of red rope that Oscar slipped into my pocket this morning. It’s supposed to be for fun, but … didn’t he say something about a survival situation?
“What the fuck are you doing?” Trinity pants as Victor steps forward to assist me, holding Trinity still and arranging her limbs for me so that I can tie her up the way Oscar showed me. My knots are nowhere near as pretty as his and probably very difficult to undo, but I don’t care if Trinity is uncomfortable or if she suffers or if this hurts.
Survival situation, remember?
Once Trinity is bound on the floor in a hogtie position with her legs spread wide, her graduation gown rucked up around her hips, and her panties showing, I steal her phone from her pocket.
“What is the code?” I ask, kneeling down beside her. She shakes her head at me, but I swipe at her screen anyway, a giddy, sadistic rush traveling through me when I see that face recognition access is an option. With Vic’s help, I maneuver the phone in front of her as she thrashes until … bingo. It’s that easy to unlock. “Tell me what you told Ophelia or I’m going to text your father the truth about Maxwell Barrasso. Regardless of what you say to him after that, he’ll always have that seed planted in his mind.”
“Okay, fine!” Trinity snarls, finally losing her temper as she struggles against her bonds. “Untie me and I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me now or I text Samuel,” I continue, thumb already typing out a simple message.
You’re not my real dad; Maxwell Barrasso is.
I show that message to Trinity, but it doesn’t seem to shake her confidence at all. She just grits her teeth and looks away from me. She doesn’t believe I’ll give up this piece of intel against her. She thinks I actually care as much about the inheritance or the deal with Ophelia as I do my sister.
I add another few sentences.
I was having sex with my half-brother, James Barrasso. A teacher at the lodge caught us together in one of the rooms.
This time, when I show her, she finally seems to get how goddamn serious I am about this. Sure, it’s a possibility that she could whine to Samuel and get him to believe that I stole her phone and tied her up just to fabricate these lies, but … well, the stark look of fear on Trinity’s face tells me her rich daddy is of a different persuasion.
“All I did was admit to Ophelia that the annulment and marriage were a lie. That’s it.”
I grab her by the hair and yank so hard that tears prick at the edges of the bitch’s eyes.
“What. Else.” I don’t even phrase it as a question; it’s a command. Because I know there’s more. A quick glance up at Victor reconfirms my suspicions. He gives a slight nod and I turn back to Trinity, giving her hair another harsh tug. She whimpers and sniffles before answering, her dignity stripped completely away.
“She asked about a little girl, showed me a picture. I agreed that I’d seen that girl before. Once, I thought I saw you staring at her through the fence.” Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck! I slam Trinity’s face into the floor once and then stand up as she wails helplessly.
“We have to find Ophelia,” I say, my jaw clenching tight as Vic checks his phone for messages from the other boys. There’s nothing, not just yet. He re-presses the emergency stop button and then sends us back down to the first floor.
“We do,” he agrees, his dark eyes hard and businesslike. Just behind that careful façade however, I can see something else, that blinding rage of his, the temper that he almost lost on the first day of school spilling out to taint the earth.
We hit the first floor as Trinity begs and begs for us to let her go. All Victor does, however, is kneel down beside her and give a tight, cocky smile.
“You are so awful, Trinity Jade,” he says mildly, his voice so placid that it can only be the menacing calm before a great storm. “So awful that even with the billions you might’ve inherited from Samuel Jade, you are not worth my time. Even with your money, you are nothing. You are so small that you are not even a fraction of the woman that my wife is.”
Victor stands up as I hit send on the text message to Samuel, showing