by Selena Kitt
Something’s wrong.
Of course, something was wrong. They’d been kidnapped, bound and gagged. Things didn’t get much more “wrong” than that.
She shivered. The floor was cold and oily, and since that rat had scurried over Tilly’s foot when she’d been listening to Beast and Erich, she was afraid of rats crawling on her. Fortunately, she hadn’t yet seen any in this room. But that didn’t mean they weren’t there.
Frankie moaned in her sleep, tossing fitfully. The girls were on the floor, twined together, using each other’s mid-sections as a pillow. The sound of breathing, an occasional snore breaking the monotony, filled the room. There was nothing else for them to do but sleep in the darkness. They couldn’t even talk to each other for comfort. She couldn’t imagine how hopeless things must seem to the rest of the women. At least Tilly had Beast, and she knew he was doing his best to get them out of this.
If you’d listened to him in the first place, you wouldn’t be here.
All the what-ifs crowded in.
If she’d never followed Beast out to his car that day, if she’d never found out about The Block, if she’d never told Frankie about it, if they’d never met Erich or gone to The Bottom Floor, if Tilly hadn’t decided to pursue training with Beast, if they’d just listened to him when he warned them about Erich, or when he’d told Tilly to stay home, or even, for Pete’s sake, if she’d left the stupid gun in her purse…
At any point along the way, she could have broken the chain of events that had led her to this room. One smart decision, instead of a stupid one, could have saved both their lives.
But Beast is here. He’ll save us.
That’s what she told herself, wondering what was happening out there, why it was so quiet. How long had it been, since Beast had zipped-tied and gagged them once more, locking them in? He had convinced her that he loved her, that he was protecting her, that whatever he was doing, it was only to aid the other helpless women bound in this room with her—and to keep Erich from doing this to them or any other women in the future.
But he’d always been convincing, hadn’t he? He’d always been able to make her believe him. Tilly didn’t know if that was because she was gullible, or if Beast was just that good—maybe a little of both. He’d convinced her he loved her before he’d left that summer, but then he’d snuck off in the early morning like a thief. He wouldn’t have even said goodbye, if she hadn’t caught him on his way out.
Then all her letters had come back REFUSED. Even the ones where she confessed to him that she was pregnant with his child, that she missed and loved him and wanted him to come back to her. Then, later, the ones that she’d written, knowing they would come back, just like all the others, telling him how she’d been forced to give up their baby, how much she missed them both, and wanted them back.
Refused. All refused.
And yet, when Tilly’s mother had asked him to come home—he’d returned.
Her mother never saw any of those letters, of course. Tilly had rented a P.O. Box at the post office to use as a return address. She had them hidden in her room, unopened. She’d stopped writing him once she started college. Had written him off entirely—at least, that’s what she told herself. Until her mother had gotten sick, and Liv had broken down and asked him to come home. Tilly had honestly never expected to hear from him again, and when her mother had told her that Beast agreed to come and stay in his old room for a while, she’d been flabbergasted.
Tilly knew he’d agreed to come home for Liv’s sake—because he knew she was dying. He claimed he’d come home for Tilly, but she didn’t believe that. More lies. Lies on top of lies. Mr. Secretive tried to keep it all from her—The Block, The Bottom Floor, his stint as a dom, luring women into this human flytrap of Erich’s.
And was that it, all along? She wondered, as her eyes adjusted to the dimness and she tried to get comfortable on the cold, wet floor. Did Beast decide to come home and stay with them because it was closer to The Block, to whatever “operation” was going on out there to defeat Erich’s reprehensible scheme to sell women to the highest bidder?
In Tilly’s world of privilege, things like this just didn’t happen. Women didn’t get kidnapped, raped, sold. Those were things that happened to other people. The wealthy weren’t immune to the plight of being human—Tilly’s mother had cancer. Her stepfather had lost everything and had killed himself in a fit of despair. But there were certain elements that existed in the world that usually didn’t cross that wealth-barrier.
She would have put sex trafficking pretty high up on that list of things that just didn’t ever happen in their social circles. But they’d been “slumming it,” as Frankie liked to put it, hadn’t they? Frankie never saw that as a bad thing though—she liked getting dirty, loved the excitement of new things, an “adventure.” Well, The Block—and Erich and The Bottom Floor and training as submissives in a BDSM sex club—had sure been that.
Something’s wrong.
That feeling wouldn’t leave her, even now that she was fully awake, all too aware of how damp and cold and miserable she was. It wasn’t just their current situation though—that little voice was persistent. Yes, she was bound and gagged and helpless—had let herself be put there again by a man she was trying her damnedest to trust—but that wasn’t it. Something else was wrong.
Maybe it was just the potential for their undoing that made all the warning bells go off in her head. Beast was out there, and if he didn’t succeed, if something happened to him…
But she didn’t want to think about that. Living a life of denial had its advantages sometimes. She could turn off that voice, if and when she wanted to.
Then Tilly heard shouting in the distance.
She couldn’t ignore that.
It grew louder, a man’s voice, angry. The sound came closer, right outside in the hallway, although the words were still muffled and unintelligible through the thick, steel door.
