Chapter 65
Slade
I stare down at Pix, lying bound in my trunk. She looks even smaller than usual. We couldn’t count on Randolph not recognizing her, so we didn’t bother pretending she was anyone else, and she isn’t role-playing as some scared captive.
Her hands and feet are restrained but she still comes up fighting and spewing threats.
Randolph is dumbstruck as he looks at Pix and then back at me. At first, I think he’s going to suspect what we’re trying to do, but he quickly takes the bait.
A sick, malicious kind of glee coats his features, and he shuts the trunk, muffling Pix. “Bring the car and your friend inside the warehouse.”
“Wait.” I add panic into my tone, playing my part. “I’m giving her to you…as a trade for letting me go.”
“We’ll talk inside.”
I force my lip to quiver. “I don’t want to go inside. I just want this to be over. Take her. Please. And let me go.”
Randolph pats my head. “You’re mine now, pet. Come inside. Or I’ll order the annihilation of that retched biker compound, and any women and children who survive will be sold to my friends for their human trafficking needs.”
His smile is friendly, almost gentle, when he steps back.
The man is a fucking psychopath.
“Bring the car inside, pet. I don’t like to be kept waiting.” He walks away, assuming I’ll obey.
“Go, Slade,” Len chimes in. “We’re ready. You’re ready. You can do this.”
Pix kicks the inside of the trunk and calmly replies, “We got this, girl. Come on; it’s hot as the devil’s nutsack in here.”
An unbidden laugh catches in my throat as I stare at the warehouse and the overhead door that’s slowly rising, signalling this is my do-or-die moment.
But it will be Randolph who dies today. Maybe me, too, but that piece of shit is coming with me.
Getting back in the car, I drive it into the warehouse, scanning around.
There are pallets filled with boxes in the middle of the big open space, and a long table sits nearby with an open bag underneath.
Nearby, there’s another smaller table with a laptop on top of it.
A staircase is at the back, leading up to the mezzanine level, and light streams in through the windows up top.
Toward the back, there looks to be an office.
Randolph points to where he wants me to park, and I stop near the long table. He walks around to the trunk. “Open it.”
I don’t have to fake the tremble in my hand as I reach down and press the lever to unlatch the trunk before I get out of the car.
There’s a man’s shrieking noise, accompanied by Pix’s cursed threats. When I get to the back of the vehicle, Randolph’s nose is bleeding, and he fists Pix’s long blonde hair.
“Fucking bitch!” He yanks her hair, using it as a leash, and drags her to the table. With surprising strength for his lean body, he hoists Pix onto the table and slams her down, banging her head so hard she’s stunned.
“Get over here, Slade.” He flicks open a small switchblade and cuts the restraints around Pix’s wrists, then pulls a pair of handcuffs from the open bag on the floor.
He works quickly while she’s still stunned, but she starts to fight again when he locks one cuff around her wrist and secures it to the table leg. “Get over here. Now!”
I jump and obey.
“Get the other pair of handcuffs from the bag and put them on her other wrist.” He backhands Pix, so hard her cheek splits, and I force myself to obey, not attack him.
He doesn’t undo the binds around Pix’s feet; instead, he ties them to the table with rope from his hellish tricks.
Pix’s eyes meet mine, and she nods, telling me she’s fine, while she bucks against the restraints, shouting a string of threats and expletives.
Randolph flashes me an accusing glare as he wipes the blood from his nose with a white hankerchief. “Why didn’t you gag her?”
“I…I don’t know.”
He reaches into the bag, pulls out a handgun, and moves back to the head of the table. I’m frozen as he shoves it into Pix’s mouth and flicks off the safety.
“Don’t…” Tears bead on my lashes, certain I’m about to witness her death. Another death, all because of me. “Don’t. I’ll do whatever you want.”
The words are out before I give myself permission to say them.
The screams are so loud in my head that I can’t hear anything else for a moment, but I don’t spiral into chaos and dissociate. I stay present in this hell. A hell of my own making.
Randolph cranes his head to look at me over his shoulder. “Well…you’ve certainly come to the right place to prove that.” He nods toward the laptop. “Say hello to our friends and your new potential owner, pet.”
I slowly turn to face the laptop. At this angle, I can now see there are multiple small squares; some show a face, others are just black boxes with a name. At the top is a large red number that continues to increase.
