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Kidnapped by the Billionaire(120)

By:Jackie Ashenden


He’d given up everything he’d been working toward for so long, for her.

And she’d taken it away from him.

The tears slid down her cheeks and a sudden wave of fury gripped her, so tight she could hardly breathe. Because here she was, sitting passively in this car, letting herself be taken away by yet another man. Letting herself be used the way they’d all used her at one point or another. A pawn of her father, of Elijah, and now of Theo.

And you’re still a pawn. You think that move back there was you choosing a side? That wasn’t a choice. That was reflex.

She swallowed. Fuck, she was so sick of this. Sick of being taken. Sick of being rescued.

Perhaps it was time she did some rescuing of her own. But not herself, because quite frankly, she didn’t deserve it. Didn’t need it. But there was another person who did. Who had no one to save him. No one but her.

It didn’t matter what he’d meant when he’d told her that she had him. What mattered was that he needed to know that he had her. And if he didn’t want her, then she’d just have to live with that.

The car slowed as it approached an intersection, then came to a stop for a red light.

Violet waited a moment.

Then she pulled open the door very, very quietly and slipped out.

* * *

Elijah stood in the middle of Gabriel Woolf’s downtown office, his arms folded, not making any move to break the silence that filled the room. A silence so thick you could have cut it with a knife.

Before he’d gone to get Violet, he’d agreed with the others that they’d meet back at Gabriel’s office on the fiftieth floor of the Woolf Construction building. He hadn’t wanted to. What he’d wanted was to take her back to his own apartment and keep her there, possibly forever, but naturally enough Woolf and his friends wouldn’t have been happy with that arrangement.

They were even less happy about it now that he hadn’t actually gotten Violet at all.

Behind him huge windows gave a magnificent view out over Manhattan, the sun glittering off glass and steel, the concrete jungle in all its glory. But he didn’t turn around to see it. He didn’t give a shit about views. Not when all he could see were the tears sliding down Violet’s cheeks. Not when he knew that walking away had been one of the best things he’d ever done. And one of the hardest.

“You bastard,” Woolf said furiously at last. “I can’t believe you left her with him.”

“You expected me to drag her kicking and screaming from the building?” He met the other man’s gaze head-on. “She was free to make a choice and she made it.”

Pity it wasn’t the one he wanted.

“You didn’t seem to find that a problem last week.” Woolf’s voice was a growl.

Fuck, they wouldn’t understand and he wasn’t going to explain it to them. He could barely explain it to himself. Giving up the work of nearly a decade for one lovely woman’s tears.

Giving up the one chance he had—because he knew there’d never be another—to avenge Marie’s death. And all because he couldn’t stand to hurt Violet.

He was a fucking liability, that’s what he was. Soft and weak and vulnerable. His ex-boss would have laughed himself sick if he’d known what his hard-as-nails henchman had fallen to.

Anguish stirred inside him, and a despair he’d been trying to keep at bay the whole time he’d made his way from the broken-down apartment building in Alphabet City to Woolf’s office. But like blood in the water, it crept out, staining everything.

He wouldn’t see her again. And not because that was actually what he wanted, but because she’d made her choice and he had to respect that.

Us monsters have to stick together.

Why she thought she was a monster he had no idea, because a woman less likely to be one he’d yet to meet. Nevertheless, that didn’t change the fact that she hadn’t chosen him. Not unsurprising, given all he’d done to her and yet it still hurt, a subtle pain that worked its way inside him, like a splinter heading straight for his heart.

But, shit, he had to ignore that. He had things to do. An empire to take over and bring down. Yes, it would be that much harder with Jericho still alive, but he’d do it anyway. At least he’d try.

After all, it wasn’t as if he had better things to do.

“Yeah, well, I changed my mind.” He stared at Woolf, his fingers suddenly itching to do violence. “I already took her choices from her once before, I’m not doing it again.”

“So you thought leaving her with her fucking monster brother was a better idea?”

“He wouldn’t hurt her.”

“And how the fuck would you know that?”