Chapter Twenty-five
Brynn
The car slows to a stop, and I hear the engine turn off.
I guess we’re here.
Wherever here is.
The front door opens and closes first, and then our door opens.
I haven’t heard from the tall one in the leather gloves since I got in the car, but he speaks now, so he must have been driving.
“Is the machine ready?” he asks, climbing into the back of the car.
Shane speaks up, and I could hug him. “I really don’t think she needs to be drugged. She’s being perfectly cooperative, and she knows Hex is an asshole. If she rips off the blindfold and tries anything stupid, she knows she’s gonna pay for it—and she won’t like the price.”
I know that last bit is as much for me as them, but they don’t need to worry. I have no interest in making trouble, I just want to tell them whatever they need to hear so I can go home.
“All right,” the guy says. “Do you want to be the one to tell Hex you didn’t like his plan and you decided to do things your way instead?”
I take it by the brief pause Shane does not want to do that, but the other Blue Blood I haven’t met before tonight speaks up. “I will.”
Oh, thank God.
Apparently, his word holds enough weight, so it’s decided.
“All right,” the driver says, so either he isn’t that invested, or he trusts the guy who’s willing to tangle with Hex if he needs to.
I would really like to know their names to see if I’ve heard anything about either of them, but as with my previous kidnapping, no introductions are made.
Too bad.
“Help her down,” Shane says, and presumably the guy who isn’t Shane or the driver stands and comes over to take my hands and pull me up.
His grip is sure but impersonal, which makes sense given Shane said there’s a girl he likes and it sounded like it was in the early stages if she “needs to be told” she’s his. He’s definitely not afraid of Hex, while the other guys seem less inclined to tangle with him.
Killian and Aiden both seemed to agree that “king of the Blue Bloods” came down to Hex and Silvan, but Silvan had his own thing going on and wouldn’t be interested in the title. Killian also told me about what a good friend Silvan was, and while we’re certainly not friends, he did vouch for me just now, despite not really knowing me. Either he trusts Shane’s judgment about me, or he trusts Killian’s, but my hunch is…
“Silvan?”
Rather than answer me, he plants a big hand atop my head and makes me duck. “Watch your head.”
I’m afraid to step down when I can’t see where I’m going and I’m not wearing shoes. I guess he notices my hesitation, because he grabs me around the waist and lifts me out of the car.
I gasp as he does, instinctively grabbing at him. I feel a muscular bicep and broad shoulder, so I guess my grab landed.
“Easy there,” he says good-naturedly, but he wastes little time removing my hand from his body.
“Sorry,” I say, feeling my face warm. “I didn’t mean to—I was just—I didn’t want to fall.”
“You’re fine,” he assures me. “And yes, I’m Silvan. Curious how you know me, but I don’t know you, though.”
“Apparently you’re very popular,” I inform him.
“Am I?” he asks, sounding amused.
I nod. “I hear you throw great parties.”
Silvan chuckles, then he grabs my arm and slowly leads me forward.
Unfortunately, since I was ripped from my bed and hauled out of my apartment like a sack of potatoes, I’m barefoot. I can feel the damp sidewalk beneath me, then I feel when the texture changes.
A door opens a second later.
“Watch your step,” Silvan says, still guiding me.
“It would be helpful if I could take off the blindfold,” I point out.
“Don’t push your luck,” he advises.
“I’m just saying,” I murmur.
I cross the threshold and judge this floor to be some kind of tile, maybe. No, hardwood.
The door closes behind me.
“This is taking too long,” Shane states, and a moment later Silvan is no longer guiding me and Shane is picking me up, planting his arm under my ass and hoisting me so he can throw me over his shoulder again.
I sigh with annoyance because this is not comfortable.
He doesn’t seem to care, though.
He is quicker carrying me than I was walking blindfolded, but I still get the impression I’m being hauled quite a ways because we’re walking for a while, traversing different levels. I can tell the rooms are changing, too. Some smaller, others more cavernous.
