Blood Ties (Dinero de Sangre #2) - Lana Sky Page 0,31

he catches me, looping an arm around my waist. His strength imbibes that limb with the sturdiness of an iron bar, driving every ounce of air from my chest in one blow.

I wheeze, finding myself slung into the air, my legs kicking helplessly at nothing.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Domino growls, his voice emanating somewhere near my head.

I blink, finding that the floor is whizzing by below me, but I’m suspended against a firm, moving surface heading swiftly in the direction of his bedroom.

“No,” he repeats, dropping me without warning.

I brace myself for a brutal impact and land on something soft instead. The bed. Scrambling for purchase, I watch him approach the door and slam it shut.

When he faces me…

It’s like my brain flips some internal switch. Anger gives way to a terror unlike any I’ve ever felt. It’s all-encompassing and draining, leaving me slumped on my side as he advances.

“I won’t let you play the hysterical victim, Ada,” he says coldly. “Scream. Cry. Commence with your fake mourning—after you give me what you promised.”

Fake mourning.

“She was my mother,” I croak, my face still damp with tears. Fresh ones continue to fall, dripping from my jaw onto my collar. If I close my eyes, I could imagine them to be droplets of blood.

Though in all honesty, this is no different. I’m bleeding in a way that feels as real as if I’d been stabbed through the chest. Some of it is shock, I think.

To really see her smiling photo paired with that tragic headline. That makes it so much more real than having him taunt me with her death.

It hurts.

But if I’m being honest with myself, I’d admit that some of this emotion stems from another source entirely, one more primal than pain and love.

It’s fear.

My father is still alive, and yet Domino has kept me here for over a week without anyone coming for me. It doesn’t make sense.

It feels so much more unsettling than being faced with what I presumed to be his body, turning on a spit. Roy Pavalos is never caught off guard, never. He is never without a plan or some kind of insurance policy to make sure that, no matter what, he comes out on top.

What the hell has Domino unleashed?

And why?

“Did you hear me, Ada-Maria?” His voice intrudes on my thoughts, and I blink to find him watching me with an intensity that puzzles me more than the fact that my father is still alive.

“W-What?”

“Where is the body?”

Whose body? is my initial response. Then I remember…

Pia.

I promised to give him a place to look.

“In hell,” I snarl. “Where all of you belong!”

It’s the wrong thing to say. I don’t even see him move before my throat is between both of his hands, crushed like a stress ball.

I see stars. Death feels so imminent that I don’t even have the chance to feel the full extent of the fear I should be experiencing. I just stare up at the ceiling, waiting for my vision to finally cut out once and for all.

But he merely intended the violence to serve as a warning. Barely a second passes before he releases some of the pressure, allowing me to choke down the minimum amount of air to stay conscious.

“Think carefully, Ada,” he cautions. His voice shakes, betraying just how close he is to losing control. I’ve never heard him like this.

Unstable. Enraged. Unpolished.

“Give me what you promised, or I swear to God you will regret it. Your mother will soon become a distant memory, because I will put you through a living hell before sending you to meet her. Do you understand?”

I do. His voice alone conveys as much. He means every word he’s saying; I can’t deny that. Even as I pull back far enough to see his handsome face sculpted by rage, bathed in the gray overcast light filtering in from the windows.

I can see understanding dawn across those very features as I open my mouth and spit at him.

Wham! One moment I’m on the bed; the next, I’m on the cold, hard floor in a place that I sense isn’t the main bedroom. The lighting is different here, the flooring polished enough to display my reflection in pitiful relief.

I’m shaking; my eyes resemble black holes; they’re so swollen. But my appearance is nowhere near as frightening as that of the man looming over me.

He waits until I look at him before he moves, crossing over to an oval-shaped tub paces away. We’re in the bathroom,