Tilly cried out around her gag when the door slammed open and Erich staggered in, flipping on an overhead light. They’d been in the darkness all this time, and there was a light overhead? Tilly looked up at the single, hanging, low-wattage bulb, but that thought dissipated as Frankie lurched awake and gasped through her gag.
Tilly squinted, looking at Erich standing in the doorway, breathing hard, bleeding from a wound in his arm. His face was wet with sweat, his usually perfect hair disheveled. One cuff of his shirt protruded from beneath a torn jacket sleeve, dripping with blood. In his other hand, he held a wicked looking hunting knife, the terrifying sight of which straightened Tilly’s spine as he took a staggering step into the room, his gaze sweeping over all of them.
When his eyes met hers, Tilly shrank from him, feeling much colder all of a sudden.
He’d clearly found what he was looking for and he lurched over and grabbed Tilly by the arm, hauling her up off the floor. Her shoulder—the one she’d fallen on—screamed in pain, as Erich threw an arm around her neck, holding the knife to her throat with the other hand.
Tilly couldn’t scream, not through the gag, but her throat went through the motions, her sounds muffled. Around them, women panicked, some of them still too drugged to sit or stand, others pushing themselves up, trying to stagger to their feet toward the open door.
Using Tilly as a shield in front of him, Eric backed towards the bulkhead opposite the door. Nearly tripping over Frankie, he shoved her, kicking her ribs hard with his foot and she shrieked through her gag. Erich paid her no mind, crashing with his back against the wall, never letting let go of his fierce grip on Tilly.
Beast appeared suddenly in the door frame, gun drawn, and the few women strong enough to try making it to the exit shrank back from him in terror. The women were all screaming and crying now, their sobs muffled, sounding far away to Tilly, even though they were all in the same room.
The light in the hallway was even brighter than the one in the room, throwing a shadow across Beast’s face. His shirt was torn and bloo
dy and her gaze raked him, looking for a wound, seeing the glisten of his chest muscles through the torn fabric. He’d been running hard, she thought, but his breathing wasn’t labored like Erich’s.
In fact, he made no sound whatsoever as he scanned the room, quickly checking behind the door, his Glock up and ready for action. Tilly cried out for him, to him, and he turned his head and saw, really saw her, Erich still holding her around the neck, the knife held inches from her throat.
Tilly felt Erich’s hot, fast breath in her ear and he gripped her more tightly as Beast froze, turning to look at the two of them in their crushing embrace. Tilly tried to hold as still as possible, afraid she would stumble and that very sharp looking knife would sink into her flesh.
“Let her go, Erich,” Beast said coolly. “If you do, I promise, you’ll get less time.”
“Bullshit.” Erich gave a short, sharp laugh. “You know how deep I’m in this. It’s all or nothing now.”
“Then I guess it will have to be nothing.” Beast didn’t sound concerned. He shrugged one shoulder like it didn’t matter to him either way. “But… you do have a choice here. There are a lot of bigger fish involved—you’re a little minnow compared to some of these sharks. And you know who they are, don’t you?”
“You want me to turn state’s evidence?” Erich’s laugh was loud and bitter. “Sure. And Debrovna and his crew can have me for lunch.”
“Debrovna and his crew will be lunch,” Beast countered. “You just have to put them on the menu.”
“I’m not as stupid as you seem to think I am.” Erich shifted his weight as Beast moved his gun, ever so slightly, making sure Tilly stayed in front of him—and moving the knife blade close enough so she could feel the tip. It was sharp, biting her flesh, and she whimpered.
“You can still get out of this,” Beast assured him, his gaze skipping briefly to Tilly. She pleaded with him with her eyes and he looked back at Erich, his jaw working. “Think about it—they can afford to let you go if you can give them bigger fish to fry.”
“Oh, you think you’re going to get them all?” Erich snorted. “McLeod, Portnov, Wing? You got one thing right—they’re big fucking fish, and I don’t intend to get swallowed.”
“You forgetting about witness protection?”
“Witness protection?” Erich choked. “Witness protection? You mean like they ‘protected’ Peter Funk? Tell his mangled corpse how effective witness protection really is!”
“They never found his body.” The corners of Beast’s mouth lifted into a strange smile. “You know why? It doesn’t exist. He’s fine. Even I don’t know what his name is now.”
“Fuck off.” Erich shifted again, and Tilly stumbled at the sudden motion, crying out when the knife tip bit her skin again, harder this time. She felt something wet on her throat and knew it was her own blood.
“You spill another drop of her blood, I will end you right here,” Beast growled, his eyes skipping from Tilly’s throat, up to meet Erich’s. Erich snarled, but he moved the knife slightly, so that rather than the tip, the blade rested against her neck, as if he was a barber about to give his client a very close shave. “I’m trying to give you a chance here. I know things look pretty bad from where you’re standing—and I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. But they may not be as bad as they seem. You don’t need to do anything stupid.”
