When I’m finally back home from the hospital, I go straight to my room and lock the door. I don’t come down—not for dinner, or breakfast, or my parents, or school. Nothing.
I’m scared.
Scared of what might happen if I do.
Because that warning didn’t come without a cost.
Someone must pay the price for Liam being declared dead.
Me.
I shiver as I hear my parents’ footsteps stomp up the stairs. They’re headed straight for my room.
I jump away from the door and huddle on my bed before they slam their fists against the door. I was never this scared before. But I guess sometimes trauma changes a person.
Especially when that trauma is connected to mafia families and their need for revenge.
“Jill? Open the door,” my mother says.
I don’t respond. I don’t know what to say, and I’m terrified I’ll say the wrong thing.
“Jill, open this door. This is your last warning,” my father says with that stern voice of his that makes my skin crawl.
“No,” I reply.
“Jill!” my mother gasps.
“Enough,” my father barks. He shoves something into the lock and unlocks it from the outside. They burst inside, furious. “You don’t think I keep spare keys to all the doors in my own damn house?”
I swallow away the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry. Please.”
My father slams the door shut and then looks at me. “We need to talk.”
Oh, God.
Here it is.
The talk.
The one I’ve been trying to avoid. Because I’ve heard them whisper in the hallways about my punishment. But I don’t deserve any of this. I didn’t kill Liam on purpose.
“Please, you don’t have to do this,” I say, shaking my head.
“Jill …” my mother mutters. “You know we have to. You’re going to have to marry Luca.”
“No, he’s a monster, don’t you see it? He’ll destroy me for killing his brother.”
But her face remains unmoving.
Did she ever care at all?
“Please …” I mutter.
My mother simply looks at my father and then turns around. “I’ll leave her to you.”
“Mom!” I yell, but she ignores me as she walks out and shuts the door behind her.
“Jill.” My father commands my attention. “You will marry Luca.”
No, no, no, this can’t be happening. I was supposed to marry Liam.
“Please, don’t force me to do this. You don’t know what he’s like,” I plead with him.
“You did this to yourself, Jill,” he rebukes. “You made the decision to jump into that car and drag the son you were supposed to marry straight into his death. You think I wanted this?” He’s all up in my face right now, yelling like it hurts him more than it hurts me. “You’re my daughter, and it is my job to ensure the De Vos family gets what they’re owed. This is the price to pay for what you did.”
“But it was an accident,” I say, but my voice sounds more like that of a mouse. Tiny. As small as I feel right now.
“Every action has a consequence,” he replies. “You made your choice. Now I’m making mine.”
“But why? Can’t we offer them something else? Money? More power?”
SLAP!
My father’s strike to my face doesn’t register until the sizzle of pain follows.
“You think money will bring back the dead?” he scoffs.
I shake my head and shove him away, running straight for the window through which Luca once climbed up into my room. Now, more than ever, do I wish I never let him in. Not into my room nor my body. Because those eyes, those fingers, those lips … destroyed everything I ever held dear.
But before I can say anything else, my father has already grabbed my wrists and put cuffs on them. “Don’t try anything. It won’t work. They’re waiting for you.”
Luca
The second our car pulls up to her house, my heart begins to palpitate. I sink into my seat and lower the window to watch my parents get out and meet out front with Hugo Baas, who is standing near the road at the edge of their property. They talk for a moment, and then a guard comes closer, pushing someone forward. A girl in a hoodie and tight leggings with her hands shackled behind her back.
My father approaches her and pulls the hoodie down.
Jill’s face isn’t kind or sweet anymore.
All I see is rage.
And it stirs something inside me that I didn’t know existed.
But the second her eyes connect with mine, they turn to shame. And it’s almost as if she’s pleading with me for this to stop.
As if I ever had a say in this to begin with.
I take a deep breath and look away while my parents finish up whatever business they have with Hugo Baas. When they finally approach the car, she’s in their hands, her eyes stained with tears. They push her forward, each step she takes reluctant. Her eyes skittishly move from left to right as though she’s contemplating whether or not to run.
She can try, but she won’t get far.
As the side door opens, I turn to watch her get shoved in beside me. The door is slammed shut, and we’re locked inside the car together. When she finally looks up, our gazes meet, and my dick instantly hardens in my pants from the sight of her bound wrists and teared-up cheeks.
She’s right. I am fucked up.
There’s a reason my brother was always the favorite of the family. I could never live up to that. But maybe that was only for the better. After all, I’m still here while he’s miles deep in the water.
