Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 301

Chapter 301

• 15 #4764

And then Sparrow was in front of me, his hand closing around my throat, pushing me against the wall

When I found out why he was upset, the relief that flooded through me was so intense it almost made my knees buckle. He had not hurt her. He had rejected her. She was safe. She was safe, and I could have wept with the sheer magnitude of my gratitude.

In the end, Sparrow took me instead, used me the way I offered myself to be used, broke his own rule of not having the same woman he’d already had, and the deal was still intact. We were still going to survive this.

When he offered me the marriage deal afterward, I was completely shocked. I let the silence stretch between us while I did the arithmetic in my head. A year of my life. A year of playing the part, of smiling for the cameras, o spreading my legs whenever he wanted. In exchange for everything; Big Bryan destroyed, the girls saved, enough money to disappear forever. It was the best deal I had ever been offered.

But I passed it off to Tasha.

It was a perfect arrangement. As Sparrow’s wife, even for just a year, Tasha would be untouchable. No one would dare hurt her. No one would dare come near her. She would be protected in a way I could never protect her, shielded by Sparrow’s reputation and his resources and his terrifying reach.

And once the year was over, I could take her far away, somewhere no one knew our names, and we could start over. A hundred million dollars from Julian, sitting in accounts I had quietly diverted, would be more than enough to give her the life she deserved.

I could not believe how lucky I had gotten.

When Sparrow dismissed me, telling me to bring Maya and Jasmine that very night, I quickly slipped out of the penthouse. Tasha was staying behind, so Sparrow knew I wasnt messing around.

But I did not take the front exit. Julian’s men were still waiting outside the hotel, parked in the loading zone, and if they saw me leaving alone, there would be questions I could not answer. So I found the service elevator, slipped past the kitchen staff who were too busy to notice one more person in the chaos, and exited through the back of the hotel into an alley that smelled of garbage and frying oil.

I hailed a cab and gave the driver the address of Julian’s apartment, and as the city lights blurred past the window, I let myself feel something I had not felt in years.

Real, genuine, terrifying hope.

We were going to survive this. Tasha was going to be safe. Maya and Jasmine were going to get the antidote. Big Bryan was going to be destroyed. And then we were going to disappear, all of us, and build new lives somewhere far away from men like Julian and monsters like Big Bryan.

But first, I had something important to take care of.

Comments

U

G

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify