CHAPTER 40
EDEN
The rope bit into my wrists every time I moved.
Not that moving helped.
The chair was solid wood and heavy, its legs planted firmly on the concrete floor so that every small shift only pulled the rope tighter against my wrists.
My shoulders ached from the way my arms were pulled behind me, the muscles trembling from being forced into a position they weren’t meant to stay in this long.
Breathe.
Just breathe.
I cringed every time I attempted my old school counselor’s tricks, but they seemed necessary under my current circumstances.
Fluorescent lights hung overhead, glaring down so brightly they washed the entire room in harsh white. There was nowhere for anything to hide.
The men were all standing around me in a loose circle, watching me. Their eyes felt like insects crawling over my skin. Every time one of them shifted their weight or chuckled quietly to the man next to them, my stomach twisted tighter.
A camera had been set up directly in front of me, its small red light glowing steadily.
I kept my eyes away from it as much as I could, focusing instead on the cracked concrete floor beneath my bare feet, because looking at it made my chest tighten.
If I looked too long, I would start thinking about what that light meant . . . and about who might be watching.
Be brave for him.
Zachary’s voice echoed in my head, the memory of his tense expression tightening my throat.
My pulse surged, but I forced my chin up anyway. If Jagger could see this—if he was watching—I wasn’t going to let him see me fall apart.
A door opened somewhere behind me, the slow creak cutting through the tense silence in the room. Unhurried footsteps crossed the concrete.
“Well now,” a voice said lazily, the words wrapped in a smooth Irish lilt that slid through the air like smoke.
My stomach dropped at the familiar voice.
It had been months, but there was no forgetting that night in the high roller room where I’d heard it.
Not when that night had changed my whole life.
Jagger had said his name at one point. I could still picture the way his jaw had clenched when he’d looked at him. What had he called him? The memory pushed through the panic a second later.
Declan.
I turned my head just as he stepped around the chair and came into view.
Declan was smiling as he stopped in front of me, a knife flashing between his fingers as he flipped it idly in his hand. The blade caught the light every time it turned, glinting silver.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
“You know,” he said conversationally, “I had a feeling about you the first night I saw you.” The knife spun again. “You remember that night?”
My throat tightened, but I didn’t answer, and his smile widened.
“Oh, I remember it perfectly.” His gaze slid slowly over my face. “Pretty little cocktail waitress wandering around a roomful of men who eat people like you for breakfast.”
The knife flipped once more before he caught it by the handle, and Declan chuckled softly. “I knew it right then,” he said. “Knew the second Jagger Thatcher looked at you that he was about to ruin your life.”
He leaned closer, the tip of the knife lifting until it hovered just beneath my chin. “And the funniest part?”
His eyes gleamed.
“All of this happened . . .”
He gestured around the room, at the men watching, at the camera recording every second.
“And you didn’t even know.”
The knife traced lightly along the edge of my jaw.
“You had absolutely no idea,” he said softly, “that you were climbing into bed with the Las Vegas mafia.”
He straightened again, flipping the knife back into the air.
If he was going for shock, though . . . it didn’t work. At this point, after being dragged out of Jagger’s penthouse and tied to a chair while men circled me like this, it would have been stranger if it wasn’t something like that.
Still, a small part of me thought about the version of myself who had been sitting on that couch only a few hours earlier, half watching television while waiting for my shift to start. That girl might have been stunned to hear someone say it out loud.
But even then . . . maybe not.
Because when I really thought about it, I’d always known there was something more to Jagger.
I hadn’t known exactly what. I just knew there was . . . more.
He had driven a knife straight through a poker table the first night I met him just because someone touched me.
Men twice his size watched him with the wary attention people gave someone dangerous.
Conversations changed when he entered a room.
People stepped out of his way without even realizing they were doing it.
And I had seen the way his eyes went cold sometimes when he was upset with someone.
A part of me had always understood that loving Jagger Thatcher meant stepping into a different kind of darkness than the one I’d grown up in. I had simply chosen not to look too closely.
Because I loved him. Because being with him felt bigger and brighter and more alive than anything I’d ever known.
