Page 6 of Beauty and the Daddy

"That's—" My voice dies. "He wouldn't."

"He did." Simple. Final. "Twenty minutes ago."

For a second, the words sound like they've been strung up all wrong.

They rattle around my skull like loose change, while my stomach hollows out.

Did he just call me… payment? The anxiety I feel now bottoms out into an endless pit, and my brain short-circuits.

"I... I don't understand," I stammer, in beat with my heart.

Moretti breaks into a grin so bad, I feel like I've landed in a Chuck Bass fever dream.

He pulls the chair closer, so damn close my knees hit between his pants, and I find myself trembling like a coward.

He isn't just trouble, my brain screams at me.He's the kind of man Dad warned you about.

"Here's how this works, Belle."

My name in his mouth sounds like ownership.

He leans forward, close enough that I feel his breath on my lips. Close enough that I smell mint and murder.

"Your father had options. Watch his business burn. Watch his workers lose everything. Maybe watch the authorities find some interesting discrepancies in his books." His hand finds my chair arm, fingers drumming once. "Or give me you."

"You can't just–"

"I can." His thumb brushes my wrist where my pulse hammers. "I did. You're mine now. Your debts, your future, your next breath, all mine."

He stands in one fluid motion that makes me notice things I shouldn't.

The span of his shoulders. The casual power in every movement.

"Pack light," he says, already walking away. "You won't need much where you're going."

"And where's that?"

He pauses at the door, looks back. His smile is all predator.

"Home."

2

BELLE

This has to be the fanciest prison in the world.

Fine, prison is a stretch. Real prisons don't let you lock yourselfin.

Which is exactly what I do the second those walking refrigerators in suits deposit me here like lost luggage.

"Your room, Miss Donovan," one says, like I've checked into the fucking Ritz.

The lock clicks under my fingers. Pathetic protection, but it makes me feel better.

I sag back against the door and slide to the floor, my head dropping into my trembling hands.

All of me is shaking, with rage, shock, and I'm pretty sure a dozen other emotions I've never had to identify before, because my life was relatively normal.