Chapter Forty
Penelope
I put my phone down after Dristan sent his last message, taking a deep breath. He was more than capable of handling anything legal the idiot developers threw his way. Plus, Rudgar was there in case he needed anything and his lawyer friend could get them out of jail if it came to that.
Please, Gods, don’t let it come to that.
I was certain that this would be a quick fix. Once the company knew that our house was now officially paid off—which I was still very suspicious of—then they’d just leave us alone. I left my phone on the kitchen table, certain I would fall down a rabbit hole of worry if I kept checking it for updates from him.
He wasn’t a chatty male on a good day and he couldn’t be counted on for dozens of texts. Still, he was mine and I loved him. With a grin on my face, I settled on the arm of the sofa where my parents were snuggled together watching my mom’s favorite show.
She’d just taken her medicine and that was when she always felt her weakest. My dad took that time to smother her with affection and she adored every moment of it.
“Is everything okay with our future son-in-law?” my mom teased, smiling up at me.
I grinned, not even trying to hide how happy I was with my mate. “He’s good. Just checking in and being overprotective as usual.”
“You’ll appreciate the overprotectiveness when you have children of your own,” Dad chuckled, wagging his finger at me. “Then there’ll be some karma for all the times you’ve given us hell.”
“So never then,” I sniffed, shoving them around so I was snuggled against them.
He harrumphed, but at the same time there was a knock at the door. I stood, waving off my father before he could get up.
“Stay here,” I told him. “It’s probably Becca.”
I made my way to the door, opening it with a welcoming smile, but I froze, blinking up at the two males standing in the doorway. One was human—tall, muscular and blond—and the other was a huge cyclops with his one eye narrowed at me.
“Are you Penelope?” he asked, his voice menacing.
“What’s this about?” I asked, looking between them.
“We’re here to talk to Penelope,” the human said, a sly smile on his face as he raked me from head to toe with his gaze. “Is that you?”
Swallowing hard, I nodded, not wanting to involve my parents. It was a stupid mistake, and I knew it the minute the cyclops grabbed my arm and yanked hard, pulling me toward the paneled van backed up into the front yard.
“Stop!” I screamed, pulling on my arm—knowing that it would be bruised without having to check. “You can’t do this!”
They both chuckled, the sound dark and threatening. “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong,” the human said. “We can pretty much do whatever the hell we want.”
He opened the back of the van and the cyclops tossed me in. I fell on my side, rattling my teeth in my head, a sharp pain shooting from where I landed on my elbow. Terror raced through me. I was glad that I hadn’t let my parents answer the door, but I cursed myself for leaving my phone in the kitchen. I watched as my father ran out of the house. I shook my head at him as they slammed the doors in my face, trapping me in a claustrophobic darkness.
I scrambled toward the back doors, feeling around for a handle and yanking hard, but it was locked. I felt around me, but the only thing I found was an old tarp. It didn’t give me much hope for making it out alive. Fear clawed at my chest, making it hard to breathe.
My mind whirled with possibilities, but the only thing I could come up with was that the developers had taken me—they were the only ones that had a motive.
I felt my way to the front of the van, slamming my palm against the metal separating me from the driver. “Please! I don’t have anything. Stop this! If you let me go, I won’t call the police,” I pleaded.
A metal separator opened and the human gave me a menacing grin, his gun pointed right at me. “Sit the fuck down,” he growled. I scrambled backward and he slammed the separator closed.
Fear was a living thing inside me, but I knew it would be worse if I didn’t try to escape. I went to the back again, trying to find a way to open the door, hitting on it and screaming for help when that didn’t work.
I held back the tears, promising myself that I would cry bucket loads later, but only when I was safe in my home again. I scrabbled at the edges of the doors, shaking them, hoping to dislodge the lock somehow. There were no windows for me to try to break through and I struggled to suppress the panic rising inside me. I was knocked off my feet a few times, landing hard on my knees, with the turns of the van. Bracing myself against the door, I managed to keep from sliding into the walls.
