Chapter Five
Elena
I had no idea what kind of abyss I was calling into.
But anything was better than being ground into the dirt by these animals.
In the chaos of grabbing hands and clawing fingers, I managed to dial the number I knew by heart—blindly, frantically—and hit call, then crushed the phone beneath my body.
It rang once. Just once.
"Help me! VIP Room One at Club Dusk!"
I screamed it with everything I had.
Crack.
Chris caught on. His palm connected with my face hard enough to make the room explode into white.
The phone flew from my grip and skidded across the carpet.
"You little bitch. Who were you calling? The cops?"
He ground his heel into the screen, shattering it, then blew a lazy smoke ring down at me.
"In this place, even the chief of police answers to me first."
The others closed in, leering, and lunged.
I fought back with everything—teeth, nails, knees, feet. I raked one man's arm open until blood ran freely. I bit down on another's wrist and didn't let go until the taste of copper filled my mouth.
While they were still howling, I scrambled off the floor and threw myself into the private bathroom, slamming the lock behind me.
I pressed my back against the door, gasping, shaking so hard I could barely stand.
Their curses seeped through the wood. Then—the handle began to turn.
They'd gotten a staff member to override the lock.
There was nowhere left to run.
"Think you can hide from me, you little slut?!"
Chris grabbed a fist of my hair and dragged me out like I weighed nothing.
The others swarmed.
Rip. My dress came apart in their hands, torn into strips.
Tears burned at the corners of my eyes, but I clenched my jaw and swallowed every sound. I would not beg. Not for them.
And then—
BOOM.
The door exploded inward.
By then, all I had left was a black lace bra.
"Who the hell dares—!" Chris spun around, roaring.
The words died in his throat.
Black dress shoes moved across the carpet with quiet, deliberate steps.
Arthur Kingsley.
He hadn't even stopped to grab his jacket—just his shirt, collar open at the throat. His dark eyes held something that could have burned the entire room to cinders.
Two rows of bodyguards flanked him from behind. Every member of the club's security staff was already pinned to the corridor floor, motionless.
"Unc—Uncle?!"
Chris's legs buckled. The cigar slipped from his fingers and landed on his own foot. He didn't dare move to shake it off.
Arthur's gaze swept the room.
It stopped on me—sitting disheveled on the couch, cheek swollen and red, barely clothed.
Something shifted in his pupils. The pressure radiating off him surged.
"You just said," he began, turning toward Chris, one step at a time, "that anyone who walks in here has to answer to you first?"
"No—no, that's not—Uncle, let me explain!" Chris was shaking apart at the seams. "It was her—it was Elena! She was throwing herself at my friends, trying to sell herself to clear a debt! I was just—I was doing you a favor, teaching her a lesson—"
Arthur stopped in front of him.
"Is she yours to touch?"
His foot came up and drove into Chris's chest like a battering ram.
"Ahhh—!"
Chris crashed backward into the liquor cabinet. Bottles exploded. Expensive whiskey and blood ran together across the floor.
"Chris!!!"
Dorothy collapsed completely, a spreading stain beneath her, the smell sharp and immediate.
The others dropped to their knees before Arthur had even looked at them, slapping themselves across the face in frantic, pathetic apology.
"Mr. Kingsley—we didn't know she was yours! We swear we didn't know! Please—please spare us—"
He didn't spare them a glance. He turned to his personal assistant.
"Before sunrise tomorrow, I don't want to see a single asset left standing under either of their family names."
"Yes, sir." The assistant bowed without hesitation.
One sentence. Delivered without inflection. Three families, erased.
All three of them went gray and folded to the floor.
When the matter was settled, Arthur walked toward me.
He crouched in front of the sofa, his gaze traveling over what little remained—the black lace against my skin—and something savage moved behind his eyes. Something that looked very much like the urge to destroy.
My head was spinning from the blows. The ringing in my ears was growing louder. The edges of my vision were dissolving.
The air conditioning blew cold against my bare skin, and I couldn't stop shaking.
Just before the darkness took me, I heard his voice at my ear, each word measured and deliberate:
"For thirty million, you'd let yourself be reduced to this—and still you wouldn't come to me."
A pause.
"Is that how cheap you are, Elena?"