It feels cooler when we get to the last room. Bigger, too.
Shane shifts his hold on me, pulling me off his shoulder. “I’m gonna set you down for just a minute.”
My feet touch the cool ground. It feels like stone.
Then he lifts me again, but this time, bridal style.
I don’t know why my stomach sinks.
Then, a moment later, he puts me down on a hard surface.
A table?
“Lie down, Brynn.”
It’s Shane speaking, and he doesn’t sound excited, but he does sound resigned.
“Why?” I ask softly.
“Just do it,” Silvan says.
I swallow, but I recline back on the hard table.
This feels very wrong.
Déjà vu hits me when a hand grabs my ankle and loops what feels like a rope around it with surgical precision. My stomach feels sick, and I place a hand against my abdomen, begging it to settle.
I wince when he knots it tight, just like the night of Kyle’s party.
I can’t believe I’m letting them do this.
I feel insane. I should be fighting them. Why am I not fighting them?
But these are Killian’s friends, and I’ve met some of them. Surely they won’t hurt me. Surely they aren’t that bad.
I mean, okay, some of them killed a couple of guys last night.
Damn, I keep forgetting that.
None of these guys seem like murderers to me.
Well, maybe Hex. I could see him killing someone.
And I guess the one in leather gloves didn’t seem hesitant to do whatever Hex asked him to do, so he probably—
He grabs my other ankle, and loops another rope around it. I hear noise beneath the table, and I assume he’s anchoring the ropes to something down there.
Clearing my throat, I say, “Um, I think I’m being very, very cooperative. Can someone tell me what’s going on?”
A new voice joins the pack—well, a new voice for tonight.
“Didn’t I tell you to drug her? Why is she able to speak?”
Hex.
“We drugged her when he dragged her out of the apartment,” the guy I still don’t know says.
“She behaved herself in the car,” Silvan says. “She begged us not to drug her again, and it didn’t seem necessary, so we didn’t.”
“She was blindfolded when I carried her in,” Shane adds. “She didn’t see anything.”
I hear slow footsteps around the table. “Is that true, Brynn? Did you see anything?”
“No,” I say quickly. “I don’t know where I am.”
He slides his hands beneath my head and I gasp, caught off guard. But then he unties the blindfold, and I feel the material go slack against my face.
He tugs the material away, and then I’m looking up at him, only he’s standing over me, so he looks upside down.
My tummy flips upside down, too.
He looks sinister, but maybe it’s the setting.
Because now that I can see, I don’t know whether to be impressed or horrified.
This place is positively gothic. The room we’re in has a vaulted ceiling that seems almost dome shaped. The architecture is insane, with ornate columns that curve toward the center at the top where they all meet at the base of an enormous chandelier. It’s made of wrought-iron and lit by candles. It’s hanging so high up, I have no idea how they light them, but it feels like the place a demented phantom would have, and that’s the least appropriate thought to have right now, but…
This is the coolest place I’ve ever seen.
I stare, my eyes wide and my jaw open, at the rest of my surroundings. I suppose it’s the wrong thing to do, but I can’t help it. There’s a second floor that overlooks this great area and the table I’m lying on. It’s an oval table with eight chairs placed around it.
And the columns surrounding the sitting area. My god, each one has intricate carvings and statues carved out around them.
“This place is magnificent,” I say reverently.
If there was an opera house in hell, this is what it would look like.
I’m still in awe when I turn my gaze to Hex.
He cocks his head, seemingly surprised by my reverence. “Not scary?”
I shake my head. “No. Magnificent.”
“Do you know where we are?” he asks.
I shake my head again.
“Do you know who we are?”
An instinct niggles at me, and since mine aren’t the sharpest and they typically only let me know there’s trouble when I’m already in it…
I realize I should be more careful.
