Marquise entered, not caring Daniel held me so roughly. He nodded as if it were perfectly acceptable and placed my suitcase beside the bed. Without a word, he left again.
Fisting my short hair, Daniel hoisted me up and planted a foul kiss on my mouth.
What the—
I wanted to vomit.
Once he let me go, I swiped at my tongue, backing away. “Just because—”
“I’ve had enough. One more word, Weaver. One more fucking word.” His hand shook as he pointed at the puddle on the floor. “Clean that up and have a shower. You stink. I expect you and this bedroom to be clean for our little get together when my father gets back.”
I bared my teeth. “You think you’re so untouchable, Daniel Hawk, but let me tell you. You aren’t. I understand you a little better, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to let you rape me. It might be tonight, or tomorrow, or the day after, but I will hurt you. I’ll—”
He laughed loudly, cutting me off. “Such stupid promises from such a stupid Weaver. Know what I believe? Tonight, I’ll be fucking you. Tomorrow, I’ll be hurting you. And the day after, I’ll inherit one of the wealthiest estates in the world because you’ll be dead. I’m no longer the mistake. I’m the chosen one. So fucking shut up and get ready for me.” He kissed me again, his putrid tongue trying to gain entry into my mouth.
My stomach revolted and in a flash of lunacy, I opened my lips and permitted him to lick.
Then, I bit.
Hard.
So, so hard.
Coppery blood tinged my taste buds, triumphantly splashing the first blood drawn. And it hadn't been mine.
“Fuck.” He yanked me back. Pain exploded on my scalp as his fingers tore at my hair. “You do that again and you won’t wake up.”
“We’ll see.”
Grinding against me, he inhaled me like a beast. “You want me to disobey my father? You want me to fuck you right here, right now?” His nose dragged shivers over my skin. “Say one more word and you’re on your fucking knees.”
I gagged on horrible images but somehow found the courage to retaliate. I couldn’t show fear. I wouldn’t show fear ever again.
I laughed in his demonic face.
Daniel’s eyes met mine, hooded and manic. “Want my cock, Weaver? I’ll gladly give it to you if you piss me off again.” He waited, focusing on my lips. His erection jammed against my lower belly.
Stomping on my terror, I glared. “You touch me, you die. Cut won’t like you disobeying him. You’ll be back to being the mistake. The unwanted. The unneeded.”
Jethro.
Kestrel.
Would Cut kill Daniel, too?
From three heirs to none.
Daniel trembled with lustful rage. “You fucking—”
“Go ahead and fuck me but you’ll be the third son your father shoots.”
He froze.
For the longest second, we glowered. The sound of wilderness and our shallow breathing was our serenade.
Finally, he threw me away and stormed toward the exit. “I’m not that crazy. And you’re not worth a bullet. I’ll wait.”
I couldn’t stop my muscles trembling.
Thank God.
I’d pushed too far. I’d been idiotic in taunting him. It would’ve been my fault if he’d raped me. But I’d gotten under his skin and unsettled his equilibrium. I’d shown him I wasn’t a wallflower he could pluck the petals off and stomp beneath his shoe. I had thorns…needles…pain to deliver.
His fist grabbed the tent flap, shaking with vehemence. Turning, he smiled coldly. “You’re being so patient, little Weaver. I know all those questions were to make me snap. I know how much you want my cock—you’re practically begging for it.” His eyes narrowed. “How do you think that would make Jet feel? Knowing his corpse is barely cold and you want to fuck his younger brother?”
Clucking his tongue, he blew me a kiss. “I’ll make sure to reward you for being so patient. Expect a lot of persuasion to scream later.”
Before I could hurl obscenities, he was gone.
I stood there forever, hugging myself. My knees shook, threatening to dump me to the floor.
What have I done?
I knew what I’d just done.
I’d made whatever my future held worse.
Why? Why did I antagonise him?
Because this was it. The end. There would be no going back from here. No second chances. They would take from me. Tear apart everything I had to give. And I hoped to God I would take from them before it was over.
