Page 4 of Avenging Azalea

“I don’t know who her birth father is, but it doesn’t matter. She’s still the stepdaughter. That is as good as a blood relative in this case.”

I shook my head. Un-fucking-believable.

“I’ll take her. But, Cesare…don’t ever fucking pull something like this again.”

The corner of his mouth turned up, and I wanted to grab him and knock him the fuck out.

“Let’s go,” I barked out, turning to leave.

“Do you want her cage or maybe a collar so she can crawl by your side like the dogs,” Cesare asked. His attempt at humor almost got him shot. I wasn’t in the mood. The men in the room laughed but stopped when I glared at them.

Turning away before I did something like pull my gun and start a war, I walked out. I half expected Fawn to take off the moment we were outside. I would let her go if she did. Instead, she stood quietly with her hand on Bella’s head.

“Do you want to run,” I asked.

Fawn didn’t even look toward the street before shaking her head. What the hell did they do to her? Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“You’ll ride with me,” I ordered, pointing to my SUV.

I opened the back hatch, and Bella and Daisy jumped inside. Once they were secure, I closed the door and took a long, steadying breath.

“You really going to accept her as payment,” Maurice asked.

“I don’t have a fucking choice.”

“Your father is going to eat her for lunch,” he said as he walked to his vehicle.

That was exactly what I was afraid of, and it was also the reason why my father was never getting his hands on her. Fawn was in my care now. What that meant exactly…I didn’t know. Sex trafficking was one of the few things in this world of corruption that I wouldn’t stand for, and handing Fawn over to my father was only a half step down from it. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t.

From now on, Fawn was mine.

Chapter

Two

FAWN

“You’ll ride with me,” the man I’d been given to said as he pointed to a black SUV.

Stuffing my hands into my jeans, I walked over and climbed into the front passenger seat. The vehicle was spacious and top-of-the-line. I’d never ridden in something so nice. I studied his profile while he waited for the dogs to jump in the back, and I couldn’t help feeling like I’d just won the lottery by getting away from Cesare.

He was the sexiest man I’d ever seen in my life, and he had dogs.

“You really going to accept her as payment,” one of the suited men asked. The words were muffled through the glass, but listening in on conversations I wasn’t supposed to hear had become a necessity.

“I don’t have a fucking choice,” the sexy man said.

“Your father is going to eat her for lunch.”

My heart sank as he walked away.

I’d gotten good at reading people, and this man with the dogs didn’t make my skin crawl. He wasn’t like the other men I’d encountered since I turned fourteen. That thought only made me worry about my brother George. What would my stepfather do now that I was gone to pay off his debts? I’d always been his get-out-of-jail-free card. I’d lost count of how many people had come over and used me for the night just so they wouldn’t burn our house down or kill my mother and little brother. The first time, I’d been terrified, but now…now, I was numb to all of it. It was how I protected the people I loved.

He got into the driver’s seat but sat there staring out the windshield before he looked over at me. His eyes were dark with the lack of light, and I swallowed at the intensity.

“Did they hurt you,” he asked.

That was a relative question. Which they did he mean? There had been so much pain over the last couple of years, but I figured he meant Cesare and the men in the warehouse. I shook my head. They’d oddly been the nicest out of anyone connected to my stepfather.