Page 187 of Morally Black Betrothal

I shook my head. “I can’t give you what you want. That’s not possible, and you know it.”

“Oh, no?” He pulled out a wrinkled packet of papers from his coat pocket and tossed them onto the floor for me to take.

I picked them up and spread them out. “A contract?” I almost had to respect the guy.Almost. At least he was prepared.

“A sale,” Huntington amended. “For half your shares in Blackguard Holding. A seat on the board. Voting rights.”

“You want my company,” I said. It was basically the same thing. “And I get what?”

“Aside from her life?”

“Brendan, don’t do it,” Mac whispered next to me. “Just keep him talking. I’ll get a shot eventually.”

“The farm.” I paged through the contract, something I’d never in my right mind sign under duress. Probably never at all. But…yep, he’d thought of everything. “You included the farm. My shares in exchange for the farm.”

“Brendan, no, it’s not worth it.” Simone’s voice shook with the effort not to lose it.

The gun at her temple didn’t move, but when I looked up, fear had creased her normally smooth brow, and a thin line of sweat fell over her temple. She looked like she was about to fall apart.

“Please,” she whispered.

I looked at Huntington. “You wouldn’t really do that. Commit murder. Where do you think you’ll be then?”

“How do you know what I wouldn’t do?” His eyes dilated, and I wondered if there was some other substance besides pride driving this insanity.

“Aunt Simone?” The small voice of Simone’s niece, the little girl who had been kidnapped just days ago, broke through the chaos as she crawled out from under her table to sit at Simone’s feet. She looked up at the gun pressed to her aunt’s head and screamed.

That was when the gun started to shake.

Fear choked every word I had.

No, I didn’t know what this fucker was capable of. What kinds of mistakes he might make if this standoff continued.

It only took one slip of his finger to pull that trigger, even by accident.

I knew what I had to do.

“Brendan, don’t,” Simone called. “He won’t shoot me. He won’t. He can’t.”

“Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do!” Huntington’s shriek was nearing Biblical levels right before he slapped Simone across the face.

I lunged again as the gun moved, flinching when I thought it might, justmight, go off.

Only Mac’s arm held me back. “Easy, Brendan.”

I could only feel one thing: the desperate, soul-searing need to see my girl safe. “Jesus, Ezra, don’t—Christ, fine, I’ll sign it. You can have it. You can have whatever the fuck you want. Just let them go. Let them all go.”

“So your goons can rush in here and take over? I don’t think so.” He nodded at the papers in my hand. “Sign it. Then we’ll talk.”

I could feel my carefully constructed world crumbling around me. My brothers would never forgive me. The board would revolt. Everything I’d ever worked for would be gone.

It only took one last look at Simone to know the rest didn’t fucking matter.

In a flurry, I signed the documents.

“Brendan,no!” Simone cried.

“It’s fine, angel,” I told her, though my voice shook on every word as I finished going through the contract.