People liked to talk about cautionary tales when it came to love—stories about the girl who ignored the warning signs, who followed the wrong man too far, who paid the price for it in the end.
Maybe that was me.
Maybe someday someone would point to a story like mine and say This is why you don’t fall for men like him.
But even tied to a chair in a roomful of his enemies, staring down the man who wanted to destroy him . . .
I still didn’t regret loving Jagger.
Even if I died today, it would still be better than the years I spent slowly dying beside Ryan.
“Don’t worry, Eden,” Declan said soothingly as if he was comforting a frightened child. “Jagger’s watching all of this from where we have him.” The blade spun once more before he caught it with a snap of his fingers. “And he’s going to die knowing exactly what I’m about to do to you.”
My stomach lurched, but I held steady. I wouldn’t let him see me break. Not yet. Not ever, if I could help it. Breath in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Why hadn’t those motherfucking counselors given me something better to try?
Declan stepped closer, and then he reached out and hooked the tip of the blade under the collar of my blouse. The fabric was a smooth polyester blend, the standard issue they used for casino uniforms, stretchy and lightweight. Under the knife, it suddenly felt paper-thin.
He didn’t rush. He dragged the knife down slowly, starting at the top button and slicing through each one in turn.
The threads popped softly, one after another.
The blouse split straight down the front, the collar and buttons parting to reveal the simple white bra underneath.
The air hit my skin in a sudden rush, raising goose bumps across my chest and stomach.
The ruined shirt hung open like a broken wing, framing the black skirt that still clung to my hips.
The men reacted instantly.
A low whistle came from the back. Another muttered something crude in a thick Irish accent. One of the men from the elevator licked his lips again, his eyes dark and hungry. The one by the camera adjusted the lens slightly, zooming in as if this were the money shot.
I felt the shake start in my legs, then climb up my spine. My teeth chattered for half a second before I clamped them together. No. They didn’t get to see that. They didn’t get to see me crumble.
I stared straight ahead—at the blinking red light on the camera—and pictured Jagger’s face instead.
The way he looked at me, like I was the only thing in his world that made sense.
The way he’d whispered I love you against my skin like it was a vow.
I clung to that image with everything I had inside me.
Declan tilted his head, studying me as he decided where to start.
“Brave little thing,” he murmured. “I’ll give you that. Most girls would be sobbing by now. Begging. But you . . .” He traced the flat of the blade along my collarbone—cold metal kissing skin, but not yet cutting it. “You’re still fighting. It’s almost sweet.”
He leaned in until his breath brushed my ear. “Jagger’s going to love watching me take that fight away from you. Piece by piece.”
My pulse roared in my ears, and the shaking got worse, but I still refused to look away from the camera. If he was watching—if he could still see me—I wanted him to see I wasn’t broken.
Declan stepped away, the knife still in his hand, and nodded to one of the men. “Turn up the volume,” he said. “I want him to hear every sound she makes for this next part.”
The red light on the camera blinked faster, almost eager.
Declan turned back to me with a cruel smile. The blade hovered near my face for a moment before he pressed it into my cheek, dragging it slowly across my skin without breaking it. “Let’s see how brave you are,” he murmured, “when you’re getting fucked by this blade.”
My stomach dropped as he reached down and shoved my skirt up so that the fabric bunched around my hips, exposing the tops of my thighs and the black lace of my underwear.
I jerked hard against the bindings. The zip ties dug deeper, and pain lanced through my wrists, but I didn’t care. “Get your fucking hands off me,” I spat, my voice shaking with rage more than fear.
He laughed and slowly trailed the flat of the knife up the inside of my thigh. I tried to close my legs, but the ropes held them apart. I thrashed, hips twisting, cursing him with every breath. “Fuck you,” I snarled. “You’re going to die screaming, you piece of shit.”
The knife kept moving higher, until the tip grazed the edge of my underwear, and I froze, every nerve screaming.
Gunfire suddenly erupted outside.
Sharp cracks echoed through the walls, followed by shouts. Something heavy crashed against the door.