A Dangerous Bargain
A Dangerous Bargain
Ivery Clark POV
Tears continuously slipped from my cheek and landed on the newspaper spread across my trembling hands as I stared at the photograph printed across the page.
Alrigo and Julia.
He stood tall, imposing, and impeccably dressed in a dark tailored suit posing at some lavish event. Beside him, Julia glowed with an effortless, upper-class radiance, her arm looped possessively through his.
She was smiling brightly at the cameras, a picture of absolute, victorious happiness, holding up her hand just enough for the diamond engagement ring to catch the light.
Another tear rolled down my cheek. So he had really done it.
I hated myself for still being hurt. I hated that some foolish part of my heart had still been waiting for him to come back and tell me that everything he had said was a lie.
But there was no lie in that photograph.
The faint scrape of a broom against the stone floor continued behind me.
The maid cleaning the cellar glanced at me several times, her expression filled with obvious pity.
She didn't say anything, perhaps because she knew there was nothing she could possibly say that would make this less painful.
Suddenly, the heavy cellar door opened with a low creak. I stiffened.
Alrigo Valerie King walked in, looking grim. He was dressed in an immaculate black suit, his expression cold and unreadable.
The maid immediately scrambled away, leaving us alone.
My hand clenched around the newspaper as I glared at him through my soaked lashes. “You still have the nerve to show up…”
A faint smirk tugged at Alrigo's lips as he lazily removed his coat. “Why? Is it because of the re-engagement?”
I glared at him, the bitterness in my chest rising like acid.
“Weren't you the one who suggested I listen to my father?” he murmured, stepping closer until his shadow completely swallowed me.
“I’m simply following your advice, Ivery."
I clenched my fists until they turned white. “Then why are you down here, bastard? Go back to her then.”
I threw the crumpled newspaper directly at his chest. “You got your perfect little high-society match back. You got what you wanted, so why keep coming down to this dungeon?”
A faint, mocking laugh escaped from Alrigo. “Why can't I come here? Perhaps I simply prefer it down here more.”
Something ticked in me.
“Of course you do. What exactly am I supposed to be now?” My laugh came out bitter. “Your prisoner? Your entertainment? Or are you planning to keep your little slave hidden down here while your beloved Julia wears your ring?”
Alrigo's smirk widened, utterly unfazed by my remarks. “Well, why not? Wouldn't that be more exciting?”
My eyes widened.
Arligo leaned down to my level, his voice deliberately provoking. “Maybe I'll make you my exclusive pet…or my beloved mistress, even after the wedding. You see, just as you said the same filthy blood runs in my veins. But don't you worry, I will take care of you really well.”
My jaw dropped.
Every shred of grief, tears and restraint melted into pure, unadulterated rage.
I went completely feral.
“You sick, twisted, arrogant son of a bitch! You miserable, filthy pig!” I hit his chest, shoving him with every ounce of strength left in my body but he barely swayed, his hands coming up to catch my wrist mid-strike, laughing.
“You're a narcissistic psychopath, a fucking tyrant, and the most insufferable bastard I've ever met!” I twisted wildly in his grasp, striking at him with pure, unhinged venom.
“I'm not your fucking pet, you get it? I'm not your mistress, and I certainly won't become your whore, Alrigo!” My voice cracked with rage as I glared straight into his eyes.
“I'd rather die than live as your dirty little secret. I'll break my own neck against these stone walls! I'll swallow glass and bleed out on this floor before I let you touch me again while you play happy little family with that snake!”
My screams echoed off the stone walls until the only thing I could hear now was my ragged breaths.
Alrigo’s every trace of mocking amusement seemed to be erased until only pitch-black, lethal ice remained now.
He suddenly shoved me away, making me stumble back. He got up, his grey eyes looking down at me with absolute disdain.
“Relax, I was just joking. I'm not a piece of trash you think, Ivery.” Arigo said, his tone dropping into a flat, ice-cold register that cut cleanly through the damp air.
“I'd rather die than become the kind of man who betrays his own wife. I know exactly what that kind of betrayal does to a family. I won't repeat it. I’m planning to abandon you right after the wedding.”
I froze, my hands still pressed against the stone, “What...?”
He scoffed, a dark smirk returning to his lips, though his eyes remained completely dead. "You actually think I want to keep you around, like some fucking trophy? Do you really think so highly of yourself?”
His gaze swept over me with slow, agonizing apathy, looking at me as if I were nothing more than dirt scraped off the heel of his shoe.
"You're not a prize anymore, Ivery. You're a liability. A blood stain on my family's floor that I haven't finished wiping clean.” He hissed melavolently, leaning down and forcing me to stare directly into those lethal, steel-grey eyes.
“Actually you know what Ivery….to be frank….deep down I really don't give a fuck if you're innocent or not. Innocent or not it doesn't erase the fact that you share the same fucking blood as that killer who murdered my own best friend.”
His hand clamped my jaw, his thumb digging roughly into my cheekbone as he brought his face inches from mine, his breath cold against my skin. “I loathe you just as much as you loathe me, ma bella. Every single breath you draw in my sight sickens me. Every second I have to breathe the same air as Rowan’s sister makes my blood boil.”
He tightened his grip for one agonizing second, forcing me to feel every ounce of his unhinged rage, before shoving my face away like a piece of worthless garbage.
“I keep you locked down here because you are a suspect, not because you are desired, remember that.”
“Once this investigation is wrapped up and I have every single truth I need, you'll just be a worthless memory nothing else. You won't even exist to me by the time I'm done with it.”
The words sank into my chest like iron weights, slicing through me with a quiet, sickening force.
“You're just a pathetic, inconvenient nuisance, I can't wait to sweep out the door.”
A heavy, suffocating silence settled over the room. Every syllable tore through me, unleashing an immense, suffocating pain in the center of my chest.
A nuisance….a nuisance waiting to be discarded the moment he put a ring on Julia's finger.
My hands trembled against the concrete, but I dragged my fingers into tight fists, digging my nails into my palms until the pain grounded me.
I couldn't let him see it. I couldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing a single crack in my armor.
“You're lucky that we really haven't found any direct evidence that you're the culprit," he said, his tone dropping back into a flat, coldness. "But that doesn't mean you're innocent, either. There's still too much we don't know.”
"If my investigation proves you were truly innocent before the wedding, I'll let you walk away," he continued, watching me with hawkish precision. "All you need to do is cooperate. Tell me everything. Do everything I tell you to, I'll gladly let you go for good.”
My eyes shot up, wide with absolute disbelief, as if my ears were playing a sick, cruel trick on me.
After locking me for weeks in this freezing dark, after treating me like a monster, after threatening to break me into pieces…he was offering me the one thing I thought I'd never see again.
Freedom.
I stared at him through the dim, suffocating light, my pulse thumping wildly against my ribs.
My eyes narrowed, scanning his dark, regal features, searching for the catch…the cruel punchline to this sick joke.
His villainous gaze was fixed on me, sharp and predatory, like a cat watching a mouse run around a maze it had already mapped out. There was no mercy in those steel-grey eyes. Only calculated, dangerous precision.
The promise of freedom hung between us, brilliant and terrifying, but beneath it lay a suffocating layer of suspicion.
Was this a genuine way out, or was he just laying down a brand-new trap, waiting for me to step into it?