Fog fills my vision as I come back to consciousness. I never should have allowed myself to pass out, God knows what these men could have done to me in that time.
“She’s awake,” one of them announces. I should have stayed still and played dead, but the pain splitting my head in two wouldn’t have allowed that.
“Good. Boss is going to want to see her when we get to Aces. Take her straight to the VIP area and deliver her before reporting to Terry. Boss wants this place locked down so those fuckers can’t try to break her out.”
I blanch. Rayne won’t be able to save me. He won’t be able to get to me before Russo hurts me. Nausea rolls over me and before I can think better of it, I throw up all over the guy who holds me.
“Fucking bitch,” he yells, his fist slamming into the side of my face.
“Not the face, idiot. Do you think boss wants his future wife having a black eye on her wedding day?”
Wedding day?
My eyes shoot open and I’m surrounded by Russo’s men. Some of them are bouncers at Aces, and others I’ve never seen before. Did they really say wedding day? I can’t marry Russo, if I do, Rayne wouldn’t be able to…
Understanding dawns on me. If he marries me today, the Saint James family can’t retaliate. There’s not a damn thing they’ll be able to do because legally I’ll be Russo’s wife and on the streets, that means more than anything else.
My lungs close up and panic flares to life throughout my entire being. I’m tempted to make one of the guards kill me, to make sure I don’t have to endure a life with Angelo Russo as my husband. But I can’t bring myself to do it, because what if Rayne does get to me in time? He’d be tearing this fucking city apart to get to me, and as they say, it ain’t over until the fat lady sings.
The car stops abruptly and a moment later rough hands are tugging me out the door behind them. If I’m going to go, I’m not going to walk myself into the fucking lion’s den. I’m going to kick and scream as loud as my lungs will allow.
“I don’t want this. Please,” I beg. It’s not going to work, but it’s worth a shot, and seeing as these guys don’t seem to be the same ones who grabbed me at the accident site, they may not know I’m capable of defending myself.
“I don’t really give a fuck what you want, bitch.” The tallest one knees me so hard in the stomach I swear I my liver splits in half.
“This doesn’t seem like a very good life choice for any of you. Rayne is going to kill every last one of you and send your rotting corpses back to Russo as a souvenir,” I spit. I have no idea if that’s something he would actually do, but anything to get the odds flipped in my favor at this point. “Is Russo worth dying for? Considering how he treats women, I can’t imagine he is. How would you feel if someone did this to your sister, or your mother?”
“Can we gag her?” One of them sighs.
“Wait!” I yell. “I can’t marry Angelo.” I glance over my shoulder to make sure no one is standing behind me and quickly switch the ring my dad gave me for my last birthday to my ring finger. It’s definitely not a wedding band, but hopefully they’ll buy it.
“You can and you will,” the big one growls. “Angelo has gone through a lot to get his hands on you, so you’ll do as you’re fucking told.”
“No, I mean legally, I can’t marry him. I’m already married,” I lie.
“No you’re not. We checked the court records to make sure Saint James didn’t think of it before the boss.”
“I am. I promise. We got married last night, the paperwork was filed this morning. By him taking me, he’s starting a war, and I’m certain I’m not worth that amount of hassle.” I’ve never been a good liar, but when your life hangs in the balance, you get good at just about anything on the fly.
The guy holding my arm looks behind me and catches sight of the ring on my finger and groans. “Boss is going to be pissed. Let’s take her to him to see what he wants to do.”
“If it were me, I’d break her and send her back to Saint James beaten and bloody,” the big guy says menacingly, and I stare at him with wide eyes.
Hopefully he doesn’t have any kind of clout with the big guy.
I’m dragged through the building and up the stairs into the VIP area. The memory of coming up here for the first time just a couple of weeks ago washes over me. I had a bad feeling that night. I should have listened to my gut and got the fuck out of there. But then, from what Rayne has told me, these wheels have been in motion for a lot longer than a few weeks. They’ve been in motion since I first started working here.
Angelo Russo sits in the end booth looking over the club, just like he did the first night we met. His short hair is styled, the dark locks peppered with specks of white. But it’s his eyes that make me want to throw up all over his expensive loafers. All I see when I look into them is death. Dark and unfeeling pupils watch me as I get closer and closer to what he believes to be my fate.
“My dear, Emerson.” Angelo stands to greet me like the gentleman I know he isn’t. “Why what a day you must have had, you’re bleeding, my dear.” His eyes sweep over my body before stepping forward to kiss my cheeks. “How pretty you are covered in blood. Perhaps I will have to make you bleed more often.”
The nausea I originally contributed to my head injury hits me in another wave and I barely manage to swallow it down. Something tells me actually throwing up on a man like Angelo might be my own death sentence.
“She says she married Saint James last night and the papers were filed this morning,” one of the guys relays the lie I’ve told.
Angelo pulls back, his eyes flaring with anger. “Is this true, Emerson?”
I nod slowly. “Yes.”
“Doesn’t that mean we’ve just started a war?” Paul asks from his seat beside Angelo. I didn’t even notice him as I was marched to what may be my fate.
“Yes, cousin. That’s exactly what it means,” Angelo growls, his hand moving so quickly I would have missed it if it didn’t wrap around my throat and cut off my airway. “She’s nothing but one of the Saint James whores.”
“Are we going to send her back to them?” he asks.
Angelo nods, his eyes locking with mine. “Piece by piece.” He smiles wickedly.
