Page 16 of Corruption

I’m certain she hears me as I make my way toward her and walk around the couch to tower over her.

“What are you doing here?” I demand.

She doesn’t say anything. Just continues looking at her lap.

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you,” I demand.

She slowly looks up at me with those doe blue eyes of hers.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry,” she says in that soft breathy voice of hers.

Her voice combined with the fact that she’s still only wearing panties with her arms doing little to hide her breasts almost makes me hard again.

“You didn’t answer my question. What are you—”

I pause as she shifts on the couch, catching sight of scratches on her legs. Scratches that weren’t there at dinner earlier. I take a closer look at her and notice purple and black around her wrists.

She notices where I’m looking and tries to hide her hands and wrists in her arms. I grab both her wrists before she can. She resists, trying futilely to take her arms back and to cover her breasts and nipples. But I’m not concerned about her fucking breasts.

“What happened?” I demand as I look at her bruised wrists.

“Nothing. I just… I was being… clumsy. Just clumsy is all.”

She may be skittish and shy, but she gave no indication that she was clumsy tonight.

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not.”

“What. Happened.”

She’s silent. I observe the hand-shaped bruised further up her arm, and look her directly in the eye.

“Who did this to you?”

It’s clear she’s not going to answer me. I can see it in the firm set in her jaw. The way her lips are pursed. The stubborn and determined furrow of her eyebrows as she looks up angrily at me. Gone is the shy, skittish girl from earlier as she meets my gaze and demands head on.

Finally, I ask evenly, “Was it my brother?”

“Yes,” she says through gritted teeth.

“Fuck,” I mutter, letting her go, and she immediately moves to cover up her breasts again.

Not that I hadn’t already known. It had been redundant to ask in the first place. Kiya just confirmed it. But I would have thought Vaughn would at least try to make a good impression the first nightbeforehe tried to fuck with Adrian Fantoni’s daughter.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Vaughn had his driver bring me here after he threw me out.”

I don’t need to ask why he threw her out. The bruises on her wrists give me a pretty good idea. I also don’t need to ask what happened to her clothes. I’m sure she lost them somewhere between struggling with my brother and him putting her out.

She adds, “They gave me the keys to the house.”

I sigh and walk to the kitchen to make Nadia’s tea, feeling Kiya’s eyes on me the entire time. Once I’m done, I prepare two cups. I’m not too fond of Nadia’s teas, but Kiya might appreciate it. If anything it will keep her warm and help her to—

I shouldn’t be catering to her like this. She’s not supposed to be my problem. My brother agreed to this fucking arrangement. He’s supposed to be dealing with her. Fuck. He likes to throw the fact that he’s thepakhanin my face until doing his job means dealing with something he rather not be inconvenienced with.Thenhe wants to—

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