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She eyes me, searching for answers.
“And the necklace?” I eye the pearls that hang below the lovely curve of her chin. “Did your mother suddenly come up with the money recently as well?
“It was a gift.” Her fingers go to the pearls, clutching them lightly. “From a lifetime ago. Someone gave them to my mom. She gave them to me the day I turned eighteen.”
“June ninth.”
She narrows her gaze. “How do you know my birthday?”
“I know everything about you. And your mother,” I say. “And your grandparents, as well.”
Soon, I’ll know everything about her. I’ll memorize every inch of her beautiful, virgin body, as well as how she tastes. The sounds she makes when she moans in pleasure and when she cries out in pain.
“She conned me out of ten thousand euros.” I bite back the hit to my pride. “Through an internet scam,” I say. “And you’re going to pay it back. Every. Single. Euro.”
“You wantmeto pay mom’s debts?” Her voice rises. “One semester of tuition is ten thousand? How can I come up with that kind of cash?”
“Ten thousand? It was ten times that.”
Her jaw drops open. It takes her a moment to recover. She says, “I’m eighteen! I microwave burgers for a living.”
She’ll never have to lift a finger when she’s mine... unless it’s to please me. “I don’t need money. The debt she owes me is one side of a two-sided coin. Heads, she will repay the money by giving me something precious,” I say.
“And tails?”
“I want to make her suffer.”
Her eyes flick to mine. Her words drop to a whisper. “That’s cruel.”
“It’s a cold, cruel world. The sooner you accept that fact, the easier it will be for you to join it.”
“Me? Joinyourworld?” Her gaze hardens. “Why do you want me? You know nothing about me.”
I need to touch her. To hold what is now rightfully mine.
I cross the room to her and take her in my arms. I pull her against me. Her body is taut, rigid, stretched tight like the string on a violin waiting to be plucked. To make beautiful music for me.
I move my mouth to her ear. My words heat against her skin, stirring her coconut-scented hair with my breath. “I know your mother owes me a hell of a lot of money. I know you’re the most precious thing in the world to her.” She begins to tremble in my arms. “And she must pay back the greatest debt of all.”
“What would that be?” she whispers.
“Respect. Your entire family will learn—if you disrespect a man of the Bachman Brotherhood, the consequences will be painful.”
CHAPTER 3
Ophelia
A shiver tears through me.This man is dangerous. My mom owes him an outstanding debt.Iam to be the payment. She disrespected a Bachman.
Now, my body is his to disrespect.
His eyes are fire, his jaw set with steel. He is a powerful, dangerous man—a man to be obeyed.
But he hasn’t tested me yet.
I have to get away as quickly as possible. His strong arms are a prison, holding me so tightly that I can feel his cold heartbeat, probably pumping ice through his muscular body. His men are outside the apartment. I think of the escape ladder leading from the upper flats past my window to the ground. I can climb it, knocking on the windows of higher apartments until I find help.
There’s no way out but up.