Property: A Dark Billionaire Romance Read online

  I feel an ache of grief as I let exhaustion do its work. I am a twisted kind of free, but it was not worth the cost. This is all happening because my father died. The old Chloe Parker-Baskerville was a puppet, but a happy one. I don’t want to have to remake myself. I don’t want to have to become a new person, one who knows how to live without her father’s guidance. I don’t want to be behind these bars either, but they at least delay that inevitable moment where I will have to step up as he always intended for me to do, and take control of the Parker-Baskerville empire.

  Finally, sleep draws over me and I am taken down to the blissful depths of unconsciousness, free to dream of the life I used to have just a week ago, one where my father was alive and I was his princess, safe from everything that can go wrong in the world.

  It feels like only a moment passes and my eyes are opening to a new day. The curtains are still drawn so I cannot tell what the time is, but I get the feeling it’s close to midday. I’ve slept a long time in this cage, property to a man I do not know or understand.

  “Good morning, Chloe.”

  Darko is standing behind the bars. He must have slept in the nearby bed, but I was asleep before he got there. I wonder if he slept naked. He’s half naked now. He’s put pants on, but nothing more. I stare at him, trying desperately to understand who this man is. That’s the key to all of this strangeness, I just know it.

  The upper reaches of his muscular body are trammeled with scars. One notable one runs right down the center of his chest. The others look like knife marks, but that one looks surgical and old.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Hm? What happened to me?”

  I point at the scar. “When did you get ripped open? That’s heart surgery, right?”

  He glances down at himself, then back at me. “Don’t you have better things to worry about right now?”

  I don’t. He is all I have to worry about. He is the entirety of my problems, and right now, the whole of my world. And I want to know what happened to him.

  * * *

  Darko

  She’s looking at me with curious eyes and that strange lack of fear that I am beginning to find irritating. The aim of this exercise is to teach her a lesson about power. Her lack of it. My abundance of it. We’re not here so she can ask me questions and get to know me. We’re here so I can teach her the lesson her father never did.

  She still thinks she’s untouchable. Even now, even after all the touching. Even after a night in a cage. She’s not taking this seriously. It is almost as if she thinks this is some kind of dark vacation jaunt. I hate to admit it to myself, but I am both surprised and running out of ideas—at least, the ones that seemed thinkable to do to her.

  I’ve taken her roughly. I’ve made the sex as intense as it can be without being outright criminal. I’ve taken her to the very limits of consent.

  The only thing left is to ramp up the pain. I didn’t want that, but somehow, I’ve managed to be too soft on her. I’m not sure how that is possible given I broke into her home, spanked her, fucked her, and abducted her, but one person’s hell is another’s hot weekend. Maybe she’s expecting to wake up and find this was all some kind of dream, or a prank, or something.

  It’s time to make this real.

  “Get out here.” I swing the door open and point to the floor.

  She starts to step out. I put my hand up to her chest and gently push her back. “Not walking. I want you to crawl for me.”

  “Crawl? Why?”

  She asks the question innocently. She doesn’t understand what I’m trying to do. She doesn’t get it at all. I’m going to have to spell this out for her explicitly.

  “I want you on your hands and knees because that is how animals move, and I’m making you my little animal. I’m taming you like a wild thing.”

  She shrugs and drops to her hands and knees. “Okay, so this is what you want?”

  * * *

  Chloe

  He taps his foot and I smirk to myself. I know this must be driving him crazy. I perfected this technique a long time ago. Not kneeling naked, per se, but this borderline malicious compliance where you can give someone what they’re demanding without giving them anything they want. He doesn’t really want me to kneel and crawl like a dog. He wants me to blush with humiliation. Not gonna happen, buddy. I can take more than he thinks I can.

  That foot taps three more times, then a big hand descends and grabs me by the back of my hair, pulling my head up, and the rest of me with it.

  I’m still on my knees, but my face is turned up to meet his. His grip makes me arch my back, holds me in an exposed, vulnerable position.

  “This isn’t going to work,” he purrs softly. “You can’t resist me, Chloe.”

  “I’m not resisting you,” I say as sweetly as possible.

  He won’t hurt me. Not seriously. I have to believe that. Nobody has ever hurt me, except one man, and he only hurt me the day he died.

  Darko leans down toward me. His eyes sear into mine. His lips are nearly brushing my mouth.

  “Chloe...”

  “Yes?”

  “Your father...”

  The mention of him brings anger rushing through my veins.

  “His death was not from natural causes. He was murdered.”

  His words send me into shock. I expected some sexy threat. I thought this was a prequel to more of his kinky little games that end in orgasm. I did not expect him to tell me my beloved father was purposefully killed.

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” he says, letting go of my hair.

  I drop to the floor, all spine gone from me as I pool at his feet.

  “What?” I whisper the word to myself.

  “Your father was in the way of some very powerful people. Now you are too. So if you think this is a game I’m playing with you, or if you think you’re going to get out of this unscathed by being the spoiled, privileged brat you’ve always been, you’re wrong. There are two ways out of here. Under my protection, or in a casket.”

