“That’s impossible!” I gasp, staring up at him. “You can’t force me to marry someone against my will!”
He laughs at me, holding me too him, still looking down into my face. “It’s possible if I say it is.”
I press my hands against his chest, trying to push away. “It’s 2023! Nobody has arranged marriages anymore – this isn’t the eighteenth century!”
He laughs again and lets me go. I skitter away from him.
“You’re in my world now, Fay,” he says, calmly putting his hands in his pockets. “The world you were born to. Do you think laws really matter in the underworld, the world outside of the stupid bureaucracy you’ve deluded yourself into thinking keeps you safe?”
My jaw drops open at this arrogance. “I have rights!”
“You have nothing,” he barks, taking a step forward towards me. “The only thing that matters is power. Which is money. Which is might. You have none of this. The only thing which gives you anything in this world, Fay, is your bloodline.”
His eyes flick now to the piece of paper which lays crumpled on the floor. “Which you are so eager to dismiss.”
“But,” I say, falling a few steps back, trying to comprehend this. “There are…laws…” I say, a little pathetically.
“There were laws that put me in prison,” he purrs, coming even closer. “And your own recommendation that I stay imprisoned forever. But here I am,” he spreads his hands out, demonstrative.
“Me, and men like me, Fay? Like your father? We control all of it. So, if I were you,” he looms over me again. “I’d be a little more grateful that I got you out of the club and restored you to the life of privilege to which you were born.”
I look up at him, truly terrified now, realizing that my life as I knew it is…completely gone. With one test, he’s wiped it away.
“You’re a monster,” I cry between my tears. “You’re ruining three lives tonight, just so you can get your way. A monster.”
Kent shocks me, then, by leaning forward and taking my chin in his hand. He smiles, bringing his face close to mine, and says, “Did you really think that was going to work on me, Fay? Calling me names?” He shocks me, then, by lifting his other hand to my face and wiping away a tear from my cheek with his thumb.
Then, slowly, he raises his thumb to his mouth and slips it inside, savoring the taste of my tears. “I told you before, I like my kittens with claws.”
Outraged, I try to push past him for the door but he laughs, faster than me, and puts out a hand that catches me in the chest. Another light shove – as he did before – and I’m knocked back onto the lounge.
“I’m not completely the monster you think I am, Fay,” he says, walking casually for the door. “After all, I’m going to let you say goodbye.”
He opens the door wide and waves a hand through it. “A car is waiting to take you to your father’s house, where you will pack a bag. You will say your goodbyes and then return here, where I will keep you safe until your true father comes to claim you.”
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