Chapter 3: I'll Never Marry You
1314 Words
[Sloane's POV]
“Get in.” His voice was low yet commanding.
How the hell did he find me was the only thing I was thinking.
“Go to hell!!” I yelled through the storm, trying to hide the desperation.
He didn't blink. “I already own a piece of it. So get in the car now, don't make me repeat myself.” His voice was low, but firm.
"I'd rather walk into the road and get hit by an upcoming vehicle than get into that car with you.” I said trying to force myself to stand straight even though I was already freezing to death.
“Well, that can be arranged too.” He said it so evenly that I almost missed the threat hidden in it ... .almost.
He unbuckled his seatbelt, slowly, deliberately, like he had all night and the storm was simply waiting on him.
The rain streamed down his jaw and soaked the shoulders of his black coat, but he didn’t seem to notice. He made no move to wipe it away. He just sat there, watching me with the same unnerving calm, as if the storm was nothing more than background noise. "But your father's debt only clears if you're breathing, Ms. Ashford. So let's not test how creative I get when people waste my time."
"I was told you'd be difficult."
"You were told right." I backed away a little, my bare feet sinking into the mud at the road's edge. "I'm not getting in a car with a murderer."
“You don't know that for sure.” He said it too casually which irritated me even more.
“You shot two men!” I spat out the words like something bitter. I could still hear the gunshots in my head.
“I'm not to blame for that.”
“I watched you put a gun to my father's head.”
“Yet he's still breathing.” I could see he was getting impatient now.
"You're disgusting. You and my father, both of you, trading me like I'm some piece of used furniture ...."
"Furniture doesn't talk back Ms. Ashford." He stepped out into the storm, unhurried, like the weather answered to him too. "You should be more careful. I find the talking back almost charming…Almost.”
"I don't care what you find charming. I'm not getting in that car.”
“Oh you will Ms. Ashford.” His voice was icy cold and it sent shivers down my spine. “And I'm gonna make you.”
“Over my dead body.” I said while trying to make it back to the woods, but his large arms caught me…too fast. His hand closed around my jaw tilting my face up into the headlights like he was inspecting something he'd already bought. "Look at me when I'm talking to you."
I spat at him.
It landed on his cheek. For one suspended second, neither of us moved. The rain kept falling. Somewhere behind his eyes something shifted… not rage, nothing so easy as rage. I expected him to be furious but his expression was unsettling. He was Amused…almost, the way a man is amused by an animal that hasn't learned yet that it's caged.
He wiped it off with two fingers, slow, deliberate, and didn't look away from me once.
"Interesting." His voice had dropped an octave, quiet now in a way that made my skin crawl worse than shouting would have. "I was told you had a fight in you. I didn't expect you'd be stupid with it.”
Let go of me."
"No."
"I am not some… some asset you collect because my father couldn't pay his debts. I am a person…"
"You're a name on a contract your father signed in his own blood, metaphorically speaking. Tonight." His grip on my jaw tightened, just enough that the bones of his fingers pressed white against my skin. "Don't mistake my patience for negotiation. I don't negotiate. I never have. And it's not gonna start now. Ask anyone foolish enough to try."
"I'll scream."
"Scream." He said it like a dare, almost bored. "There's no one left on that estate who isn't already mine. The guards who didn't take my money took my bullets. Your father has gone into hiding, the moment you chose to escape from a contract signed already, because he knows what that means. So scream, Sloane. I promise you, it'll change nothing except how this goes for you in the next sixty seconds."
“What do you mean my father went into hiding?” I asked a little curious and angry.
“I don't have time for your quizzes.”
I swung at him.
He caught my wrist mid-air without even seeming to look, twisted it down and back until my whole arm screamed and my knees nearly buckled from the angle alone.
"That," he said softly, close to my ear now, his voice a low current under the rain, "was your last free shot. I'd think very carefully before you take another."
"You're a monster."
"I've been called worse by better people." He released my wrist only to grip my upper arm instead, hauling me toward the SUV with no more effort than dragging a sack of grain. "Walk.”
"No…"
"Walk, or I'll carry you over my shoulder like the disobedient little thing you're determined to be, and you can explain to whoever's watching from the windows when we get to my estate why the new Mrs. Delvecchio was already being dragged through the mud on night one."
The words new Mrs. Delvecchio hit me like ice water down my spine. I planted my feet, dug my heels into the gravel, twisted against his hold with everything left in my body, it was useless. He didn't even slow down.
“New Mrs. Delvecchio? What do you mean by that?” He didn't answer, but something flickered in his eyes…. something I couldn't explain. I tried to free myself from his grip but it was useless. He was way stronger than me.
"Stop fighting me." His voice didn't sound like a request. Nor even a warning anymore. Just a statement of fact, delivered the way a man states the weather.
"Never.” I stated evenly still trying to free myself from his grip.
He stopped and released his grip “ I told you, that was the last strike.” Something in his tone shifted, gone almost gentle in the worst possible way.
"I would have preferred you conscious for the drive. You're making this difficult for both of us."
"What does that….”
I didn't finish the sentence when his hands came up from his jacket and pressed against my nose. He moved fast before my body could react. The smell of chemicals turned my stomach.
"No…"
The word came out muffled, already dissolving at the edges. I clawed at his sleeve, at the iron band of his arm locked around me, and he simply held still through all of it, patient as stone, like my fighting cost him absolutely nothing.
"Shh." His mouth was close to my ear, his voice the last clear thing in a world going soft and dark at the corners. "You'll thank me for this later. Or you won't.
It makes very little difference to me either way."
My legs gave out first. The ground tilted, the storm smeared into streaks of black and silver, and his arm caught me before I hit the gravel… not gentle, just efficient, the way you catch something you don't want broken before delivery.
The last thing I saw was his face above mine, rain dripping off his jaw onto my cheek, his expression utterly, perfectly empty.
“I'll never be your bride” were the last words that escaped my lips before being swallowed by darkness.
- Writer
