Page 22 of Beast

Although, I get the feeling he isn’t.

I mean, I don’t know this guy from a bar of soap but there’s something in his gruff demeanor that makes me believe him.

“Yes,” Beast says.

“Will you take me to him?”

“In due course.”

“When?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

I cross my arms and glare at him. “Of course I do, asshole. Wouldn’t you in my situation?”

He glares back at me and then grunts.

Did he just agree with me?

I want to yell and demand more information, but I have a feeling it will be a waste of my energy. Beast isn’t going to give me anything if he knows I really want it. He’ll use that kind of information as a card up his sleeve. Something to barter for my submission, no doubt.

“I’ve had time to think,” he says.

“How keeping me a prisoner is a felony that comes with lengthy jail time?”

He ignores me. “About what I am going to do with you.”

“Does it involve showing me the front door and sending me on my merry way?”

He ignores me. “You have a debt to repay and I have decided on a repayment.”

“What debt?”

“Your uncle borrowed money from this club."

I let my arms fall to my side and take a giant step away from him. “You’re lying.”

With a grunt, he removes a folded letter from the breast pocket of his leather cut and hands it to me. “He borrowed twenty-five thousand dollars.”

I hold the contract with a shaky hand and the letters swirl across the paper as nausea sweeps through me.Twenty-five thousand dollars.

“This can’t be,” I whisper.

“He signed it.”

Beast isn’t lying. At the bottom of the page is my uncle’s distinctive signature.

Twenty-five thousand dollars… This can’t be happening.

I knew Uncle Maurice’s gambling had gotten bad. But I had no idea he had borrowed money to feed his addiction.

I suddenly feel dizzy. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Beast doesn’t move. Doesn’t show any compassion. Instead, he charges forward with laying down the law.

His law.

“You will be my wife.” He says it so matter-of-factly at first I think I misheard him.

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