Kestrel sighed heavily. Silently, he retrieved the bottle Jethro had slammedon the table and poured three fingers into fresh glasses.
Daniel and Cut drifted forward as Kes held out each goblet. The men ignored me—knowing I would wait. That I couldn’t run. That I had nothing left.
With a grim smile, Kes held up a toast. “To paying debts and being worthy.”
“To debts,” Cut muttered.
“To fucking,” Daniel cackled.
All three clinked and slammed the liquor down. However, Kes was the last to drink. It was only a fraction of a second, but he watched Cut and Daniel finish first before tipping the amber liquid down his throat.
Tossing their empties on the poker table, the men once again pinned their attention on me.
I stiffened, fighting uselessly in my binds.
Kes was the first to move.
He came forward. I moved backward. We danced slowly around the large room.
He didn’t say a thing.
He didn’t have to.
Jethro wasn’t in control of this debt. He wasn’t even here.
This was Kestrel’s time to shine.
“Before you came here tonight, Nila, we had a bet. The opening round of poker was to secure the right for first choice.”
I bumped into a padded chair, changing directory to inch around the pool table.
Kes murmured, “Any idea who won that round?”
My heart thundered. I shook my head.
Something flashed in Kes’s eyes—too fast and swift to be understood. “It was me. I won. I get to choose.”
Charging forward, he caught me effortlessly and wrapped his bulky arms around me. In his embrace, I didn’t find friendship or liberation. I found a prison cell where the man who’d laughed and chased me over the paddocks on horseback became my rapist.
Breathing into my ear, he whispered, “I get to choose. And I want to go first.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jethro
I COULDN’T FUCKING do it.
I couldn’t watch.
I couldn’t hear.
I fuckingrefused.
The entire time we’d played poker, Cut had watched me. He knew what this would do to me. He knew how I would struggle and cripple and potentially unmask myself completely.
He’d come to the game with the same gun he’d threatened me with two months ago—hooked into his waistband, glinting off the chandeliers—nonchalantly promising death if I disobeyed.
It’d been fucking torture waiting for the time to creep closer, but it’d been nothing compared to leaving Nila with my family.
