Claire: The Forced Virgin Of The Billionaire
Chapter 152

“Let. Her. Go.”

I’d never seen Azriel’s face like that. In all the moments when he’d frightened me, in all the times I thought his anger couldn’t be any scarier, nothing had prepared me for the emanating anger that was coming off of him at that moment.

“You letting me walk out of here, son?”

“No.” Azriel’s eyes were cold. Stone cold.

“Then why would I let you have her back?”

I felt Tom shuffle behind me.

“Don’t move!” Azriel hollered but Tom was quick. There was something cold against my temple. His gun.

Azriel’s jaw tightened.

Then Tom c****d the gun, “Drop your gun or there’s a bullet in her brain.”

Azriel didn’t hesitate, he dropped his gun and it slid across the floor. The cold steel left my temple.

“The love of a good woman, huh?” Tom said softly, “It does a lot to a man. I hope you appreciate that I gave this to you. But I’m surprised you’re so weak to choose her over yourself. Thought I raised you better.”

He pushed me forward and I landed on the floor. I looked back and he had his gun trained on Azriel.

“Protecting what’s mine isn’t weak, Uncle. It’s what a real man does. He prioritizes his family above all else.”

“Yeah? So why are you betraying me, my boy?”

“You’re wrong, Uncle. You’ve chosen wrong. You’ve chosen power and ego over family. You taught me wrong.

You bred anger and hate and rage into me.

Somehow that beautiful girl on the floor at your feet, she changed all that for me. Made me want to put her first.

She’s my family, my future. She and I won’t raise our kids the way I’ve been raised, Uncle.”

He shook his head, “You think it’s been easy for me? Keep my family safe? Build this business for you and your brother? You think I haven’t had to make some gut-wrenching decisions in my life?

You think I’m gonna let you s**t on it? You turn your brother against me?” Tom was shaking his head in disgust.

“How’d it feel when I took her? You like having something of yours taken away? You’re trying to take my company away from me, the respect your brother has for me.

I don’t know what happened to your respect.

I tried to get her last week, you know? Disarmed your house.

You’re lucky I’ve had a chance to calm down since then or I might’ve shot her dead right in front of the whole family.”

The rage emanating off him intensified, “We both know that was a game, Uncle. I saw what you had your guys leave. And was that you f*g with my phone, too? Trying to get Claire to send nude pictures?”

Tom snickered, “Yeah, my boy. You been digging round in my business, you think I don’t know all you’ve found out?

You think I haven’t been a step ahead of you every step you’ve taken? There’s something you haven’t figure out yet, son.

A kitten can’t f**k a tomcat.”

“So what now? You ending my life, Tomcat?”

Azriel shrugged, “That’s how little I matter to you? What about Dare? What’s his punishment gonna be? Gonna f**k with the brakes in his car?”

Tom snickered.

I stared at Azriel’s gun that he’d dropped. It was two feet from me. I could lunge for it and put a stop to this. I looked up at Azriel, tears in my eyes. He still wasn’t looking at me.

I wanted to get a message to him with my eyes, to tell him I could grab for the gun but he wasn’t looking at me. It was like I was invisible.

Tom and he were in a faceoff and they were staring one another down.

“You out of the picture, your brother’ll come back into the fold.” Tom shrugged.

“He’s no puppet.” Azriel answered.

“He looked up to you but he was jealous of you. Jealous you were my namesake, the business was originally founded by your father so I had no choice but to make you my namesake when I took over.

Your brother was jealous you were getting the keys to the kingdom.

Jealous you got the girl,” Tom motioned to me with his chin, “You outta the way, he’ll be happy with all he’ll get. Maybe I’ll gift her to him.”

Azriel glanced at me and I glanced at the gun.

I saw something in his eyes shift, a flare of his eyes in warning. He didn’t want me reaching for it.

But how else were we getting out of this?

Tom casually wandered over to the bar and as he did, I inched a little toward the gun.

Tom didn’t seem to notice. He poured another drink and drank some, his gun still pointed at his nephew.

I looked at Azriel’s face and he didn’t look at me but he jerked his head in a ‘no’.

