Page 260 of Corrupted Kingdom

This was it. Our final moments. I’d always wondered what would happen if the house of cards came crashing down, and now I knew. This.

Death.

Turns out, I didn’t much like waiting to die.

‘You’re going to kill us,’ I spat at Emilio. ‘What are you waiting for?’

He didn’t stop pacing as he locked those cold, dead eyes on me. ‘A call. I’m waiting for a call from my son. He went to your house, John, assuming that’s the first place you’d hit. Such a family man, we all thought you’d go back for your daughter before stopping here. Who knew?’

John growled, straining against the stronghold his three club brothers had on him.

‘I wonder what they’ll do with your precious daughter,’ Emilio mused.

‘I’ll fucking kill you if you touch her!’ John roared, lunging over the desk.

Emilio smiled. ‘I won’t touch her,’ he said, smirking. ‘But I will watch.’

* * *

They locked me in a room by myself and left me there. It was more of a broom closet really, full of cleaning supplies and towels. There was nothing sharp. No windows. The best hope I had was to try to set something on fire. I’d probably die very quickly, though. So I refrained.

I paced the tiny room, once my eyes had adjusted to the darkness. At least I paced until I heard the screams coming from downstairs. Once I heard those screams I started screaming. It didn’t matter, though. Nobody came to let me out.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

DORNAN

Dornan didn’t quite know what he was doing. It was as if his need for vengeance had overtaken his mind. He’d gone to John’s house in search of John, with a bag of smack as a bribe to get Caroline to tell him where John had gone if he wasn’t there.

Caroline didn’t tell Dornan anything. But it didn’t matter. He’d handed over the heroin willingly. He’d taken her child as payment.

Juliette. The baby he’d taken in after Caroline abandoned her in the hospital in search of her next fix. The baby who John hadn’t been able to meet until she was already months old and staring into Dornan’s eyes like he was her daddy. The only parent she’d known from birth. They’d always had a special bond, he and Julie.

And now he had taken her from her home, and he was going to hurt her. The darkness inside him clamoured for her blood, even though part of him was distraught at the prospect of what he was about to do. He was about to take that girl he’d once thought of as his own, the girl who meant more to John Portland than breathing, more than air, more than living . . . and Dornan was going to destroy her.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. A life for a life. John had taken everything from Dornan. He’d taken Stephanie. He’d taken Jason. He’d taken Mariana.

And so Dornan would take Juliette from John. Break her into little pieces so that she could never be put back together again. It was a fitting revenge for such a systematic betrayal.

‘Please,’ Juliette begged, tied to a chair on the empty stage of the strip club. Before her stood a video camera on a tripod, a flashing red light indicating that it was recording. He would hurt her. He would break her, and then he would force John to watch the highlights reel.

‘Dornan!’ she implored. ‘You don’t have to do this!’

But he did have to do this. Because in that moment, he didn’t even see Juliette, the girl he’d treated like one of his own. He didn’t see his father, watching silently from the floor below.

He only saw Stephanie, crying as he beat her half to death. The woman who’d taken his heart, and his son, and his hope that he could ever be something better than what he was.

He saw John. The man who he’d trusted above all else, the man who’d now taken not one, but two women he loved, and made them despise him. Yes, in the girl’s green eyes he saw treachery and betrayal, but most of all, he saw her fear, and he liked it.

John had taken Stephanie. Sent her away. John had taken his son in the process, and now Jase hated him. His own father. John had taken his youngest son once, and now he was planning to take him again? Yes, as if the betrayal was not cutting enough, John and Mariana had been planning to take Jason when they fled town.

John had stolen Mariana from Dornan. And she had gone to him, like a moth to a flame, like none of the shit they’d been through in the past ten years had ever happened. Dornan had risked his life for her, taken a bullet for her, left his wife and married her! He would have fucking died for her, and none of it mattered, because she wanted John.

He’d always vowed to protect this girl, Juliette. But he didn’t protect her. He took a knife and cut her clothes from her body, and when she was naked and sobbing he told his sons to destroy her.

And they had tried. All of them. All except Jason, who’d been found and brought to the strip club, kicking and screaming blue murder, who was now unconscious at Dornan’s feet because he’d been so distraught at the sight of Chad laying his body upon Juliette’s and violating her. All six of his older sons had done as Dornan had told them to. Some more willingly than others. They’d all walked away after committing different variations of the same heinous act upon the defenceless girl, and she was still here. She was still breathing.

She was a fighter, like her daddy. It was going to take more to break her.