Page 23 of The Beast's Captive Bride
The car stops at the front entrance. I straighten from the monitors, checking the gun once more before heading through the maze of halls toward the grand foyer. I position myself at the top of the sweeping staircase, where I'll have the high groundwhen he enters. A petty power play, perhaps, but I've dreamed too long of this moment to waste a single advantage.
The front door opens, and there he is—Richard Lockhart, the man who crushed everything I built, who stole my fiancée, who left me bleeding out in an alley with my throat half-opened by his thugs' knives. He's aged since that night fifteen years ago. Silver threads through his once-golden hair, lines bracket his mouth, but his eyes are the same—Amber's eyes, eerily similar in color but lacking her warmth, her compassion. His are chips of cold blue glass, calculating even now as they scan the foyer and land on me.
"Blackwood." He spits my name like a curse. "Where's my daughter?"
I descend the stairs slowly, deliberately, enjoying the way he has to crane his neck to maintain eye contact. He was always shorter than me, but the difference seems more pronounced now—him in his expensive suit that can't quite hide his softening middle, me in black from head to toe, harder and more lethal than the last time we met.
"Hello, Richard." I smile, showing teeth. "You're looking well. Prison would have suited you better, but I suppose wealth has its own preservative qualities."
His jaw tightens. "Cut the bullshit. I'm here for Amber."
"Amber," I repeat, savoring the name, knowing how it will wound him. "You mean my wife?"
The blow lands exactly as intended. His face drains of color, then flushes with rage. "You're lying."
I hold up my left hand, the wedding band gleaming dully in the light. "Perfectly legal. Judge Jenkins officiated. I believe you know him? He certainly remembers you—something about a bribery scandal you narrowly escaped."
"You forced her," he snarls, taking a step toward me. "Whatever sick game you're playing?—"
"No games, Richard. Just justice, long overdue." I close the distance between us, towering over him. "Fifteen years I've waited to see that look on your face. The same one I wore when I realized you'd stolen everything from me."
"You delusional bastard." He doesn't back down, I'll give him that. "You kidnapped my daughter. I'll see you rot in prison."
"Will you?" I reach out, faster than he can react, and grip his expensive silk tie, using it to pull him closer. "Who's going to put me there? Your pet cops? Your bought judges? They're not here, Richard. It's just you and me and fifteen years of debt to settle."
Fear flickers in his eyes, quickly masked. "My men?—"
"Are currently enjoying my security team's hospitality." I smile again, cold and sharp as a blade. "No one's coming to save you. Just like no one came for me that night in the alley."
Before he can respond, I drive my fist into his stomach. He doubles over, gasping, and I use the moment to twist his arm behind his back, immobilizing him with humiliating ease.
"You've gone soft, Richard," I murmur in his ear as I relieve him of his phone, his wallet, the small pistol holstered at his ankle. "Too many years behind a desk while others do your dirty work."
"You're insane," he wheezes. "You won't get away with this."
"I already have." I propel him forward, toward the door that leads to the basement. "Walk. Or I'll drag you. Either way works for me."
He walks, resistance futile against my superior strength and leverage. Down the stone stairs we go, into the cool dimness of the basement. Not the wine cellar or the modern storage area, but the oldest part of the house—stone walls and floor, a single bare bulb casting harsh light over empty space that once might have been a dungeon in centuries past.
I shove him into the chair I've placed there—solid oak, bolted to the floor. Before he can recover, I secure his wrists to the arms with zip ties, his ankles to the legs.
"There," I say, stepping back to admire my work. "Comfortable?"
He glares up at me, hatred burning through his fear. "You won't get away with this. My men will come looking?—"
"Your men think you're having a civil conversation with your son-in-law." I circle him slowly, enjoying his helplessness. "They're being quite well-treated, unlike their employer."
"What do you want?" he demands, testing the bonds securing him to the chair. "Money? Is that it? I'll pay whatever ransom?—"
Fury explodes in me like a supernova. I grab his face, fingers digging into his jaw. "You think this is about money? After everything you took from me?"
"Business," he gasps, the word distorted by my grip. "It was just business?—"
"BUSINESS?" I roar, releasing him with a shove that makes the chair rock. "You call it business to steal my company, turn my board against me with lies, then have your thugs cut my throat and leave me for dead?"
He has the decency to flinch at that, eyes dropping to the scar on my neck. "You were going to expose the Jakarta deal. I couldn't let that happen."
"Because it was illegal. Because people died for your profit margins." I lean in close, letting him see the monster he created. "I was your partner. I trusted you. And you destroyed me for money."