My surroundings are gorgeous and distracting, and I wish I could come back with a camera and photograph every inch of this darkly grand place, but I need to remember these aren’t just Killian’s friends. They’re men who individually chose to join a secret society that may or may not have a prerequisite of having murdered someone. They’re heavily invested in covering their own asses, and if they have reason to believe Killian has told me more than I should know… well, they probably won’t appreciate that very much.
I shake my head slightly to clear it, but I’ve taken too long to answer, I guess, because Hex grabs my arms and pins them to the table.
“Rope.”
The masked man in leather gloves joins Hex at the head of the table, and I swallow when he loops the rope around my wrist and knots it.
“Is this necessary?” I ask Hex.
“I believe I asked you a question, Brynn. And I’m waiting for an answer.”
I lick my lips. “I know who some of you are. You’re Hex, or Ripley if it’s Halloween, I guess. I recognized Shane’s cologne, so I know he carried me in. Um… I think Silvan is here.”
“And?”
“I don’t know the last one,” I say softly, as the man in question walks around to tie my other wrist.
“What else do you know about us?” Hex asks idly.
“Not much,” I answer.
“No?” I can tell he’s insincere by his tone, but my entire body stiffens when he touches me.
Now that my hands and legs are bound and I’m secured to this table much more tightly than I was in the Rho Kappa house, I’m realizing how helpless he wanted me.
I’m realizing it because he wants me to. He trails his fingers down the inside of my arms, starting at the sensitive skin on my wrist. It’s a light, lover’s caress, meant to be tantalizing if he were my lover.
But meant to be something else entirely since he isn’t.
My hackles rise. The threat has been received.
I lick my lips. “I don’t know anything about you, Hex. Literally nothing. I think I know less about you than anyone.” Stumbling for words, I search for something helpful. “I know you’re Killian’s friend. I know you’re all Killian’s friends. And I have a feeling he wouldn’t love his friends kidnapping me in the middle of the night and tying me to a table in just a nightgown, so… this is a bit weird.”
He trails his finger down my neck, and my body tenses up until it hurts.
“Please stop touching me,” I blurt.
“No,” he answers simply, sounding bored. “Now,” he says, dragging a finger across my collarbone. “I’ll ask one more time, and this time I’d like an honest answer.”
Before he has to, I interrupt. “I don’t know anything.” The urgency grows as his finger dips lower. “Please,” I say, pulling uselessly at my bound hands. “I don’t know—”
“Do you know where I was last night?” he asks.
“No.”
“Do you have any guesses as to what I was doing?”
I swallow. “No.”
“Would you swear to that on your life?”
I hesitate, but then I say, “Yes.”
I think it’s what he wants me to say, but I’m a bit confused. He knows I saw him in the hallway last night, but I think he’s interrogating me to see what I’ll tell others, not because he legitimately doesn’t know what I saw.
The truth doesn’t matter, only what I’m going to tell people.
Deciding I need to bolster his faith in me, I add, “I have no reason to talk about you or any of Killian’s friend. I have no reason to… to suspect anything.”
“No?” he asks, skimming a hand down my side.
I suck in a breath, deeply uncomfortable being touched like that by someone who isn’t Killian. “No,” I say shakily.
“Do you know anything about the secret societies on campus?”
“Only what I’ve heard around campus,” I mutter. “Nothing substantial.”
“Have you heard of the Blue Bloods?”
My heart sinks, and I try like hell to control my expression. “Yeah, sure. People talk about them sometimes, but I figure no one really knows what they’re talking about.” Borrowing a line from Killian, I say, “Secret societies wouldn’t stay secret for long if people who actually knew anything were running their mouths to anyone who would listen, now would they?”
His lips curve up faintly. “No. They wouldn’t.”
I swallow. “I’m… not chatty, and not informed about them, so… not a great source.”
He watches me for an excruciatingly long moment. Longer than any normal person could comfortably stare at another person, and it makes my skin crawl.
“Do you like Killian?” he finally asks.
My heart flips over, but I nod. “Yes,” I say softly.
“You care for him?”
“I do.”
