony shouted.

I put a hand up slowly, hoping to subdue the situation. “Look, you have to believe me; I love Olivia.” I said it with all the meaning I had in me.

“No!” He shook me, but I didn’t fight back.

“Neither of us loved Liza, Tony. You know that! She was fucking us over. But Olivia is—”

I couldn’t finish my sentence due to Tony’s fist in my mouth. He got a solid knock-in on the left side of my chin, and I stumbled back a step or two.

“No! Tony, don’t!” Olivia screamed, then rushed over to me. “Hux, are you alright?”

I rubbed my chin, but other than the feeling of my jaw almost being dislocated and a small amount of blood coming from my lip, I was fine.

I nodded at Olivia. “I deserved that.”

“You bet your fucking ass,” Tony said, pacing and shaking his hand.

Viola clapped her hands together and stood up. “Okay! Now that that’s over, Olivia, you gonna marry Huxley?”

Olivia froze with a surprised expression. She was on the spot, lost for words. I knew I sprang this on her, and I didn’t want her to feel pressured into anything.

“She doesn’t need to give an answer right now—”

“Well, I don’t wanna do it!” Viola added, throwing her hands in the air. “And it’s this weeke—”

“Of course, I will.”

I looked at Olivia, her hand was on her heart, and she shook her head with tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. “Of course.”

“You will?” I asked.

“Yes!” She laughed. Viola started doing a little jiggle dance next to her, celebrating not having to marry me. I felt my entire body fill with relief, and I reached for Olivia.

“Woah!” Tony barged in between us, holding his hands out. “Fuck no, nothing is changing until we get Papà’s approval!”

Olivia’s face dropped, and she put a hand to her forehead. “Oh no… he’s going to say no!”

“Remember what's at stake here,” I reminded them, turning back to sit down again. They followed suit. Olivia stayed next to her brother for the time being. Just knowing I could possibly have her to myself for the rest of my life was enough for me to wait. “Our whole family alliance will be broken if he does say no. That’s why I called all three of you out here today. We need to find a way to convince your father that this is the best plan and that if he wants to keep the alliance with the Morettis, he needs to satisfy the two conditions: stop all business with Colombians and put Olivia’s name back into that treaty.”

“Sounds simple enough!” Viola said, looking very cheery for the grumpy girl I came to know.

Olivia reached forward and took a bottle of water from the ice bucket, then handed it to me. I put it to my lip and winked at her to say thanks. She smiled, blushing suddenly. Tony scoffed, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

“I can’t believe this shit has all been going on under my nose…”

Olivia sighed. “Tony, we didn’t mean to—”

“Not just that,” he cut in, then looked at me. “The sex trafficking. When I met Christian, I knew he was fucking slimy, but Papà insisted he was a proper guy, said he knew him for years already. But not only has he come close to raping my sister, but he’s also kidnapped multiple other girls and raped them.”

We were all silent. It was a grim realization. Tony ran his hands through his hair, ruffling it up entirely. He looked literally shaken, lifting his head to look at me.

“Huxley, whatever you have planned, I want in.”

I smiled, lowering the bottle. “I was hoping you’d say that…”

24

Olivia

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