Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“I have the rental car,” I say.
“We’ll take care of that,” he says. “You gentlemen are welcome to travel in this vehicle.”
We are not really being given an option. Aiden has been on top of this the whole time, as usual. Which means the bastard either left me to possibly die in that cabin, or he had someone keeping an eye out but not actually stepping in to rescue me. Either one of those possibilities is real.
The rear of the car opens and a man in a similar suit steps out to usher the two of us in. He then shuts the door behind us, goes to my rental car, and we are swept away from the scene of our scrap.
“There is a first aid kit under the driver’s seat if you’d like to tend to your wounds,” the driver says. I don’t know his name, and he doesn’t introduce himself.
My phone rings. It’s Aiden, of course.
“Hello?”
“I want the both of you home. Now. We have important things to discuss. And tell Luke, if he does not come quietly, I have no qualms whatsoever about having him taken to a much higher security facility that will hold him against his will.”
I hold the phone away from my ear and look over at Luke. “Did you hear that?”
Luke makes a two-fingered gesture that indicates he did.
“We’re on our way,” I say.
I don’t have the energy to fight this shit. I didn’t have the energy to fight Luke either, not really. The two of us dig out the first aid kit and dab the grazes and cover the cuts with bandages.
“We look like shit,” Luke laughs.
“Yes,” I have to agree. “We do.”
The two of us don’t get a chance to shower, shave, or change our clothes. We are delivered to the family home looking, for all intents and purposes, shambolic and unhoused.
“Mr. Levin is waiting for you in the drawing room,” the driver tells us as something of a parting shot.
Sometimes we deal with people who work for Aiden who seem to think that we are the fucked-up little brothers of a great man. It has been a long time since I got that treatment, to be fair. I usually have more independence, better fashion, and less unruliness about me.
As soon as we step into the drawing room, I stop thinking about the fight, what we are wearing, or anything else at all. The world stops as I see Ella Chick kneeling at Aiden’s feet, her dark head bowed.
“Is this what the two of you were looking for?” Aiden grabs her by the back of the head and forces her to lift her face. Her cheeks look flushed. Her eyes sparkle with an emotion that lands somewhere between humiliation and defiance. She’s so pretty. There’s a sweetness to her features. Even after everything she put me through, I feel a bolt of attraction to her.
“That’s Teddy’s girlfriend,” Luke says. “Let her go.”
“Oh, I won’t be doing that, and when you understand a little more, you won’t want me to,” Aiden says smoothly. His eyes go back and forth between the two of us, then settle on me.
“I’m aware you’ve already had an entanglement with this young lady,” Aiden says to me. “Quite ungentlemanly, Leo.”
“And I’m sure you’ve been nothing but a gentleman,” I say.
She smirks with her head lowered where Aiden cannot see her. Or so she thinks. Aiden’s fingers tighten in her hair and her breath hitches. I spark with jealousy. He’s touching her. That’s bad enough. But she’s responding to him. And I like that even less.
All three of us want this woman, I realize. Luke wants to save her, because he needs to be saved. I want to break her, because I need to be broken, perhaps. And Aiden, I don’t know what the hell he’s done to her. Bent her to his will, superficially, at least. I still see the fire in her eyes. Aiden is a creature unlike the rest of us, but he is not infallible. I wonder if he thinks she has broken, when all she has really done is bend.
CHAPTER 9
Ella
I was feeling so small, so lost. I was starting to feel like I didn’t know myself at all. Living in captivity under Aiden Levin is not for the faint of heart. He is too smart, too observant. It is as though nothing can be kept from him, no secret tucked away in any corner of my soul.
And then I saw him. The guy I dosed to the fucking gills with a psychedelic compound and left to face his demons. I was at my lowest, most broken point, feeling very cowed by being put into position by Aiden and told to wait. This man is an evil fucking genius.
Seeing Leo activates the part of my brain that remembers what it feels like to fucking win.