Blood Money by Lana Sky

Chapter Eleven

Iget my wish. He pulls out of me but doesn’t go far, lying on his back within the tangled sheets. My lungs burn as I try to catch my breath while dragging my legs together, feeling his seed drip freely between them.

If my life weren’t already in question, I’d book an appointment at a clinic tomorrow—despite the implanted birth control I had placed in my arm just a few months ago. It’s advertised to be good for four years at least, but this night alone will put that to the test.

I’m never this reckless. Even Tristan never took me raw, and I don’t think he’s filled a condom with half as much as what I feel inside me now.

Sex, in my experience, is normally such a boring, casual thing.

Neither term can even begin to apply to what just happened with Domino. That was something far different and far more violating. It was destruction. Being dipped into hellfire.

My overall body throbs badly enough to have been burned. I’m moaning with every breath, shaking as the high wears off and reality sets in. My back is wet with more than just sweat. The stench of blood intrudes on his masculine flavor. It’s too much to handle all at once.

I just want to sleep.

But I can’t.

Lifting my head, I look at him, only to realize that he’s watching me. His eyes gleam, mockingly alert. I haven’t even begun to tire him.

“Your little stunt won’t get you anything from me,” he says bluntly.

Concealing my disappointment, I lick my lips and wince as my tongue strikes an open wound. He bit me. “I… I don’t want anything from you.”

“Bullshit.” He props himself on his elbows, an eyebrow raised with open suspicion. “You’re so used to seducing men; I’m surprised your cunt doesn’t have a credit card swipe. Did you think you could convince me to take you home if you fucked me? Be a good boy?”

I hate how he makes me sound.

“Then I’m sure I fit your standards,” I bite back, picturing Alexi. Only as the words leave my mouth do I remember that I wasn’t meant to see those photos.

And I might have just given away my entire fragile plan right on the verge of putting it into action.

“You don’t know a damn thing about what I want,” he counters, lying back, his eyes on the ceiling. As the seconds pass, I dare to hope that he missed my slip-up. “But if you thought to play your little mind games, it’s too late. You should have tried to fuck me that first night. I still hadn’t decided, then...”

“Decided to what?” I ask, falling right into the verbal trap he sprung.

“Sell you.”

I wait for him to laugh or taunt, or otherwise reveal the joke for what it is. A joke. When he doesn’t, I’m not surprised. Deep down, I think I already knew that his plans for me were far more nefarious than keeping me hostage.

And yet, even as my horror builds, all I can do is ask him, “Why?”

“Why else?” he replies, his tone as level as ever. We could be discussing the temperature of the room for all the emotion his voice conveys. “You are a Pavalos. You know better than anyone that the world runs on money.”

He’s right—and how much might he stand to gain by selling me? I don’t want to know.

Instead, I just pray he goes to sleep while I visually measure the distance between me and the vial. No longer is this a long shot attempt—it has to work. I’m so close. I only have to shift over an inch and reach beneath the mattress to grab it.

But then comes the logistics of getting the medicine into the syringe and injecting him without drawing his notice.

Worry about that as you go,a part of me warns. I’ve come too far to back down now.

“You aren’t curious,” he points out, reinforcing that he’s still very much awake. Fully in control. “I’ll admit, selling you might not have been my original plan—” I shiver as palpable anger stretches his voice taut. If this is him holding back, I shudder to imagine what his original plan may have been. “But then I asked myself, why disrupt what was already in place?”

I catch that low note in his voice. It’s a taunt, daring me to question.

“What do you mean?”

“Your boyfriend,” he says. “Tristan, was that his name? He’s been planning it for a while, Ada-Maria. To lure you somewhere far beyond your Daddy’s control. Arrange for a violent ‘kidnapping.’ Have you whisked away right under his nose and profit from selling you to an underground trafficking ring. It was a pretty solid plan when all is said and done. One I’m sure he didn’t devise on his own. All of it calculated to catapult him as the chosen media darling to speak out against the rampant violence against women crusade your father championed. Bravo—” he claps. “Sadly for him, he didn’t plan everything as meticulously.”

