Gills smiled. “I don't think that this one is all that innocent. If she is, she is lying to you. She seems like the type that can get real wild and nasty. I keep trying to get her to come out of the bathtub, but she refuses. Let's see if she refuses you.”
He could see that Cassandra was upset. She was not used to that sort of treatment and Antoine hated that someone else was messing with her in such a way. She didn't deserve it.
“Leave her alone. Your beef is with me, not with her.”
“It doesn't matter to me. As soon as I take care of you, I'm going to come back and take care of her. Do you really think that I could walk in on this woman in the bath and not try something? Are you that immune to her beauty? Have you had it for so long you are not as grateful as you should be?”
“Trust me when I tell you that I am definitely very aware of how great she is.”
The man wasn't all that happy with Antoine's answer. Antoine didn't really care, though. He was too worried about getting that guy away from Cassandra. The second guy was still in his grip and he wanted to break his neck, just to take out one less person to fight later. It obviously wasn’t ideal with Cassandra looking on, but neither was that man putting his hands all over her, either.
“Why don't you just let her go? There is no need to keep this going.”
“Like I said before, if you want to die first, that's fine. But if you think that I am going to let this little minx out of my sight for even a moment, you're not as smart as you think you are. As soon as I let her out of my sight, she's going to run, and I know it. I can't let that happen.”
“She's just a human. What would she do to you?”
He looked at Antoine and smiled. “I would imagine that it would be the same that you are getting out of her. She is quite the lovely thing, so don’t act like you don't know exactly what a beautiful woman like her is for.”
“She's already claimed. You can't touch her.”
“You claimed her? You actually claimed a human? Your beast claimed her?”
“Like you said, look at her. It was a no-brainer.”
Gill was not happy with that information. He obviously did not want to be denied the pleasure of her company.
“Well, it doesn't matter. You will die and then it won’t matter.”
Cassandra was not one to sit idly by. She stood up from the bathtub. They were talking about her like she wasn’t even there and that obviously upset her, enough that she used sheer shock to get out of the thick of things.
“I do not belong to anybody and nobody is going to have me. Antoine, will you please take care of these two? I need to go get dressed. It's freezing in here. You have left the door open.”
Antoine didn't know what to say. She just walked out amongst the other two guys like they hadn't been holding her hostage the whole time and it hadn’t bothered her at all. He was impressed, really, and he wasn't the only one watching her leave with admiration. She really was an enigma, making no sense to have that much confidence in the situation, but having it nonetheless.
Everyone was so shocked from her getting up and walking away, that nobody did anything to stop her. Gill was left gawking and it took Antoine only a moment to pull himself together and break the neck of the second man in his hold. He started to walk toward Gill, and Gill ran out of the bathroom.
“That really isn't very becoming, is it?”
“I never said that I was going to get killed for Fire Island. They are not even the ruler anymore. Let Nathan have it, if that's what he wants. The title is worthless.”
Antoine watched in fascination as the guy ran out of his cabin. He knew that he was going to have to go after him and end him. There was no way that he could leave him alive, especially knowing that he had the whereabouts of his house. Nobody knew where he lived and the only way to keep it that way was to make sure that no one with flappy lips was able to find him.
He went to Cassandra, after he closed the door, and asked her if she was alright. She said that she was and even though she had been brave and walked out of there, it didn’t change the fact that she was shaking terribly, and he had to pull her close to assure her. There was nothing but an enormous amount of guilt that ran through him. Once again, Cassandra was getting dragged into things that had nothing to do with her. In truth, that had nothing to do with him, either.
“I'm sorry to leave you, but I need to go take care of this.”
“And by take care of it, you mean?”
“We don't really need to talk about it. Why don't you stay in here until I get back, so that I can get the other ones out of the way?”
Cassandra looked over at the bodies down the hall and then looked away quickly. She said that she had no problems being there with the door shut. The last thing that she wanted to do was have anything to do with the bodies.
“I think I'm going to lay down. When you're done in here... When you're done, just come get me.”
“Okay, Cassandra. I'm sorry that this happened to you. I'm sorry that my life has been so hard for you.”
“I know that you didn't mean for this to happen. But I do need to ask you something.”