With numb fingers, I stroked my knitting needle hidden in my hoodie pocket.
Stay strong. Don’t stop fighting.
Daniel’s silhouette graced the outside of the tent as he snapped his fingers at Marquise. His lumbering form marched closer, waiting for orders.
“Stand here. Arm your weapon. If she tries to run, shoot her.”
Tears tried to crest but I shoved them down. This wasn’t Hawksridge. Daniel wasn’t Jethro. And this was no longer a game. The stark truth couldn’t hide: I was in deep shit.
Marquise nodded. “Right-o.”
Sticking his head back into the tent, Daniel grinned. “Just so you’re aware, if you try to run, you’ll know what Jethro and Kes felt when they died by bullet. How’s that for a bedtime story?”
His boots crunched on the deck as he leapt to the dusty ground and left. Marquise popped his head inside, only to give me a cold smile before zipping up the mosquito screen across the door.
Cocking his gun, he turned his back on me.
Alone.
Finally.
I didn’t waste any time.
I didn’t know how long Cut would be, but it wouldn’t be long enough. I needed to switch off any sentiments or remaining hints of the girl I’d been and prepare to become a ruthless killer.
Snatching my suitcase, I hauled it to the bed and unzipped it. Every garment and item were in disarray. When Daniel ordered me to pack, folding wasn’t a top priority.
Tossing clothes that didn’t have weapons sewn inside to the floor, I hurriedly selected the fleece jacket with a scalpel hidden in the collar and the leggings with a pair of delicate scissors smuggled in the waistband.
Daniel wanted me to have a shower?
Fine. I would shower.
I would prepare.
And I would go to war when he returned.
ECONOMY CLASS.
Public airline.
The worst possible environment for a man like me.
I huddled in my seat, gritting my jaw; doing my best to remember the exercises I’d been taught.
Focus on my own thoughts.
Concentrate on inner pain. Pinch, slice, do whatever it takes to put that barrier up.
Fixate on mundane influences: reading, looking at nature.
I swallowed a groan.
None of it worked.
Glancing around the plane, my condition picked up on homesickness, regret, excitement, loss, and fear. Every person had their own thoughts and those thoughts flew kamikaze in the small space.
Squeezing my eyes, I focused on my ice. Cut had done one thing right raising me. He’d taught me how to focus on hatred and selfishness, shutting everyone out—even their pain.
The lesson hadn’t been easy. If I slipped or didn’t succeed, Jasmine bore the brunt. Cut understood that the pain of those I loved affected me triply hard. In a way, forcing me to listen to his emotions of discipline and control, while blocking out my sister’s agony and unhappiness, gave me the strength to combat the influx of paralyzing emotions from others.
Even while she was hurt right in front of me.
I could stomach my own pain, but when it came to hers…
Just like I can’t stand Nila’s now I love her.
Forcing those memories away, I did my best to relapse into the capsule of snow, but even as the tendrils of ice made their way around my heart, one person centred in my thoughts.
Jasmine.
Because
of me, she would never walk again. And that was another reason why I couldn’t abandon her when Nila begged me to leave last night in the stables. Why I owed Kes and Jaz everything because, without them, I would’ve died years ago.
Maybe I should’ve died years ago.
Maybe Nila would’ve remained safe, and Kes wouldn’t be fighting for his life.
Kes would’ve been next in line. If Cut followed the Debt Inheritance rules—without turning into the power hungry bastard he’d become—with the firstborn dead, the contract couldn’t be fulfilled and both Kes and Nila would’ve been free. Nila would’ve married someone far away from the Hawks and would’ve given birth to a daughter as beautiful as her.
Only to be ruined a generation later.
The ice I tried to cultivate thawed, leaving me wretched.
It wasn’t the thought of future debts, but the thought of Nila married and happy with another that flayed me alive.
She was mine. I was hers. We were meant to fall in love and finish this. Just like Owen, my doomed ancestor, and his love, Elisa, never could.
Fuck, Nila.
