by A. M. Myers
“She was taken from your parking lot, so I know you saw something. Tell me what happened,” I whisper, a bead of sweat trickling down the side of my face.
The cashier shakes his head, whimpering, and the sweet smell of weed hits my nose. “I swear, I didn’t see anything. I was in the back, smoking a joint.”
“Chance!” Smith yells from behind me and I glare at him over my shoulder before releasing the cashier and jumping over the counter. I storm out of the gas station and stop. My truck and bike are already gone and I scream, balling my fists as I kick the trash can next to the door.
“Get your shit together, brother,” Smith growls as he steps up next to me. “Your woman needs you.”
His words stop me in my tracks and I blink before walking over to Smith’s truck, feeling numb. She needs me. Carly needs me and I’m over here losing my goddamn mind. The panic is all consuming, eating up every available space in my brain until it’s all I can focus on, except for one single thought that manages to break free.
I have to find her.
It plays on repeat, again and again, as I try to get a grip on my fear. Smith is right. Carly needs me right now and I’m fucking useless like this. As he pulls out of the lot and turns back toward the clubhouse, I rest my elbows on my knees and cover my face with my hands. Replaying the day in my head, my throat constricts. Why did I leave her this morning? Someone else could have gone with Smith if I had asked so why didn’t I?
“Chance!” Blaze yells and my head jerks up as I realize that the truck has stopped. He snaps his fingers in my face and I turn to him. “Rodriguez is on his way.”
I nod, releasing a breath as some of the fear abates. Okay, this is good. Between Rodriguez and the club, we will figure this out and get Carly home safe. Climbing out of the truck, I rub my hand over my face as I walk back into the clubhouse and stop. Smith, Kodiak, and Moose are all huddled in a circle, whispering and my heart hammers. Kodiak turns to look at me, revealing Ivy with tears running down her face.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice scratchy and barely audible.
“Chance,” Kodiak starts, his gaze cutting to Moose and my jaw clenches.
“What is it?!” I yell again and Smith steps forward, handing me an envelope with my name on it. “Where did you get this?”
“It was taped to the front door when we got back,” Smith whispers and my brow furrows as I tear into it. As I scan the words on the page, my fucking heart stops.
I have your girl.
You get her back when mine is home
where she belongs.
J.H.
Chapter Thirty-One
Carly
My mouth is painfully dry as I peel my eyes open, squinting at the harsh light above me. My shoulders scream with a searing pain and tingles shoot down my arms and into my hands. Where am I? I try to turn but my body stays rooted to the spot and I look up, fear spiking my heart. My hands are tied above my head, strung up in the air with a thick rope. It’s thrown over a bar before disappearing behind me and my legs are tied to the legs of the wooden chair I’m seated in. It squeaks as I wiggle and I start to tremble as my head pounds. This is all too familiar. The dry mouth and pounding head remind me of that night, or more specifically, the morning after when I woke up in my bed, covered in bruises.
No.
This can’t be happening again.
“Look who finally decided to rejoin the land of the living,” a familiar voice says and I gulp in air as I scan the room, searching the concrete walls for the source of the voice. The damp, stagnant air stings my nose and my stomach rolls as my heart thunders in my ears. “Those drugs knocked you out longer than I thought they would. I’ve been getting impatient over here.”
“What the fuck do you want?”
The voice laughs, a truly evil sound that sends goose bumps racing across my flesh, and Julian steps out of the shadows. The mask is gone; showing the monster I always knew was underneath. “Oh, I think you know what I want, Carly.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I shake my head as a bead of sweat rolls down the side of my face and the hair on my arms stands on end. When I open my eyes again, I pray this will all just be a bad dream. I’ll be at the clubhouse with Chance, safe in his arms, and not trapped in this hell with a demon I know all too well. But my prayers go answered. I open my eyes and Julian smiles at me. I bite my tongue to hold the cry that desperately wants to break free.
This can’t be happening.
“What are you going to do? Hold me hostage until she comes back to you?” I ask. He nods, wagging his finger at me.
“You are a smart girl, I’ll give you that.”
I shake my head, a deep hatred burning away some of my fear. “It won’t work. She won’t ever come back to you.”
A smile curves his lips and I break out in a cold sweat. “See, that’s where you’re wrong.”
He stalks over to me and holds his hand up between us, letting it hover over my skin for a moment and my jaw clenches as I watch him. He leans in closer and trails his fingers over my cheek, his eyes darkening as he bites his lip.
“Once your sister realizes I have you, she’ll come running home because she knows what I’ll do to you if she doesn’t.”
“This isn’t her home,” I bite out as I lurch away from his touch and jerk my hands, shaking the rope above me.
“Ah, ah,” he taunts, pulling a large hunting knife out from behind his back. I freeze, watching him as he takes a deliberate step toward me and a fresh wave of terror blooms in my chest. I jerk again, the need to flee overwhelming my common sense. When he reaches me, he kneels down and moves the knife toward my legs. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to picture this morning when I was in bed with Chance or last night as he made love to me, anything to get me through what comes next. The swoosh of the knife cutting through something fills the air and when the pain doesn’t follow, I open my eyes.
