Chapter 26
ARIA
Sitting in the corner of a run-down restaurant kitchen, I pull my knees up against my chest, my eyes swollen from the tears I’ve cried. It’s been hours, sitting here alone. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know whether Stone is alive or dead. I don’t know anything.
My wrists and ankles are bound, and as though that wasn’t enough, I’ve been chained to the leg of a heavy-duty metal table.
If Stone were here, he would have had me thrown over his shoulder and racing out the door in seconds, but I don’t possess his superhuman strength that makes him capable of tearing through chains and lifting industrial-sized refrigerators.
I don’t possess a lot of things I need to get through this.
Stamina. Strength. Bravery. The old me might have stood a chance.
She had survival instincts, but this new me who’s spent the past seven years just trying to get by, she doesn’t have what it takes.
She spent four years in a job getting pushed around, and allowed her boss to railroad her big interview.
Where the fuck is my backbone? Did I lose it the night of the fire?
The night Ash tried to steal my innocence?
He might not have gotten his chance to rape me, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t steal something from me that night.
Fuck.
Fresh tears stream down my face, and at this point, I don’t know where the hell they keep coming from. I just need to know that Stone is alright.
The moment he stormed out of that warehouse and found me in the arms of some gang member with a gun up against my temple, I expected a lot of things.
I thought he would fight. I thought he’d find a way to save us both while leaving a trail of bodies in our wake.
But the second he looked at me—truly looked at me—he dropped to his knees, and my soul shattered.
He wasn’t prepared to risk my life for his revenge, but he sure as fuck would give up his to save mine, and that’s exactly what he did when he submitted to them.
One of the men walked up to him and knocked him out with the butt of his gun. We were dragged away as though our lives didn’t even matter, as though we were nothing more than pawns to use in someone else’s sick game.
They brought us here, to an old Chinese restaurant that looks as though it has long been out of business.
I was brought into the kitchen, shoved down on the ground, bound, and left.
And this is exactly where I’ve stayed ever since.
Nobody has come to check on me, nobody has even glanced my way.
Don’t get me wrong, I prefer it this way, I just wish I knew what was coming.
I don’t like the anticipation of not knowing what they’re going to do to me.
Are they going to kill Stone and then use me as their little toy?
Or will they just put a bullet in my head the moment they’re done with him?
Fuck.
I bury my face against my knees and silently cry.
I can’t believe we’re here again.
The last time I was face-to-face with the Bone Reapers, my whole world changed. And now that I’m only just getting it back, I can feel it slipping away just as fast as it came.
I can’t lose this again. I can’t lose Stone, but if he were already dead, surely I would feel it, right? I would know it deep in my soul. I have to believe that he’s okay because I don’t want to do this life without him, even if it means living a life on the run.
As I think about the last time the Bone Reapers had me in their vile clutches, more pieces of the puzzle come back to me.
Suddenly, I remember Ash coming to me, telling me about some ridiculous party he wanted to go to.
But at that stage, I was already weary of him.
He’d been gone for two years, only coming back when he needed something the Bone Reapers couldn’t give him.
He’d told me how much fun it was going to be and then used Stone against me, telling me I was boring because I didn’t know how to have fun, just like Stone. And fuck, I’d fallen right into his trap.
Stone was supposed to be working that night.
He worked a lot back then. Always factory jobs or manual labor where he could be paid cash under the table, and shit, that cash put me through school and kept clothes on my back.
He did everything for me, and as a kid, I think I took that for granted.
He deserves so much more, and if we somehow make it out of here, I’m going to make sure that he gets everything he deserves.
How could I not after the life he painstakingly provided for me?
Ash waited until almost midnight before deciding it was time to head out to the party, and by that point, I was already tired.
I didn’t want to go, but I had put up a fight with Stone.
I told him I wasn’t a kid, and after arguing with him for hours during the day, I was too stubborn to submit and stay home. So I let Ash drag me away.
I should have known better. I should have trusted Stone, but the second we walked out into the darkness and turned the corner, I found a car waiting for us, surrounded by Ash’s friends.
I’d turned to him, ready to ask what the hell was going on, but something changed in his eyes, and I realized I’d been fooled.
“Sorry, princess,” he said. His tone was so chilling that even now it sends a shiver down my spine. “You’re all mine now.”
Fear turned my blood to ice, and I didn’t even get the chance to scream before the boy I considered a brother knocked me out cold and robbed me of the life I held with Stone.
Fuck.
The tears flow faster. It was all my fault.
I should have trusted Stone like he begged me to, but I was a stupid kid.
I wanted to prove something, and it cost me the whole fucking world.
It cost me Stone, and because of it, he turned into a monster.
He slaughtered men in cold blood and lost a piece of himself.
All because of my stupidity, he spent seven long years behind bars.
How could I have done this to him?
Memory after memory swarms back, hitting me like a blunt blade straight to the chest. Stone taking my hand and running when we first left our foster home together.
Stone fending off assholes in the night when we had nowhere safe to sleep.
Stone giving up the food on his plate just to make sure I had a full tummy.
Stone. Stone. Stone.
Everything was Stone. My life, my love, my happiness, it was all because of him.
The sound of someone’s heavy footsteps has my head snapping up, and I find two of the men who originally grabbed me outside of the warehouse. Their wicked grins make my entire body tremble.
