“Why did you skip requirements one and two?” His voice was calm. Too calm.
Had he already reached the compliance stage? That usually took days to weeks of unrelenting pressure. Perhaps he was just being vigilant and probing his hopeless situation from all angles.
She inhaled deeply through her nose. As a coldhearted deliverer, she couldn’t answer his questions. She kicked his knee, hard enough to make him stumble. “Clothes. Now.”
He glanced at Van, the gun, back to her. “If I refuse, do I get a matching scar, too?”
The little shit actually grinned. It was shaky as hell, but he had brass balls. Her stomach sank at the thought of breaking them.
Van laughed, playing the part. “Only if you’re really lucky. You’d have to fall in love and break the virginity clause to earn one of these.” He stroked his scar.
She closed her eyes. The love thing was one-sided, and he’d left out the most important part, the piece that held her there. For that, she was grateful.
When she opened her eyes, the boy was watching her with a demeanor she couldn’t interpret.
“Just take off your clothes, man,” Van said. “Do what she says, and no one will scar your pretty face.”
He held her eyes as he yanked his shirt over his head, toed off his work boots, and dropped his jeans and boxers in one shove. He didn’t cover himself. Just stepped out of his pants and let her peruse his body.
His thick neck expanded into cut after cut of muscle down his torso. Sinews and tendons stretched the skin in his arms and legs. It was a physique developed through rigorous labor and exercise, wrapped in golden flesh. And his cock—Her breath caught. In its flaccid state, it lay over a loose, full sac and reached a few inches beyond.
“Look at that.” Van circled to stand beside her. “And you thought it was the jockstrap straining his pants.”
The boy’s eyes widened, likely in realization that this wasn’t a spontaneous kidnapping. Yeah, she knew all about his jockstraps, but she’d never mentioned his package to Van. Didn’t mean she hadn’t thought about it. Warmth swirled, uninvited, through her body.
When she was sure she’d mustered strength back into her voice, she tapped the edge of the box. “Get in.”
A twitch in his socked foot was the only response.
Van rotated the aim of the gun down, up, left to right, as if deciding what body part to shoot. He settled the sights on the boy’s balls. “Liv, you sure Mr. E doesn’t bury the bodies in the backyard?”
Fear was the cruelest weapon. It victimized the mind and bred inaction. She despised the idea of scaring the boy. Fuck, she was scared every damned day of her life, but she maintained the bitchy role she was required to play. “I don’t want to know what he does with the bodies.”
Truth was, Mr. E no longer needed to dirty his gloved hands since he’d acquired her. His visits were rare, his identity masked.
“You won’t shoot me.” The boy rolled back his shoulders, flexing his pecs. “How much money are you making off me?”
She leaned up on tip-toes, using the nearness to examine the depth of his bright eyes, the sun-bronzed skin dipping in the hollows of his cheeks, and the velvet pillow of his lips. He was raw, unblemished beauty, mesmerizing, distracting… She relaxed her feet, dropping back. “Emily Carter has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning. Your mom goes every Saturday for her weekly allergy shot.”
A hitch shuddered around his mouth.
She reached behind Van, slipped her hand under his sweatshirt, and removed the Taurus PT-22 from its wedge between his spine and waistband. “The clinic’s not in a very good part of town.” She held up the .22, aimed at the ceiling. The intent wasn’t to shoot him. It conveyed a much grimmer purpose. “Would be a shame if she got carjacked.”
He stared at the gun, at the pink wood-grain grip. Horror tightened his face as he recognized his mother’s pistol. “No.” A heartbreaking whisper. “Please, no.”
Though he gave her the response she needed, her heart felt like it was shrinking. She relaxed her mouth in a painful smile. “I stole it from her glovebox a few days ago. She’s unmolested. For now.”
His breath wheezed hard and fast. A moment later, his lungs slowed. He looked at the box, and a long, deep inhale widened his nostrils. He blinked slowly, eyes lowering.
Then he jerked forward, fist reared back and aimed at her. Expecting it, she dropped in a crouch, dodged his punch, and slammed her shoulders into his knees.
