Page 23 of Velvet Cruelty

I drop the bracelet in the girl’s lap. She picks it up with her long, elegant fingers and the fire in her eyes vanishes. “Margot? You’ve got her too?”

I shake my head. “Just the bracelet. Your sister’s alive, but she doesn’t have to be. Your choice.”

The girl’s face shifts. It’s an expression I’ve seen a million times. Revulsion. But my blood is thick and steady. Let her hate me. It doesn’t matter. I return the bracelet to my pocket. “What’ll it be?”

Her hand lifts to her left breast, cupping it lightly.

Doc sniggers. “Gonna give us a show, Tesorina?”

Color flares in her cheeks but she ignores him, letting go and lifting her hands to her veil. Eli clicks his tongue. “Leave that, Miss Whitehall. The dress.”

She reaches behind herself for her zipper. The sound of it coming down is like a tongue along my cock. Her fingers fumble and she looks up at the ceiling. “It’s stuck.”

“Would you like some assistance?” Eli asks. He sounds gentle. Deferential. That’s how he is with women. Letting them think everything will be easy.

She hesitates. “Yes, please?”

Ell smiles. “Ah, bella, it’s so charming when you’re polite. Turn around.”

She trembles as his fingers brush her porcelain skin.

Doc’s teeth are bared as his gaze flicks from her face to her chest and back again. He wants her tied to his bedhead so he can cut her, fuck her, starve her into savageness.

The wonder that vanished from Basher’s puppy dog eyes when he killed Cooper is back. He’d carry the girl to bed and fuck her gently, make her believe she’d found a man who’d treat her that way for the rest of her life—believe it himself for a while.

Eli caresses the girl’s waist. He’s measuring her. For all his soft words, his goal is always possession. To reduce a girl to an equivalent weight in gold. When he does, he puts a collar on her neck and parades her around until he gets bored. Then she either accepts a few tokens and leaves or exits his company via a more permeant route. These men, my brothers, are idiots, all of them, but it’s not their fault. To them, the possibilities of this girl are endless. To me, they point to the same forked road—kill her or suffer. And I won’t let that happen. I’ll end this before things get more fucked up.

Ell’s hands rise to the stuck zipper. A short tug and the fastening slithers down, exposing her back. It’s pale and delicate and utterly unblemished. My fingers twitch as I imagine my tattoo gun kissing that flawless canvas.

Doc lets out a low whistle and the girl clutches the loose folds of the dress to her body. Four hundred thousand dollars of Venetian lace and pearls. We won’t destroy it. When she’s dead, we can fence it to some gangster’s girlfriend who thinks she’s royalty.

“Miss Whitehall. Let go,” Eli whispers.

The dress falls in slow motion like an avalanche and then January Whitehall is standing in her wedding lingerie and heels, her long veil still fixed to her hair. Her body is sleek and well-muscled. Her underwear is sluttier than I expected. Her big tits spill out of a tiny corset and there’s barely a scrap of lace between her legs.

Bobby makes a squashed cat sound and coughs into his fist to cover it.

Ell gives her a cold smile. I can practically see the numbers whirring in his head, the girl’s value rising higher.

January wraps her arms around herself and tilts her head so the veil falls across her shoulder. It’s even more obscene than if she stood there naked. Doc catches my eye and winks. I remember him as a teenager, setting his sights on some Manhattan princess no one thought he could have. Seducing her like someone paid him to do it. The girl needs to die before this gets messy.

Ell gestures to the chair in front of the camera. “Please take a seat.”

She obeys—probably welcoming the barest cover it provides from hungry eyes.

“Thank you. Bobby, camera?”

“It’s recording.”

“Then who should do the honors?” Eli asks.

I frown. “Why not you?”

“I need to talk.”

“You can’t talk and fuck at the same time?”

The girl lets out a pitiful moan we all ignore.

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