“Don’t call her that,” he snapped and she jumped.
Regret filled him.
Jared hadn’t meant to scare her. The last thing he wanted was to add to her pain.
When his father told him eighteen months ago that he was getting married, Jared had felt sorry for the poor woman. But he’d also figured that she knew what she was getting into.
He hadn’t attended the wedding.
Hadn’t given her another thought.
Jared hadn’t had time to worry about what shit his father was getting up to.
But he should have known better.
He should have been keeping a closer eye on what his father was doing.
“How old are you?” He hadn’t meant to ask that, but the words just shot out of him.
She would be stunning if she didn’t look so terrified.
“N-nearly t-twenty-one.”
His father smiled. “Fucking hot, isn’t she? The young ones are just so . . . delicious. I can get you a young one, too. I’ve built up some nice connections.”
“I’ll let you know,” Jared said through gritted teeth.
Not fucking happening.
But appearances had to be kept.
He could not let his father know that behind the scenes, he was plotting to take him out.
It could be done.
It had to be.
For his sake.
For his cousin’s safety.
And for this abused and traumatized woman.
“We’ve gotto get her free, North.”
Jared paced back and forth in the bedroom suite at his father’s sadistic torture venue.
Otherwise known as his home.
North knew he should have gone to dinner with Jared. What Jared didn’t understand is that he wasn’t scared of his father.
That disgusting pig didn’t intimidate him. Jared only had to give him the go-ahead and he’d happily slip into his bedroom and slit the bastard’s throat.
Easy-peasy.
He sharpened his knife as Jared paced back and forth. North was hoping he might notice and give him the nod.
Then he could go hunting.
