Knox’s dark eyes blazed as he sneered at her. He hadn’t stopped sneering since he’d dragged her out of Lennox’s house and thrown her in the back of the Enforcer truck. He’d ridden up front with his driver, and during the chopper ride to the compound he’d sat next to the pilot, as if Hudson’s presence were inconsequential to him. As if she were a piece of furniture that didn’t bear acknowledgment.
Now, in the privacy of her old room, he’d dropped the mask of indifference. Fury and disgust had his whole body trembling as he shook her so hard her teeth rattled.
“You have no idea how much shit you’re in,” Knox spat out. “That stunt you pulled? Running away? I’m going to make you pay for it, Hudson.”
She didn’t answer. A long, vacant stare was all she gave him, because experience had taught her that talking back to Knox only intensified his rage.
She’d known him since they were children, and she’d loathed him even back then. He’d been a smug, spoiled child who’d grown up to be an arrogant, violent psychopath. His sadistic tendencies and brutal efficiency made him a good Enforcer, and that was the only reason Hudson could think of that would make her father consider Knox for her husband. Her father’s compassion had been trumped only by his obsessive devotion to the Colonies, and on paper Knox had probably looked like the perfect candidate to head up the new Coast Colony.
But Hudson knew better. Knox would run the place to the ground with his blind rage and complete lack of empathy.
“Say something, bitch.”
She laughed without an ounce of humor. “Bitch, huh? Is that going to be your pet name for me when we’re married?”
The sharp backhand nearly knocked her off her feet. Her cheek stung from the force of the blow, and she pressed her palm to her face in shock as Knox smirked at her.
“I’m going to call you whatever I want when we’re married. And I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want to do to you.”
She yelped when his hand closed over her left breast. He squeezed it hard enough to make her eyes water, and her knee came up instinctively, slamming into his groin.
Knox staggered back in pain, glowering at her. “You’re going to wish you hadn’t done that.” He advanced on her again, but wisely kept a foot of distance between them this time. “I’m not weak like your brother, and I’m not going to stand for this bullshit when we move to the coast.”
She shook her head incredulously. Did he honestly believe she would willingly follow him to a whole new colony and be his wife? She’d rather die first.
Before she could stop it, the last devastating image she’d seen at Lennox’s house flashed in her mind. That redhead’s body – Nell – on the hallway floor. Blood pouring from the wound in her abdomen as Layla hovered over her and screamed for the Enforcers to leave them alone.
Hudson hadn’t known Nell at all, but her heart still ached for the loss. For Lennox and Jamie’s loss. Knox would have murdered everyone in that house if she hadn’t agreed to come home with him, but just because she was here now didn’t mean she’d forgotten what he’d done or what he was capable of.
“I want you to listen to me, and listen good,” she hissed out. “I am not your wife. I will never be your wife. I will slit my own throat before I let that happen, bitch.”
His face turned red, the deep color emphasizing the bruising around his nose, which was more crooked than it had been the last time she’d seen it. Dominik had broken it, she remembered. And maybe it made her as bloodthirsty as everyone else in this ruthless world, but she wished her brother had smashed Knox’s goddamn face in and turned it to a bloody pulp.
The door swung open before Knox could respond, and relief flooded her belly when her brother walked in.
There was a split second of silence. A multitude of emotions traveled from his eyes to hers.
Dominik opened his arms.
Hudson hesitated. She hadn’t forgotten what he’d done to her, either. What he’d done – and was still doing – to the outlaws outside the city walls. But when she saw his anguished face, some of the anger chipped away, leaving her with a deep ache of sorrow. This was her brother, damn it.
Good or bad, he was still her brother.
She dove into his open arms, tears stinging her eyelids as she returned the tight hug he gave her.
“Hey, sis,” he said hoarsely, and then his voice sharpened as he snapped at Knox over Hudson’s head. “Leave. Now.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” the other man snapped back. “She’s my wife.”
“No. She’s a name on a marriage contract,” Dominik said coldly. “Which, in case you’ve forgotten, I haven’t even signed.”