Page 82 of Heart of Stone (Dark Billionaires)

Warren pressed play. He didn’t even need to watch it. He’d replayed the video so many times since his men had discovered it on Graves’s phone that he knew it by heart. A hundred times since he’d ordered his men to lock Kate in his bedroom once more.

“Will it hurt?” Kate’s voice came. Despite himself, Warren turned his head. He was greeted with the sight of Kate, her hair shorter than she wore it now. The rest of her, though…

Her breasts were just as perfect, her skin just as soft. There was a brief glimpse of her pussy before Graves slotted between her spread legs, palming his hateful cock. “It’ll be fine.”

Kate gasped as Graves penetrated her, twisting her nipple as he did so. She turned her head to the side, screwing up her face, but Graves took no notice. He set a quick but steady rhythm, slapping his hand across her breast.

Warren tilted his head at Graves, suspended in the air. “Your technique is piss poor, by the way.”

For the first time since his last cauterisation, Graves seemed to perk up. “Does she ever giveyouthat look when you’re fucking her?” he asked, his voice painfully raspy after the prolonged screaming.

“I’ve never touched her.”

“My sources say otherwise. They say she sucked you off in the hospital.” Graves let his head rest on his arm, lacking the strength to hold it up. “Do you see her face there?” Graves nodded to the video. “With the first slide of my cock, her head falls back and her eyes close. And that moan…” Graves’s gravelly laugh was a mockery. “Like all was right in Kate’s world, and it was all thanks to my cock.”

“All thanks to your cock?” Warren said, his voice dangerously soft.

“I took her virginity. Does that annoy you? That she gave me something you’ll never have?”

Warren said nothing. He merely picked up one of the empty jugs of sulphuric acid and dipped it into the murky brown acid solution, waiting until it was reasonably full.

And then he poured it over Graves’s groin.

“It doesn’t annoy me in the slightest,” Warren replied, holding the jug steady as Graves began to scream and writhe, desperately fighting against the restraints preventing him from moving each of his limbs. Warren leant back slightly to avoid the fumes. “Because you won’t have a cock left by the time I’m done with you.”

The ravenous acid tore at Graves’s shaft, peeling back layer upon layer of skin until it was a raw, bloody mess. Graves’s screaming became constant; a shrill, undulating wailing that never ceased. Even then, Warren just refilled his jug and went again.

He only stopped when he heard the affirmative beep of the door’s fingerprint scanner.

With his arm in a heavy cast, Brax stopped short at the sight of Graves’s exposed skin. “Fuck me.”

Warren narrowed his eyes, raising his voice to speak over Graves’s agonised moans and pants. “I’m really not in the mood. What do you want?”

“I’ve noticed something…offabout the recording. The one with Kate.”

He knew exactly where Brax was going with this. And, if he was honest, Warren wanted to follow him there. But Kate had fucked Graves. What else was there to say? “You’re only doubting because you like her.”

“You like her too,” Brax shot back. “More than like her.”

“My feelings for Kate are irrelevant. Whether she was working with Graves or not, she certainlyfucked him.” He winced at his anger, putting a hand over his healing surgery scar. “Someone poisoned me, Braxton—onhisorders. Someone close to me. She had ample chances.”

Brax spread his uninjured arm. “I’vehad ample chances to poison you. And yet you’re not suspecting me.”

“Because you didn’t welcomehiminto your fucking bed!” Warren roared, pointing at the pitiful figure strung up between them, his skin still fizzling even now.

“Go and see her,” Brax pleaded with him. “She’s locked in your room. She knows Graves has been captured. She thinks she’s been locked in the bedroom for her own safety. Hear her side of the story whilst she’s still in the dark.”

Warren’s gaze drifted down to the recording playing on the laptop. “I can see her side of the story, Brax. Plain as day.”

“Your family is asking questions, Stone,” Brax said simply, shrugging his massive shoulders. “They want to know where you are. Why Kate is in the bedroom.”

“What have you told them?”

“You’re in a business meeting, and Kate is feeling unwell.”

He snorted. “Pepper sprayed, wasn’t she?”

Brax nodded.

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