Page 42 of Wreckin' Amethyst

“I’ve heard quite enough.” A stern voice announces, a fifth man in a suit entering the room. Blond hair on the verge of silver, straight nose, a knowing tilt of his chin. I gape at the future image of myself, his pale brown eyes cold with contempt.

“Dad? What are you doing here?” Carter moves to my father’s side, pushing his hands into his pockets.

“The front door was unmanned. Where are your maids?”

“Don’t ask,” Owen chuckles, taking that moment to excuse himself from the room. Asshole. He’s always been wary in my father’s presence.

“Carter called, and he was right to. This obsessive behavior of yours has to stop,” my dad sighs. Adjusting the Rolex on his wrist, he tucks his hands in his suit pockets. The pair of them look like two peas of the same pod. The same calculated, uncaring bastards controlling my life.

“I’m not obsessing. I’ve met someone incredible. I can see myself spending my life with her.” I fight my case, pleading with my father to see sense. When I envisioned him meeting Amethyst for the first time, it was under better circumstances. Turns out, he’s already decided how he feels about her.

“I know all about the stray you’ve brought home. Caught her robbing your own jewelry store and thought – there’s some wife material. If it was company you were lacking, you’d have been better off looking in the local animal shelter.” Narrowing my eyes at Carter, the anger from earlier rises with a vengeance. Sebby tries to leave but I catch his wrist. I need someone in my corner for this.

“You don’t understand. Sebby will back me up. If you’d just meet her, you’d see-” Waving a hand through the air, my father silences any further protests. He excudes power. Radiates dominance. It’s no wonder I sought a release from his iron grip when I was younger, although he raised Carter like his own and Carter feel the tightening of the noose. He relished it.

“It won’t seem like it right now,” my father puffs out his chest, “but this is for your own good. Again.”

“What do you-” I’m interrupted by the widening of Sebby’s eyes over my shoulder. I look back in time to see three burly men in white coats as they seize me. Grappling with my arms, they tug them tightly behind my back and slam my chest down into the dinner table. A sharp sting bursts at my neck, sending me over the edge.

I roar with so many unspoken emotions, writhing to get them off me. To pry myself free long enough to run up the stairs, throw Amethyst over my shoulder and leave with her. Fuck the money, screw the luxuries. If these are the conditions of my life, I don’t want it. I want a future crafted by my own design. Ultimately, I just want her.

Chapter 28

Iwakewithastart, unsure of what caused it. Drool pools over the sheets, my hair stuck to my cheek. Damn, a day of sex and swimming really took it out of me. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, a crash sounds from downstairs. My awareness picks up, my feet already moving. I’d only gotten as far as showering and pulling on underwear before the bed’s sweet calls lulled me to lie down. Peering into the hallway, a series of whispered shouts catch my ear from the base of the stairs.

“I’d get down there if I was you,” Owen announces. I spin to find him leaning against his bedroom door, Pig nestled in his arms. Blue eyes track the length of my body, lingering on my tattoos with a cocked eyebrow. Creeping towards the railing, I see two men akin to hairy monsters in white jackets, dragging a seemingly unconscious Myles to the front doors. Another is there to hold the door open, and I’m spurred into reacting. Flying down the staircase, Carter whips around the banister to catch me by the waist. Almost as if he was waiting there on purpose.

“What the fuck?! Get off me!” I scream, elbowing Carter’s back. “Where are you taking him?!” My throat scratches from the high pitch, my stomach twisting in all kinds of knots. I watch through panicked eyes as Myles is stuffed into a Rolls Royce, the door slammed closed. The finality of the bang causes a gasp to be torn from my throat, one I don’t have time to contemplate. I only know it happened and whatever I’m feeling will have to wait until I know Myles is safe. A man steps into my eyeline, blocking the entrance from view.

“It’s even worse than I thought,” he clicks his tongue. I stop fighting Carter for a moment, frowning. He’s somewhat familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on why. “You were never going to be the beneficiary of my son’s fortune.”This is Myles’ father.Questions – I have so many questions, and none of them are heard as he chuckles and stares down at me like a common whore.

