30. CHIARA
Blowing out a heavy breath, I look around my bland apartment as I prepare for another night at work. I used to be so proud of my home, so pleased with everything I’d managed to accomplish on my own, but having Killian standing in my apartment, even for just a moment, made everything seem so small and insignificant.
He’s larger than life, and seeing him in my home made me feel like everything I’ve accomplished in this life means absolutely nothing compared to his empire. I no longer feel excited by my life. It all feels so dull compared to the life I could have had with Killian, and I don’t mean materialistic things.
Being by his side was thrilling. Getting to be in his arms was a rush. Being the woman who occupied his bed was explosive, but digging my nails into his heart and claiming him as my own was the whole fucking world.
God, I miss him.
Everything hurts without him, and I know the concept of being his within the world he rules meant constantly living with a target on my back, but despite all of that, I think he was wrong to push me away because people don’t just feel like this. I’ve had boyfriends, and there were times in my life when I thought I was in love, but never like this.
It consumes me, and every moment trying not to think about him is crippling. I just need one more chance to be in his arms, one more night indulging in his insane orbit.
I need to be his. I belong to him. Every piece of my shattered soul is his, and without him, I’ve never felt so empty. But more than that, I don’t just want to be his, I want him to belong to me too. I want every piece of who he is to be mine. I want to love him and be loved by him. I want it all. Hell, even if it means popping out a few kids and spending every day of the rest of my life calling myself his wife.
I’ve never wanted anything so bad, and I don’t even care if that makes me sound like a lovestruck teenager, crazy about some stupid boy. I’ll be that stupid teenager if it means getting to have him. I get it though, and I understand why he pushed me away. He’s absolutely right, his world would have destroyed me. I wouldn’t survive it, but I believed he’d be able to protect me. I still do, and his doubts about his ability to do so destroy me.
A stupid sigh tears from deep in my chest, and I whip around and cross my apartment to the lonely phone that sits on my kitchen counter. I scoop it up, open the text chain with Killian, and simply stare.
It’s my closest connection to him right now. The words he wrote me, they’re all I have left, but I need more.
Without a proper conscious thought, my fingers sweep across the screen.
Chiara — Take me home to you.
Delete.
Chiara — I miss you.
Delete.
Chiara — Stop being such an arrogant asshole and see what’s right in front of your face. I belong right there with you. I love you, and I know you love me, too. Nothing else should matter.
Letting out a heavy sigh, I go to delete that too when a loud noise echoes out in the hallway, and as my brows furrow, I drop the phone to the table and hurry to my door to peer through the little peephole. Wherever the noise came from is too far down the hall, and all I’m able to see is my neighbor’s dirty doorway. I let out a huff, wishing for just a little bit of excitement in my day.
I go to turn away when a loud, piercing scream sounds from out in the hall, this time much closer, but in an instant, the scream cuts off like someone physically silenced it.
My heart races as I shove my face against the door again, desperately trying to figure out what’s going on, when a shadow cuts in front of my door. I suck in a gasp, pulling away and hoping like fuck whoever it is keeps on going, only the shadow hovers, soon turning into two and then three.
I shake my head as I back up a few steps, my stomach knotting with a deep dread knowing that somehow this is retaliation by Monica. I provoked her the other night. I foolishly believed I was untouchable, that she couldn’t hurt me while I was outside her world . . . but now? Fuck.
How stupid could I have been?
I back up another step as fear clutches me with both hands, refusing to release me, and just when I think I could be wrong, that it’s all in my head, a loud BANG sounds on the other side of my door, rattling the whole fucking wall.
“Oh fuck, no,” I panic, frozen to the spot.
Another BANG sounds through the door, and when the flimsy wood begins to splinter, I’m thrown into action. I lunge for the phone on the kitchen counter, my hands scrambling to scoop it up as the door finally gives in.
Pieces of my front door go flying through my apartment as three masked men storm in. A piercing scream tears from the back of my throat as I make a break for it, gripping the phone as I race through my too-small apartment.
They storm after me, their shouts of ‘get her’ turning my blood to ice as my fingers desperately try to move across the screen, knowing there’s only one man who could possibly help me now.
I somehow manage to get the call to connect, and just as it rings once, the phone is viciously stolen out of my hand as a vise-like grip circles around my arm, yanking me to a stop so hard, my shoulder joint almost dislocates.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Over my dead body, bitch,” a sickening tone spits as the call disconnects, and they throw my phone across the room, shattering the screen against the hardwood floor.
There’s something familiar about his voice, but as the other two men close in on me, my fight-or-flight instincts kick in. I bring my knee up with every ounce of power I have, slamming it right into the asshole’s junk.
He roars in agony, immediately dropping to the ground and releasing the death grip on my arm, giving me mere seconds to spring back into action.
