Blood trailed down my arms from where the cuffs cut my wrists, and I kicked the stairs, growling my frustration as I thrashed.
“I’ll kill you!”
“You know,” my father started as if he hadn’t heard me, “between your brother’s girl and yours, I can’t tell who’s got the better piece of ass.” He narrowed his dark blond eyebrows, thinking.
“The blonde is more athletic. Nice thighs,” he continued, his jeans-clad legs sauntering over to Juliet sitting in a kitchen chair in the middle of the foyer. Another man—a friend of my father’s, I assumed—had his hands on her shoulders, keeping her in place.
“But your little brunette here?” He ran a finger up her bare arm, and I clenched my fists, my stomach blazing like a bonfire.
“She’s petite but a handful in all the right places.” He smiled and turned to me. “My sons sure know how to pick ’em.”
I locked eyes with Juliet, seeing the fear on her face that was almost completely covered by her hair. Her cheeks were dry, but I could tell by the way she fingered her scar that she wasn’t okay.
My father’s blond hair had grayed over the years, but his blue eyes still pierced the darkness. Even though the wrinkles showed a hard life spent abusing his body, he still stood strong and muscular, and it made me sick.
I should’ve let Ciaran kill him in prison.
I breathed in and out, lowering my voice. “Touching her will be the last mistake you ever make. Don’t be stupid,” I said to his friend, a heavy-set man about the same age as my father, tall with greasy black hair.
Juliet started crying, and I shot my worried eyes to her.
“Please don’t hurt us,” she sobbed. “Please, Mr. Trent! Just—just let me leave Jax’s house! Please!”
I blinked. Let me leave?
And that was when I noticed it. The Gear I’d given her.
She hadn’t been holding her wrist and fingering her scar. She’d been holding her wrist, pretending to cower, as she used the fucking phone.
Holy shit. I hadn’t seen her dial, and I hadn’t heard it ringing—which I would since it was a speakerphone. Thank God she’d been smart enough to mute the sound.
I swallowed down my pride in her, afraid it would give us away.
“Please don’t hurt me!” Her shoulders shook as she clasped her hands in front of her chest. “Please! Just let me leave. I won’t tell anyone. Please let me leave Jax’s house!”
Her head hung low, the long strands of her chocolate hair falling around her and covering the fact that she was talking into her watch.
My father raised a knife, and I … my knife. I swallowed, realization hitting me. He had my knife. From my pocket.
He slipped it inside the V of my shirt that she was wearing and traced her skin with the blade.
I jerked, fighting the fucking cuffs. “Stop!” I bellowed. “Just let her go, and you can deal with me!”
He turned his head, regarding me. “What do you think I’m doing?”
The knife dipped down under the hem of the shirt sitting at her thighs, and I felt the bile rise in my throat.
No.
He was touching her, and I felt the fire on my face as I growled against the restraints, damn near ripping my goddamn shoulders out of their sockets.
“Fuck!” I kicked and pounded.
Tears blurred my eyes, and I gasped, desperate, because I couldn’t get free. Please not your hands. Don’t touch her with your hands. Please.
I let my head fall back as I threatened, “You shouldn’t have come here. It was a mistake.”
“No, no.” He yanked Juliet up under her arm and dragged her over to me. “Your mistake was in ignoring me.” He stared down. “There was a time when you needed me, and I helped. Now I want what’s owed to me.”
“I owe you nothing!” I shouted.
And then he held the knife up to her throat, and I sucked in a breath.
“Your arrogance is going to get her hurt,” he warned, and I saw a tear fall down her frozen face.
“Now we’re going upstairs to your little computer room.” He dug out a small piece of paper from his pocket and showed me. “And you’ll have exactly five minutes to access this account and transfer everything in it into this account.” He pointed with his finger. “At minute six, he starts having a lot of fun with her.” And he jerked his chin to his friend behind them.
My father was a lot of things, but he definitely didn’t make threats he didn’t intend to keep. Something Jared and I inherited.
I shifted my eyes to Juliet, seeing that her smart watch was still on and wondering how much time I had. My father wouldn’t hurt me—not fatally as long as he could use me—but he’d hurt her. In a moment he’d hurt her without any hesitation from his sick, twisted mind.
And this was what I’d wanted her to be a part of? What if I gave her kids and we ended up getting terrorized by him again? Or what if he took her with him today?
He couldn’t be allowed to leave.
Juliet yelped, and I snapped my eyes up, seeing a thin line of blood surface as the knife trailed down her neck.
“Stop!” I yanked at the cuffs, kicking the banister, knowing it wouldn’t break. “Fuck! Leave her alone!”
“Are you ready, then? Huh?” He pulled the knife away and bellowed, “Now do you fucking get it, you worthless little bastard?”
At hearing one of the names he was always fond of calling me, I felt my throat ache with tears and then I exhaled. “Fine,” I gritted out. “Just stop touching her.”
I saw him relax and smile. “There.” He nudged Juliet. “He does love you. Now go sit your ass down, and be a good—”
She slammed him across the face, cutting him off.
Oh, no.
With both fists locked together, she knocked him to the side again, making him stumble, and I watched with fear and awe as she snatched my knife out of his hand and ran for the kitchen.
Fuck.
I started yanking at the cuffs again, but the other guy was on her before she got far. He lunged, pushing her down to the floor as they both fell, and she kicked her legs as he tried to catch hold.
“Help!” she screamed, trying to scurry away. “Help! Someone, help!”
“Come back here,” the other man growled, ripping her shirt as she thrashed.
“Don’t touch her!” I yelled, struggling against my raw wrists, stinging the torn skin even more.
“Stop her!” my father yelled, and grabbed a gun I hadn’t seen out of the back of his pants.
But then I heard the other man cry out, and I snapped my eyes over to see him holding his face, a deep red slash marring his face.
Juliet scampered backward as he stumbled away from her, and I watched her come to her feet, holding my knife out and looking at my father.
And her eyes went wide when she saw the gun to my head.
“You’re killing him,” my father threatened, pressing the nozzle to my temple.
I blinked long and hard, a dozen different scenarios of what to do running through my mind. The cuffs cut into my skin and held me too tight. I hated this. I fucking hated this!
“How can you do this?” Juliet shook her head. “He’s your son.”
“That’s right,” my father shot back. “He is. He’s my son.” And then he looked down to me, baring his smoke-stained teeth with every word. “Your mother didn’t want you, so who took care of you? Huh? Who cleaned up your mess in the basement? I built you. I’m all you’ve got, Jax.”
No. I had a family. Jared, Katherine, Madoc. Juliet. I had a family.
“Get away from him.” I heard Juliet’s voice as I held my father’s eyes.
“You know it’s true,” he pressed, looking at me calmer now. “She’ll leave. All bitches do. You won’t be good enough. You won’t make enough money. She’ll find something wrong with you or another guy.”
No. She loves me.