He knew my plan to reach for the gun. I moistened my lips and decided on another tactic.

“Tom?” I called out. Azriel’s uncle’s attention snapped to me.

I shifted ahead on my knees and sat back on my heels. My back was to Azriel and now the gun was behind me, between Azriel and me.

“Did you kill my mother?” I asked.

The color seemed to drain out of his face.

“No,” he said softly, “I did not. She won the game the only way she knew how. I refused let her go so she took herself from me.”

I covered my face with my hands and pushed away my emotions. The look of pain on his face when he’d said those words made me think it could distract him.

“I loved her like I loved no other woman, would’ve forgiven her for anything. I forgave her for leaving me, for your father, for the abortion.

She was it for me. Everything. But she didn’t feel the same.

She couldn’t take me as I was.”

A chill slithered up my spine. The silence in the room was near deafening.

“I love your nephew unconditionally,” I whispered, taking my hands off my face, tears burning in my throat.

Tom looked at me and shook his head, with pain, with skepticism, jealousy, I didn’t know. I couldn’t read his expression.

“Let us go. Don’t take it from him. You said you wanted to give him what you didn’t have. If you meant that, really meant it, he has it. He has it. Let us go.

Maybe in time you and your family can heal from this.”

“Claire, don’t.” Azriel answered behind me but his voice was hoarse.

Tom looked at me with tears glistening in his eyes and after a moment, said “Go.” he shrugged.

The hand with his gun in his hand dropped to his side but as I got to my feet a sneer spread across his face and he raised the gun in my direction.

“Claire; f**k!” Azriel’s voice was urgent behind me and suddenly he hauled me behind himself and at the same time produced a gun from somewhere on his body and he fired in his Uncle’s direction.

Azriel’s POV

A split second after I fired my gun and hit my Uncle in the forehead with a bullet, Claire went almost limp in my arms.

I knew my speed and my aim was better than his. He always had others do his dirty work so he was out of practice. I also had two guns on my body, not just the one in my hand when I walked in.

She was staring at my uncle’s body there on the floor in a pool of b***d. I jerked her out of the daze by pulling her hand, “C’mon.”

We left the building. She looked numb, looked like she was in a trance. I led her outside toward the jeep where Nino, Dario, and Dex sat. The guards were all dead on the front porch.

I got into the back seat with her; my brother was back there, too.

“Call JC for cleanup,” I told Nino, who was in the passenger seat. Dex drove away. Dario and I exchanged looks.

My brother’s expression softened for the first time in weeks and then he looked out the window.

She didn’t completely lose it until we were back at the farm. I had the guys drop us off there, knowing it’s where we’d need to be.

When we got up the stairs she walked ahead of me to the sofa and sat down on it stiffly, staring off into space.

I went to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of water and then sat down beside her, putting the bottles on the floor in front of us.

“Baby?” I whispered and her eyes traveled up my body to my face. The fog seemed to lift and then she fell against me and then I crumbled.

Claire’s POV

2 Weeks Later…

I woke up and my head was on his chest, on his right peck and in my line of vision was ink on his left peck. I lifted up on an elbow and looked closer. It was surrounded by skin that was reddish, a tiny bit swollen-looking due to being new.

It was shiny, probably with some sort of ointment, and it was beautiful.

He’d gotten in last night late, after I’d been asleep.

Over his heart was a tattoo that looked very much like the tribal art on his shoulder trailing down his arm but this was a small owl on an olive branch, the Greek mythological Athena symbol I’d seen a million times in my life.

Below the olive branch, etched in shiny blackish gold ink, it said my name, it said Claire and it looked like my own handwriting, like I’d drawn my name on myself.

A lump formed in my throat and tears started to fill my eyes.

His eyes opened and he saw what my focus was on. He looked at me lovingly and caressed my cheek.

“The forgiveness you’ve shown me for all I’ve done to you, baby? It means everything,” his voice was sleepy, sweet, “You’ve written your name on my heart so I wanted it visible. I saw the artist who did my other ink. I think he integrated it all really well.”

“It’s beautiful, Azriel.”