What had she lived through in the hours we’d been apart? What had they done to her since I’d failed her?
“Juice?”
I opened my eyes, glaring at the stewardess. Her emotions bounced between job satisfaction and claustrophobia. She loved to travel but hated to wait on passengers. If I listened harder, I would’ve learned most of her secrets and guessed a lot about her life.
“No.” I looked out the window. “Thank you.”
The darkness of the sky illuminated every few seconds with a red flash from the wing tip, keeping time with my ragged heartbeat.
I hadn’t calmed since Jasmine’s phone call.
After galloping to the garage, I’d left Wings to find his way back to the stables and traded him for a different kind of horse-power. My Harley snarled in the afternoon sun, hurling me down our driveway and to the airport.
I didn’t think to seek out Flaw. I didn’t have time to tell my sister my plan.
All I focused on was getting to the airport and a charter.
However, I should’ve used my brain rather than my fearful heart. There were no charters or private planes available that late in the day. No pilots on call. No one to bribe to fly.
I had no choice but to hurtle to Heathrow and board the next available flight to South Africa. Getting to the airport, buying a ticket, and arguing over the fastest service had all cost valuable time.
Time I didn’t have.
No quick routes. No private planes.
My only option had been a cramped, overbooked flight with three stops before reaching my destination. Even if I’d waited for twenty-four hours and hired a private jet, the long haul commercial flight would’ve been faster.
So I bought a ticket.
I sent Nila a text:
Kite007: I’m coming. Hang on. Do whatever it takes to stay alive. I love you so fucking much.
She hadn’t replied. If she had been able to take her cell phone, she wouldn’t have reception in the sky. And if Cut had stolen it from her, I would have no way to warn her of my arrival.
Yet another problem in my problem-riddled future.
Flying while fearing for the life of a loved one was bad enough. But flying with an empathetic condition and a healing gunshot wound was a hundred times fucking worse.
Every takeoff and landing, every airport and taxi, I lost more of my humanity and focused on bloodlust, plotting what I would do to Cut and Daniel when I arrived.
The promise of wide open spaces and empty African plains helped me remain sane in the tinderbox of airplane madness.
I’d always avoided public spaces for long periods. Flying with Nila from Milan had been the first time I’d suffered in years. For all intents, before Nila came into my life, I was a recluse. Hawksridge my sanctuary and Diamond Alley my office. I had no need to mingle with strangers.
Another whirlpool of conflicting passenger emotions bottled up in a tiny fuselage with no outlet. I did my best to ignore them. Did my best to cultivate my hate and let the single-minded determination give me peace.
Grabbing the napkin from the cognac I’d ordered an hour ago, I shredded it as my heart worked double time. My side bellowed and a fever dotted my brow. Timelines and countdown clocks swarmed my mind as I worked out how far ahead Nila was.
At best, eight to nine hours.
At worse, ten to twelve.
Nila might’ve been spared pain and rape.
She might still have time.
But three-quarters of the way over the Atlantic Ocean, I knew I’d run out of minutes.
They’d arrived at Almasi Kipanga.
She was on her own.
I STOOD ON the lip of a colossal mine.
The teeth of the earth yawned wide, its tongue and tonsils butchered by spades and diggers, its innards exposed to the night sky in the hunt for diamonds and wealth.
Staring into the pit hurt something deep inside. It wasn’t for the broken trees left to rot unwanted, or the ebony-skinned workers toiling in the muck. It wasn’t the stagnant air of degradation and robbery. It was the sadness that something as precious and rare as diamonds—that the earth had created over millennia—had been so callously stolen with no grace or thanks.
“Impressive. Isn’t it?” Cut slung his arm over my shoulders.
I flinched but didn’t move away.
Not that I could.
A coarse rope bit into my wrists, wound tightly by Cut when he’d come for me.
I’d expected the Third Debt to be carried out the moment Cut returned from whatever errands he ran. I’d sat on the bed, pricking the tips of my fingers with the hidden knitting needle, never taking my eyes off the entrance to my tent.
