Eli nodded at the other two and they both stepped forward, each grabbing one of my arms holding them together while the blond crouched down in front of me and gripped the chains that were bolted into the floor. My whole body was trying to force me to smash my foot into his smug face, to kill these three and then try and find Tyler, but I kept Byron’s name running through my head so that I could remember why Billy and I came up with this plan in the first place.
Eli clipped the thick metal cuffs around my wrists, there was barely any slack at all so my arms were extended to the full, my hands down between my knees, pointing towards the floor. More metal cuffs clicked into place around my ankles, these ones clamping me to the chair legs. The position was so awkward and made my broken ribs burn with white hot pain.
The blond that they’d all called Eli, seemed to be enjoying this as he stood up and smiled at me.
“Comfortable?” he asked sarcastically.
“Not really, could you put in a request for an extra pillow, maybe a hot chocolate or something, that’d be nice. Also, ask housekeeping to come in and sweep up a little, this place is of a pretty low standard for a kidnap base,” I replied.
His hand shot out, punching me full in the face. Blood instantly ran down my throat as my nose cracked. I tried not to make a sound as I focused my eyes on his, trying to kill him without even moving. It seemed though that the laser bolt from the eyes wasn’t something that Tyler hadn’t gifted me with when we bonded.
“You just laugh it up there, Sean. We’ll see who’s laughing in a few minutes,” he stated. He nodded to the two guys that had helped him bring me in here. “You guys can go,” he instructed, nodding to the door. They obliged instantly, leaving the two of us alone in the room.
I glared at him, biting my tongue so I didn’t say anything to make him angrier, it was going to take me a while to heal from these injuries as it was, I didn’t want to have anything else hinder my abilities when I finally got the chance to kill Byron.
“So my grandfather will be here in a few hours. Apparently I’m to wait and leave you unharmed as much as possible. He wants to kill you personally you see,” he stated, shrugging casually as if we were talking about the weather. “I’d actually love to finish you off myself, but unfortunately it’s not my call.”
“Who’s your grandfather?” I asked, looking at him intently.
He smiled. “I think you know,” he replied, smirking at me.
I spat out the mouthful of blood that was pooling on my tongue and nodded. “So you’re a Jefferson?”
He made a small bow. “That’s right we haven’t officially met. Eli Jefferson, third in line to take over The Organisation,” he answered, seeming proud of himself for it.
I nodded, spitting out more blood, wishing it would stop already. “Sean Houston, person who’s going to delight in killing all of you fuckers,” I replied.
A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth as his hand shot forward again, I prepared myself for the blow but instead he gripped the back of my hair, yanking my head back. “You’re so confident for a man that can’t even protect his bond mate,” he snarled.
As soon as he mentioned Tyler I was struggling with my temper as I fought against the restraints, realising that there was no way I could get free of these chains. “If you’ve hurt her,” I growled, glaring at him menacingly.
He laughed, cocking his head to the side, looking at me intently. “Hurt her? Hmm, let me think….”
He tapped his finger on his chin in a mock thinking gesture. “I think I might have. Oops, my bad.”
An angry growl slipped out of my lips as I thrashed in the chair. “Where is she?” I shouted.
He smiled and let go of my hair, moving to stand in front of me. “We were planning on killing her once you were out of the way. My grandfather, he wanted to make you watch while we killed her first so that you’d know what it feels like to lose something that you love. But I’ve managed to convince him to let her live,” he stated, raising one eyebrow at me. “She’s a feisty little one, even doped up she still fights. I love it,” he added, waggling his eyebrows at me. “Took a lot of convincing on my part but my grandfather finally agreed I can have her. Don’t worry, Sean, I’ll take good care of her for you.”
Rage was going to kill me. I was so angry that I could barely even see straight as I struggled to get the chains off. Byron Jefferson didn’t matter to me in that moment; all that mattered was tearing this guy to shreds and stamping on the pieces.
He smiled and walked over to the flat screen TV, picking up a remote control and pressing a few buttons. A grey screen came on and he walked back to me. “I think you’ll like this,” he whispered in my ear. He pressed another button and the image flickered a couple of times before it came on.
I felt my body jerk when I saw that it was Tyler. She was bruised and bleeding already, but not as bad as in the other tape. She was wearing the same outfit that she was wearing the last time I saw her at the labs. They were in some sort of kitchen maybe, there were green cupboards mounted on the wall and a table off to the side. Eli was standing behind her, his hand around her throat while she cried and went a little red in the face, her eyes flicking around wildly.
“Time to see how much you’ve grown up, Tyler,” Eli purred, pressing his face against the side of hers, making her cringe and squeeze her eyes shut.
I saw her lips move but I couldn’t hear what she said.
“What was that, sweetness? Say it nice and loud so the camera catches it,” Eli encouraged.
She raised her chin as he moved to look at her, her eyes met his. “I said, Sean’s gonna kill you when he gets here!” she shouted, lashing out and punching him in the face.
Eli grinned on the tape. “Now there’s the fight I like,” he replied harshly as he shoved her hard, face first into the table, making her cry out as it smashed into her stomach.