What felt like hours later, but could have been much shorter, the van pulled to a stop. I intensified my screams after that, hoping that wherever they’d stopped there would be people around who might help me. When the door creaked open, I jumped through the space, but was pulled up short when the cyclops caught me before I could land on the ground. I was over his shoulder in a moment. I lifted my head, trying to look around as I slammed my aching fists against his back, kicking as hard as I could. The metal had been more forgiving than his flesh. My hands and feet throbbed, but I had to keep trying.
There was only one building on the property. Everything else was thick forest. I knew right away where we were. I’d heard stories of these woods—of bodies that people from the city would dump here. Now I was beginning to wonder if that was true, or if these fiends had been dumping bodies here the entire time.
“I don’t have anything you need,” I told them. “I’m not giving you a damn thing!”
“We’ll see about that,” the human scoffed. “Hey Doten, have you ever plucked the toenails off such a pretty woman?”
Terror flared through me and I stiffened in the cyclops’ arms as he chuckled—a low dark sound. I prayed that they were bluffing, but my instincts were screaming at me that they weren’t.
“No Charlie, I haven’t. Do you think they’ll be painted? A pretty red will go nicely with my collection.”
The cyclops carried me with ease toward the building and I fought hard. If I could get away, I’d still have a chance to run. If they took me into that building, I wouldn’t stand a chance. I knew Dristan would be coming for me, but I didn’t know how long it would take him to track me down—or even for him to notice I was gone. The human stepped closer, getting in my face and I reached out to grab hold of him.
I didn’t see the punch coming. But I felt it. The throbbing pain of the punch and the sudden dizziness in my skull made my eyes roll back in my head.
“Stop being a cunt and behave ,” he sneered, “or I’m going to let Doten here cut you open. He just loves playing with women’s entrails.” The cyclops chuckled under me and I swallowed hard, the tightness in my chest telling me I was close to a panic attack.
I still lifted my hand, trying to reach his face, aiming for his eyes. He yanked my arms together, and I gasped in pain as he tied them together with a cable tie. The cyclops waited at the door with me as the human went back for the tarp.
A shiver ran through me, and I blinked past the dizziness, struggling to stay conscious even as I felt darkness creeping into the edges of my vision. “You’re going to regret this,” I warned, my words slurring as I shook my head hard, but it sent a shooting pain through my skull.
“I doubt that,” the human said, the tarp over his arm as he unlocked the door. “You have what we need, and you’re going to give it to us.”
When my consciousness finally faded, it was to the male whistling a happy tune.
I jerked awake when someone slid a cold finger down my cheek. I turned my face away from the feeling and a dark chuckle sounded nearby.
“What a pity, Penelope. We were just wondering what would be the best way to wake you up,” the blond man laughed, moving away from where I was sitting on a chair, my legs bound with an old rope, and a table in front of me with papers strewn across it.
My arms were tied together in front of me, but I was able to move my fingers. “I don’t know why you’re doing this.”
Dotan glowered at me. “You’re going to sign those papers in front of you.”
I blinked at him, glancing down at the papers again. I hadn’t focused on them before, but now that I did, I could see that there were bright yellow tabs highlighting areas for a signature that already had my name.
“It seems as though your father signed everything over to you,” the blond asshole–Charlie–sneered, grasping my chin.
I yanked my head away, trying to shake off the slimy feel of him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied, looking around to see if there were any exits.
There was only one. It was in front of me, but the cyclops was in the way. He was huge and hulking—his grimace telling me that if I tried anything, he was prepared. I peered down again, noticing that the tarp was spread under my chair.
Fuck. I’m as good as dead.
Whatever they needed, I had to drag it out. There was no way I was getting out of this alive if I signed the papers, but if I could stall, then maybe there was a chance that Dristan would find me. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but I prayed that he’d made it back to my house by now.
“I mean,” the blond man said with a shrug, untucking his gun from the back of his belt. I swallowed hard as the cold metal gleamed at me with menace. “Your daddy’s on the deed too. If we threaten to kill you, he’ll sign for sure.” He leaned forward, dragging the gun across my cheek. I shuddered, tempted to pull away, but was too scared that it would startle the idiot and he would shoot me.
