Taken Captive

Chapter 40

His tongue poked against the inside of his cheek as he slightly shook his head, his eyes glazing over and filling up with tears. But he kept his gaze ahead, not looking at me while trying to find the words to speak.

"I'm married." He revealed. "To Alexis."

My mouth shut, cutting off the breath I took in. The longer I stayed still, the words repeating in my mind over and over again made my chest feel heavy, my stomach felt empty and full at the same time, I felt like I was going to puke.

I licked my lips and brought the can of beer up, taking the rest down in one big gulp. When I looked back at him, he was looking at me expectantly, I giggled. "Damn, that's tough."

His face fell, "Nia-"

I closed my eyes, shook my head and smiled. "Two minutes. Explain."

"It's kind of a lot-"

"Two minutes," I repeated, ignoring the burning sensation in my eyes, making me blink rapidly, trying to keep my breathing in control.

He cleared his throat, his voice shaky as he started speaking. "My father and Alexis's father made a deal when we were younger that we were going to get married. Our family joining together was good for business, but I never wanted to do it." He shook his head, almost like he was assuring me that it wasn't like that, "The only way I would even get a penny from my father after he died would be if I married Alexis. If I didn't, I wouldn't have anything, Jordan wouldn't have anything. We would've been abandoned and left with nothing."

I nodded and he continued, "So I said fuck it, I didn't think it'd matter because I wasn't planning on," he wiped his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, "on falling in love with anyone, I guess. It would have been good for business, I wouldn't have to see her father that much and all was good."

Then he scoffed, "But over time, Alexis became more and more bitchy, more greedy and demanding and wouldn't let me work." My blood boiled at the mention of her, "I told her father I couldn't do it, I didn't want to be partners with them anymore if it meant I had to come home to her tantrums every single day and hear about how much she disrespected Mary and Rocko."

Then a frown overtook his lips, his jaw clenching in anger. "Then he told me if I divorced her, all of the stuff Jordan and I built would go to him. It was in my father's will, if I broke this marriage in any way, I would lose everything. But he let me send her back, our new deal being that I had to take her one month out of the year."

My teeth ground against each other in frustration. So that's why he brought her back?

"When I sent her back three weeks early this year, she went running to daddy. At first, she didn't tell him about you because she didn't think we'd last, but when she heard I was still with you, she went and told him."

Jealous bitch.

"And so I've been getting threats from him for hurting his precious little girl, who somehow fell in love with me, and he wants to kill me, Nia. All of this is a big scheme, he and my dad wanted to put all of this shit on me, they love seeing me struggle. He knows about you Nia, he's threatening all of us, that's why I brought in Sin."

I crinkled my eyebrows in confusion and he elaborated, "He came here and I tested whether or not I could trust him around you and Kara, see if his loyalties lied with me even though Alexis's father is powerful. He stayed quiet about the information, while he was here, we were trying to find different ways to get out of it, that's why I was so fucking angry and taking it out on you and I'm sorry for that."

"Sin's giving us support, extra protection through all of this for whenever shit hits the fan and Alexis's father finally makes his move." He chugged down the rest of his beer, "And it's going to happen soon, he's waiting for us to let our guard down, he called us into Toronto to do a job for him and luckily he didn't do anything to us, even when you flew in and we stayed there for a couple of weeks."