“Are you enjoying this?” she asks.
I raise a brow. “Are you?”
“They’re making me marry you, Luca,” she replies, ignoring my question. “My life isn’t a joke. This isn’t funny anymore.”
I plant my elbow on the small windowsill in the car and cock my head. “It wasn’t funny when you killed my brother either.”
Her face contorts. “I didn’t kill him.”
“He drowned in the water because of your terrible driving skills.”
“There was a storm,” she says. “And you don’t know if he drow—”
“Exactly. There was a storm,” I retort. “And you still chose to drive off in your fucking car.”
She throws me a damning glare, but when her lips part, no words come out.
It’s quiet for a while, and I look outside at my parents, who are still arguing about fuck knows what with Hugo. I don’t even care what’s going on.
“Please, Luca. Don’t let your parents do this,” she says.
My nostrils flare as I shift in my seat to look at her, but the pleading gaze in her eyes catches me off guard.
She’s never begged before, and I quite honestly love the sound of her voice when she does. I could listen to this for days. Years.
But she deserves everything she gets for killing my brother. For destroying my parents’ vision of the future. And if that means she now becomes my wife, so fucking be it.
At least now I’ll get a chance to prove I’m the better fucking brother.
“Luca, please, I’m begging you,” she says.
Is it so bad to be my fucking wife?
“Convince them. Make them take me in as a servant or something.”
A servant?
Jill serving us—me—makes my cock twitch. Fuck, that’d be a sight to behold, watching Jill prance around my room in a skimpy outfit just to pick up after me. I’d pay to see that happening.
But it’s not. I don’t make the fucking rules, and now that my brother is dead, my parents are more on edge than they’ve ever been before. After all, he was the favorite son … and now all they have left is me.
The fucking reject son who fucks up every chance he gets.
Just because of …
Her.
I jerk my arm away and sneer, “Don’t.”
“Luca?” Her brows rise but fall immediately after as though she finally realizes who I truly am. “You owe me this.”
“I don’t owe you anything,” I spit back.
“I took Liam with me in the car to escape you,” she says, her eyes darkening with every word she speaks. “He died because of you.”
I fish my knife from my pocket and point it at her, which immediately makes her freeze.
“He died because you kissed him,” I say through gritted teeth.
She stares me down, unafraid of the knife inching closer and closer to her chest. A single tear forms in her eyes, but she blinks it away.
“So … that’s it? That’s the hill you’re willing to die on?” she says, her voice fluctuating in tone. “You were the one who told me our parents were going to make us marry.”
I look away as a vicious smile appears on my lips. “Guess fate has a funny way to twist things around.”
A shocked gasp hitches in her throat, but I don’t care.
After a few seconds, she says. “You’re a monster.”
The words come out in a stone-cold manner, but it doesn’t faze me anymore.
I’ve already accepted who I am. What I’m willing to do to make her mine.
But she … She holds her head up with a kind of pride that makes me want to slice her open and tear out her heart.
Because if it can’t be mine, it won’t belong to anyone.
Jill
When the car stops, we’re at the airport, and my skin begins to crawl at the sight of those planes flying high above our heads as we get out of the car.
My wrists are still bound, and Lex told Luca to keep a careful eye on me so I don’t run away.
“Why are we here?” I ask, wondering why we didn’t go to their house.
“Because you’re getting married,” Lex answers, “on the Canary Islands, far away from your meddling parents.”
I stop walking. “What now?”
I don’t understand. I thought marriage took preparation. Time. This isn’t nearly enough to prepare for … him.
Luca passes me and glances at me over his shoulder, licking his bottom lip like a wolf. “Now.”
Fuck.
I have to get out.
No matter what.
I have to run.
So I wait until we’re inside the big hall and then say, “I have to pee.”
Anne sighs. “Really?”
I nod when she looks my way.
“Fine.” She waves it off. “Luca, go with her while Lex and I check in the bags.”
Luca rolls his eyes but then grabs my arms, which have been hidden underneath a large coat hanging from my shoulders, so no one here knows my wrists are shackled. But people still stare. And it makes him walk more briskly than ever.
He shoves me inside the bathroom and gets in too, closing the door behind us.
I stare at him wide-eyed. “I need to pee.”
“Do it then.”
“Well, I’m not peeing with you watching,” I reply.
“I’m not leaving.” He crosses his arms. “So do whatever you want.”
My stomach twists so much I feel like I’m about to puke. I have no plan. This was the plan. What am I supposed to do now?
