Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 149148 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149148 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Like that was possible with her tied spread-eagled on the four-post bed. The thought was ludicrous, and she would have laughed if she wasn’t so scared it would start her descent to hysterics and, eventually, insanity.
Since her operation, Manolito liked visiting her at odd hours of the day, donning a fresh pair of surgical gloves before he inserted his fingers into her body. It was as if he wanted assurance that her newly reconstructed hymen was truly there, and that it was as flimsy as the doctor said it was.
One time, he had caught her looking at him, and he said, “I don’t want to feel your flesh against mine, my dear. Not just yet. I want our first time to be special.”
The memory of it made her stomach heave, and she looked at James despairingly. He was seated next to the door, smoking, a bored look on his face. “Why?” she demanded again, her voice scratchy with tears she didn’t want to shed.
James finally looked at her, and the hatred on his face stunned her. “You still don’t get it, do you? Stupid cunt. You’re not my own flesh and blood. You’re the fucking remembrance of your mother’s whoring days, and I’ve always hated the sight of you. I would have left you for dead – would have killed you with my bare hands if I thought I could get away with it.”
He stood up, and when James stalked towards her, MJ could feel herself shrinking away from her father – no, from James – even if she didn’t want to.
His fingers wrapped around her jaw in a painfully tight hold. “It gave me so much fucking joy to torture you. It was like screwing your dad over and over, and he didn’t even fucking know it,” James bragged with a vicious smile.
When James released her and walked back to his seat, MJ felt something black and heavy grow inside her. It was...hatred, she realized, and she welcomed the emotion, knowing that it may be another way to keep herself alive.
“I hate you,” she whispered. And she did. She really did. Thinking of all the years she had wasted, trying to win his love when he wasn’t even her father, made MJ want to weep. But she couldn’t. She had lost the strength to even care, and her hatred was just a cold spark inside her. All she knew was that she only had one source of hope left, one person who had really, really loved her.
Helios.
But he wasn’t here to help her, was he?
If she wanted to live, she had to cling on to what was real, and that was her hatred.
“Like I fucking care.” James yawned as he took his seat.
“You should,” MJ advised him tonelessly. Looking at him, she no longer saw a man she might have been able to love or respect. She looked at him and saw a walking corpse, looked at him and imagined the hundreds of ways she could have him killed. “Before this is over, I’ll make you pay.”
There was no emotion behind the words, and somehow it was that very reason which made James pause. He tried to ignore the feeling of someone walking over his grave, and he told himself he was just imagining things when he saw his own death in the young girl’s eyes. She was a stupid cunt, always was, always had been. He had nothing to worry about.
Chapter Three
“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU to MJ, Katya Vlahos?”
The normally tidy and fashionable young woman was disheveled and unkempt. Dark bags underlined her eyes, and she looked like she had been wearing the same set of clothes for days. She had told them to meet her at the hotel rather than her dorm, which aroused their suspicions. But now that they had met, nothing about the Greek heiress added up.
The knob behind them twisted, someone unlocking the door from outside. Everyone tensed, hands ready to pull out guns they had started keeping with them ever since MJ had been taken. To others, it might seem like they were college students playing cops and robbers. If only it was so. In their lives, all of them had, at one point or another, found a life-threatening need to use a gun. There were just a paltry few people they could trust when one had billions of dollars in the bank.
“Relax.” Katya’s voice was weary. “It’s just my brother.”
No sooner had she spoken when the door opened and a tall, dark-haired man walked inside. His first concern was Katya, his eyes zeroing in on her with laser-sharp precision. The resemblance between the two was uncanny, and Helios knew this must be Ioniko Vlahos, one of Greece’s most eligible bachelors as well as being a billionaire in his own right.
“You are okay?” Ioniko murmured in Greek.