  I stare up at him. Suddenly, I see him for what he is. I got a flash of his true nature when he first took me, but that impression slipped away in the orgasms he gave me and in the privilege he was talking about. I’ve never thought any real harm could come to me, or my family. That illusion started to crumble when my father died, and his words bring more of my defenses down, let cold chaos start rushing into my heart.

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not. And you know I’m not. You can feel it. You’ve felt it all along, haven’t you. It never felt right.”

  “Death never does,” I say bitterly. I lost my mother when I was eleven. Her passing turned my father cold to other women, all of them except me. He adored me. Doted on me. He made sure I lived the life my mother wanted, and now? Now I’m in the hands of precisely the sort of person he would have loathed.

  I curl up on the floor, my arms wrapped around my knees, my head curled down toward my chest. The mention of my father gouges at a wound that hasn’t had time to heal.

  Darko crouches next to me. I feel him close, his big presence menacing.

  “Did you do it?”

  “No,” he says. “I tried to stop it. I failed. In the end, your father had made so many enemies, there weren’t enough people left to save him.”

  A sob escapes me.

  “Who did it?”

  “That doesn’t matter. You’ll never have any kind of revenge. That’s impossible. What might be possible is you surviving where he didn’t. They’re going to want control of your business assets. You’ll still own them, you’ll still reap the dividends, but you won’t control them. I will.”

  “Or what? You’re going to kill me?” I can’t uncurl. I am stuck in this pitiful position. I wish I was stronger, but guilt and rage do not mix well inside me.

  “No, Chloe, I’m not. I’m going to train the kind of obedience into you that’s going to keep you safe. Because you’re going to give those men w
hat they want. You’re going to stay out of their way. Unlike your father, who thought it was a good idea to resist them. I’m going to remove every fiber of resistance from your being, girl. I’m going to save your life by breaking your will.”

  It’s too much to take in. His words are cruel and frightening.

  “My father died of a heart attack,” I sob. “He wasn’t killed.”

  “There are a dozen ways to induce a heart attack,” he says. “Odorless, tasteless compounds slipped into a drink. When these people want someone dead, that is the end of it.”

  “Who are these people?” Finally, I unfurl in rage. I sit upright, find his face on my level, glare into his eyes. “Who did this to my father? To me? Tell me, or I’ll assume it’s you.”

  “You can assume what you like. What you can’t do is anything about what has happened. Right now, all you need to concern yourself with is staying alive.”

  “No.” I shake my head and get to my feet. “No. No. Fuck you. No. Fuck this. I don’t care what you do to me. Beat me. Fuck me. It doesn’t matter. You won’t win.”

  He rises up to tower above me, his hands gripping my arms to stop them from rising against him. My fists are clenched. I’ve never hit anyone in my life, but I want to punch him as hard as I can. I want to beat the hell out of his big beast of a man who has given me the absolute worst news of my existence. I want him to suffer for what he’s doing to me, and for the role he has agreed to play.

  “You’re angry,” he says. “You have a right to be. But don’t make the mistake of taking it out on me, because I promise you that your suffering can intensify and become deeper than you have ever imagined.”

  I hate him so much. I hate the world. And I am sad, so, so, so sad.

  The emotions are impossible to contain. I want to stay strong, but I can’t. I’m weak, and he and his murderous friends have made me even weaker. A single tear breaches the barrier of my restraint and in less than a second I find myself bursting into tears against his chest. My tears coat his bare skin and he wraps his arms around me, holding me close.

  * * *

  Darko

  I never intended to comfort her, but I don’t have the heart to push her away. She is clinging to me desperately, miserably. She is an innocent in all of this. Maybe she’s the only innocent. Her father’s death was on his own head. He was warned. He knew the risks. He had even participated in similar discussions and plans before. She doesn’t know that and there would be no point telling her that the man she worshipped was just as much a monster as those who killed him.

  “You have to let me go,” she whispers. “I have to report this to the police. I have to organize an autopsy. I have to...”

  “He’s been cremated. There’s nothing to autopsy.”

  “No, he wasn’t, he...”

  “He was cremated yesterday, after I took you.”

  “What!? You desecrated his body? How dare you!”

  * * *

  Chloe

  I pull free of his arms and I lash out with teeth and fists and feet. I don’t know how to fight, I know I can’t really hurt him, but there is no way I will let this lie. I am going to avenge my father, first against Darko, then against every single one of those who conspired in his death.

  “I told you not to try that,” he growls, catching my wrists and hauling me across the room to his bed. He throws me down and pins me in place and then his hand falls over and over, finding my bare ass and thighs with harsh slaps.

  He has no right to do this. This is cruel. He is punishing me for hating him, when hating him is all I can do.

  “You can’t fight me,” he growls. “And you don’t need to. You may not believe this, but I am on your side.”

  “No, you’re not! You’re part of the people who hurt me and my family!”

  “That’s also true.” He stops slapping me, but he keeps me pinned. “Life is complex, Chloe. Sometimes the bad guys are also good guys.”

  “You’re a fucking asshole, and I’m never going to forgive you, not ever.”

  I start to sob again, hating my powerlessness.

