Episode One: Look Back in Anger by S.N. Graves Read Free Book Online

both completely insane?”
    “Shall I take that as a no and contact the proper authorities to come get the old bastard?” Arles didn’t move from the window, didn’t come nearer to rub salt in the wound; her smack had obviously left him brooding and content to bite at his playthings from afar.
    “People’s lives aren’t for bartering. People can’t be traded like that. I have a life. You can’t just take that away because it sounds like fun. And…this is illegal.” Shaking now, she directed her scowl on her father and his pleading gaze. “You can’t really want this?”
    “I don’t,” her father said. “He’s a bully, you know that. He’s always had it out for you. I don’t know what to do. It seems our only option.”
    The brief notion to correct him struck her. She had options; she could walk out of here right now and continue her life as usual. She was not the one who broke the law; she was not the one who couldn’t manage money. Technically this wasn’t a we problem. The throbbing pain in her chest that came with him looking at her like that, the burning spike behind her eye no doubt brought on by her rising blood pressure, that was what took away her options. “This is crazy. Things like this don’t happen. This isn’t an option; it’s insanity.”
    “No, it’s not an option. Not really. You come with me now, or we go to war. I’ll win. You know that.” Arles left the window, meeting her gaze as he walked past the both of them and stalked toward the door. “I’m going to my car.”
    “Good riddance,” she said, but once the words left her mouth, the aftertaste was alien on her tongue. She hadn’t meant to speak.
    He paused, looking past her to meet her father’s gaze pointedly. “If she isn’t there in ten minutes, I’ll call who I have to, and this ends the hard way.”
    She could only stare as he left her to debate the madness, and the alternative which was too painful to bear. She had ten minutes to decide everyone’s fate. There was no telling what exactly Arles meant by slave , what he intended by this whole scheme, but mistress and whore she understood well enough, and she had no intentions of becoming either to anyone. Despite that, she couldn’t let this thing happen to her father; he just wouldn’t survive it. He needed her. He always needed her.
    It was all too much to consider. She didn’t even like to make decisions about breakfast in ten minutes…

To Be Continued…
     

    From the moment she entered his car, Sam knew she’d lost control of the situation. With Arles’s keen talent for blackmail, escape isn’t an option. To make matters worse, when his odd family drops in unannounced, Sam begins to realize that Arles isn’t just an obsessive jerk, but might also be a human trafficker who deals in the acquisition and sale of children.
    Arles’s uncle Vincent and his lapdog Zakai couldn’t have picked a worse time to drop in demanding favors. What was supposed to be some casual backup in dealing with Sam’s sleazy father has become a full-on side mission that the team is determined to drag him into. Any other time he’d be thrilled—well, okay, not exactly thrilled—to help Vincent and the team with their “hero” hobby, but Sam is already suspicious, and with one false move, he could lose her forever.