“Oh, baby. You’re not gonna like this,” he laughs, crouching down in front of me and pulling out a switchblade. My eyes widen in horror as he reaches for me. I try to kick him away, but with both my wrists and ankles bound, it’s useless.
No. No, no, no. This can’t be happening.
“Hurry up,” the other guy mutters. “Get this bitch under control. Talon is waiting.”
Gripping my ankles too tight, the switchblade quickly slices through the thick duct tape that’s keeping me bound, and the second my legs are free, I slam one foot up into his face, knocking him onto his ass.
“Fucking bitch,” he grunts, gritting his teeth as he comes straight back at me, clocking me in the jaw with a heavy fist.
Blood trickles from my mouth as I cry out, and as the pain rocks through my body, he makes quick work of releasing my wrists and the chains holding me to the table.
Tears stream down my face, and he grips my upper arm, dragging me across the tiles.
I desperately try to grasp onto something to get just a bit of leverage, but the other guy steps in, grabbing my other arm and rendering me useless.
I squirm in their hold, thrashing around and throwing my feet up, bracing them against the door frame of the kitchen to halt their movements, but I’m too easily outmatched.
I’m backhanded without warning, the hit coming before I even clock the movement, and I cry out in agony, but I don’t care.
They can’t take me from this kitchen. I’m safe here.
Unharmed. But I don’t know what waits for me outside this room, and I’m not prepared to find out.
“NO,” I cry, trying again, but the men grow impatient and adjust their hold, grabbing me by my hair and pulling hard. I have no choice but to grip onto their hands to lessen the pressure as I scream out in agony, my body sliding across the old, broken tiles with ease.
They laugh while pulling me along, dragging me through the door and into the main part of the restaurant where no less than twenty sets of eyes watch me, not one of them daring to help.
“Make it quick,” a cold voice says from across the room, the man who’d held the gun to my head outside the warehouse. “I’m growing impatient.”
The two men dragging me don’t respond; they simply turn to the right and head toward a door with a heavy padlock and push straight through it.
There’s a set of stairs leading down into a basement, and without hesitation, they shove me straight down them. As I fall, my body slams into each step on my way to the ground, crying out in agony. My chest hits the corner of a step. My hip. My waist. My thigh. Until I come to a stop at the bottom.
I shove my hand beneath me, trying to push up from the dirty ground, when I find a set of black boots standing right in front of me. “Oh, I’m gonna enjoy this,” the man rumbles as the other two come down the stairs.
“No,” I cry, devastation ripping through me.
He bends down and grabs me, dragging me through the basement as I try to fight free, quickly realizing this is so much more than just a basement. It’s a prison. There are cells lining either side of the room. Chains. Weapons. Men broken and bruised in bloodied heaps on the ground.
What the fuck is this place? The answer comes before the question has even finished forming in my head. It’s a torture chamber. Somewhere for these assholes to conduct their bullshit without getting caught, and Stone and I have somehow fallen straight into it.
We come to a stop, and as I hastily try to find my bearings, I’m thrown down in front of a cell, my face slamming against the metal bars.
I cry out, but the agony turns to horror as I look up and see Stone laying on the ground. “No,” I breathe, my chest heaving. Why isn’t he moving? “Stone?”
Fuck. No. He can’t be dead. “STONE!”
I pull against the bars, shoving my arm through the gap and frantically trying to reach for him. Thick sobs catch in my throat. “No, no, no.”
This can’t be happening. He can’t be gone. I need him.
“Stone.”
Heavy wails tear from my chest, and as my fingers try to grasp his arm, a hand locks around my ankle and drags me back across the ground. “NO,” I scream, terror gripping me in a chokehold as a heavy chain is wrapped around my ankle. “NO!”
I desperately thrash against their hold as a large hook is lowered from the ceiling, but I’m held down. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
Terror, grief, and agony rip through me, and as my heavy sobs mix with my horrified screams, the chains at my ankles are pushed over the massive meat hook.
Someone starts pulling on a lever, and the chains tighten against the hook before pulling me up.
Their hands release me, letting the hook hoist me up off the ground, dangling me like a goddamn fish. A loud gasp echoes through the cells.
“Fuck,” Stone grunts, and I whip my head toward his cell, finding him on the ground, grasping at his ribs as he drags a hand down his face.
Relief pounds through my veins, realizing he was only unconscious. “STONE,” I scream.
His head snaps up as though reality is only just coming back to him, and despite the pain he must be in, he launches to his feet, grasping the bars so hard they shake.
His eyes are on mine, wide and filled with the kind of fear I’ve never seen from him, not when we were escaping the prison, not when we were being chased by the police, not even when he dropped to his knees outside the warehouse and submitted to these assholes.
“Stone,” I cry, terrified of what’s about to come. The blood quickly rushes to my head as I’m hung upside down.
He looks between me and the man who met me at the bottom of the stairs. “Let her go,” he growls, his tone filled with a bone-chilling venom.
The man walks right up to the bars of Stone’s cell, a slow grin stretching across his lips. “Well, look at that,” he rumbles, excitement brimming in his wicked tone. “Not quite as untouchable as you thought. Now, buckle in and enjoy the show. This is about to get messy.”
And with that, one of his henchmen steps up to me, holding a metal bar before swinging it hard and slamming it right into my chest.