“It’s up to you, Penelope. You can do it the easy way or we can send him a part of you as incentive to sign the papers,” he said, eyes narrowed on my face. “And I’m more than willing to make it hurt as much as possible.”
I swallowed hard, nodding. “Okay, but it’s not going to work. Both our names are on there.”
He squinted at me for a moment, trying to determine if I was telling the truth— I wasn’t —and I held my breath as he turned to face the cyclops. “Have them double check back at the office.”
The big male nodded, lumbering over to a corner and lifting a phone to his ear.
Charlie leaned down to snarl at me. “And if that’s true, then you’re just going to have to sign for him too, aren’t you, bitch?”
“Listen,” I whispered to him. “If you let me go, I won’t tell anyone. We can all go our own way and no one has to know this ever happened.”
His smirk told me he thought my pleading was amusing. “But this way is so much fun.” He grinned, leaning down to take my hands into his, waggling my little finger. “This one first, I think.”
I blanched, ready to be sick, but the cyclops came back from his call. “They said we just need hers,” he announced, his scowl stretching as he looked at me with disgust. “She’s lying.”
“Isn’t that a pity?” the human tsked, yanking on my arms so I jerked forward in the chair, our faces closer. “Turns out you’re a liar, Penelope. And you know what happens to liars.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out a butterfly knife.
He took his time, flipping it open, admiring the sharp edge while I sucked in a harsh breath I couldn’t stop. “To think that you could have kept all your pretty fingers if you’d just told us the truth.”
I shook my head, yanking my hand away, but he held onto the cable tie strap, cutting it and releasing me. I yanked my hands away, shoving the table and making it scrape, scattering the papers and distracting them long enough for me to leave the chair, hopping as fast as I could with my bound legs. I was almost to the door when I was tackled to the floor, losing my breath under the heavy weight of the cyclops.
I wheezed out a breath, my ribs aching as I struggled for air. Dotan lifted off of me, dragging my hands forward and using another tie strap to bind my hands in front of me again. He lifted me, dragging me toward the table. I choked on my fear as he forced my bound hands to the table.
“No, wait, please!” I gasped, looking around, frantic. “I’ll sign the papers!”
The blond man paused, throwing a smirk at his friend. “Done in ten. Faster than your last time,” he guffawed and my blood curdled with hatred as they laughed.
Behind the laughter, I heard a sound at the door, and my ears perked, even as I gave a loud sniffle, trying to cover it up. “Please don’t hurt me,” I pretended to cry, “I’ll sign it now.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Charlie rolled his eyes, unsheathing another knife from his belt and sending me a sadistic smile. I took a deep breath as I saw the door opening in my periphery. I grabbed the pen—that was already uncapped—and stabbed it into the hand that the blond male had left on the papers.
He yowled, pulling it away, and the knife fell from his other hand. I lunged for it while at the same time there was a bellow from the direction of the cyclops. I didn’t wait to see what was happening, using the knife to cut the old rope that tied my legs together. Pins and needles filled them, but I struggled to my feet. The two males were faced off against Dristan, Rudgar and Kor.
My heart soared as I spotted my male. His face was a mask of fury as he pulled back his arm and slammed his fist into the face of the cyclops. I bent my hands at an awkward angle, cutting the tie strap from my hands and grabbing the papers off of the table before I wobbled my way around the edge of the room. Rudgar tackled Charlie to the ground and Kor aimed an uppercut at Dotan’s jaw.
“Get in the car, rega ,” Dristan called, not even looking at me as he faced off against the cyclops again.
I hurried to the open door and scrambled outside, moving toward the SUV I was familiar with. The doors were still open and I closed them all, settling myself into the driver’s seat and searching for a phone. When I didn’t find one, I sat still, not knowing what to do. I was shaking by the time I heard sirens and my eyes closed in relief before they popped back open to focus on the door of the building .