My stomach grumbled. Energy depleted. But I’d refused to fall asleep. I would face my nightmare while awake.
It was the only way.
The cool African night had gnawed on my skin; goosebumps prickled as the humph humph of lions echoed through the fabric house.
They sounded so close. So hungry.
Then, all at once, it seemed as if an orchestra conductor arranged a quartet of laughing hyenas, bays of zebras, and hoots of owls.
The animal song raised my stress levels until I’d shivered with terror.
“Are you listening to me?” Cut’s voice sliced through my thoughts. I hadn’t rested or slept in forever; my reactions were sluggish.
I blinked. “You were saying something about quantity and how much—”
“No!” He jerked the rope around my wrists. “I was telling you how deep Almasi Kipanga goes. In centuries of mining, we’ve found seams and seams of stones. We continue to expand and the mine is currently half a kilometre below earth. Can you comprehend that?”
I shook my head. All I could think about was how dark and claustrophobic it would be. A tomb just waiting to fall like countless dominos, smothering anyone inside it.
Daniel smiled. “That’s years of digging. Millions upon millions of diamonds carved out of the dirt. If a seam dries up, a new route is planned.” His teeth flashed. “One lucky worker is given the job of setting explosives to disrupt any loose landslides or cave-ins.”
“What happens if the explosives set off a disaster and he gets crushed?” My eyes widened at such a dangerous occupation.
Daniel shrugged. “That’s why we only send one. If he doesn’t make it, then tough shit. We don’t evacuate, we just seal.”
I swallowed my disgust. “You kill men in so many ways.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
My eyes narrowed. “It wasn’t.”
“I don’t care.” Daniel smirked. “I’m taking it as one.”
I wanted to wipe that idiotic greed and insanity and entitlement right off his heinous face. “I wouldn’t be so bloody cocky if I were you. You act as if killing an employee is a sport—that they’re as disposable as broken tools.” Tilting my chin at Cut, I snar
led, “But your father doesn’t just stop there. What makes you think you’re safe, Daniel? When all signs point to you being the reject and least desirable?”
“Why you—” Daniel fisted my hair, jerking me from his father’s grip. His free hand shot to his belt where a dirty rag was stuffed in his pocket. “Gonna shut you up once and for—”
Cut yanked me back, tucking me under his arm once again. “I don’t know what happened between you two while I was gone, but stop squabbling like spoiled brats.”
Squeezing me, he murmured, “Now, Nila. Behave, be silent unless spoken to, and you’ll get to visit something not many people get to see.”
Cut glared at his son. “Calm the fuck down and be a man, Buzzard. Nila’s right. At this point, you’re less than desirable. And if you keep it up, I’ll be the one extracting the Third Debt without you. I don’t share with ingrates.”
I shuddered with loathing.
The thought of Cut touching me any more than he was now shrivelled up my insides until they turned to ash.
Daniel burned red with fury but swallowed his retorts.
Cut let me go. “Come. Let’s take a closer look.” He raised my bound hands, kissing my knuckles as if this was a perfectly normal night on a perfectly normal vacation. After his outburst, he looked positively carefree. Happy…
How can you be happy, you bastard?
I vowed on every fallen tree and hacked up dirt that I would wipe the smug smile off his goddamn face.
“Come along.” Cut strode ahead, jerking me behind him.
My ballet flats skidded on pebbles as I struggled to match his pace. Greyness danced on the outskirts of my vision, but I refused to give in to vertigo.
I was already in a perilous situation. I wouldn’t let my body subject me to more.
My mouth dried up as we moved forward on the tiny path. The deeper we headed, the more claustrophobia clawed. The track had been carved from the mountain, steadily curving with bare earth on one side, damp and musty, and a steep drop on the other, giving no second chances if you tripped.
One wrong step…
If I could guarantee Cut’s demise, I’d throw myself over the edge and take him with me.
African men and women bowed as we traded the narrow path for a wider road, exchanging foot power for an electric golf cart.