Chapter 125 - ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE

Chapter 125: Chapter ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE

ANGEL

"Come to me, Angel." His voice was strained and wet with blood but still commanding. Still him. Still my Daddy. "Come to Daddy. Now."

I took a step toward him. Then another. His hand stretched toward me across the concrete, fingers reaching, desperate to touch me. Three feet away. Two.

"Don’t." Damien’s voice came from behind me, cold and certain. I heard the click of a hammer being pulled back. "One more step, Angel. One more step and I put a bullet through his skull. Right between those eyes. You’ll get to watch his brains paint the floor."

I froze. Caught between them. The man I loved reaching for me from the floor. The man I feared aiming at his head from behind me.

"Don’t listen to him, baby." Daddy’s dark eyes found mine, burning with something that went beyond love, beyond possession. "Come to me. He won’t shoot."

"Try me." Damien said quietly.

"Angel. Come." Daddy’s fingers stretched further, trembling with the effort.

"Angel. Stay." Damien’s voice was ice.

I couldn’t move. My body locked between two commands from two men who each owned a piece of me. Two men who had shaped me, broken me, loved me in their own twisted ways.

I didn’t see Jillian move.

Nobody did.

She’d been on the floor, forgotten, bleeding out from Daddy’s knife but not dead. She’d been crawling while we were all focused on each other, her broken body dragging itself across the concrete with sheer hatred fueling every inch of movement, her hand closing around a gun someone had dropped.

She aimed at Vincenzo.

The first shot hit him in the side. His body jerked, fresh blood blooming through his already-soaked shirt.

"THAT’S FOR SELLING ME!" Jillian shrieked from the floor, laughing and sobbing at the same time, her voice raw with hatred finally unleashed.

She fired again. This one hit near his shoulder. His body jerked once more and then went still.

So still.

Too still.

"DADDY! NO! NO NO NO DADDY PLEASE—"

"Now you know." Jillian rasped as she smiled, blood bubbling from her lips. "Now you know what it feels like to lose everything you love. To have it ripped away while you watch."

She swung the gun toward Damien. But Damien was faster—his weapon barked once, catching her in the chest. The gun dropped from her hand. This time when she fell, her body went truly still.

Right next to Daddy. Their bodies inches apart.

And I hated her for it.

The hatred burned through my grief like acid, hot and vicious and all-consuming. I hated her for dying beside him. For lying there next to my Daddy like she was his wife, like they were together in some final way that excluded me. That spot was mine. That space beside him belonged to me, not her. Never her.

I was already moving, dropping to my knees in Daddy’s blood, grabbing his shoulders, shaking him.

"Daddy. Wake up." My hands were on his chest, pressing against the wounds, his blood hot and slick between my fingers. "Please wake up. Please."

Nothing.

No response.

No flutter of eyelashes or twitch of his fingers.

He was gone.

My Daddy was dead.

"I’m sorry. I’m so sorry." The words poured out of me in a flood. "I shouldn’t have left the house and gone to that stupid club. I should have stayed home like you told me. If only I’d listened..."

I pressed my forehead against his chest, against the wet ruin of his shirt, listening desperately for a heartbeat.

Nothing.

Just dead silence where his heart should be beating.

"Please, Daddy. I’ll be good. I’ll be your good girl forever. I’ll never leave again. I’ll never disobey. Just please don’t leave me. Please. I can’t do this without you."

"He’s dead, Angel." Damien’s voice came from behind me, hard and impatient.

"He’s NOT dead!"

"He’s gone. We need to go."

"NO!"

His hands closed around my arms and hauled me to my feet, tearing me away from Daddy’s body. I

"I’ll kill you." I spat in his face. "If he dies, I swear on everything I am—"

"I know you will." He said it softly. Tenderly. "I know you’ll try. And I look forward to it. I look forward to every second of you hating me. Trying to destroy me."

He pressed my back against his chest, his arms wrapping around me like chains.

"Because you’re still going to be under me in my bed every night. And you will come on my cock no matter how much you hate me. That’s the beautiful thing about your body, Angel. It doesn’t care what your mind thinks. It knows who it belongs to."

Then he was dragging me through the door.

I fought him every step. My bare feet scraping on hardwood. My nails embedded in his arm. My voice making sounds that weren’t words anymore. Just raw, grief.

"LET GO OF ME! I HATE YOU!"

"You hated me on the island too." His grip never loosened. "It didn’t last. It never does with us."

"THIS TIME IT WILL! I’LL HATE YOU UNTIL I DIE!"

"Good. I want you to hate me with every breath. Plot my murder every time I touch you. It just makes the eventual surrender sweeter."

The last thing I saw before the door closed: Daddy on the floor. Blood pooling beneath him like a dark halo.

And Jillian crumpled beside him. Lying next to my Daddy. Taking something from me even in death.

Damien dragged me through the mansion and out into daylight. The cold air hit my naked body like a slap, biting into every wound and bruise, but I barely felt it. I didn’t feel anything except the numb horror spreading through me, freezing me from the inside out.

A black car was waiting, the engine already running

He shoved me inside and climbed in after me.

"Drive." He ordered.

The car lurched forward.

And I was in Damien’s arms again.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​