Chapter 6
RAFE
Like the last two evenings, Military Dude smirked at me from the doorway, only this time, the tray of food was missing from his hands. I rose to my feet, sensing the guy’s changed demeanor.
“Has Shelton decided to use starvation to kill me, instead of creating a circus show?” My tone dripped with sarcasm. No way in hell would Shelton waste such a lucrative opportunity by withholding dinner. The bastard wanted me at the top of my game.
“Sorry to disappoint,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “Your supper will be ready after your visitor leaves.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Visitor?”
“Yep.” He gestured toward the shackles hanging over my head. “Raise your arms.”
“No way in hell.”
Military Dude shrugged. “Guess you don’t want to find out how your woman is handling her new owner.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ll find out as soon as you cooperate.” He pulled a gun from the waistband of his jeans. “Or do I need to take a trip down the hall to the kid’s room?”
“That’s not necessary,” I snapped through gritted teeth, lifting my arms.
A wave of self-loathing crashed over me as he strung me up on my toes. It was like being in those tunnels all over again, only Alex wasn’t here this time for them to use against me.
Now they had my son.
And Alex…God, I couldn’t stand to think of her at Zach’s non-existent mercy, bound by his evil will. I’d go mad and do something that would get us all killed.
“That should do it,” Military Dude said, testing the chains anchoring me to the beam in the ceiling.
He returned to the door and yanked it open, and I settled my gaze on the asshole waiting on the other side with his usual smug smile.
His hazel eyes zeroed in on me, sparking in amusement at the sight of my downfall.
“Just hanging around, huh buddy?”
“I’m not your fucking buddy,” I spat as Zach waltzed into the room, not a care in the world going by his expression and sickeningly sweet tone.
“That, we can agree on.” Zach remained just out of reach of my feet while Military Dude stood sentry near the door. I almost snorted at the uselessness of it all, because Zach sure as hell didn’t need a fucking guard while I was shackled to the ceiling like this.
“You are most definitely not my friend,” Zach said. “A buddy wouldn’t steal their best friend’s woman.”
“She was never yours to take, asshole.”
“Oh, she was mine. Her cunt wept for me, just like it’ll fucking weep for me again as soon as I get this over with.”
Pressure built between my ears, rage pounding at my temples, thrashing to explode. “Don’t you fucking touch her.” Vehemence shook my words, even though the threat was too little too late. She’d been at Zach’s mercy for two days.
Zach’s eyes darkened as he took a step toward me. Ten more inches, and he’d come within striking distance of my feet.
“Here’s the problem. I can’t touch her until I get her out of that goddamn prison you built in the cellar.”
I blinked, mind hitting a brick wall at his words. Why the hell would he lock her up on the island? It didn’t make any sense. “You put her in there?”
He scoffed. “Would I be here if I had?”
My heart soared. If he hadn’t locked Alex in the cellar, then she must have enclosed herself behind those bars, and I was damn proud of her for outsmarting the bastard. She was a survivor.
“That’s my girl. Fucking genius, isn’t she?”
“She’s fucking mine.” His face reddened to the wrathful hue of a demon, and that’s when it sank in.
He needed the key.
I clenched my jaw. “Sounds like you’ve got a problem then.”
“Tell me where the key is.”
“It’s hanging on the keyring of go fuck yourself.”
“If you don’t tell me where the goddamn key is, I’ll starve her. Do you understand me?”
I fought the chains holding me. “You would make her suffer like that?”
“No, you will make her suffer like that if you don’t cooperate, and don’t get me started on what will happen to the kid. Now tell me where you hid it!”
I couldn’t draw in a full breath, pressed between what I wanted to do, and what I needed to do. Zach hadn’t touched her yet. He hadn’t taken her off the island. But he would as soon as he got hold of the key. And what if he explored the cabin before taking her from me forever?
Every twisted and wrong idea I’d entertained, had even prepared for, came at me like a fucking wrecking ball.
“I’m not giving you the key.”
Something lit his eyes, and I realized my mistake too late.
The slip-up of all slip-ups.
“You have it on you, don’t you?” Triumph braided his tone as he narrowed the distance between us by another inch.
“No, it’s back at the cabin. You’ll never find it.”
His lips turned up at the corners. “I don’t think so. I think it’s right here in this room.” Another step, another moment closer to getting his hands on my wife.
My pulse did double time. Adrenaline pumped through my veins.
My entire body went rigid in preparation.
Zach reached for the pocket in my pants, and I struck, lifting my knee and catching him in the groin.
Wheezing his wrath through clenched teeth, he bent over, face darkening to a deep red-purple hue.
And that’s when I really went on the offensive.
Grabbing the chains above my trapped hands, I hoisted myself off the ground and came down on his shoulders, wrapping my legs around his neck in a variation of a triangle chokehold born of desperation. The brunt of my weight cut into my wrists, but I didn’t give a fuck.
Not as long as I had him, and I intended to kill him. He thrashed for a few seconds, frantic fingers clawing at me to let him go. Then he went limp, and I doubled down on the pressure.
It wouldn’t be much longer now.
And that’s when Military Dude pried my legs from around Zach’s neck. Alex’s tormenter dropped like deadweight, irritatingly out of reach as Shelton’s guy pummeled me in the stomach until I lost my breath.
Until my hope fractured and my eyes burned from the pain. It still didn’t compare to the pain Alex would endure if Zach got his hands on that key.
“You’re lucky the boss wants you alive,” Military Dude warned, his beefy face flushing with color incongruent with his blond hair. He was so pissed he looked ready to burst. Zach awoke a couple of minutes later and crawled to his feet, huffing shallow breaths through tight lips.
“He’s got the key on him somewhere,” he rasped out past his bruised throat.
“Don’t you fucking move,” Shelton’s guy said, holding the gun to my head as he searched my pockets. Time seemed to stop as he withdrew the gold chain from which a single key dangled.
The key to Zach’s ultimate triumph.
The key to my ultimate failure.
The key that would end Alex’s life as she knew it.