Revenge Served Hot

By Sophie Kisker

"I'm Not the Man of Your Dreams. I'm the Man of Your Nightmares"

 

My name is Livvi, and for the next 13 months I'll be on my knees, paying off my father's debts. There's been a plot against my family for years, and I am the tapestry upon which they will paint their blackest revenge.

 

But I may yet have a Champion. He's a man with a dark past, and though his deception leaves me stunned, he promises to keep me alive.

 

The price, however, is complete submission to his desires.

 

It's an offer without guarantees, and I have no choice but to accept it.

________________________________________________________

 

This is a novella with unequal power exchange that explores the dark sides of obsession. In the end it is a romance, with a HEA.

 

Previously published in the 'Heros Undercover' Anthology by the same name.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odyssey Press
• Release date: Nov 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9798201107659

Book preview

1

THEY CAME FOR me one night, just as my father had warned me they would. My husband had just patted my arm and reassured me it was the story of an old man.

He was wrong.

Masked figures entered our bedroom so silently that, despite my restless sleep, the first I knew of the invasion was a hand over my mouth and a gun in my face. My eyes flicked to the left where Jack lay. He had a gun to his face as well.

What the fuck are you-- Livvi? You okay? I could hear the fear in his voice.

Mmm hmm. With a large sweaty palm over my mouth, that was the best response I could give.

Get up. The gunman over me waved his weapon in the direction of the closet. Get dressed. And if you make a fucking sound, I’ll kill him.

There wasn’t any point to making a sound. No one would rush to my aid, not in this town. And honestly, I was almost relieved, in a ‘feels-so-good-to-have-the-boil-lanced’ kind of way.

What does one wear to a kidnapping? If they were giving me a choice, then I would opt for a turtleneck sweater, sturdy jeans, thick socks, and boots. It had been unusually bitterly cold outside earlier today when we’d laid my father’s body to rest beside the flat, hard-packed earth of my mother’s grave.

My thick and frustratingly curly hair had been braided since before the funeral, so I didn’t bother with it.

As soon as I pulled the second boot on, one masked man grabbed an elbow, and a second one grabbed the other side, and they hustled me to the bedroom door. My courage began to waver as I realized I didn’t know if I’d ever see my husband again.

Jack! Jack!

There was no answer.

They dragged me through the hall and down the stairs, and out the front door into the night. A black SUV waited at the curb, the tailpipe exhaust billowing in the cold. A third dark figure stood motionless next to an open door. As they pushed me into the back seat, my shirt rode up. A cold draft whistled down my jeans. Fuck. I forgot to put on underwear.

It was no surprise where the SUV took me. I took a deep breath as I got out in front of the sprawling old stone manor that belonged to Jacob Schultzman. As teenagers, my girlfriends and I had speculated just what kind of wonders lay beyond the massive wooden front door, or behind the lattice glass of the casement windows. There had been rumors of a handsome son, but he’d been sent away to schools since he was a little boy, and no one ever remembered seeing him.

The person inside I knew as well as anyone in town knew him. Jacob Schultzman owned everything, and pretty much everyone, in town. If you needed to buy a house, you went to Schultzman Realty. If you needed a mortgage for the house, you made an appointment at Schultzman Savings and Loan. If you had a child, she went to Schultzman Elementary School. Same for the hospital—all named after him.

And if you needed the police or the court system—well, you’d better hope you weren’t on the opposite side of the issue from him. He pretty much owned them as well.

For the most part, things ran smoothly. He was good for our town. Crime was low, jobs plentiful, no one was homeless. But there were rumors that spoke of evil lurking below the surface.

And I had known the truth of those rumors for a while now.

As I walked up the broad stone steps, the dread in the pit of my stomach got worse. The door swung open silently. I entered the foyer and looked around, concealing my astonishment. There was marble everywhere. The floor, the walls, the matched set of curved stairs that ran on either side of the hallway up to a balcony, even the railings of the balcony itself.

Perhaps marble is easier to clean when it gets stained with blood?

Stop that! Jesus, Livvi!

My escort, who had removed his balaclava, nudged me to the left. I entered a richly decorated room—red carpet, red flocked walls, mahogany trim, and stuffy-looking sofas. And, of course, a magnificent, over-sized desk complete with scrollwork on the corners, polished until it shone. Sitting behind it was Jacob Schultzman.

I’d seen him before in public, and he wasn’t much to look at. Balding and given to a slight paunch, he had a face that sported a five o’clock shadow just fifteen minutes after he shaved. He had piercing blue eyes you could see from a hundred feet away. I’d never been this close to him before. Up close, he radiated power like a furnace radiated heat. Almost everyone called him J.S. when they were talking about him, and Mr. Schultzman or Sir when they were talking to him.

Olivia Parkhurst. Oh, excuse me. I forgot you were married. Olivia Rye. Welcome.

I suppose I should thank you for letting me attend my father’s funeral before dragging me away.

He inclined his head, ever the gracious ruler.

Fuck him. So exactly why am I here?

He lifted an eyebrow. Didn’t your father fill you in?

It almost killed him to confess the little bit he had told me. Of course he did. But I’d like to hear it from your perspective.

Ever since my father’s whispered, tearful confession, I had lived in dread of this moment. He’d pulled me aside on my eighteenth birthday. He looked older and worn down, and even in my self-centered youth I could sense something really wrong. He pulled at a thread on his well-worn pants, avoiding eye contact.

I did something a long time ago that I don’t regret, but there were consequences I didn’t anticipate. You need to know about them. You remember I told you how your mom and I met?

Of course. She was a maid at a hotel you stayed in, and you fell in love with her on the spot and eloped.

"That wasn’t quite how it happened. I had a meeting at the house of a… client. Your