7. Riley
Listeningto the faint sounds of the men moving around the house as I wait for them to quiet, hopefully for everyone to finally go to sleep, is an awful kind of déjà vu. Of course, last time I did this Chloe was at my back, and I wasn’t cuffed to the bed.
Fuck. I can’t believe we actually rescued her, and less than twenty-four hours later, she was lost to me again.
Not for long, though. I’m going to get out of this fucking prison, and I won’t look back.
I need to find her.
I hear footsteps out in the hall and force my body to relax, feigning sleep. My eyes stay cracked open, though. Just enough to allow me to watch my door in the moonlight.
It doesn’t open, and whoever just passed by keeps on going.
I wait another few minutes, but it’s truly silent now. I was worried that one of the guys would come in here tonight, that Maddoc would assign someone to watch over me the way Dante did last night, but when I crane my neck to see the clock, it’s after two in the morning.
Since I haven’t seen any of them since Logan brought me back up here, I think that means I’m safe.
A crazed kind of laughter suddenly bubbles up, feeling like it comes from my very soul and threatening to spill out of my throat and bring the kind of attention I can’t afford right now.
I stifle it, and panic swells in its wake.
“Safe” is the last thing I am. I can’t even remember what safe feels like.
I take a few deep breaths, forcing myself to relax as I reach for the skills I learned on stage. I never let anything get to me when I was stripping. I couldn’t. Emotions weren’t useful when I had a job to do, and I’ve got another one now, so I’ve got to keep them locked down a little longer because it’s time to do it.
I haven’t heard any movement, any sound at all, for long enough that I figure the men must have either gone out or finally retired to their rooms. And sure, I thought the same thing last night when I tried to escape with Chloe, so I know damn well I could be wrong, but I’ve got no other choice. If they’re asleep, this is the best chance, maybe the only chance, I’m going to get to escape.
I’ve got to take it… and pray to higher powers who’ve never given a single shit about me that my luck will be better than it was last night.
“No more stalling,” I whisper to myself. It’s the world’s worst pep talk, but it’s all I’ve got right now.
I’m not sure how long it takes to work the thin piece of wire I stole from the kitchen out from between my breasts, and once I finally do, it’s even more frustrating to move it from where it falls on the mattress to one of my cuffed hands. I use my teeth and twist into positions that make me feel like a fucking pretzel, but I finally manage it.
I couldn’t have if I hadn’t convinced Logan to lock my hands around a single post in the bed frame instead of keeping them spread apart the way Dante had done last night, but I don’t feel guilty for preying on his moment of unexpected kindness. I don’t.
“Because I’ve got no fucking reason to,” I whisper in an effort to convince myself as I awkwardly try to work the wire into the locking mechanism for the cuffs.
I’ve got no idea what I’m doing outside of having watched a few heist movies with Chloe, and the frustration almost brings me to tears. It’s my one chance though, and even though the house has stayed quiet, that won’t last forever.
“I’ve got this,” I repeat, my eyes darting to the door.
Still closed. Still silent. But that doesn’t stop the rush of adrenaline that’s got me ready to vibrate right out of my skin.
I take a breath and refocus. It can’t be that fucking hard, and when I concentrate, I can just feel the tiny wire catching on something inside the handcuffs.
I push. Twist. Curse up a storm. And finally, finally, I feel something give.
The first cuff pops open, and I can’t hold back a gasp of relief as my hand comes free. But I’ve got no time to fall apart, so I get on with it, and even though I’m still not confident I understand how I managed the first one, the second cuff comes off faster.
The minute it clicks open, I hear a sound and freeze.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I mutter, staring hard at the door as my heart jumps up into my throat. But the house is as still as a tomb, and after a second, I relax. It must have been a car passing by outside. If they were watching me, if they’d heard me, they’d already be in here.
I toss the cuffs aside and scramble off the bed, my whole body shaking with adrenaline.
I use it as fuel, and move. If they locked me in here—
They didn’t.
“Thank fuck,” I whisper when the knob turns and I ease the door open to find the hallway silent, dark, and empty.
I close it and quickly put on some warmer clothes and a pair of shoes. I’m almost surprised that Logan didn’t come shred my clothes again, or that Maddoc didn’t simply take them all away. I’d still leave, even if I had to head out naked, but this will definitely be easier.
I look around for anything else useful I can take, but then realize I’m stalling. The most important thing is to get myself gone. I’ll figure out everything else once I’m free.
I turn away from the room that I’ve made my own these last weeks and slip out into the hall, every sense on high alert. But as I carefully creep down the hallway and then the stairs, no one tries to stop me. The house stays dark. And underneath all the adrenaline, a tiny, bright sliver of hope sparks to life in my chest.
I’m getting out of here. I’m really going to do it.
And then I’m going to find my sister.
I hesitate at the bottom of the stairs, debating which way to go. I instinctively want to head to the back of the house, go out the back door, past Maddoc’s office, like Chloe did. That’s stupid, though. She’s long gone, so it’s not like I’m going to pick up her trail that way, and the front door will give me easier access to the street, which will be faster.