“You killed him,” I rasp, but some of my initial horror is tempered by the grim reality that I don’t believe he was lying.

My God…

I think back to how eager Tristan was to meet me, despite having blown off previous dates for important meetings or dinners with his father’s influential contacts. I suspected he was planning his own political run.

One of the main reasons my father sent me in his direction in the first place.

But this… It’s a level of ruthless, cruel calculation that has frankly become the norm in Terra Rodea. Everyone sees anyone else as either a prize to be won or a rung to step over on the ascent to power. Tristan, my father, Alexi. They’re all one and the same.

Ironically, the only person I ever suspected to be any different lies beside me now, the most cut-throat and cynical of them all.

“His plan didn’t go accordingly,” Domino says, in response to my last accusation. He sounds so unbothered by it all. So cold.

Any remaining heat on my skin cools, and I’m freezing—and yet this moment feels too fragile that I don’t dare slip beneath the covers.

“I always thought you were different from him,” I say, though I’m not sure why I choose now to make this confession. Though, there’s no better time than the present, especially if I can’t find a way to escape, my destiny leaves no other chance to say these words to him. In a sense, it’s cathartic to get them out. “My father. I used to think that you were too kind to belong in his orbit.”

“Kind,” he echoes with obvious skepticism at that word choice. “Was that before or after I performed hits on his enemies? Before or after I threatened his rivals and paid off the many women he fucked outside of his marriage? You have a warped perspective on kindness, Ada-Maria—”

“You were different,” I insist tiredly. On paper, his actions are just as horrific as Roy Pavalos’, but I always sensed an intangible quality to him that set him apart from the others. My father surrounded himself with cutthroats, cowards, and despots. None of them would drag me from a highway in the middle of the night without demanding something in return. None of them would make sure my mother always had her secret prescriptions filled while my father was too busy playing politician to care that she was dying.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but even I haven’t been there for her. I love her, but from a distance, admiring her gentle calm and the grace I never inherited. The reality is we’re virtual strangers. By the time I turned fifteen, she was already a specter in my father’s shadow, meekly agreeing to send me away to a school rather than go against him. And yet Domino deferred to her with perhaps even more reverence that he displayed toward my father. No one else blended duty with humanity the way he did. I saw it myself.

“So naïve,” he murmurs.

Something disrupts my matted, sweat-soaked hair—his hand, I realize, running over my scalp to smooth back the strands.

“So trusting. You hit the trifecta, Ada-Maria. Saint fucking Teresa herself.”

“You don’t have to mock me.” I shift away from him before I remember how important it is that I remain close to the edge, focused on my ultimate goal. I can’t let emotion distract me now. I’m so close.

“You’re right.” He starts to sit up, twisting toward the opposite end of the mattress.

“Wait!” I reach for him, desperate to keep him here any way I can. “Just tell me why. Just tell me, please!”

He pauses, reaching out to graze my jawline with the pad of his thumb. “I like you desperate,” he admits. “So eager to please. Keep this up, and you’ll fetch me a hefty penny at auction.”

I flinch. Auction? That term was designed to throw me off even more than he already has. It’s working.

“I just want to know,” I say, marveling at the fact that he hasn’t shrugged me off. “Were you planning to betray my family all this time? Please…”

“You seem very interested in initiating pillow talk,” he says softly. “I assumed your Tristan wanted to sell you for the clout and money it would garner him. I think I had it all wrong.”

It’s a low blow that resonates more deeply than I’ll ever admit. My eyes sting with the threat of tears. Suppressing them is my first impulse, but I can’t. They fall freely, and Domino’s eyes narrow.

He drags his thumb up to capture one, watching it break open against his skin.

“Fine,” I say, pulling away to curl onto my side. I’m taking a risk by doing so. But it seems to be the only way to reach him. To provoke him outright. “Leave. Prove me wrong. You’re just like him.”

I don’t turn to see how my words land. If anything, I almost hope he does leave. A million different realizations are waiting to descend the second he’s gone. I’ll have to face the aftermath of everything he’s revealed and everything I’ve done…

For now, he stays.