One leg is free of the ropes binding it to the chair and Julian moves to the other, slicing through the rope with ease. I frown. Why would he free my legs? Licking my lips, I study him as he stands and moves behind me, my belly quivering as I twist in my seat. When he gets to the wall, he stops and smiles as he unties the rope from a hook and jerks it down, pulling me into a standing position as I scream in pain.
“God,” he groans, doing it again as pain lances through my body. My toes barely touch the floor and the constant pain in my shoulders is making me woozy. “I love that sound.”
My stomach rolls as I drop my head and suck in a breath. I didn’t understand, not until this very moment, just how deranged Julian is. But I could see it on his face as I screamed… it turned him on. He’s a sadist in the purest form of the word. With a gleam in his eyes, he ties the rope back around the hook and stalks toward me, holding the knife in front of his face.
“There,” he whispers, inching closer to me. “Now we can talk.”
My gaze flicks over to the knife, hovering inches away from my face as light glints off the flat part of the blade. “Okay, let’s talk.”
“You took something from me,” he accuses as he tilts his head to the side and narrows his eyes.
“Ivy is not a thing and she left; I didn’t take her.”
His lip curls back in a snarl and his nostrils flare. “She wouldn’t have left. I made sure of that.”
“No, what you did is exactly what drove her away,” I snap and he rushes forward, wrapping a hand around my throat as he presses the tip of the knife to my cheek.
“She knew the consequences for leaving and if she doesn’t come back to me, it will cost you your life.”
A chill blankets me and my chest tingles as I raise my head and meet his eyes. “Go ahead and kill me. It will be worth it as long as she’s free.”
He throws his head back and laughs, releasing my throat as he takes a step back and pulls the knife away.
“Sweet, innocent, Carly,” he muses, tapping the spine of the knife against his hands. “We’re not going to kill
you.”
We?
“Who’s we?”
His lips stretch into a grin that makes my heart stop. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Don’t worry, you’ll find out very soon.”
“Fuck you,” I spit. I’m done with these games. His smile grows and he steps closer, reaching up and dragging his fingers down my arm.
“So beautiful when you’re angry. I can almost see the appeal.”
“Get your hands off me,” I hiss, my skin growing clammy as memories rush back, things I’ve never remembered before about that night twelve years ago and I squeeze my eyes shut like I can somehow stop them.
The boys circling me…
Their taunts as they closed in around me…
Austin smiling as he pulls out his phone…
“I won’t hurt you, Carly. As long as your sister comes back to me,” Julian assures, his voice cutting through my memories. I shake my head and open my eyes.
“She won’t.”
“Oh, I think she will. You are the one person in the world she would do absolutely anything for and I’m counting on that.”
Without thinking, I grab the rope above my head and grit my teeth as I pull myself up enough to kick my legs out in front of me. I hit Julian in the knee and he roars as he goes down, the knife clattering to the floor next to me.
Fuck.
Now what?
He howls in pain, clutching his knee but recovers faster than I thought he would. I jerk back as he lunges to his feet and lands a fist to my belly. As I gasp for breath, he wraps his fingers around my throat.
“You stupid little bitch,” he snarls, his fingers constricting more. His face is flushed and his nostrils flare as he stares me down. I can see the ideas churning in his gaze, all the things he wants to do to me and I start to tremble. “You’ll regret that.”
Releasing me, he leans down and grabs the knife before placing the tip against my chest. I close my eyes and he pulls down, cutting open my t-shirt as I suck in a breath, my eyes watering.
Oh, God.
No.
No.
No.
My lip wobbles and I gulp in air, trying to focus on anything other than what he’s about to do to me when white hot pain blooms from my chest. Crying out, my eyes fly open and I glance down, watching the blood stain my shirt. The cut isn’t deep, not enough to worry about but just enough to burn like hell and stain my shirt red.
“Such a gorgeous sound,” he rasps, reaching down to adjust his cock and my stomach rolls. “Do it for me again, sweetheart.”
He drags the knife over my skin again and I whimper as I bite down on my lip in an act of defiance. I won’t give him what he wants. Dropping the knife on the floor, he frowns and grabs my face.
“Why do you have to be so difficult, Carly? Just give me what I want.”
A few tears slip down my cheek and he grins before leaning forward and licking them off my skin. My stomach rolls again and I gag. Releasing my cheeks, he trails his hand down my face and neck until he gets to the first incision. He drags his finger along the side of it and I bite back another scream as it burns. When his gaze meets mine again, he growls.
“So fucking stubborn but we’ll break you eventually.”
“No.” I shake my head and he laughs, stepping away from me.
“Yes, we will, Carly, and I, for one, can’t fucking wait.”
Without another word, he picks up his knife and walks over to the far wall before light floods into the room. There’s a staircase just past the door but other than that, I can’t see anything. As soon as the door shuts and the lock clinks into place, my shoulders sag and a sob rips through my throat as pain radiates through my body and my stomach rolls.
I’m in Hell.