Decided, I turn that way and move as silently as I can through the dark. I know I’ll have to run as soon as I hit the porch, because once I open the door they’ll be alerted, but for now, I can’t risk waking up any of the Reapers.
Too late.
With no warning at all, strong arms wrap around me from behind, yanking me back against an unyielding body that I now know all too well. Then the cold, hard prod of a gun presses into my back.
Hisgun.
The one I shot him with.
“You may have missed with this thing,” Maddoc hisses into my ear, “but at this range, there’s no way I will.”
My heart lurches, a wave of fear flooding through me that would have taken me to my knees if he hadn’t been holding me so tightly.
But I don’t have time for fear, and I’ve sure as shit got nothing left to lose.
I slam my head back, hoping to break his face with it, but Maddoc is faster. He feints to the side, so all I manage is a glancing blow… but he also loosens his grip on me.
I shove myself away and dart for the door, but I’m not fast enough.
Maddoc grabs me before I can open it.
“Let me fucking go,” I scream, kicking and clawing, fighting him like a feral wildcat.
Fighting, and losing.
Maddoc spins me around and slams my back against the door, then presses the gun under my chin, right in my face. And the look on his face…
I swallow hard, fear freezing my veins.
Oh god. I don’t want to die.
“Don’t make me kill you, butterfly,” he growls, as if he read my mind. Like we actually do have that connection I was stupid enough to imagine existed… before.
But we don’t. The cold metal digging into the soft skin under my chin, making it hard to breathe, to even think, is all the proof I need. The seething anger in his Siberian Husky eyes—cold and flat as he stares down at me—is almost overkill.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he bites out as Dante and Logan step out of the shadows too.
I close my eyes, despair washing through me… and worse, leaking out my eyes. It’s not even that they caught me. It’s that they’ve snuffed out my hope. I know, deep in my heart, that I’ll never give up. Never stop working toward the goal of saving my sister.
But right now, it’s hard to see how I’ll ever get another chance.
“How?” I ask brokenly, opening my eyes and pretending I don’t feel the twin tracks of moisture down my cheeks.
It’s dark. Hopefully, the guys won’t see them.
“I saw you pick something up in the kitchen,” Logan says flatly as Maddoc finally lowers his gun, holding it loosely in one hand as he captures my wrists in a punishing grip with the other one.
It hurts, but I don’t give a fuck. Rage is burning away the useless, hopeless feeling I almost gave in to for a second there as I glare at Logan where he stands in the shadows.
He set me up. He knew I’d try to escape, and they were lying in wait for me. But worse, he didn’t let on. He saw, and he let me think I got away with it.
He was almost nice to me.
For some reason, it feels like a whole new level of betrayal.
I press my lips together tightly. I don’t have a death wish and Maddoc still has his gun out. Anything I say right now really is liable to get me killed.
I expect some form of punishment, or at the least, to be marched back up to my room and locked to the bed again. Instead, Maddoc drags me into the living room, the other two following, and tosses me onto the couch.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” I hiss, glaring up at the three of them. Staying pissed off is the only armor I have right now.
The three of them spread out in front of where I landed on the couch, looming over me. They’d be intimidating as hell even without the gun in Maddoc’s hand, but when he scowls down at me without putting it away, it’s all I can do to not flinch away.
“This isn’t going to work,” he says, just about making my heart stop.
I swallow hard, half expecting him to raise it and end this thing. Like he said a few minutes ago, there’s no way he’s going to miss like I did. Not at this range. Not if he really wants to be done with me.
He sighs and tucks the gun back into his waistband, and a watery kind of relief goes through me, making me feel as shaky as a virgin on stage for the first time.
Logan’s face predictably gives away nothing, and Dante has a look on his face that I don’t even want to try to understand. Maddoc clenches his jaw as he stares down at me, but then finally gives a single, curt nod, as if he’s come to a decision.
“We can’t keep wasting our fucking time trying to stop you from escaping.”
“Then let me go. I need to—” My voice cracks with emotion, but I lift my chin and silently dare them to call me weak as I swallow and go on. “I need to find Chloe. I need to find my sister.”
Maddoc’s face shutters, his voice grim. “So do we, so we might as well work together.”
I narrow my eyes. “Never.”
“She’s on her own,” he says, going on as if I never spoke. “Out there in the city, hiding from West Point. Do you really think she’s safe out on the streets, all alone?”
My eyes well up, and I look away, scrubbing at them furiously. “Fuck you. She’s on her own because of you. In danger because of you.”
Maddoc crouches down and turns my face toward him, keeping a tight grip on my chin so I can’t look away. “Then let’s find her,” he says, his gray eyes boring into mine. “Help me, butterfly. Let’s call a truce and bring Chloe home.”
I laugh in disbelief. I don’t know what the fuck he’s playing at, because home?
Chloe and I don’t even have one anymore.