I narrowed my gaze until my eyelashes shadowed my vision. I hoped hate dripped from every inch of me. I hoped disgust and repulsion cloaked me, so he knew just how much contempt I held for him, how little cooperation he’d earn, and how quickly I’d kill him if I got the chance.

With my stare so sharp, I noticed things I hadn’t before, and a small sweep of victory tugged up the corner of my mouth.

Drake’s face wasn’t as Botox perfect as I’d assumed.

His nose was swollen and coloured with a shade of purple, black bruises ringed his left eye, and the corner of his mouth was puffy. Come to think of it, he moved stiffly, guarding his side while a bandage on his shoulder peeked out from his black t-shirt.

Sully had hurt him.

Triumph filled my heart. Pride followed.

Whatever this bastard had done to Sully...Sully had fought back.

Fear iced my blood.

Had he fought too hard?

Was he still alive?

Sully...dammit.

My patience reached snapping point. My lips trembled to part with a torrent of profanity, but I bit them back.

Drake’s only purpose was to take me to Sully.

That was all I wanted.

Then he could die, painfully. Very, very painfully.

“Did you appreciate my lift?” Drake smirked.

I glowered.

“Aren’t you going to say thank you? Without me, you wouldn’t have found your way back.”

I glared.

“I bet you’ll speak to me when I shove my dick inside you.”

I bared my teeth.

He chuckled with an edge of frustration. “Don’t want to talk to me? Fine.” He smiled, cold and cruel. “I know someone who would love to talk to you.” Leaning forward, he planted his hands on my hipbones, dragging me flush against him. “I must warn you though...he’s not the man you remember. I gave him a little lesson on sibling insubordination.”

What the fuck did you do?!

I swallowed back my scream, but I couldn’t control my physical reaction.

My hand whistled through the air and sliced across his cheek.

He stumbled backward; his pain tenfold thanks to previous injuries beneath my new one. “Fuck!”

While he nursed the handprint I’d left on his bruised face, I held up a one finger salute.

How dare you!

How fucking dare you hurt him!

My silent curses ricocheted in my ears, and once again, I went too far—just as I’d pushed the limits with the Mexican guard who’d wanted me.

Drake launched himself at me. “You little slut!”

He wrapped his arms with tight captivity around me as his teeth latched around my throat. He bit me. He made me struggle. And his disgusting voice slithered into my ear. “Be as stubborn as you want. Be as stupid as you need. Piss me off, I dare you. Fuck me off, and you’ll be screaming my name while I’m cock deep inside you. Hate me? I don’t fucking care. Thanks to my brother, he’s created a drug that makes you a whore, and according to his doctor, your heart has the risk of being overloaded, your system overwhelmed, and there’s a very high chance you could die while I take you.”

Dragging his tongue up my cheek, he hissed, “I like the thought of that. That I could fuck you to death. That I’d be the last one you saw, heard, touched. That you’d die belonging to me, not him. And the best part...I’ll make him watch. He’ll be there as I fuck you. He’ll watch it all, knowing that you are mine and not his.”

Wrapping his awful arm around my waist, he kissed me.

I bit him.

Hard.

I bit him for disrespecting me and for disrespecting Sully.

I’d bite his cock too if he ever tried to sleep with me.

I’d bite his balls clean off and spit them into the sea.

He lurched back.

His palm connected with my cheek in a five-finger blaze.

His finger went to his lip, smearing the bead of blood that my teeth had punctured.

His eyes met mine.

My cheek smarted.

I balled my hands and kept my spine rigid.

I couldn’t bite my tongue any longer.

I’d reached the end of my limit.

Don’t do it, Eleanor.

Don’t give him what he wants.

I’d been able to ignore the traffickers.

But I hadn’t been able to ignore Sully.

And I couldn’t stop myself from defending him.

Looking straight into the eyes of Sully’s cad of a brother, I snarled, “Is that meant to scare me? Am I supposed to tremble and obey?” My nose stabbed the sky with regality. “How can I be afraid of a stupid boy who thinks tearing the wings off butterflies makes him strong? A boy who never grew up; an idiot who thinks Botox will hide his ugliness.”

He froze, dropping his hand and rubbing his blood into his skin. “She speaks.”

“She bites, too.”

“She behaves if she wants to stay alive.” Grinning as if our threats were flirts, he wrapped his fingers around my throat. He squeezed my larynx, activating bruises from Calico’s attempt at murdering me, and the strangest, scariest thing happened.

A few times on Sully’s islands, I’d had moments of premonition: bathwater puddles revealing that Sully would forever change me. A parrot chirp hinting at a man behind the monster. A kiss without sensors or masks delivering my destiny.

And now, a brother who gave up the secrets of their joint childhood.

Sully was a control freak because he’d had all control taken away when he was a boy—by this man. He had no faith and broken trust because his brother had physically punished him every time he’d tried.

My heart spasmed as things fell into place—Sully’s many long-ago scars. His torment at falling for me. His denial of our closeness.

The last person he’d been close to had been his family, and they’d done unspeakable things.

“You hurt him,” I hissed. “You scarred him.”

His eyebrows tugged down—or as much as they could with chemicals preventing facial movement. “I’ve hurt him all my life.” He jerked me closer, his fingers twitching around my neck. “But I haven’t been able to hurt him nearly as much as you have.”

He laughed softly, sounding like a psychotic boy with a box of kittens, lighter fluid, and matches. “You’ve been able to create a pain deeper than I ever managed. You’ll be the one to kill him, Eleanor Grace...not me, and I can’t wait to watch you do it.”

* * * * *

Blood.

Bright vicious crimson.

It was all I could see.

All I could smell.

Blood.

Sully...God, Sully.

I tripped as Drake dragged me over the threshold of the villa and dry-heaved as he carted me to stand beside Sully’s cage.

The same cage I’d spent a night in.

A cage that’d been flipped on its side to give enough horizontal room for the tall man within it.

“Eleanor?” Sully spasmed the moment he heard my footsteps. His gorgeous, powerful body jerked to get free. The metal ring of handcuffs clanged as he struggled, slowly at first as if he had no strength left, then faster, crazier. “Eleanor?”

His eyes.

God...what’s wrong with his eyes?!

Drake snickered beside me, staying silent while his brother danced on the border of life and death by his feet.

I’d never seen anything so spiteful, so tyrannical, so inhumane.