* * * *
Time doesn’t exist down here in the musty darkness, except to torture me with the awful possibilities of my immediate future. Seconds bleed into hours and it could be minutes or days since Julian left me all alone. Each sound that manages to pierce the black nothingness of my surroundings sends me out of my skin and the pain is so intense I’m not entirely sure I’ve remained conscious the entire time I’ve been locked away. My t-shirt is drenched with sweat and blood and my legs are growing weak from standing on my toes, waiting for the devil to return. I can only hope Ivy’s smart enough to stay away.
Before today, before I woke up in this… dungeon, for lack of a better word, I thought I had experienced the worst thing humanity had to offer. I was so consumed with my own pain and I thought no one could ever hurt me the way they had but it only took ten minutes with Julian to make me realize how wrong I’d been. I would go back and relive that night a hundred times if it got me out of here now.
The door opens and I jerk, my head flying up and my eyes widen as a figure blocks out the light. It’s not Julian. This man is taller and wider in the shoulders than Julian. My body trembles as I watch him. He closes the door and remains in the shadows as he makes his way around the room to me. My hammering heart makes it difficult to judge how far away he is from the sound of his footsteps. I suck in air and try to back up, despite the fact that I’m stuck in place.
“Hello, Carly,” the man says as he steps into the light and I gasp, jerking on the rope harder, desperate to flee as ice cold fear fills my belly.
“Damian.”
He smiles, taking a step toward me and I see the same evil glint in his eyes that I recognized in Julian’s earlier. My chest tightens and my thoughts screech to a halt. What is he doing here? All the puzzle pieces rattle around in my brain and I can’t make them fit together. What does Damian have to do with Julian?
“It’s lovely to see you again,” Damian purrs, his gaze dropping to my chest and he frowns as he runs a finger along the first cut. “I see Julian decided to get started without me.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask, flinching as he traces around the wound again. He licks his lips and meets my eyes.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for that answer.”
I jerk on the rope again despite the tearing pain in my shoulder. “No. You’ll fucking tell me now.”
“Will I?” he asks, his eyes lighting up and a slow smile stretching across his face. “I don’t think you’re in a position to argue. I do love your fire, though.”
I remain quiet, staring him down as I wait for answers and finally, he sighs.
“All right. I suppose I could give you some answers while we wait.”
I blink. “Wait for what?”
“Ah, that’s not one of the questions you’ll get an answer to. It would ruin all the fun,” he says, laughing, and I turn away from him. “I suppose I should start at the beginning, huh?”
Silence stretches between us and as I look back at him, he nods. He peels his suit jacket off and tosses it over the chair next to me before slowly rolling the sleeves of his dress shirt up.
“I was born here in Baton Rouge and my daddy, he was a mean old bastard. He loved to smack me around just to hear me cry and he did it often. When I started school, I was different than the other kids. I never fit in with anyone and kids can be so mean, but you already know that, don’t you?” He smirks and I wonder just how much he knows. “Even back then, I had… certain tastes and it got me expelled on a few occasions, which only made my daddy beat me more.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, hoping I can appeal to his emotions somehow but the wry smile he flashes me makes my heart sink.
“Oh, don’t worry about me, sweetheart. See, it all got better when I met Julian. He was different, too, and we became friends merely out of necessity. It wasn’t until we were in high school that we realized we both were into the same thing.” His gaze drops down my body and he runs his tongue over his teeth.
“Which is what?” I ask, despite the fact that I’m sure I don’t want to know. He grins.
“Aren’t we impatient? Hold on, I’m getting to that part.” He steps up and places his hand on my ribs. “See, we realized we were both really intri
gued by the idea of sharing a woman but more than that, we both fantasized about hurting them.”
I suck in a breath and he grins, shaking his head.
“I mean, what are the odds, right? It would have been rare to find someone who wanted to share a woman but to also find someone who liked the sound of her screaming in pain? It was fate. Our imaginations were endless and we finally had someone to share our darkest thoughts with. Things just grew from there. Alone, we were vulnerable but together, we realized we could rule this fucking city and get everything we’ve always wanted.”
“Meaning?” I already think I know the answer, but I need to hear it.
“You… and your sister. You belong to us now and we’ll do whatever we damn well please with you.” He runs his fingers down my neck to my breast and I shudder.
“We don’t belong to you.”
He laughs, nodding. “Oh, but you do, actually. We bought you.”
“You what?” I ask, my mouth going slack as my head swims. “You can’t buy a human being.”
“Technically, you’re right but who’s going to come after you? Your mother is the one who sold you two off like prized pigs.”
I shake my head as I struggle to breathe. “No. That’s not true.”
“It seems that the men of this town have caught on to your mother’s games and they refuse to play anymore so she needed to find another way to make money. The poor thing is broke. Julian and I overheard her at a fundraiser, complaining that her daughters couldn’t find good men and well, we jumped on the opportunity. She was so eager to give us any information we needed about the two of you.”
“No,” I whisper, my mind fighting to understand everything he’s saying.
“Oh, yes. I’ve even seen the lovely little tape you made in high school,” he whispers, pressing his nose against my cheek as he releases a breath. His breath fans out over my skin and I fight back a sob. “I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve gotten off to it. Planning this whole thing took months and I didn’t know if I was going to make it.”
