Page 177 of Powerhouse: Boxed Set
Silas didn’t speak, because he knew the monster was telling the truth. As much as he would have hated to admit it—Lucian Morelli was right. I’m the second-eldest daughter in the Constantine family. If I were found compromised in the bathroom, I’d be the one who suffered.
I snapped to my senses. “Go. Seriously, you need to leave.”
Our family had been up against his for decades, billionaires out to fight for the thrill as long as we were spilling the blood of the other. The Constantines were better at hiding our corruption from the world—smarter and more cultured—but that didn’t matter. We were bound in a pit of cruelty and criminality, pursuing wealth and power at any cost.
Sure, we had legitimate businesses. But we had secrets, too. Drugs, arms, trafficking, fraud…it didn’t matter. We were up to our necks.
It made no difference to anyone but us, of course—the police and the courts were so tightly in our back pockets that they’d have rolled over and shown us their bellies if we asked.
“Get the fuck out of here, Morelli!” Silas snarled again.
“I’ll see you again soon,” the monster told my cousin and slapped his shoulder on the way past. “Elaine and I are far from finished.”
“You’re wrong,” I told him. Even though the man was Lucian Morelli, and I hated him with every scrap of my soul, he was seriously damn beautiful. His features were preened but rugged. His jaw was firm, sculpted like a statue.
He was the opposite of me and of all of us Constantines. Dark to our fair. His hair was styled in thick dark sweeps away from his forehead, and his eyes were deadly black. His shoulders were huge, but he was toned all the way down to slim hips. The tuxedo he wore fit perfectly to his insanely hot frame.
Lucian Morelli was a god.
An evil god.
“Never come back,” I told him. “I mean it, Morelli.”
He gave me a mild smile of refusal. It was a promise to return. The door closed behind him before Silas grabbed my arm and yanked me over.
He shoved my clutch to my chest and shook his head at me. “Be careful before you get us all fucking killed. He gets three minutes before I tell security he’s on the grounds, then I’m done with it. And I’m done with you, too.”
“He grabbed me and pinned me,” I told him, but Silas snorted.
“I saw the way you were looking at him, Elaine. You wanted him. You wanted that scum to touch you. You don’t deserve to call yourself a Constantine.”
The cousin I’d been so close to through my childhood stared at me with disgust in his eyes. Almost as much disgust as he’d had for Morelli.
Betrayal and shame burned through me.
Silas didn’t hang around to make sure I was okay, just stalked out of there without a goodbye. Yeah, it was definite. The one final member of my family who didn’t wish I’d rot in hell, besides my cousin Harriet who loved everything with a pulse, had written me off. Silas was now on teamhate Elainewith the rest of them. Great. What an achievement.
With shaking hands, I took my phone back out of my clutch and ordered an Uber. Ironically I wasn’t planning on hitting any clubs tonight. Wasn’t planning on dancing. Instead I would curl up with the Real Housewives of Wherever the Fuck and a pint of ice cream. It didn’t make any difference. I could’ve partied at every club in New York City, and it wouldn’t have meant shit to the self-loathing in my eyes as I stared in the mirror.
If only everyone knew the truth.
If only they knew the filth that had turned me into the woman I’d grown up to be.
But it was too late for that.
It was too late for anything other than to destroy myself as quickly as possible. Maybe one day I’d finally pluck up enough courage to change things.
Maybe not.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lucian
Ishould’ve gonestraight to Violent Delights and found a woman to scene with. That’s the beauty of having your own personal BDSM club—you treat it like one. Everyone in there was mine. They belonged to me, just like the building they were playing filthy games in.
They just didn’t know it.
It was the perfect addition to my portfolio. I didn’t have to lift a finger to oversee the place. Clark Ventana did all the grunt work, and I cashed in on the profits. It was my kind of team.