“I want to hear you say it,” he proposes, still in that unsettlingly deep tone. “You say you wanted me. Why? What gets little Ada-Maria’s pussy so damn wet?”

I cringe at the crass language. My only rebuttal is that same childish statement. “You were different.”

He’s sexy enough, but deep down, I can admit to myself that his personality was what kept me watching—the mystery of who Domino Valenciaga might be at his core.

Someone different, I’d hoped, far from the norm of bastards I grew up around.

And yet, he’s not satisfied. “How?” His fingers creep through my hair again, this time tugging as he goes, irritating my already sore scalp. “What about me was so damn special to you?”

“You could ignore me,” I croak, hating how pathetic my voice sounds in comparison to his. Weak. Vulnerable. He doesn’t scoff or deny me outright. No one could lie so tragically. “You didn’t treat me like some trophy. You watched everything and everyone. You seemed fair.”

Men in far lower positions of power than him lorded their influence greedily. As Roy Pavalos’ righthand man, he could have commanded an entire slew of lackeys and women in his own right.

Though, apparently, he had.

I’m dying to ask him about Alexi. How long has he been fucking her, and why? It couldn’t be for her thrilling intellect. It’s aggravating how deeply the bitch managed to integrate herself into my life. First Pia. Now any man I take an interest in.

No one in my orbit is spared her insidious influence.

My assessment of him, however, only seems to amuse Domino. He laughs. “A fair man with an interest in being easily seduced—” a sharp reminder of my last slip-up. Thank God he can’t see my face. “You watched me enough to categorize the women I fuck?”

There’s another taunt lurking somewhere within that phrasing. More importantly, I sense a trap. Damn.

“I… I didn’t have to,” I say carefully. “I saw the closet. You must keep this place busy with a wardrobe as large as that—and expensive. I don’t even think my wardrobe is as well stocked.”

And considering that my only value to my father extended to how I dressed and how he could use my appearance to his advantage, that says a lot.

Domino continues to chuckle, and I stiffen at the sound. It’s harsher. Angry? As if he didn’t mean for me to see that part of this room.

“I’ll make sure Ines is more careful when selecting your clothing from now on,” he warns, and I shudder at the thought of getting the woman into trouble. Though, as he continues stroking my hair, I get the sense that the brunt of his irritation is directed toward me. “As for your little assumption, you’re wrong. Four days ago, was the first time I ever set foot in this house. Not long enough to parade a stream of women through it, unfortunately.”

I marvel at that. He supposedly came here the same day as my abduction, or close to it. Meaning he’s been planning this for a while. Just how long? Perhaps since the day he was first hired…

“So you’ve killed my father. Then you sell me. And then what?” I ask, unsure if I even want to know the answer. “My father has enemies, but he has allies too. Men who will hunt you down like an animal.”

“You forget that I know those men far better than you do,” he points out. “I am always one step ahead, Ada-Maria. The police are still scanning the restaurant, hunting for clues of your disappearance.”

I notice that he specifically doesn’t mention my father. If he were really dead, all of Terra Rodea would be in an uproar, and any missing figure from my father’s orbit would be a suspect. His face is probably plastered all over the city on notices stating he’s wanted for questioning.

Which means wherever this place is, he’s confident no one will find me here. At least not right away.

“We aren’t near Terra Rodea,” I say, risking taking my eyes from him long enough to glance from the window.

“No. We are far away from Terra. Far from the state. Far from the country.”

And somehow, he managed all of this within hours, transporting me supposedly out of the country, all without catching the notice of the authorities.

“Why me?” I ask him, returning my gaze to his face. “I never did anything to you.”

“You want to sleep, then sleep,” he says. “The rumors were true—your mouth is much more bearable with a cock stuffed in it.”

I cringe, my face heating. I hate the thought of him throwing those rumors in my face. Rumors I know for a fact were driven by Alexi.

But he’s right. I want to sleep. I want him to sleep, and hopefully when he does…

I’ll be ready to act.