My eyes were glued on the screen as my breathing seemed to falter as he gripped the back of her hair and slammed her head against the table, making her yelp from the pain. The real Eli chuckled behind me. “This is my favourite part,” he whispered in my ear. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the screen as horror washed over me as he started tugging at her clothes while she screamed my name over and over, begging me to help her.
“No! I’m going to fucking kill you!” I screamed as I yanked on the restraints, trying everything in my power to get hold of him and choke the life out of him.
He smiled, stepping tantalisingly close as I shouted cuss words and threats as I tried my hardest to get out of the bindings. “Pathetic,” he hissed. “You can’t even keep her safe. ‘The one’,” he scoffed, spitting in my face as he looked at me distastefully. “Look at you, it’s pitiful and I don’t know why she screams for you until she loses her voice. The prophesy is shit, you’re just a loser with delusions of grandeur!” he growled, aiming a kick at my shin. I heard the bone in my leg crack before I felt it, but the anger was too great for me to feel that properly yet. All I could focus on was him as he smiled and nodded towards the screen where he was still in the process of raping my wife. “She’s a good little fuck. I might go for a visit with her now actually.”
“Don’t you fucking dare! Don’t you touch her!” I screamed wildly. He smiled and stepped forward, gripping the back of my hair, yanking my head back. “Don’t you touch her again,” I growled.
He fumbled at the back of my head, something moved and then a cold hard thing touched my skin of my forehead. I frowned and tried to jerk my head forward but I couldn’t move it. He’d attached some sort of metal clamp around my forehead and I now couldn’t move my head an inch. My face was locked still, facing forward. My whole body was hurting where I was trashing so hard against the restraints trying to get free, but it was no use, I was trapped and he knew it.
He smiled and stepped back, inspecting his handiwork. “Have fun in here,” he stated cheerfully.
“I’ll turn this up for you to make sure you don’t miss a
ny of her begging us to stop.” He pressed a button on the remote and the TV got louder, so loud that her screams and pleas vibrated in my ears.
When he stepped to the side I realised then why he’d clamped my head. I couldn’t move it and I was now facing the TV screen full on.
I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to watch the images on there, but I couldn’t block out the noise.
Somehow, over the din of the tape, I heard the click of a door. I flicked my eyes in that direction, only to see that he was leaving.
“Eli,” I croaked, emotion flooding over me as the horror of how bad this situation was, crashed over me in droves.
He turned back to look at me, a polite smile on his face. “What?”
“When I get these restraints off, I’m ripping your heart out,” I promised, clenching my jaw tight with rage. He just laughed, aiming the remote at the TV and turning it up a couple more clicks.
When the door slammed shut I felt the emotion take over as tears rolled down my cheeks. I squeezed my eyes shut so I didn’t see them violate my wife over and over. The sound of it made me die a little inside.
Chapter 37: The Showman Himself
I don’t know how long I was alone in my misery, but it didn’t get any easier. The sound of the tape continued to blast in my ears, my heart continued to break each time I heard her cry my name. I was going to kill everyone, every single person on that tape was going to die a slow painful death - but Eli, I’d definitely take my time with him. He needed to suffer for what he’d done. Tyler was already so broken; she’d already been through so much in her life that this now was just inhumane. I had no idea how she’d recover from this, maybe she wouldn’t.
The emotional pain of this situation was even worse than the physical pain that I was in from the beating - and that was saying something because the physical pain was enough to make me nauseous. My body was broken in many places, but my right leg hurt the worst. The air continued to be tainted by the drug so I couldn’t heal myself. It looked like I was doomed to suffer.
When the door clicked, my eyes snapped open. I expected it to be Eli, back to cause more damage or turn up the volume of the horrifying tape so that I had a mental breakdown or something. My lips pulled back into a snarl unintentionally as I tensed in the seat, pulling against my bindings.
Instead of Eli though, someone new entered the room. I hadn’t seen this guy yet. He was wearing a mask too as he closed the door behind him. “Please turn this off, please,” I begged unashamedly, looking anywhere but the TV screen and the tape that they obviously had on a continuous loop.
“No. You watch it,” he replied, stalking towards me. I groaned and closed my eyes, defeated. I stiffened when I felt a poke on my chest. I forced my eyes open again, looking up at the guy who had planted himself firmly in front of me. “I have water for you,” he stated casually, producing a bottle of water from his pocket.
“I don’t want it,” I grumbled, closing my eyes again.
Another poke to my chest had me growling in anger. Could this fucker not just leave me alone? I opened my mouth to shout at him, threaten to kill him, or maybe even just beg for his help, when I saw he was holding a piece of paper close to his chest. He nodded down at it discreetly. There was black scribbled handwriting on it, I recognised it as the same writing from the other note I’d received telling me to call the number and trust no one.
‘I’m Billy. Don’t acknowledge this at all, there is a hidden camera in the corner behind me. When I leave the room I’m going to cut the air flow in here. DO NOT make a move until Byron gets here, you’ll know when.’
“Drink it!” he ordered harshly, but at the same time he smiled apologetically, his eyes sympathetic as he looked at me through the plastic of his bulky gas mask. He obviously needed to keep up the act for the cameras.
