“Here’s how it’s going to go,” Roman said. “Think of me as the director. We have our cameras.” He gestured to the space around us, where I presumed hidden cameras recorded everything. “We have our perfect damsel in distress.” He grabbed my throat, yanking me back against his chest. “And we have our obvious villain, cast impeccably.” He waved a hand at Wes.
Wes’s tattooed knuckles were clenched tight, a vein in his neck pulsing.
“Oh, and we have Wes’s comprehensive plans for a kink club in the city, all in his handwriting,” Roman continued. “After all, Archer and Jayne, the city’s favorite sex club power couple, were approached by an anonymous investor who gave them cash for the church and funded this exciting erotic venture. He never showed his face. I wonder, do we know anyone else with a penchant for anonymous investing?”
Wes’s jaw ticked.
“Except I know the truth,” I spat.
“Aw, that’s a cute thought,” Roman whispered, his hand tightening around my throat. “Except, who would believesomeone brainwashed enough to let herself get branded by her dominant lover? I’m not the Graves brother you’ve been seen with at parties and dates for the past six months, now am I?”
Cold dread pooled in my stomach.
“Besides, none of that really matters so long as my puppets both behave themselves,” Roman said as Wes continued to glower, his gaze stuck on the hand around my throat. “I will have eyes on you twenty-four hours a day forever, angel. You’ll be tracked, monitored, and controlled more meticulously than even your wildest fantasies. And as foryou.”
Roman waved his gun at Wes, causing me to tense and hold my breath.
“You will never touch Nova again after tonight. In fact, you’ll never evenseeher again. Unless, of course, you’d like to view her in a casket.”
I closed my eyes again, helplessness taking over as I tried and failed to see a way out of the twisted, dystopian reality Roman was painting for us.
When I opened them, Wes was ghostly pale.
I almost wanted to laugh, the hysterical, brink of insanity kind of laughter that could only come from being warned by my friends not to get human trafficked by billionaires, only to wind up gettinghuman trafficked by a billionaire.
Archer and Jayne were getting off on hiding evil in plain sight, and I’d stayed in their cult even after a fuckingauction.
Stupidcouldn’t begin to describe how I felt right now.
When Wes finally spoke, it was eerily calm. “You will not be able to keep this up, Roman.Thiswill be the downfall of the Graves legacy. And if Max finds out…”
“Father knows who I am,” Roman spat, the first sign of instability finally bleeding through the cracks at the mention of the Graves patriarch. “He is likeme,notyou.I have alreadyplayed out every possible sequence of events, and in every scenario, Iwin. I win every time.”
He released me.
Roman slowly circled to the other side of the table, his gun pointed at me the whole time. “Oh, and in case this needs to be said, Nova is only valuable to me so long as she is valuable to you,” he said to Wes. “If you disobey even one of my orders, I will assume she lost her value, and I will shoot her in the head.”
Wes’s eyes flashed raw panic. They never left mine.
“That would be my least favorite outcome, but it would still be a net win for me.” He took a deep breath. “Now, please secure Nova to the table. I’m ready to begin. You’ve both been rather dull participants so far, but I can fix that.”
Wes stepped forward.
He was going to follow Roman’s orders to protect me, and I was going to let it happen to protect him. Because I couldn’t stomach the thought of him watching one more person die before his eyes.
Roman stepped back into an alcove between wine shelves, the opposite side of the room to us. I started pushing myself up onto the table, but Roman stopped me.
“No, angel,” he said. “Let Wes do everything. Think of yourself as a perfect human doll.”
My throat constricted as Wes approached me, mirroring my helplessness as he desperately searched my eyes.
“Hey, you’re going to be okay,” he whispered.
“What a silly thing to say,” I said back, my voice shaking. My lips trembled as I tried and failed to smile.
He moved the torture devices to the floor and lifted me onto the table. He held my hand for the briefest moment. The look in his eyes was an apology, a wound that had been ripped back open.
Realization and understanding struck me all at once.