With the other two blocking my only two ways of getting to the door, all I can do is aim for my bedroom, and I sprint toward it as fast as humanly possible, my bare feet pounding against the old rickety floorboards.
Racing through my bedroom, I sprint toward my window in a last-ditch effort to save myself, hoping like fuck my new security team is downstairs and somehow able to save me, but hell, if I have to throw myself from the third-story window just to escape, I will because I’ve been here before.
I used to see the best in people, but not anymore. I know what the kind of men who break into women’s apartments want, and I have a good fucking idea where they plan to take me, and I refuse to go back there or be treated like some whore who can be sold to the highest bidder.
I’d sooner die than have to face that bullshit again.
“FUCKING GET HER,” the asshole nursing his balls roars just as I reach the window. My hands shake on the locking mechanism, and as I tear it open, I peer out into the street, preparing to scream for help when I see Travis lying lifelessly on the sidewalk, a pool of deep crimson blood beneath him.
His partner is motionless in the driver’s seat of the SUV, but if the shattered windshield is anything to judge by, it’s safe to say he’s gone, and I’m out here on my own.
The dread is like nothing I’ve ever known, and as my heart beats right out of my chest, I realize I only have one option left—I have to jump.
Tears fill my eyes as I frantically haul myself through the window, but a bruising grip closes around my arm and tears me back. “Too fucking slow, bitch,” a gravelly tone spits into my ear as I’m pinned against a big body. “You’re gonna wish you fucking jumped now.”
“No. No. No. No. No.”
I frantically try to fight for my freedom. Kicking. Scratching. Clawing. Punching. Screaming. I try it all, but despite my every effort, I’m not strong enough. The third guy reaches me, and between the two of them, they tackle me face down onto my bed and painfully bind my wrists behind my back.
The tight rope bites into my skin, and as they grab hold of it to pull me up off the bed, both my wrists and shoulders scream for relief. I cry out in pain as I’m whipped around and shoved against the same big body. He grips my shoulders, and just as he goes to shove me to get moving, my bedroom door becomes crowded with familiar faces.
Sergiu.
Monica.
And fucking Derek.
“What?” I breathe, my chest heaving with heavy breaths as I try to understand the crooked smirk across Derek’s face. Why is he here . . . with them?
It doesn’t make sense.
Sergiu steps forward as Monica watches the show with a twisted look of obsession, but knowing the biggest threat in the room, I keep my stare on Sergiu. “He’s going to fucking kill you,” I spit through a clenched jaw, the anger and fear creating the worst kind of emotional storm within me. “And when he does, it’ll be brutal. You’ll fucking beg for him to end you, but he won’t. You’ll suffer the agony of a million deaths before he even thinks about finally ending your pathetic life.”
Sergiu laughs, and that thick Romanian accent makes me want to be sick. “Sure, if he ever finds out, which he won’t. I’m his second-in-command, his flesh and blood who has stood by him since childhood. You are some whore he picked out at an auction. He will soon forget about you,” he says, producing a needle that induces the rawest terror within me. “It’s time for you to go, Chiara. There’s no room for you here.”
And with that, he slams the needle into the side of my neck and empties the syringe straight into my bloodstream.
My body slams against the hard ground as consciousness comes back to me. My head pounds, but I’m all too aware of the familiar cell I’m sprawled across to take a moment to focus on the pain.
It’s small and dirty, but that’s the least of my problems. My pained wrists are bound to the wall to keep me down as an eager audience watches over me.
Sergiu and Monica stand outside my cell, watching me like a caged animal with another guy I don’t know the name of, but I remember him from last time. He’s the owner, the asshole who was responsible for all of this bullshit.
Pulling myself up off the ground, I sit against the blood-smeared wall as I keep my gaze locked on them, all too aware of the fact the cell door remains open. Sergiu watches me too closely, and the vile way he looks at me makes my skin crawl.
He steps around the metal bars and creeps into the opening of my small cell. “Not so pretty anymore, stupid girl,” Sergiu muses as he crouches down. “I wonder if he will still care for you once you’ve been thoroughly destroyed by another man.”
I swallow over the lump in my throat as I try to cling to the thought of what Killian will do to him once he finds out.
I don’t bother responding, too fearful for what’s supposed to come next. Will I be abused in here? Stripped of my clothing and dressed up as the perfect little whore like last time? Put on display and sold to the highest bidder, or is that the best outcome I could possibly hope for? I got lucky last time, but luck like that doesn’t come around often. Will it be worse for me now?
Sergiu looks over me, that vile stare making me sick. “Such a waste,” he mutters. “You’re a foolish girl, Chiara. You should have taken my warnings a little more seriously. I told you what would become of you if you opened your mouth about my wife.”
