Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 130048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
He was lucky I hadn’t grabbed the velvet rope stands of the queue outside and bludgeoned him around the head. Incredibly lucky I hadn’t shoved a microphone down his throat from the awful singing DJ or smashed a bottle of expensive Johnnie Walker and stabbed his jugular with glass shards.
My nostrils flared as his fingers tightened around me, then fell away.
Keep it together, asshole.
I only had one chance at this.
One.
If I succeeded in doing what my half-brother demanded of me, I would have a family for the first time in my godforsaken life. But if I failed…that family I wanted so desperately would slit me from ear to ear and bury me in an unmarked grave. Probably with my heart torn out and cock ripped off, just like he’d promised.
“Ah, merde, he’s here. Mop up that massacre.” Roland chuckled, sending his baguette and chocolate éclair-loving guts jiggling. “Then again, he might like it. Maybe the Master Jeweler will make you bleed tonight instead of some poor girl.”
I kept my lips plastered into a grin instead of reaching for the glass splinters on the ground and driving them into his eyes. For a man who indulged in sexual appetites as much as he, I wasn’t sure how Roland hadn’t burned off the layer of fat he carried.
He’d be such easy prey.
If everything went well, I would eventually have the pleasure of killing him.
Unless my half-brother killed me first.
Pressing the serviette a little harder against the still oozing cut, I looked up to where his watery blue eyes had focused. I’d befriended Roland Olivan the Third thanks to my half-brother informing me he was one of the last remaining bastards who dared dabble in forced pleasure in France.
My older bro had done a particularly good job of exterminating most of them but the odd one kept sprouting up like weeds, infected with the same curse I had. The same plague that was passed on by my father.
“Don’t make me regret this, Henri.” Roland hastily smoothed down his custom-made navy suit. The expensive material shimmered under the crystal ball twinkling above, painting him with wealth, even if his eyes remained that of a thief. A thief who stole lives for his own pleasure.
“How would I make you regret this?” I growled, stuffing the bloody serviette into my black suit pocket and ensuring my dull bronze tie was perfectly smooth. My gold cufflinks sparkled, making my heart thud.
The simple birdcage emblems seemed to shout who I truly was. That I was descended from the Mercer line and in cahoots with the infamous Q.
The cufflinks had been his idea.
Not because he’d wanted to welcome me to his family but because he didn’t trust me.
The tracking device no doubt told him exactly where I was right now and where I’d end up if tonight was a success.
Supposed I should be grateful.
If tonight went well, I doubted I’d be in France much longer. If it all went to shit, perhaps Q could use the cufflinks to find and save me. Then again, he’d probably conclude I’d lost myself in the cesspit of sin and come kill me instead.
I had an awful feeling that was his plan all along.
He was seasoned at this. He knew how these trafficking bastards worked. He knew how slippery and evil they were. The fact he hadn’t given me any training, no weapons, and not even a back-up plan told me everything I needed to know: he didn’t care if I won or lost.
He probably wanted me to fail so he didn’t have to welcome me into his home.
“Remember what we talked about?” Roland asked, looking me up and down with a critical sneer. “You like gemstones. You enjoy taking raw stones and breaking them apart to show the priceless rock within. Tell him how much you enjoy smashing those jewels and—”
“You expect me to speak in code all night?” I turned to face him, balling my hands and wincing at the fresh pain on my palm. The pain was good…helped me focus. The pain was bad…made me lose control. “Pretty sure he won’t care if I speak plainly.” I swallowed the sour taint on my tongue and let the beast within me wake. “I think he’d appreciate my honesty if I say how much I crave their screams. How I can’t sleep at night, picturing how skin bruises and bleeds. How I have dreams of helpless conquests all begging me to stop. And I bet he’d welcome me with open arms if I confess that the moment they start to struggle, I get hard as a fucking rock—”
“It sounds as if you’re listing my own fetishes, which is rather disconcerting, seeing as I’ve never met you before.”
I froze.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled.
The monster inside me snarled to meet this other beast. To find kinship in shared sickness. But my struggling goodness did its best to remember this was a ruse.