“What can I do to make you comfortable?”
“You can let me go, Gordon,” I snapped, standing up. “That’s what you can fucking do.”
His eyes flashed with something sinister as a slow grin stretched across his lips. “Still have that fire,” he murmured. “Missed that too.” He tipped his head to the cot. “Sit back down.”
“Fuck you,” I seethed, moving over to the wall and leaning back against it. I adjusted my hands at my back, hooking the zip tie on the screw.
Gordon simply smirked and shook his head. “Fine, stand. I don’t care either way. You’re back and that’s all that matters to me.”
“Back, where?”
He turned to face me. “With me.”
I cocked a brow. “Excuse me?”
“Babe, I didn’t spend all these years dealing with your dipshit of a brother for nothing.”
My spine snapped straight. “What?”
He gave me that damn grin again. “Did you honestly think I was going to let you walk away from me, Margo?”
No.
No.
No.
No.
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth.
A chuckle filled the air then, a direct echo from some of the most painful memories of my life. “I let your brother accumulate a debt with me while I built my empire. I knew Marcus had access to your account, babe. He fucking boasted about it any chance he could get. ‘My sister has the cash, don’t worry.’” He paused and pointed at me, smiling wide. “You walked away from me. You refused to let me try and make things right.”
“You beat me,” I whispered.
His hand fell away, his jaw tightening. “I was in a bad spot.”
“You were always in a bad fucking spot,” I shot back, leaning forward slightly, my hands working the zip tie now. “You never had enough money for rent; you never helped me take care of things. All you did was sit on the couch, jack off to cheap porn, and get high!”
He didn’t deny anything. He simply put his hand back into his pocket, planted his feet wide, and shrugged a single shoulder. “I’m a different man now—a better man. I told you I was going to give you the life you deserved, Margo. I meant that.”
He had told me that. That sweet promise whispered to me the night he took my virginity, was what I held on to. It was why I stayed so long. That promise instilled a false hope in me, a hope that I put on him. Night after night, while his friends came over to smoke, fuck strangers, and eat all the food I’d worked so hardfor, I lay on the mattress I’d found on the side of the road and told myself that one day he would keep that promise.
Then he started hitting me.
That’s when the hope began to die.
When hope was dead, my dignity rose out of his grave, and I left.
Better man, my ass.
“When I found the strength to leave you, I was covered in blood. My lip was split, and you had shoved me into the dirt.” He said nothing, staring at me as if I was his property. “I get to choose the kind of life I want,” I said, my voice firm.
He looked away from me, shaking his head to himself. “She doesn’t get it.”
“What, Gordon? What don’t I fucking get? I have a life. I have friends! I have two jobs, a home—I have a family.”
“Marcus and I are your family,” he said, his voice cold, looking at me again.