“She’ll beg me to touch her,” Zach said, running a finger up my slit. I was beet red with shame, afraid to look at Rafe because I’d only find repulsion.

“This changes nothing, babe. Do you hear me?” Rafe shouted. “You’re mine. You’ll always be mine.”

Zach stomped across the room and shoved a cloth between Rafe’s teeth. When he turned around, he did so with a devious smile. He sauntered to me, unbuttoning his jeans and yanking his zipper down to reveal his erection springing toward me at eye-level.

“I know you love us both,” Zach said, gripping my head so I couldn’t turn away, “but you have a decision to make.”

“What decision?” I cried, my eyes stinging.

“You need to decide which one of us gets to live.”

I jerked awake with a silent scream, mouth wide open in horror. Huffing in fast and shallow breaths, I gazed at Rafe’s side of the bed and found it empty. The clock glowed an eerie 12:02 a.m.

We’d gone to bed over an hour ago, but where was he?

Sliding from the sweat-drenched sheets, I tiptoed into the sitting area and found him festering in the dark.

“Rafe?” My voice came out hollow, small, and I had to say his name again before he realized I stood in the shadows, burrowing into them, finding comfort in the obscurity of blackness.

How strange that darkness comforted at a time like this, right after I’d awakened thrashing in the sheets, sweat drenching my skin, unable to scream because terror had lodged in my throat. I raised my hand, then halted half way to my arm, nails aching to dig in.

Rafe and I exchanged a meaningful glance, and I dropped my hand. But the need to get lost in the sting of pain was overbearing, strangling…strong enough to make a person go mad. I ached to feel his hand on my ass, but I didn’t think I deserved it—not after the twisted dreams I’d been having for the past few nights.

Since the day Rafe revealed his son to me, life had gone on in an odd, surreal way. I’d spent my days chained to the bedroom floor while he left to train for the upcoming match with Zach. Nothing I said or did would change his mind about fighting my brother.

He said he was doing it for me…for us. But I didn’t believe him. He harbored an immeasurable amount of rage. Since Rafe had decided not to take it out on me, Zach was the only one left, the true culprit—in Rafe’s eyes—responsible for everything. For his imprisonment, the destruction of his family’s legacy, and even the murder of his son’s mother.