Wicked Games [Mature 18 +] **COMPLETE**

Chapter Thirteen

Amber's prone body laid across my lap as the Limo drove through Paris and beyond. She wouldn't wake up for a while, and that was what I wanted. It was for the best, no matter how much she'd hate me when she woke up. At least that was what I kept telling myself as I stroked her dark hair and trailed my thumb over her soft full lips. I took her to keep her safe.

Felix and Julian were in the back with me. My Uncle was in rare form, muttering under his breath and shaking his head.

"Is she worth it?" he said at last when we'd just left the limits of the city.

"Yes." I didn't elaborate further but my uncle nodded.

"She's never going to come back around to you. No relationship starts or endures what you just pulled."

Wetting my lips, I nodded. "Better she curses me to the end of her days than end up dead because of me. They threatened her."

"And you made it worse by killing the messenger." My Uncle countered. "Tell me, nephew, what the fuck do you plan to do now?"

She moaned a little and I stared down at her limp body before pulling her closer to me, her long hair spilled over the seat and brushed the floorboards.

"Deal with the Italians, like I dealt with their messenger, and when it's over... I'll let her go." I let out a slow sigh. Was it what I really wanted? No. However, I was a firm believer that actions had consequences even for me. In keeping her safe I was taking her ability to love me away.

"Why?" Felix spoke finally, sounding not unlike the little devil who perched on my shoulder and whispered in my ear. "You want her, she's here. Who else knows where she is? Why not keep her? Would it be so wrong to give her time to grow accustomed to everything? It's clear there's something there. If there wasn't you'd have left her. I don't think you'd have helped Lydia even in the beginning."

I shook my head. "We've been over this, I'm not my father. When everything's done I'm letting her go."

"Felix does have a point though. The girl knows a lot. It's better to keep her where she won't cause too much trouble. Yes, we have most of France, but what if she makes a stink to Interpol? We've kept ourselves out of their investigations because we're careful. One word from a mouthy little American brat can ruin all of that." He tented his fingers a moment and sat up a little straighter. "Whatever you decide I'll stand behind you, but those are my thoughts."

"Noted," I replied looking between the two of them. "Tonight, I want the Italian's out. Not tomorrow, not the day after. Tonight. I'm tired of dealing with their secondhand disrespect. They think because they make threats on people around me and not my person that they're being honorable. I broke the hands of someone not even connected enough to be included in our meeting. "

"Don't beat yourself up over it."

"Does it sound like I am?" I raised a brow, I shook my head, "No. Gaspar is more troubling than the Italians. He knows how I feel about trafficking."

"You're letting your feelings about your mother get to you," Julian chastised me. Those eyes blue like my own sweeping me over. "It's forgivable, she is your mother but your father did nothing more to her than you're doing to that one in your lap."

"They were together for a year before it happened."

Julian smirked and scratched the back of his head. "True, but they'd been broken up for less than a six hours when I'd grabbed her walking back from class. It's what we do. We take what we want and do what we please. You want her, and now you so conveniently have her."

"They threatened to send me her tits and her head in a fucking box." I didn't raise my voice but the rage was still there thinly veiled and just visible under the surface.

"Explain it away however you like, our dark curse has you same as it did your father and myself."

I scoffed. "Sylvie has been with you since before I was born, she worships you." Julian and my aunt were in love like I never thought I could allow myself to be, until I met Amber. I'd loved Lydia once, or thought I had, but it wasn't the same type of devotion.

"Oh yes, and I made certain of it. Now she wouldn't leave even if I wanted her to, but that wasn't always so." He snickered as the limo pulled up in the driveway. "You're terrible at keeping lovers, part of that is your father's fault. He was shitty at it too. All his life he thought a hand at the throat and the fear of what he could do if they left was enough. Yes, you're locking her away, but... use the situation to your advantage. Seduce her, woo her, coax her to you. Tempt her with what she's missing, let her accidentally witness the pleasure you're capable of giving." Julian smirked. "Tame her."

The longer Julian spoke the more I wanted to believe it was possible, to keep Amber safe and win her back. I wanted her, but could I really do that to her? I didn't love her, but I did care enough for her that I could say with some certainty that I didn't want to go down that dark path with her. When we reached the entrance of the Chateau I gathered her in my arms and walked her through the labyrinthine halls, then down into the dungeon. The cells were empty and an eerie silence made her soft breaths all the more noticeable. Felix followed me all the way until I reached the half which used to contain the old torture chamber. It was my father who turned it into a small apartment of sorts, though it was the kind that operated with a keycode and had no door handle. It was a cell that I'd promised my mother once I'd never put anyone in.

As I laid Amber's prone body on the bed and sat beside her I reminded myself that it wasn't the same. There was a reason for taking her that had nothing to do with Amber leaving me. Yes, I'd taken her passport and drugged her but if I hadn't I didn't have any doubts that they'd kill her with a week. Swallowing I caressed her cheek.

"Contact Martin, have him dupe her passport, shut down her social media. The usual. Pay him whatever he wants." I leaned back against the headboard and crossed my arms. "Tell him I want her to have a happy story. Graduate school at the Sorbonne studying art history, something like that." I trailed my thumb over her lips and shook my head as I stood. She wasn't mine to touch anymore.

"And the friend?"

I took my pack of cigarettes from my jacket and lit one. Smoking consumed me as I contemplated what to do about the woman who no doubt caused her to run. She was fine with the shooting, or at least she seemed to forget it easy enough.

"Get Gabriel to send her to New York, or London. Tell him I don't want her done in but out of my hair for at least a month." Crossing the room, I stared at the old stone walls, I'd torn out everything from before. The original intention was to have it be more like a panic room than anything else. My mother told me once she'd spend the days counting the bricks because my father gave her nothing else to do. I left the stone bare and as I stood in the middle of all the simple modern furnishings I couldn't help but wonder if she'd count the stones too. "Bring some books as well."

It was a gilded cage, as I looked at everything I couldn't shake the fact that I'd done no better than my father, as though in the back of my mind no matter what I told myself I'd always known it would come to this. There was no privacy in the apartment, thick glass walls separated everything and there wasn't an inch I couldn't see from where I stood. The bed held my attention for a moment with the metal lattice work and cuffs tucked away, the swayed ottoman shaped like the curves of a woman and the St Andrews cross that was so carefully worked to look more like a sculpture than what it was. Everything was tucked away from play in plain sight. Either she'd never notice it or assume the worst, something stuck in my throat as I realized I wasn't sure which outcome I wanted.

Felix bowed his head and left, shutting the door behind him. I walked to the chair in the corner, it looked not unlike an old throne with its carved flourished wood and little golden touches here and there. All that was left to do was wait for her to wake up and hate me.