Page 30 of Bound By Her

I needed you the last few days, and you weren’t there?

When she was young and her father was out of town, her mother would wake her up and bring her to the kitchen. She’d dish up a large bowl of ice cream, and they’d sit on the countertops and talk—just the two of them. No staff, no bodyguards, just them. Adria would tell her all the problems her little six-year-old mind could think of. Her mother would always say, “Tomorrow will be better.” And Adria would hold out her spoon and say, “Promise.”

Her mother would smile. It was a smile that would melt even the most frozen of spaces.

Now there were no promises. Every day, she struggled, and she longed for the days when she could just sit with her mother. Where she could tell her a problem and her mother could make it go away with the clink of a spoon.

Sure, she had held her own, created her own empire. But there was no escaping the overwhelming hole in her middle. Every day since her mother’sdeathhad been a variable nightmare, and once Adria had realized she was alive, she knew she would stop at nothing to get her back.

I see you are talking to me now.

X: Don’t be a child, I was busy trying to clean this mess up.

And?

X: I might have found an interested buyer.

I’ll have no shortage of buyers, I’m sure.

Bryson was not only a pain in the ass, he was a famous pain in the ass. People were going to come out of the woodwork, wanting to own him for a year. She sighed. In the state he was, she was going to have to slap a disclaimer on him.

Purchase at your own risk.

She made money from selling her submissives, but that wasn’t the true value in it. Being part of the Nine meant everyone you met was a criminal. It was a matter of finding out how depraved they were. Her stables were filled with paid stallions only. The people who were buying them knew that. It wasn’t human trafficking; it was a business. The patrons that came to her auctions had money. Enough money they could buy an unwilling submissive for a quarter of the price. But they didn’t. Because they weren’t monsters. That led to Adria meeting a lot of powerful, morally decent people.

And in her world, having the correct contacts was everything.

He didn’t come alone, his Right Hand and another came today.

X: Three?

Yes, not sure what to do frankly.

X: Keep them. More money.

More leverage.

...

Hadn’t Bryson said something similar? Did people think this entire process took no effort? Just take on more, Adria. You’ll make more. After all, that’s all she cares about, right?

X:My buyer has political pull in Brazil. He might be able to sanction Callen’s newfound land as an archaeological site. It will be useless then.

Interesting.

X: Won’t help our situation but we can stifle his. Just start training. I’ll be in touch.

Finally, a bit of good news. If she could leverage Bryson’s sale to hurt the Winters further, it might not help her mother, but she would feel a hell of a lot better about it. She put her phone in the drawer of her desk. Using the key on her neck, she locked it.

CHAPTER 8

NORTH CAROLINA

Bryson stared at the last bite of his pancakes, absently dragging his fork through syrup. He sat beside his brothers at the gleaming white marble breakfast bar, sunlight streaming in from the floor-to-ceiling windows behind them.

The Federov estate was nothing like he’d imagined. The daughter of the devil should’ve hated the light—but Adria’s home practically worshipped it. Sunlight poured in through every surface, illuminating a space that felt more like a modern sanctuary than the lair of a monster.

Back at his father’s, everything had been blood-red and gold, heavy with velvet and arrogance. But this place? It was bright. Crisp. Unsettlingly simple.

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