Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
“RESCUE MY HEART” BY LIZ LONGLEY
LARK
Iwatch as my father’s men drag the Tailor boys, my Tailor boys, away and I want to rage and scream at the world for making me do this terrible thing to the only men who have ever truly loved me.
Aeron’s ocean-blue eyes lock on me, his gaze tormented as they pull him and the others towards the door we came through only about half an hour ago.
It feels like hours and just shows that mistress time is a fucking bitch who likes to play with her food.
The guys fight, Knox more than the others, but there are too many Soldiers and so all they end up doing is getting roughed up more, each strike like a blow to my tattered soul.
The sting in my face from my sperm donor’s smack throbs like a motherfucker and just as they herd Aeron through the door, a fist lands on my stomach.
I gasp as a shooting pain explodes across my solar plexus, leaving me heaving and breathless.
My body tries to hunch over but the Soldiers grip my arms too tightly, forcing me to remain upright, my eyes watering.
“Don’t you ever talk back to me like that again, you little cunt,” Rufus Jackson, leader of the Dead Soldiers and my father, seethes, spittle flying in my face.
My lip curls as I heave, trying to take a full breath so I can curse the bastard out, but the throbbing in my diaphragm prevents much more than a rasping breath to escape me.
I can't even wipe the spittle off because more of my sperm donor’s goons hold my arms behind my back at an excruciating angle.
When did he recruit so many?
I look at him, at his dark hair and his all too familiar blue eyes, and it takes everything that I have not to spit back at him.
Not to tell him exactly how much of a fucking asshole I think he is.
Only a tiny sense of self-preservation prevents me from doing so, but I need to follow through with the plan.
I need to get Rook and I out of here and make good on my promise to Mom.
It’s the only thing that matters, and I’m so close, I just need all the pieces to fall into place.
And what about your Tailors? I shut that voice down, I can’t think about them right now, about the betrayal in Aeron’s eyes, or I might just break.
“I think my daughter needs to spend some time in the cages to relearn her role here,” he says to the men behind me as he straightens up, swiping a hand over his thinning hair.
He looks fucking ridiculous in his sleeveless leather jacket, like some wannabe MC prez.
It takes more than I thought I was capable of to not sneer at him.
He’d only beat me more and I can’t afford that right now. Fucking pathetic twat.
I don’t fight—not that I’d manage much with the warm blood dripping down my side from my not-so-loving father’s stab wound—as the two guys holding me manhandle me towards the same door that the guys disappeared through moments ago.
Anywhere is better than being with my sperm donor—the other side of the world would be too close—and my guys are there, so it’s where I want to be, even if they hate me.
Are they still yours though? You betrayed them to their worst enemy…
Fuck you, inner voice. My ire doesn’t stop my throat from constricting or the heaviness of my limbs as I’m hauled away.
“Oh, and, Darling,” Rufus says, his voice cloying like overly perfumed incense. Chills race down my spine as my captors pause, and I look over my shoulder at him, at the sick look of satisfaction on his face. “You’ve got some catching up to do.”
The men in the room chuckle darkly and my pulse skyrockets as I take in the lecherous gazes of the many new recruits that are all around the room. They know what they’re owed, and I can see them planning to collect from between my unwilling thighs at the first opportunity.
“I can’t wait to take my turn between those pretty legs, can you, Davis?” the guy holding one of my arms nasally whispers in my ear, his stale beer breath making me want to gag. Clenching my jaw I refuse to look at him, he doesn’t get to see the fear which I know shines in my eyes.
“I hope she’s a screamer. It’s no fun if they don’t fight,” Davis—I assume—answers, and tears fill my eyes as my body thrashes of its own accord, as if that will help.
They’re too strong, and even if I got away from these two, the room is full of depraved men who would be delighted to take their place.
“That’s it, keep fighting, baby. It just makes me harder. ”
He thrusts his hips at my side, much to the amusement of the men around the room who laugh and jeer as I’m, once again, hauled towards the door.
They yank me through, the sound of celebrations muffled to a dull roar as the door swings closed behind us, and then cart me along the narrow walkway. A single bulb illuminates the miserable, dank space as I’m led down the corridor towards the end where the cages lie.
My heart thuds painfully in my chest the closer I get to the guys, but I’m not brave enough to look at them as we stop in front of the cage opposite theirs.
Davis, at least I think it’s him, steps in front of the barred door and pulls a key from his pocket, unlocking it.
It makes no sound as he turns the key in the lock, confirming that Rufus still keeps the cages in good condition, and the room is silent as he swings the cage’s door open.
A huff leaves me as the other goon—No-name as he shall now be known—shoves me hard, and pain shoots up my arms and thighs as I land on my hands and knees, breathing hard. Motherfucking cuntfaces.
“Think we can take our turn first?” one of them asks, and I feel warmth behind me, my eyes squeezing shut as if that will stop them.
As if that has ever worked before, shutting the nightmares out only means you can’t see them when they come to devour you.
Defeat and shame washes over me, leaving me feeling desolate and weak.
An anguished groan leaves my lips as a hand tangles in my hair and pulls me up by it, my eyes flying open and a yelp falling from my lips when a sharp pain lets me know my assailant has torn some of my hair out by the roots.
My hand desperately grips over his, trying to lessen the pressure, but it’s no fucking use.
