Chapter 13 Chapter Twelve
ARA
I stood there like an absolute idiot, my brain scrambling to catch up with what the truth I'd just stumbled on.
The door flew open before I could move, and Thayne filled the frame.
Chocolate-brown shirt, sleeves shoved to his elbows, black trousers hugging his thighs like they were sewn on.
He looked like sin poured into fabric, lethally beautiful, the kind of ‘beautiful’ that made my lungs forget how to work.
Then I saw the marks.
Dark, angry red rings circling his throat, fresh, raw, like someone with knuckles full of rings had tried to choke the life out of him.
Or like someone had wrapped delicate fingers around his neck and squeezed just to watch him gasp.
My stomach flipped.
Before I could speak, he was on me.
One second I was frozen in the hallway.
The next his hand was fisted in my hair, yanking my head back, his mouth crashing into mine.
Hard. Desperate. This was different from every other kiss he’d ever given me.
This one tasted like survival.
“Play along, little lamb,” he growled against my lips, voice so low only I could hear. “My father’s right behind me.
His tongue swept in, claiming, punishing, stealing my breath.
I melted into it like I always did, hating myself for it, loving it all the same.
From the corner of my eye I saw Mr. Slade Senior standing three feet away. His arms were crossed, jaw carved from stone, eyes drilling holes straight through us.
Thayne broke the kiss just long enough to turn, shielding me with his body.
His chest rose and fell fast, his knuckles white at his sides.
“Perhaps now that you’ve shown how much she means to you,” his father said, his voice dead-cold as a grave, “I’ll take her from you.”
The words landed like a bomb. Thayne stepped forward, putting himself fully between me and that monster.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
His father’s smile was thin and cruel.
“Then do as you’re told.”
He brushed past us, coat flaring like bat wings, and disappeared into the elevator.
The doors closed, and then there was silence.
I was shaking. Thayne turned back to me, eyes still burning.
I reached up without thinking, my fingertips brushing the violent bruises on his throat.
He didn’t flinch. He let me touch him.
“He did this,” I whispered. “Didn’t he?”
His gaze dropped to my mouth.
For one heartbeat I thought he would kiss me again, soft this time, and honest.
Instead his jaw locked.
He caught my wrist and lowered my hand.
“It’s time to see the doctor.”
He walked away.
I followed, mind spinning.
He was the bastard son.
Raised in luxury because there was no one else.
The woman in that photograph yesterday, his real mother, was hidden from the world.
Ursula looked just like her.
Which meant the woman who raised him wasn’t his mother at all.
Everything I thought I knew about Thayne Slade was a lie wrapped in secrets.
And now his father was using me as the perfect weapon to keep him in line.
The doctor's visit was quick, clinical, and humiliating.
I peed in a cup while Thayne waited outside the door like a guard dog.
The doctor left with a promise to deliver results directly to Mr. Slade Senior.
Of course.
Then, Thayne kept his word, as he had promised.
He took me to my sisters.
But we didn’t take the usual route.
“That’s not the way,” I said, my voice sharp and full of suspicion. Why were we taking an unfamiliar route?
“They don’t live there anymore.” He didn’t look at me. “I moved them. They have a new apartment in a safer building. And a Better school.”
My head snapped toward him.
“You what?”
He finally met my eyes.
“I took care of it.”
Four words. So simple, but they stole every ounce of air from my lungs.
I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again.
“Why didn’t you—”
Munroe’s voice cut me off from the front.
“Sir. Emergency. Warehouse fire downtown. We need you now.”
Thayne didn’t hesitate.
“Park,” he ordered the driver. “Munroe, helicopter on that roof in two minutes.”
He turned to me, his expression hard and unreadable.
“You’ll go with Munroe. Five hours with your sisters. Half the convoy stays with you. No exceptions.”
He was already moving, already gone, before I could ask a single question.
The car stopped and he climbed out.
And that’s when it happened.
A truck, massive, black and with no plates, slammed into us from the side.
Metal screamed, glass exploded and rained on me, then the world flipped upside down.
I was thrown around like a doll, the seatbelt cutting into my chest, head cracking against the window.
Blood sprayed the windshield.
Munroe’s body was half out the shattered window, limp.
The driver wasn’t moving.
Everything spun, and I tasted copper.
I couldn’t feel my legs.
I fought the door, glass slicing my palms, and crawled out onto dirt and leaves.
The Lamborghini lay on its side like a dead animal.
I collapsed beside it, my vision swimming as I fought to stay awake.
I heard footsteps.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
Then a woman's laugh, high and familiar. I gasped.
Madison. What?
She stopped at my feet and rolled me over with the toe of her stiletto.
“I told you to hit them head-on,” she hissed at the man behind her. “Look, she’s still breathing.”
The man shifted, uncomfortable. “I didn’t want casualties—”
“Casualties?” Madison’s voice cracked like a whip. “His father wants her gone. Permanently. And you fucked it up.”
She stepped over me, her heel missing my temple by an inch.
I tried to speak, but nothing came out.
Madison crouched, grabbed my chin and forced me to look at her.
“Thayne will be so heartbroken,” she cooed. “Poor little lamb, dead in a tragic accident. He’ll never have to know his daddy ordered the hit.”
She let go and my head hit the ground.
Their footsteps faded and the last thing I heard before the darkness took me was Madison’s voice, cold and satisfied.
“Leave her. The animals will finish what we started.”
Then nothing, just the taste of blood and the crushing weight of one final truth.
I choked down on a sob. It was glaring now. Thayne’s own father wanted me dead.
And I was going to die alone in the dirt because I’d dared to love his son.