  He keeps me there on the bed, stops me from hitting him even though I desperately want to. He makes me feel the searing heat from his palm playing over my skin with slap after slap. Maybe I deserve them, but I don’t care if I do. Misery doesn’t encourage introspection.

  “You’re going to grieve for a very long time,” he says, his voice taking on that accent that he so often hides. “Maybe forever. But your father would have wanted you to survive, and that’s what I intend to ensure.”

  “Put me back in the cage.”

  “What?”

  “Put me back,” I sniff. “I want to be alone. I’d rather be locked up than anywhere near you.”

  “You don’t give me orders,” he says. “You’re coming with me and you’re going to have something to eat.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I don’t care.”

  He gets up and pulls me up with him. We descend from the walled bedroom to the floor that I am sure a developer would love to call the ‘entertainment level’ if you let them. A massive kitchen full of stainless steel appliances produces breakfast for me: one cup of peppermint tea and one piece of buttered toast I have no intention of eating.

  It is served by Darko on a small glass-enclosed patio. I sit curled on the chair, my knees drawn up and closed to protect the part of myself that has already been filled by him several times. I wonder if he has come in me, just a little. I wonder if some drop of his seed has managed to find its way inside me, sparked some new ill-fated life.

  There is no damn way I am keeping it if I am. This man has done nothing to earn the title of father. He is a perverse monster who believes if he just keeps me here long enough, and hurts me in the right ways, I will fall into some kind of Stockholm syndrome and give him what he wants. He’s wrong.

  I pull my eyes away from him and look out at the world beyond. The sea is stormy, the sky full of rolling heavy gray clouds boiling over the waters that extend from here to forever.

  “I’m in hell,” I mumble to myself, the warmth of the cup of tea heating my hand. Otherwise, I am cold. He is keeping me naked and every breeze running through this sterile concept of a house produces fresh batches of goosebumps on my skin.

  He sits opposite me and eats his toast, drinks his tea. He says nothing. I don’t detect any pity or care in his expression. It’s like eating with a totally disinterested stranger in the world’s worst café.

  It’s so different when he takes me. There’s heat and fire, there’s what feels like passion. But in the moments between, there is nothing. He is shut off to me, sitting there still shirtless, as scarred on the outside as I feel I am on the inside.

  “It was surgery, wasn’t it.”

  “Hm?”

  “Your scar. It’s a surgical one.”

  He shakes his head and gives me a ghost of a smile, that voice of his returning to a thicker version of his accent. “Why do you care so much?”

  “I don’t care. I just want to know.”

  My response makes a broad, genuine smile rise to his lips. Something about it tickled him.

  “Ah, such a ruthless little girl,” he chuckles to himself. “You are your father’s daughter.”

  He’s right about that. I am my father’s child, and where he might have lost his life to the monsters, I will prevail.

  “You’ll give in, in the end,” he says conversationally.

  “Repeating that doesn’t make it true. Do you have endless time to stay here with me? Or are you going to lock me up forever and pay some guards to watch me? Do you really think that my estate won’t send someone for me? Do you truly think I don’t have friends?” Questions pour out of me. I keep losing my temper with him, but I cannot help it. The circumstances are maddening and he must know that only a wet rag of a person would ever give in to this ridiculous plan of his. “Let me off this island. Send me home.”

  “That would be
sending you to your death, and I’m not going to do that. You’ll go back when I trust that you’ve learned your lesson and aren’t going to attempt to defy the Order like your father did.”

  “So that’s what they’re called? The Order?”

  He nods.

  “Who are they?”

  “A great many men, all around the world.”

  “Men? No women?”

  “Men.”

  I suppose it’s not surprising that they’re sexist. They are murderers after all. Would I be any more impressed if it turned out they included women in their number?

  He brushes crumbs from his hands and stands up. “Time for another round of training for you, girl.”

  I balk, but that does nothing. He pulls me up from the table and takes me into one of his many rooms. This one is not a bedroom like the one I was caged in all night. This one has a medical feel to it, mostly because of the medical bed in the center of the room. It is faced toward the floor-to-ceiling window, so the seagulls can watch the depravity going on inside.

  “Sit down and put your legs in the stirrups.”

  I do as I am told, because I know to fight simply means being whipped and then finding myself in that same place.

  “Good girl,” he smiles, wrapping my appendages in place with padded leather restraints that secure my arms to the rests and my shins to the stirrups. Once done to his satisfaction, he pushes the stirrups wide, spreading my legs lewdly for his gaze.

  I watch as he pulls a drawer open. What fucked-up kinds of instruments does he plan on using on me? What is he going to get? A speculum? A scalpel?

  He plucks an ostrich feather from the drawer and smiles at me with that dark menacing grin.

  Not what I expected, and hardly frightening. I don’t bother to tell him he’s doing intimidation wrong. The thought soon flees my head anyway as the tip of the feather slips along my pussy, tickling the tender folds. It is a gentle touch, and in many ways, an enjoyable one. My head falls back and I find myself breathing deeply, submitting to the events over which I know full well I have no control. He can fuck me. He can use me. He can make me come. He just can’t break me.