I scoff and spit at him before kicking up dirt all over his expensive suit. “Joke’s on you, asshole,” I say with a twisted smirk of my own. “Do what you want to me, it makes no difference because that’s not all I told him. I might die here or be sold to some piece of shit who’ll rape me over and over, but it’s nothing compared to what Killian will do to you.”
Sergiu watches me for a moment, his gaze narrowed as if trying to catch me in a bluff, but there’s no bluff here. “He doesn’t know shit.”
My lips twist, the sweetest satisfaction coming from the fear in his eyes. “Is that really a risk you’re willing to take? After all, I was more than happy to tell him all about your wife’s betrayal. So why the hell wouldn’t I tell him about yours? Only difference is, the shit you did to me comes with surveillance footage that Killian spent hours combing through last night. So the real question is, why the fuck haven’t you started running yet? Are you that confident that he’ll let your crimes slide?” I pause, meeting his horrid stare. “Ask yourself, Sergiu. Whose back will he truly have? Yours . . . or mine?”
Sergiu clenches his jaw and raises back to full height. He backs out of my cell, keeping his gaze locked on mine before finally turning to his wife. “Come on. We must leave.”
“What?” Monica screeches. “No way. We’re not leaving until that bitch gets what she deserves.”
Sergiu lunges for his wife, closing his big hand around her throat before slamming her back against the metal bars of the cell. “You’ll do as I fucking tell you to,” he growls before holding her there until the fight leaves her.
“Yes, Sergiu,” she says.
He releases her before glancing toward the asshole who runs this shitshow. “Make sure you get rid of her this time,” he snaps. “If the bitch won’t sell, put a bullet through her brain.”
With that, Sergiu stalks off, not stopping to check if his wife is following, and if she knows what’s good for her, she’ll get moving. But instead, she turns back and meets my stare. “You’re gonna wish I killed you when I had the chance.”
“Don’t worry,” I taunt before winking at her. “I’ll be seeing you really soon.”
Monica scowls at me, not knowing what to say before quickly scurrying after her piece-of-shit husband, leaving me with the other guy. He stands behind the bars, his muscled arms crossed over his chest, just simply staring at me.
He doesn’t say a word, but there’s clear disdain in his eyes as though he’s trying to figure out exactly what he intends to do with me. “You caused me a lot of trouble and cost me a good payday.”
“Take it up with Killian,” I say. “The way you run your business has got nothing to do with me.”
His gaze narrows. “Is that so?” he growls.
“You know he’s coming for you too,” I tell him. “Once he figures out what happened to me—and he will—you’ll be served the same fate that Sergiu has coming to him.”
He scoffs. “You think you’re that important, huh? You’re a whore, a dirty piece of ass for him to throw around. He doesn’t care about you, and he sure as fuck isn’t coming to save you. There’ll be a new whore warming his bed by the end of the night.”
A grin pulls at my lips, and even though there’s a good chance I might end up dead, I’ll be so damn happy to watch Killian come for revenge. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
I laugh, all too amused by the fate that’s waiting for him. “You haven’t abducted some cheap whore. You abducted Killian DeLorenzo’s wife—the woman who owns his heart. He is the most powerful man on this earth, and nothing will stop him from finding me. When he does, I can guarantee you are going to wish you never laid eyes on me.”
“Wife, huh?”
“That’s right.”
He reaches for the front of his pants, working his belt. “In that case, if he’s gonna kill me anyway,” he drawls, striding into my cell, his limp cock in his hand. “I might as well get something out of it then.”
No. Fuck no.
Horror consumes me, and I pull against my bound wrists, the too-tight rope digging into my flesh as I throw my legs out. “Don’t fucking touch me,” I spit, kicking the fucker in the shin.
He roars in agony, but the determination in his putrid stare only strengthens, and I watch in horror as he whistles loudly, calling for help. Then as if on cue, two big men storm into my cell. They come for me, all three of them smirking like this is the best game they’ve ever played.
They hold me down as one of them pulls a knife and starts cutting my clothes off my body, the sharp tip digging into my flesh. I cry out in agony, and when my thighs are forced apart, the tears roll heavily down my cheeks.
The owner moves into me, and when he violently slams his pathetic excuse of a cock deep inside of me, all I can do is turn my head and clench my eyes, hoping and begging for the brutal torture to end.
One after the other, they take their turns, until finally it’s over.
My body is bruised and broken, covered in blood and gashes from the sharp tip of the blade. When I hear the loud clang of the metal door closing behind them, I curl into a ball, not even able to reach for the discarded remains of my clothes, and like that, I cry.
I cry for my dignity. The pain that consumes me. The violent thrusts on repeat inside my mind. Their sickening laughter. The shame. The fear. The blood that coats my skin. Their cum between my thighs that I’m unable to wipe away. The desperation for it to end.
I cry. And cry.
And I don’t stop until exhaustion claims me, and I fall into a dark pit of nothingness.