I go into a stall and close the door, but he can still peer underneath it, and it makes me want to freak out. But there’s a time and place for everything, and freaking out isn’t part of the plan right now.
Think, Jill, think.
I stare down at my pants.
That’s when it hits me.
I can’t pee without someone pulling down my pants.
“I can’t get my pants off,” I say.
Luca grumbles, and within seconds, he’s torn open the door. His head blocks the only light in this bathroom while he towers above me and stares me down like he could rip out my heart or my clothes … or both.
I swallow hard.
“You want me to help you?” he asks.
Fuck. I have to push through now.
I turn around and show him my wrists. “Can you unlock these so I can at least pee?”
“No,” he responds.
“I promise I won’t run,” I reply.
“Of course you won’t,” he scoffs.
“I can’t pee without my hands, Luca. I’m not a man,” I say.
When I glance over my shoulder, his tongue darts out to wet his lips. Dammit. “Lucky me.”
I roll my eyes. “Really? You’re going to use this opportunity to degrade me some more?”
He tilts his head, and a devilish smirk appears on his face. “Bunny … I’ll use any opportunity I can get.”
My blood begins to boil. “I’ll fucking pee my pants before I let you touch me.”
He makes a disgusting face. “Fine,” he spits, and he fishes something from his pocket. The key his parents gave him. The one they got from my father.
Just seeing the damn thing makes my pulse race.
“Turn around,” he says, and when I do, he grabs my arms and unlocks the shackles.
I rub my sore wrists and breathe a sigh of relief. But that relief quickly evaporates when I hear the metal jingle.
“These babies are going right back on once you’re done. Understand?” He holds them out for me to see like they’re toys.
Like he enjoys seeing me in this position.
Of course he does.
“Fine,” I sneer. “Can I pee now?”
He shrugs. “Hurry up.” He leaves the stall again but stays put right outside the door.
Dammit.
How do I get rid of him?
I sigh and lower my pants to make it sound real, and I sit down on the toilet and look up to make sure he isn’t sneaking a peek from above the door.
There is only one other thing I know of that might, might make him run.
He may love the blood when he drains it from someone’s veins … but there is one kind I’m positive he doesn’t understand.
“Uh-oh …” I mutter.
“What?” he snaps.
“I just got my period,” I say.
“So?”
“I don’t have any sanitary napkins with me,” I say. “Can you go get some?”
He doesn’t respond but sighs after a while. “Where do I find them?”
“Ask your mom. She’ll have one on her for sure,” I say.
He grumbles and slams the door with his fist, making me jolt up and down on my seat. “Fine. But stay here. Or there will be hell to pay. Got it?”
“Like I could go anywhere with bloodied pants,” I retort.
He grumbles again and then walks away. When I hear the door close, sweat drops roll down my back.
Of course it was all a lie. I’m not on my period. But he doesn’t need to know that.
I quickly get off the toilet, pull up my pants, flush, and run out.
I watch Luca walk toward his parents, who are about fifty feet away. He raises his hand and yells their names. When they look this way, our eyes briefly connect.
Anne’s eyes widen as her lips part.
But the first thing I do is run.
As fast as I can.
As hard as I can.
As far as my legs will take me.
Through the crowd, I push people aside, heading toward the door on the other side of the building.
I’m running on pure adrenaline now as I shoot through the hallways. When I turn my head to look for just a moment, there he is.
Luca.
And the look on his face is all I need to know to run faster.
Because that rage alone is enough to kill me.
Shit.
No time to think.
No time to ask for help.
Just run, just fucking run!
I push open the door and run out into the open air, and I suck in a breath to remind myself of just how precious freedom really is … because I know it’s going to cost me dearly. But anything is better than being forced to marry Luca De Vos.
So I run toward the nearest cab and give him an address, and I hop inside.
Just before Luca exits the door and looks at me like a hawk who’s found its prey. His muscular shoulders rise and fall with each ragged breath he takes. He gave it his all to chase me.
And still, he failed.
The car begins to drive as I hear him scream my name, “Jill!”
The sound goes through marrow and bone.
“I will find you!” he yells as the car drives off, and I look at him through the rearview mirror, just like so many other people out on the street wondering what is going on. “You hear me? I’ll fucking search the end of the world if I have to!”
The end of the world.
Yeah, that’s what it feels like right about now as I blink away the tears.
Abandoned by my family.
Handed over to the enemy.
Destined to run … until he finds me.