I nodded in acknowledgement and opened my mouth as he shoved the note in his pocket and unscrewed the bottle top. I looked up at him gratefully. So this was Billy, the one that was going to help me out of this mess. I raked my eyes over his face, memorising his features so that I didn’t accidently kill him when the time came. He said that his brother, the one that I was to protect, looked a lot like him, so I’d need to be on the lookout for him too.
I gulped down the water as he tipped it into my mouth. I winced as it hurt my damaged throat and jaw as I swallowed the cool liquid. When most of it was gone he pulled the bottle away. “Now you just be a good little boy in here and this’ll all be over soon,” he said tightly.
“Where’s Tyler? Is she okay? Please, please tell me she’s okay,” I begged. Maybe he could get in to wherever she was and tell her that I was here, that I was here to help her. That wasn’t the plan though, that wasn’t what we worked out and I couldn’t exactly ask him to do that now because the cameras would see.
His eyes tightened, his lips pressed together in a thin, grim line. From his expression alone I knew she was in a bad way. “She’s alive,” he answered.
I knew I needed to keep up the act even though this guy was on my side. I needed to be convincing that I was on my own for Byron to come here and take a risk for once. “I’m gonna kill you, everyone on of you fuckers are gonna die for this!” I screamed, making him flinch as I thrashed in my chair.
“You’re no threat at all. While that drug is in your system you wouldn’t even be able to stand on your own,” he shot back. He smiled at me weakly before he turned and marched out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
I closed my eyes and prayed that he kept true to his word. So far I’d done everything that he’d asked of me, I’d come alone, I’d let myself get captured, I’d swore to protect his little brother. I prayed to God that he didn’t back out now, because if he did, if he didn’t cut the drug supply like he’d promised he would on the phone, then I was totally screwed. He was right in what he just said, while the drug was in my system I was as good as useless, and Tyler was as good as dead.
I needn’t have worried about him backing out though, because less than twenty minutes later I knew he was on my side. I clenched my jaw tightly so that I didn’t scream in pain as the burning started all over my body. The pain from the bones fusing back together, the bruises healing, the skin mending itself, all of it was almost too much to bear. The fire that felt like I’d swallowed a gallon of acid, burned its way around my whole body, healing everything and making me twitch and writhe in agony but I tried to keep my movements to a minimum so that the cameras that were somewhere in the room, wouldn’t get wind of anything happening.
My breathing was labored by the time the fire seemed to put itself out. Finally I could think clearly instead of the pain being a constant in my head. The noise from the tape was still deafening, but I was trying my hardest to block it out as I focused on remaining calm. Now that the drug was out of my system, my hands were shaking with rage, my wolf was right at the front just waiting to shift and rip the whole place apart. It was taking every inch of my strength to actually stay still and look defeated for the camera. I knew that I’d still be covered in blood so they wouldn’t know without looking really closely that my wounds were healed, I’d just have to put on a bit of an act if someone came in. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too long until Byron Jefferson made his appearance, and then I could snap these chains and kill everyone and everything and then go find my wife.
I focused on Tyler, trying to feel any signs of her, talk to her through our link, but she was still gone, it was almost like I’d made the link up completely and it had never even existed in the first place.
My mind flicked to a place where I felt the point to my life just disappear, I suddenly wondered if she was dead. I hadn’t felt her for so long that she could be dead for all I knew and that was why I couldn’t feel her. The more rational part of me scolded the other more terrified part though because she couldn’t be dead, I’d know if she was dead, the pain of losing her would tear me apart so I knew she had to be alive. My thoughts flicked to Jeremy, the technician at the lab th
at did all the experiments on us with the drug. He’d said that the inhibiter drug took about four hours to get out of her system, just like with a normal shifter. Maybe that was why I still couldn’t feel her, maybe even though Billy had cut the gas, maybe it was still in her system and I’d just need to wait the four hours before I could speak to her again. I prayed that Byron got here before that time though, I couldn’t listen to this tape for four hours without my wolf taking over, and then they’d know that someone was helping me, then Byron wouldn’t come at all.
In my head, to keep myself sane I recounted the last conversation I’d had with Tyler, we were fooling around on the way to the labs, she was whining because she wanted to take a boat trip up the Thames and not be stuck in an office building all day. If only I’d taken her on that boat trip then none of this would have happened. But I couldn’t really think that I guess, if this hadn’t happened that day then it would have happened eventually. With Edward feeding them pricks the information, it was only a matter of time before they came for us.
What seemed like forever waiting and playing out happy memories of Tyler in my head to keep myself sane, the door opened. I held my breath as Eli walked his smug face into the room, still wearing a gas mask so I guess Billy helping me had been kept secret. I squirmed in my seat, trying to look defeated because if he got suspicious and looked too closely then he would see that it was just dry blood on my face and that my wounds had healed up.
He nodded towards the TV, smiling wickedly. “Have fun? That’s a turn on watching that, huh?”
I hissed a string of expletives through my teeth, clenching my hands into fists as I tried my hardest not to just rip the chains of and choke the life out of him slowly. “I swear to all that’s holy, I’m gonna tear you apart for that,” I promised.
Bond Mates Page 41