“Stupid?” Erich echoed. “This isn’t stupid. The only stupid thing I did was trust you. You wanna reason with me? How about I reason with you! Do you know how much money you’re throwing away right now? Do you know how much just one of these little whores is worth? This one alone—”
Erich moved his hand, the one circling her neck, across and low, grabbing the front of Tilly’s shirt and squeezing her breast. She gave a surprised yelp, biting down on the gag—he gripped her flesh in a hard, bruising grasp—and saw a glimmer of anger reach Beast’s previously unreadable eyes.
“Get your fucking hands off her.”
“Is that it?” Erich’s head tilted, speculative. “Is this about your sister? Hell, we can work something out. I don’t care. You want me to let her go? We can both still make millions on this deal. The buyers are just waiting—don’t be a fool.”
Tilly’s heart—already racing—skipped in her chest as she studied Beast’s face, looking for a falter, any sign that he might actually be considering or tempted by Erich’s deal. But there was nothing—in fact, the opposite was true. Now, with a gun in his hand, Beast’s jaw tightened at Erich’s words and his mouth twisted into a disdainful sneer. For one moment, she thought she saw a flicker of deep disappointment there for a man probably once trusted as a friend.
Then it was gone.
“Debrovna’s only a man,” Beast told him, changing tactics. “You’re afraid of him—but you don’t have to be afraid. You got greedy and let yourself get involved in this thing. Now you’re letting your fear control you. But you still have a choice here.”
“Some choice.” Erich let out a strange laugh, and Tilly gasped when he shook her, hard. For a moment, she thought this was the end, that he was going to just cut her throat right there and let her bleed out on the rusty ship’s floor. But then Erich said, “You need to listen to me, man. If Debrovna and—”
“Fuck Debrovna,” Beast snapped. “Debrovna isn’t here yet, and if and when he gets here, he’ll be picked up. You’re scared of Debrovna? He’s not the one in the same room with you holding a gun in his hand.”
“I’m supposed to be scared of you?”
“If you hurt her, I can guarantee you what’s going to happen next,” Beast told him coldly. “You don’t escape me. I’m not a shadow behind you, Erich. I’m right here, right now. And I’m ready to pull this trigger.”
“And I’m ready to slit her fat fucking throat,” Erich assured him, just as coldly, taking a step to the left, Tilly going with him. The knife scraped her throat and she gasped, going up on her tiptoes, trying to stay away from its edge.
So there they were—at an impasse. Tilly could see it turning into an instant bloodbath—all Erich had to do was apply a little pressure, and she’d bleed out. She didn’t need a vivid imagination to picture it. And Beast would fill the man full of holes at that point, but it would be too late for Tilly.
“I want my money.” Erich’s voice was thick in her ear, and she thought, I can’t die this way. Please don’t let me die this way. “I need my fucking money.”
“The money’s off the table.” Beast shook his head. Somehow, the man managed to give the air of being in control. Tilly didn’t know how he did it. He gave the impression of having a card up his sleeve Erich couldn’t possibly guess at or beat once it was played. There was nothing smug about this. It was simply hard and matter of fact. “It’s already gone. All I can give you is—”
“Gone?” Erich snorted, glancing down at Frankie, who was cowering in the corner, as far away from the madness as she could get, and Tilly didn’t blame her. “I’m surrounded by fucking gold, man! All we gotta do is deliver. Beast, we’re talking millions. Millions! You could be free of your fucking family for good, and I—”
“I don’t need you if I want to make millions,” Beast interrupted. “And quite frankly, Erich, I don’t think the world needs you either.”
Erich shifted once more and Tilly stumbled, his arm, up near her neck again, the only thing steadying her, keeping her from falling on his blade. She realized, suddenly, what he was doing, dancing around like this. He kept maneuvering to make sure Tilly remained neatly in between him and Beast—so Beast couldn’t get a clear shot at him.
She whimpered, feeling the knife blade digging in, a new angle.
“Are you okay, Tilly?” Beast asked, looking at her, his eyes saying something she didn’t understand. “Nod if you are.”
Tilly managed to nod, which wasn’t easy, given that Erich was holding her so tightly. He gripped her even harder now, and pressed the blade to her throat, deeper than ever before—she’d never realized a kn
ife blade could feel so thick—drawing a long, thin line of blood. She felt it wetting her neck, could actually smell it, something coppery and bitter.
She pleaded with Beast, with her muffled mouth and her desperate, frightened eyes, and she saw the look on his face change. There was nothing rational left in that gaze.
“Listen to me, you little bitch,” Erich breathed into her ear. “Close your fucking eyes and keep them closed, and don’t shake your head or even breathe again if he talks to you.”
Tilly froze, terrified. If there’d been anything in her bladder, it would have been instantly evacuated. She wanted to raise her hands to her throat, a protective instinct, but they were bound tightly behind her back, trapped between her and the man holding her captive.
“Hey dumbass, I remember hostage rescue training just as well as you do,” Erich snapped, focusing his attention on Beast once more. “Stay calm. Control the situation. Reassure the hostage. You wanna talk to your sister? She won’t be much of a conversationalist after I slit her fucking throat.”