Over two million and climbing.
The live auction is happening.
They’re watching this, and my skin starts to crawl. I want to run. I want to bolt. But I can’t. I must see this through.
Randolph pulls his gun out of Pix’s mouth, then hits her with it. My hands clench as I force myself not to attack him. Not yet.
From his bag, he pulls out a gag as Pix gnashes her teeth and hurls more threats. He gags her as she screams into the cloth. He ties it so tightly around her head that it painfully pulls on her cheeks and the corners of her mouth.
Satisfied, he turns to me, grips my arm and pulls me with him as he walks toward the office.
“What are you doing?”
“I can’t trust you alone with our captive, now, can I?”
Is the live streaming working? Is it enough yet? Has Randolph revealed enough to take him down?
But I know the answer to that last question is no.
“I’m here, Slade,” Bane’s voice comes over the earpiece, along with another man cursing and the faint sound of gunfire. “Stay steady. Not much longer.”
My heart lurches with worry about what’s happening outside with Bane, but he sounded calm and in control.
I need to do my job and get Randolph to talk so this can end.
He drags me into the small office, and I scan the room, searching for something to use as a weapon, but there are only jugs of water. He grabs one, then we’re going back out to Pix.
“What are you doing?” Dread laces my words as I suspect what he has planned. “Why are you doing this?”
He doesn’t answer; instead, he turns to me with a completely calm expression. He punches me in the face, and I feel blood explode along with the pain.
He shoves the jug into me, and I stumble back. “Take it,” he orders.
With one hand, I grip the jug’s handle, and with my other hand, I wipe the blood from my nose. I spit the blood that’s pooling in my mouth, and it splatters on his shiny black shoes.
His blue eyes are filled with a maniacal fire as he smiles. “My brother didn’t succeed with you because he was weak and stupid…went about it all wrong.”
It’s not quite a confession; I need more.
“What do you mean?”
But he clamps his mouth shut and points at Pix.
“Waterboard her.” When I don’t move, he adds, “Or, like my brother in the video with you, I’ll make you slice her.
” A chill falls over me as I remember watching the video of Number Thirteen’s death, and I tremble, trying to stay in control.
“First, her Achilles tendons, then the tendons behind her knees. Her elbows. Her wrists.”
He tilts his head, as if we’re having a pleasant conversation instead of talking about him making me mutilate my friend. “Do you know those are some of the most painful, not to mention debilitating cuts, to make? After that, you’ll slowly carve out her kidney.”
He steps closer and pets my hair, like I’m his dog to train. “You brought me such a lovely gift. Don’t let it go to waste.” He motions to the laptop. “And don’t disappoint your new owner. They want to see that you’re obedient and follow orders.”
I still don’t move, and he sighs.
“I have so much work to do to finish your training. But you have so much potential, pet, and I never fail.”
He pulls out a knife from his back pocket, flicks it open, and grabs my hand. His meaning is clear: he’ll make me cut Pix’s tendons, then carve out her kidney.
Pulling my shaking hand free from his, I grip the water jug and step up to the table. Pix glares up at me and screams into her gag and bucks against her restraints.
“She could drown.” That is a very real worry. With her mouth forced open, the gag will become saturated and… I squeeze my eyes shut, shaking harder.
“That’s sort of the point, pet.”
Randolph is refusing to call me by my name, referring to me as pet to remind me I’m his to train, to break, to mold. For my new owner.
But fuck him. The fire burns within me, dark and intense, which reinforces my determination not to fail.
Forcing all my emotions deep down and locking them in the steel box again—this time for an entirely different purpose—I turn my head to look at Randolph. “And her dying too quickly doesn’t allow you to train me.”
Shock covers his face as he studies my expression. The numb nothingness. Not a flicker of emotion. Then he smiles. “There she is. Look at you, my beautiful pet.” He glides his hand over my hair, petting me. “Now show me.”
Turning back to Pix, it’s not her I see lying on the table, but Number Thirteen. Our eyes meet. Both souls tortured.
“My name is Beth. Beth Grafton.” Tears leak out of her eyes, filled with pain. “Promise me you’ll end him.” Her words are a mere whisper, meant only for me, but I hear them as the repressed memory pushes free.
“I promise,” I whisper.
Then I grip Pix’s hair, holding her head still, and start to waterboard her.