He kissed my cheekbone, kissing a tear away, “The way you trace my ink all the time after we make love, I want you tracing your name on me, too. So I had it written just the way you’d do it.

Went through your boxes of art, you’d made quite a collection here in such a short time, to get a writing sample.

I’m branded. You own me, baby girl.

Body and soul.”

“Will you marry me?” I asked, through tears, looking at my dinner date hottie, my dream man. My nightmare man. He was my everything.

Every time he gave me a big smile I thought it was the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen.

But right then, laying together in the little bed in the hayloft where I’d truly fallen in love with him, he gave me the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen yet and then he said, “I’ll think about it.”

I scrunched my nose up at him and he leaned over and kissed my nose.

Later that morning we drove back to the city to finish packing our things. We were starting over somewhere else. We didn’t want to live in the house Tom bought, the house that I now knew was bought because it was my own mother’s dream house.

Tom’s distorted entitlement put all this in motion and we wanted nothing to do with it. We were getting on a plane and taking some time for one another before the family flew down to meet us for our wedding.

I went into the kitchen and Rosita handed me a cup of coffee. When I took a sip I could swear there was not a grain of sugar in it.

My eyes narrowed at her and she gave me a sly smile and turned around and resumed packing a box of dishes. I was about to reach for the sugar but noticed the sugar bowl had already been packed away.

I sat down at the island and decided to see if I could live without my 3 sugars. I took a second sip and really, it wasn’t all that bad.

Claire’s POV

We planned to get married a month after Tom died. We were doing it in Costa Rica with Azriel’s siblings, Eddy, Bianca and Nino, Rosita, Lisa, and all the kids.

Azriel and I are moving there and starting over. I haven’t said goodbye to my old friends and my old life.

I just can’t go there right now. It’s too raw and I’m too different.

My friends are in school, dating, working part-time jobs, and being teenaged girls. I’ve changed so much in the last few months.

Maybe someday I’ll go back and see them. Or maybe it’s better to just move forward.

I wrote Lily’s parents, Rose and Cal a letter, it was vague but heartfelt. I mailed it to them before we left.

Dario’s taken the company over and he’s going to transition it into something clean and wholesome and then he says he’s going to sell it and become a commercial airline pilot. That’s what he dreamt of ever since he was a small child.

I asked Azriel what he dreamt of. He never answered the question honestly, gave me a storybook ‘happily ever after with my dinner date beach walks man’ kind of answer.

I know that’s not true because he never envisioned himself settling down before he met me.

I know he envisioned himself at the helm of Clarke Enterprises. I don’t know what he’ll do with his life but I know he is too driven and too smart to stay idle for too long.

He just needs time to heal, to figure out what he wants. We both do. Then we’ll see what pearls life’s oyster offers us.

My father is still incarcerated but he’s still alive, at least.

Azriel’s uncle’s death along with the death of the guards that were also there was reported in the newspapers as having to do with mafia business gone wrong and related to a cartel in Mexico.

I guess JC, whoever he is, has good clean-up skills.

Thank God Azriel had the foresight to put a GPS in my engagement ring. It was crazy stalkerish of him to do it but it probably saved my life.

Would Tom have killed me to teach his son a lesson? We’ll never know.

Since we’ve been here in paradise, Azriel’s been having nightmares and I finally convinced him to get therapy after he woke up in the throes of one of those nightmares with my throat in his hand and I was turning blue.

He agreed, after a big argument where I stood my ground and won, to start Skype counselling sessions with a therapist in the UK that has excellent credentials and experience in helping men like Azriel come to terms with their dominating personalities.

I don’t know if it’s the counselling, the guilt, or the grief over all that happened but he hasn’t wanted to play any s*x games.

I’ve tried to initiate them for stress relief, or thinking it’d help bring his spark back but right now he’s quiet, subdued, reflective, and seems to be all about the vanilla.

He’s sweet and attentive and he’s my dinner date beach guy hottie. And he’s sad and troubled and he’s not the same.

I’m missing the blackjack berry thunder.

We just have to give it time. I hope.

I know he feels regret for all the pain and hurt and I know he loves me but I kind of miss my dominator. Yes, he’s possessive and protective but he’s too… vanilla.