The .22 clattered to the floor, a deliberate maneuver to distract him. He wobbled, skirting around her, and scrambled for the gun. She let him. After all, it wasn’t loaded.
As he bent to retrieve it, Van pressed a boot on his back and shoved the loaded revolver against his nape.
From a small trunk by the box, she gathered locking metal cuffs and a coil of chain, the clanking drawing his attention. “Van’s gun is loaded. Yours is not. Go ahead. Check.”
He did, wrinkles forming on his forehead. After a second check of the magazine, he set it on the floor and slumped under the weight of Van’s foot.
“In the box.” She kicked the .22 out of reach as he climbed in, his movements wooden.
The cuffs went on first, cinching tight. Next, she wrapped the chain around his wrists until the full length was used. The excess binding was more psychological than practical.
He allowed her to move his limbs where she wanted them, his eyes squeezed shut. What was he feeling? Frustration, denial, hope of rescue, utter terror? Her time in that box had covered the gamut.
With the ends of the chains hooked together, she raised his bound arms above his head and locked the cuffs to one of the many eyehooks lining the wood slats.
The box was a device in repression, used to send a degrading message. She controlled his actions, down to every sensory detail. In twenty-four hours, he would emerge sleep-deprived, hungry, and, with no access to a bathroom, humiliated. Weakened and at the mercy of her commands.
She removed his socks and repeated the shackling with his ankles. He stiffened each time her finger brushed his skin, likely repulsed by the feel of her. She swallowed around the knot in her throat. She didn’t blame him.
A yank at his arms and legs confirmed the detainment. She stepped back, followed Van to the door, and entered the code.
As he pushed it open, he swayed toward her, slanting his cheek against hers. She tensed. With his mouth so close, would he kiss her or bite her?
His nose slid through her hair, inhaling her scent. “I’ll let Mr. E know we’ll be ready for the videos in five.”
The gentleness in his tone and the meaning of his words loosened some of her stiffness. On nights like these, when they watched the footage together and he shared in the assurance it delivered, she could feel the tender caress of affection poking past her deepest bruises and curling around her heart. She nodded.
The door clicked behind him. She hurried back to the boy.
On his back, muscles bared, bound, and stretched the full length of the box, he was an erotic picture. She was a criminal, and as ashamed as she was by that, the disgusting, fucked-up part of her anticipated spending the next ten weeks touching every inch of this man. Boy.
She dragged her gaze from his body to his face, and guilt slammed into her.
He stared up at her with so much pain in his eyes. “Don’t hurt my parents.”
Her gut twisted. She knew that pain, lived it every day. She leaned in, lips hovering a breath away, and repeated what Mr. E had said to her. “That’s up to you.”
Resolve hardened his face. She knew that emotion, too. Her time in the box was permanently carved in memory, which had made Van’s threats of returning her there an effective form of control in her training.
Tendrils of resentment coiled around her throat. To dwell on her or the boy’s predicament would only bring irresponsible hesitation. So she did what she always did to distract her thoughts.
She reached into the cold place inside her, searching
for something yearning she could sing with dispassion. The beginning verses of “What It Is” by Kodaline fell past her lips and shivered through the room. She sang with an icy pitch as she removed a blindfold from the trunk by the box and tied it over his wide, glaring eyes.
To deprive smell, a swimmer’s nose plug went on next. He could breathe through his mouth, and the cracks in the box allowed airflow, but it wouldn’t feel that way to him once she shut the lid.
The skin on his face was hot and damp, the muscles beneath jerking against her fingers. She continued to sing as she cuffed headphones over his ears, plugged them into the tablet outside of the box, and activated the timer. Twenty minutes of heart-hammering silence.
The music in her voice strangled, stopped. Twenty minutes alone with his thoughts. Then the misery would begin.
“It’s just the way it is,” she murmured with an ache in her throat.
His body was motionless, but she didn’t miss the goosebumps creeping across his skin or the slight tremor in his cheeks. The sudden desire to comfort him drew her closer, bending her at the waist, until her mouth brushed his, softly, unjustly. His lips pulled away in a quiver that she felt throughout her body.
