“Who’s there?” he shouted, and walked toward the door. I struggled, attempting to free my bound hands as he walked away.
“What the fuck is going on?” Jakob burst into the bedroom, his eyes manic as he stared at David and then at me tied to the bedpost. “Bianca.” Jakob’s eyes narrowed as he stared at my panties around my ankles and my wrists tied above my head. “What did he do to you?” Jakob’s voice was hoarse and he looked like Mars, the god of war, angry and ready to go to battle.
“Please untie me,” I begged him. He strode toward me as if carried under a power not his own.
“Mattias to the rescue.” David laughed bitterly.
Jakob quickly untied my wrists, his face angrier than I’d ever seen it before. He glanced into my eyes and stroked the hair off my forehead. “You okay?” he whispered down at me, and I nodded. “Good.” He touched my cheek and turned around.
“She looks pretty tonight, doesn’t she?” David laughed.
“Shut up before I kill you, you motherfucker.” Jakob turned toward David. “I will fucking kill you.”
“Why?” David sneered. “I had her before you. And she didn’t say no as I just brought her to orgasm again. She loves my tongue, though I think she’d love my hard cock even better. She used to love it when I . . .” He started laughing maniacally.
I stared at him in shock as he laughed. Jakob walked over to him and punched him in the face.
I watched as David fell back and looked at his brother with hatred. “What the fuck?” David glared at Jakob. “Bros before hos, man.”
“I don’t know what you’re playing at, David.” Jakob pulled him up off the floor. “I could kill you right now without blinking an eyelid.”
“You’re just jealous of me. You always were and you always will be,” David sneered. “You’re the illegitimate son. You’ve always had something to prove. You can’t stand being under me. You can’t stand that I run the company.”
“What are you talking about?” I looked at both of them in confusion. What was going on here? “I thought you didn’t work at Bradley.” I looked at David in confusion. “I thought you just lived off of your trust.”
“Stupid girl,” he sneered. “You still don’t get it? I’m the one in charge. The big boss. The CEO. I more than work at Bradley Inc., I run it.” He smirked as he watched me.
“But Mattias . . .” I didn’t even know why I was bringing him up anymore. I didn’t understand what the fuck was going on, but I knew that there was no Mattias.
“There is no Mattias,” Jakob said softly, confirming what had been in the back of my mind for a little while. He turned to look at me, a look of pity on his face. “There is no Mattias, Bianca.”
“I don’t understand.” My voice cracked. “What do you mean? Why would you create a fake person?” David started laughing, a loud, hysterical sound. I stared at his face and noticed just how calculating he looked, just how deceptive his eyes were. How had I ever thought this man was boyish and charming?
“Did you really think you were that smart, you dumb bitch? Did you really think I would lead you to Mattias?” David looked at me disdainfully. “Did you really think you could con your way into a shareholders’ meeting of one of the biggest companies in the world and not be found out?”
I chewed on my lower lip and stared at him, not saying anything.
“Larry called me and told me that you’d asked him to procure shares to come to the meeting. We both knew that there was only one reason for you to be at that meeting.”
“Larry told you I was coming?”
“Yes, ‘Uncle Larry’ told me everything.” David laughed. “He told me about the boxes of papers your dad left for you. I told him to destroy them, but I think he felt guilty, so he handed them to you. Worst decision he ever made. If he’d just destroyed those boxes, he could have saved all of us a lot of aggravation.”
“You knew this?” I looked at Jakob with hurt eyes, but he didn’t respond. “So there is no Mattias?” I looked at David. “So all this time, all those days you said you were asking him to join us for dinner, you were lying.”
“What do you think?” David sneered. “Didn’t you ever think it was weird that there were no photos of Mattias and no one had ever met him and that he didn’t even go to his own company’s shareholder meeting?”
“I just don’t understand. It says he’s the CEO on the company website. Your father’s bio says he has two sons, Mattias and David Bradley.”
“I did have a brother.” David shrugged. “He died when he was a baby, but his name wasn’t Mattias. Mattias was a name that Larry came up with, actually.” David laughed.
“Larry?” I frowned. “Larry knew there was no Mattias?”
“I should think so. He’s the one who did all the legal paperwork for the corporation. He’s the one who took care of everything.”