Nodding his head of slickened black hair to Carter, Myles’ father tugs on his jacket lapels, and that’s when I see it. The glint of a gold ring on his middle finger. It’s ostentatious in size, but that’s not what causes me to fall still in shock. The flash of a shield, the shape and size. All a perfect match to the wax seal on that envelope.Myles lied to me.Because of that thought, I pause long enough for him to retreat to a matching white Rolls Royce, taking the back seat behind his driver.

“Get off!” I shove Carter and fall aside when he releases me immediately. I run to the door, watching the two cars drive side by side to the iron gates. They peel open, my heart slamming against the walls of my ribcage. I can’t deny the fissure working its way through my chest, dread mixed with betrayal tainting my thoughts.

The vehicle containing Myles’ father turns left, while the one with Myles indicates right. His head of sandy blond hair rolls about on the back seat as they turn and disappear from view. Fuck. I need to do something.

Turning to head back inside, probably to find clothes while concocting a plan, I bump into Carter’s chest. He shoves me hard, and as I stumble over the threshold, my world tilts. Hitting the stone outside hard, the air is knocked from my lungs. Pain bursts along my back, my torso clenching as I wheeze. Briefly, I spot Owen at the top of the staircase, holding Pig and giving me a mocking wave until Carter steps in the way. His face is sterner than I’ve seen before, taut brows pulled over his malicious green eyes.

“If I so much as see your face again, I have a body in the freezer, a metal stake with your prints on it and two witnesses who will testify they saw you kill a man.” He glances over his shoulder at Owen and Sebby. My gut drops into the base of my ass. “My lawyers will ensure you never see the light of day again.”

“Myles told me that situation was taken care of,” I scrunch up my face, leaning up on my elbows. Or was that all a lie too? Carter shoves my ankle with his shoe, ensuring all of me is outside of the threshold.

“It is, but I wasn’t going to let decent blackmail go to waste. I don’t owe you shit.” Slamming the door, it’s bolted before Carter’s silhouette retreats through the frosted glass. I stall from getting up, unsure of where to go or what to do. Multiple options flash through my mind, the first being to break in and take my dog back. Half of the manor is made of glass anyway. But then again, as much as I want to punch Owen in the face right now, he does take good care of her. Just as Charley will be looked after here. The only one with a grievance is me, and it was just drugged and escorted away.

Myles. What have they done to you? Then again, his father holds the next clue to unlocking my past. For once, I'm truly torn between my head and heart. What I should do and what I want. Myles owes me an explanation for sure, but that’s not what I’m thinking as I ease myself upright and start walking. There’s only so long I can put my past first. Only a certain amount of times I can deny myself a future.

A guard in the booth reopens the gates for me, his eyes dragging over the length of my body as I stride out in just my underwear. A sexy, lacy set too, in black lace with hot pink bows. Pausing on the graveled road, I look one way, then the other. Then I turn right and begin to walk.

The sun is against me, lowering to meet the horizon by the time I breach the woodland which hides the manor from civilization. A long highway road stretches before me, miles of hiking drawing into the night ahead. I don’t even know where Myles has been taken, or why, but each step feels like one in the right direction. That’s as good enough a gauge as I’m going to get.

I couldn't have been walking more than ten minutes, when the low hum of motorcycles sounds behind me. Increasing in volume, they near, the headlights flashing over my ass in this thong. I don’t bother looking back, preferring to ignore and be ignored, if it’s possible. One passes, then the next and so on until five bikers appear in a line, their helmeted heads peering backwards. At first, I thought it was to get a look at my face, but soon a quad bike takes up the rear, pulling over with a hasty stop in the dirt bank alongside the road. I stop to admire the pink paintwork and vinyl love hearts and gummy bear on the back. The owner tugs her helmet off, producing a head of fuchsia hair in the same color.

“Oh honey, I’ve been there,” she smiles at my underwear set. Shrugging out of her leather jacket, she holds it out for me. “Hop on, we’ll see that you get where you need to go – after giving you some clothes and a stiff drink.”

“Sold,” I choke out as soon as a drink is mentioned. Taking the jacket, I pull it on and zip up the front. She offers me her helmet but I decline, and not just because of the strangled sounds which come from those looking on. “I’m Amethyst, by the way.” Holding her shoulders, I swing my leg over the back seat of her quad bike.

“Candy,” she winks, pulling the helmet over her face, muffling her voice. “Let’s go have some fun.”

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