She straightened and rubbed her breastbone, unable to soothe the ache beneath it. “I’m so sorry.” A whisper, too low to pass through the earphones.
Then she closed the lid.
Chapter Six
Opaque fabric pressed against Josh’s eyes. The clip on his nose forced his breaths through his mouth. Were there air holes? There must’ve been, otherwise he’d be gulping lungfuls of nothingness. His throat whistled. His mouth parched. Maybe he was suffocating.
Were his captors standing right outside the box? He couldn’t hear a damned thing beyond the covers on his ears and the thump of his heart.
The unforgiving wood dug into his shoulders and hips. The thousand-pound chains pinned his hands and feet. The too-close walls caved in around him, firing the nerve endings along his skin in concentrated chaos. It was the kind of tactile assault he imagined could only be experienced within the deafening suffocation of a coffin.
Fear boiled in his stomach and hit his throat with searing acid. Great, he still had the sense of taste, which meant he could savor his puke as he choked on it. He squirmed, tilting his head to the side in case his stomach emptied.
This had to be a depraved prank. They wouldn’t leave him chained like this for long. The girl in the next room didn’t have visible wounds on her fragile frame. There weren’t any instruments of cruelty hanging on the walls. Hell, the gun wasn’t even loaded.
He should’ve grabbed the blonde and threatened to break her neck. Why hadn’t he kicked the gun from Van’s hand as soon as the man walked in? His chest tightened. He should’ve left Liv on the road to tow her own effing car.
His pulse elevated, and his body burned and itched. Mom and Dad would be looking for him. How many calls had he missed? His heavy breaths congealed the air around him. She’d done something to his phone.
He bucked against the box, yanking and twisting at the restraints. His stupid freaking impulse to help a stranger had put his parents in danger. He’d left them unprotected and abandoned them with a farm they couldn’t manage alone.
He was idiot. His cheeks burned, and his body fevered with sweat and chills. He tried to punch his legs. The shackles held. So frigging stupid. He kicked again, and pain jolted through his ankles.
Could they hear him struggling? He bit down on his lip, swallowing hard. Had his hostility sent them out to hurt his parents?
A roar clawed from his throat, thundering in his head. How could he have let this happen? Why hadn’t he sent his own text to Mom? Why hadn’t he noticed these people watching him? He should’ve investigated the problem with her car himself. He could’ve prevented this.
His muscles clenched against another bout of trembling. Dad would retrace the route from the stadium to home. He’d find nothing. Likely not even the stalled Kia. She was too well-prepared, luring him with a story, sabotaging his phone while he sat beside her, and coercing him with Mom’s routine and her stolen .22. How long had they been watching?
Why him? Oh God, what had he done to earn their attention?
Helplessness ricocheted over his limbs, thrashing against the chains. Mom was probably pacing in the kitchen, wearing down the linoleum, overworking her already fragile heart.
A sob erupted in his chest, taking him by surprise as it escaped with his gasps. Please, dear God. He closed his eyes, trapping wells of moisture. Please take care of Mom and Dad.
Prayer saturated his thoughts. He stammered through his favorite hymns, filling his heart with the inspirational, joyful words. He desperately needed the power of God to overcome this and to ensure he rose whole and confident and alive.
The walls of the box crept impossibly closer. He thrashed, uselessly. He widened his eyes beneath the mask, trying frantically to see, and met a shroud of black. So cramped, dark… His lungs panted. He needed to focus, to keep his head.
He tried to recall the meditation techniques he’d learned at his retreat. Sucking air through a dry throat, he pictured light filtering through the box’s wood planks, spreading a glow over him, chasing away the shadows. The walls around him expanded outward. The coffin doubled in size. Oxygen flowed in. His pulse slowed. He swiped his tongue over cracked lips. Bless the depth of his imagination.
Time stretched. Was it minutes? Or was it hours? They should’ve released him by now. What were they doing out there? Sharpening knives? Laughing about what a sucker he was? Or were they planning to move the box out back and bury it with him inside?