“If required to, would you cover for him?”
I don’t mean to hesitate, and I flinch when I realize I did. “Y-Yes, I… I mean, if there was a reason to. If I needed to.”
“Even if he betrayed you?”
I gasp softly, feeling as if he scooped out my insides.
But I guess that question makes sense. If the Blue Bloods are worried about keeping their dirty secrets, and a member shares with a girl he’s seeing, it makes sense to make sure she’d still keep her mouth shut if he fucked her over.
“Yes,” I say slowly, but not uncertainly. “Even if he betrayed me.”
“There are things you don’t know about Killian,” he tells me, walking around the side of the table, kicking a chair out of his way as keeps going until he’s down by my legs. “Things you wouldn’t like.”
I don’t know what to say to that. “Nobody’s perfect,” I say, since that seems fairly broad.
“You may fantasize about love and family. Judging from my observations about you so far, I’d say you do.”
I’m not sure if that one requires an answer, but I give him one just in case. “I suppose so.”
He slides a hand up my leg, pushing the fabric of my nightgown higher.
I hear boots on the ground, one of the guys moving off to the side, away from where he was standing with a view of my feet.
I guess it’s Silvan, but he doesn’t say anything to stop Hex, so I’m not sure it matters.
“Killian dreams about something different,” he tells me, squeezing my thigh. “He believes that in order to live happily ever after, he needs money and power, the ability to bend the world to his will. Killian believes he must always be able to control the outcome, and you need power to do that. The more the better.”
I would argue even with immense power there are some things you can’t control, but this isn’t a philosophical debate, so I don’t volunteer my opinion.
Hex goes on, “Killian is married to his ambition, Brynn. He may want you. He may even care for you. But in the very best of circumstances, you will never be more than his mistress.”
Jesus, he really knows how to reach deep and rip the hopes and dreams right out of you, doesn’t he?
I swallow, hating his words, but not believing them, either.
“Would that be enough for you?” he finally asks.
No.
That would never be enough for me.
But no is the wrong answer.
And the truth doesn’t matter, only the perception of it that he leaves with.
So I swallow, and I take a slow, steady breath, and I lie through my fucking teeth. “Yes.”
Hex releases my thigh and I hear a chair near the base of the table scrape the floor as he moves it away. Then my heart beats a little harder when he climbs up on the table with me. He prowls forward until his hands are planted on the table beside my shoulders, his knees straddling me. He looks down at me, and I try not to let him smell my fear as I meet his gaze, but that’s impossible.
“If you change your mind, are you prepared to be a good girl anyway?”
I nod slowly, my gaze never leaving his.
“Yeah?”
I nod more fervently.
His eyes dance with a mix of malice and amusement when he asks, “Are you sure?”
I swallow and nod more, feeling a bit like a bobblehead, but I’ll do whatever he wants me to do. I just want to be cut loose and let out of this beautiful hell.
Looking up at him like this is uncomfortably intimate, and that he’s willing to weaponize my vulnerability and taunt me with it is… alarming.
I’d never, ever do anything to cross this man. I have no doubt he would drag me—or anyone else in his path—straight to hell if they did.
“It doesn’t matter what happens between me and Killian. You don’t have to worry about me,” I promise.
“Good. I’m gonna hold you to that.”
He holds my gaze for another moment, then he moves off me and hops down off the table. I should feel relieved, but I tense more when I hear his expensive loafers hit the cool stone floor.
“You fellas thirsty?” he asks his friends. “I am. Let’s have a drink.”
“Should we… cut her loose first?” Shane asks.
“Nah. She enjoys the scenery. Let her look a little longer before she has to leave.”
Is he seriously going to leave me tied to this table?
I hope he’s fucking with me because this is uncomfortable in every way possible, but then I hear the sounds of their shoes all walking away from me, and I know the bastard is really going to leave me here.
I sigh, irritated, but I guess I should just be thankful I passed his interrogation.
And hope they drink fast.