“Leave her alone!” Jude shouts, his voice a promise of violence as the sound of the bars being hit fills my ears.
The two goons laugh and turn me to face the other cage, tears stinging my eyes and making the vision of my guys, all gripping the bars of the cell across from mine, waver as if they’re underwater.
They may as well be, they’re that unreachable.
“What you gonna do about it, pretty boy?” No-name sneers, palming my breast and squeezing hard enough that I can’t stop the pained hiss from escaping. I know I’ll be bruised as fuck tomorrow, and I hate that it’ll be their fingerprints marring my skin.
“I’ll fucking kill you,” Jude answers, his tone as dark as the corners of this desperate space.
My eyes close, fresh tears spilling as I’m thrown back to the girl who lived here all her life.
To the girl who was abused and couldn’t do a fucking thing about it as men took and took until there was only a hollow shell left.
A shell that the men opposite me had started to fill.
Both Soldiers laugh. “Not if we kill you first,” Davis says, pushing his hard-on into my ass.
My eyes snap open and my stomach swirls with nausea.
All the old feelings of self-disgust at letting these men touch me like this rear their ugly head and it’s that which makes me angry, yanking me out of my victim state.
It’s not my fault, this is not my fault, and I’m never going to let them take from me again.
“You think I should be afraid of that, Davis? I wouldn’t even feel it,” I tell him as I school my face into a mask of indifference, my tone disinterested. Jude’s lips twitch up, and a burst of heat radiates through my chest at the slight gesture. Then his lips part and—
“You fucking bitch!” Davis roars, throwing me away from him and into the bars.
My head makes contact with a loud crack, the room spinning as warm liquid rushes down the side of my face and I fall to the floor, just barely catching myself on the cold concrete.
My eyelids flutter, the floor feeling like I’m on a boat in a storm, and I have to swallow several times to stop myself from spewing vomit all over the place.
There’s a high-pitched whine in my ears that’s making me wince, which in turn hurts my fucking head.
I laugh, a broken, cracked sound that is just my body’s way of dealing with my current shitty situation. After all, I don’t want to start crying, these assholes don’t deserve my tears.
Hearing the growl of outrage from at least one of my guys behind me gives me more confidence as I use the bars to straighten up and turn around, facing the Soldiers.
“That all you got, Pee-wee?” My words are thick and sluggish sounding, and I curse these cunts out in my head for being so fucking rough.
My vision blurs slightly as he springs forward, his face purple with rage, but No-name holds him back, his arms wrapped around Davis.
“She’s not worth it, man. When Rufus gives us the go-ahead, then you can hurt her and make her scream as much as you like, remember? As long as we don’t kill her, anything goes.”
A shiver works its way over my entire body, but I manage to keep the fear off my face as I keep them in my sights, moving along the bars into the corner of the cell furthest away from them. I watch as Davis takes a deep inhale through his busted-up nose, his eyes locked onto me.
“I’m gonna fuck you until you bleed, little bitch.
Then I’m gonna keep going and show you exactly what I feel like as I tear up that pussy of yours,” he promises darkly, shrugging off No-name.
Nausea swarms in my stomach again as I know he means every fucking word and there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop him.
“You won’t touch her!” Tarl shouts, and I look over to see him and the others, still with their hands wrapped around the bars, knuckles white as they send death glares at the two Soldiers.
“Oh, you’ll be watching as we all take turns,” Davis tells them snidely as he and No-name saunter out of my cage.
He doesn’t go too close to my guys though, and I can’t stop the small grin that tugs at my lips to see that he’s clearly still afraid of them, even if they are behind bars.
“And there won’t be a fucking thing you can do as we split her in half. ”
Jude roars, rattling the bars as Aeron steps up behind him, wrapping his arms around Jude and pulling him into a hug.
He whispers something in Jude’s ear which seems to calm him as Jude relaxes a little in Aeron’s hold.
It looks like Tarl and Knox are seconds away from exploding too.
Knox is baring his teeth in a snarl, his neck so corded that it looks like it might snap, and Tarl is completely still, unmoving as he watches the Soldiers like a snake watches its prey.
My heart hurts to watch them all trapped behind bars, like beautiful, fierce tigers pacing and snarling at their keepers.
My Tailors are like wild animals, and the thickness in my throat grows knowing that I’m the cause of their incarceration.
The door to my prison clangs, making me jump then wince as it tugs the shallow stab wound in my side, and I step back from the bars, my heart racing and my throat dry as the two Soldiers leer at me once more before heading back down the walkway.
The sound of the party beyond the door fills the room when they open it, the noise once again quieting when the door slams shut behind them.
Silence fills the space, although this time it’s heavy and almost suffocating.
I slowly look over to the cage opposite mine, the only other cage in this fucking dismal space, to see four pairs of eyes laser-focused on me.
Four gorgeous faces stern and so angry that I want to flinch back from the sharp sting of their judgment.
I suspect my father put us in separate cages on purpose, we let him see too much when they were taken away, so he now knows that I’m a way to hurt them and vice versa.
“Oh, Nightingale,” Jude says, his voice pained as he takes me in, stepping out of Aeron’s embrace, his face softening as his hands grip the bars. His arm muscles strain, as if bracing himself to pull them apart. “What have you done?”