No, not death. She’d said he would be sold in ten weeks. He would have to be alive for that to happen. He latched onto the hope of survival, even as the implication of his body being auctioned for money brought its own horrors.
A violent shudder ripped through him. Purchased by what kind of person? For what purpose? He knew. He knew the answers and shoved them away, stretching his jaw to accommodate a panicked rush of breath. Heavenly Father, please help me.
Despair gave way to anger and frustration. His prayers weakened in conviction, losing their appeal. He had put himself in this situation. God had nothing to do with it. Doubt trickled in. Doubt in His divine rescue. Doubt in himself.
Too many terrible things could happen to him and his parents. The air thinned, and his lungs struggled against images of Mom and Dad’s bodies gutted in their bed and painted in blood. He curled his hands into fists, picturing Liv slicing off his fingernails with a razor blade. Nausea coiled in his stomach. The glaring possibility was rape. Was he strong enough to prevent Van from taking him from behind?
His heart pounded. His virginity was his to give, dammit, not to be stolen and dehumanized. The thought girded him, even as he knew his restraints enabled them to do whatever they wanted.
He rolled his head back and forth over the wood. What had he learned during his spiral of mistakes? Beyond his stupidity in blind trust? He was in the Two Trails Crossing neighborhood in Temple. His captors went by Van and Liv. Calm, physically fit, and armed, they posed a difficult barrier to break through.
Besides the mention of a Mr. E, she seemed to be the one in control. Who was she? Clearly not the girl who cried a sob story on the street. Hindsight punched him hard in the gut.
But she couldn’t be a sociopath. Hadn’t he glimpsed the real girl in his truck in her moving song? No one could fake the gravity he’d heard in her voice. What was driving her? Money was the obvious reason, but her aim seemed…more profound. Was she motivated by something deeper? Something attached to her?
A deep-rooted sadness had flooded her eyes and creased her mouth when he asked her not to hurt his parents. Then it was complicated by that second kiss, the one she took while he was pinned in the coffin.
Maybe he was only seeing what he wanted to see? Scrambling for the only thread of optimism in his reach? Perhaps the kiss was a design to mess with his head,
but it had conveyed a hesitancy the first kiss did not.
There was nothing hesitant about Van. His composure was fortified by piercing gray eyes, so sharp they didn’t blink. Which made the calculation in his chumminess obvious—and confusing. Even as Josh had recognized it for what it was, he couldn’t deny he felt a little less tense when Van traded his steely gaze for a full-faced grin.
And the girl, who must’ve been some kind of slave, had somehow earned a respite from restraints and supervision. A reward for good behavior?
Sweet Jesus, one week in this nightmare and he might be drooling applesauce. He writhed in the chains, his hips banging against the sides. How much longer before they let him out of the freaking box?
He tried again to calm himself, catching his breath, rolling his neck and shoulders through the burgeoning pangs of muscle cramps.
There was a way out of this. Somehow. He just needed to man up and figure it out. Field experience in instructional ministry had taught him how to associate with people, how to listen to them, and guide them through tough situations. He would concentrate his attention on observing what she was hiding and hearing what wasn’t being said. He would study her face and learn her expressions. Once he discovered the heart of her, he would offer advice, befriend her, discover her strengths and weaknesses, and predict her next moves.
What if she beat him? Raped him? What were his limits? How much could he endure before he despised her so much he lost himself in hate?
Adrenaline burned through his veins. If he could survive the next few hours or days, he could survive ten weeks. Maintaining composure was paramount.
A ringing sound sliced the silence. It was a consistent lonely tone, like the lingering bong of a brass bell. Was it some kind of tinnitus?
He rolled his head side-to-side, and the frequency seemed to ripple around his ears. It was definitely streaming through the headphones. The volume wasn’t elevated enough to hurt. Just one loud, relentless blare.
The sound continued. His fingers tingled, as did the skin around his lips. Panic and irritation robbed his ability to catch his breath. He yawned over and over, popping his ears.
