Page 168 of Corrupt Me

I yank the engagement ring from my finger and throw it at his face. “I’ve never been and never will be yours.”

He storms toward the door but stops in his tracks, turning back to glare at me. “I’m the only one who truly cares about you here. Don’t make me hurt you.”

“Try it,” I challenge, my voice defiant.

Knowing my friends are okay is the only thing that brings me some peace.

But then Eric opens his mouth again and says, “He won’t survive for long.”

Once I am alone, I make a dash for the door. The handle turns, but it doesn’t open, trapping me inside. With no way of communicating with my friends, despair clouds my judgment, but I shake it off.

Think.

By making Felix believe that I’m working with him, I could send my friends my location. With that plan in mind, I speak through the door, “I am ready to cooperate.”

I count the minutes until I get a reaction. But after two that pass more like an eternity, the door opens, and the bulk of a man says with a thick accent, “Move.”

Not wanting him to put his meaty hands on me, I pass him by. I take the wooden stairs up, arriving at an open space that looks more like a scene from a fairy tale than a prison. The red cement blocks and hardwood floors fit perfectly with the large windows that give a fantastic view of the forest—a place far removed from civilization.

“Get going,” he says, pushing me.

I snarl at him as I follow another guard, who jerks his chin to the right.

“Hey. What’s going on?” Eric asks, coming from the kitchen. Good to know he can eat undisturbed. Fury is a poor description of what is transpiring inside of me. I’d like to shove that toast down his throat until he chokes on his last breath.

No one answers him as we keep walking, which gives me great gratification. Eric is just a pawn, but at least he’s not a complete moron, realizing that too. His entire body strains as he trails after us.

We arrive at an office where Felix sits at a mahogany desk in front of a laptop. A leather glove covers his right hand. It gives me tremendous satisfaction knowing the reason he wears it. Abi and Dane got the best revenge on him.

“I expected it would take more, but you were always the softest in the group,” he says with a tinge of displeasure.

I’ll show him how weak I am when I not only get the money back that he stole from us, but I’ll put up so many firewalls no one in this freaking world will get close enough.

“You should have gone through the initiation. That would have made you tougher. I should have killed that old bitch sooner, and then everything else could have been avoided.”

“Cassandra is the matriarch, as it should be, according to the firstborn right.”

At her name, a flicker of emotions passes through his eyes before they settle into a cold glint. “I’ll enjoy killing that whore next.”

“What will happen afterward, Father? Will you sail into the sunset with my mother?”

“She’s too desperate for my tastes. I got what I wanted from Rebecca.”

His eyes gleam as they settle on me. He’s so far up the ladder of his own self-importance that I can’t wait to knock him down. Soon, he’ll know my mother one-upped him by getting pregnant with his best friend’s baby. That betrayal will be the last thing he thinks about before he dies.

Felix stands and pours himself a glass of whiskey from the shelf in the corner. He should enjoy it—it will be his last. Then, he gestures to the chair in front of his laptop, eyeing me intently. “Don’t play games with me. I wish I’d known about your talent sooner. None of this would have happened.”

It’s clear what he truly longs for: control of the Family. Nothing compares to that kind of power, and he’s desperate to reclaim it.

With every step I take, tension thickens in the air. You couldn’t cut it with a butcher knife.

I sit in front of the computer, and Eric, completely misreading the room, says, “She won’t have to work anyway once she becomes my wife.”

I ignore him just as the rest of the room does.

I don’t have much time, and I need to hurry with Felix over my shoulder, watching like a hawk. He can’t even begin to keep up with how fast I type. Programs open and close rapidly, and within moments, I realize our stolen ten million is gone. Another twenty million more followed, surely funds from the Whitneys—Eric’s parents, but not much is left of that either.

No wonder he’s so desperate. All his accounts are frozen, and he’s in frantic need of more money. Glancing at the hired muscle around us, it’s clear they wouldn’t grant mercy once the money stops flowing.

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