Chapter 17 #2
Leather restraints already unbuckled.
Already waiting for me.
They didn’t hesitate.
They threw me onto it.
The metal slammed against my back, cold seeping instantly into my skin.
For a second—
I couldn’t breathe.
The first restraint snapped toward my wrist.
I lashed out—kicking hard.
My heel connected with the man’s groin.
He folded instantly, a strangled sound tearing from his throat as he collapsed to his knees.
The second man lunged.
I brought my knee up sharply—driving it into his jaw.
A sharp crack followed.
His teeth clacked together violently as he staggered backward, disoriented.
The rest surged forward.
Swarming. Closing in.
Hands reached for me from every direction.
I became nothing but motion.
Nothing but instinct.
Nothing but the part of me that refused to die quietly.
Elbow snapped upward into another person’s throat—hard, precise.
A wet choke followed as the man staggered back, clutching at his neck.
I didn’t pause. My body moved before my mind could catch up.
Knife-hand strike—sharp—into the side of another man’s neck.
His body jerked, his grip loosening just enough for me to twist free.
Instep kick driving into a knee joint.
Bone gave.
The man went down with a strangled cry.
Every movement was muscle memory.
Every strike something I had been trained to do long before this place, before Vincenzo, before everything.
One man charged again—too slow, too confident.
I pivoted.
Hooked my arm around his and used his momentum against him—hip throwing him cleanly over my shoulder.
His body slammed into the tiled floor with a sickening crack.
He didn’t get back up.
Another lunged.
I drove my palm into his nose with a sharp upward strike.
Blood burst immediately, spraying across the sterile white tile.
The room exploded into chaos.
Trays clattered to the floor.
Metal instruments scattered and rang out as they hit the ground.
Glass shattered somewhere to my left.
An IV pole toppled with a loud metallic crash, the drip line snapping loose and whipping through the air.
Surgical drapes tore as bodies collided with them, fabric ripping under the strain of movement and panic.
Alarms began to scream.
Sharp. Piercing.
And then—a man in a white coat appeared in the doorway.
A doctor.
His eyes were wide behind thin-framed glasses, his face draining of color as he took in the scene.
For one second—he froze.
Then—he turned and ran.
Shouting for security.
My breathing came in harsh, uneven gasps.
I stood in the center of the wreckage.
Chest heaving.
Blood dripping.
From my lip.
From the deep cut above my eyebrow.
From my knees.
My blouse—once neat, once controlled—now hung torn at the shoulder, fabric shredded and stained.
Blood dripped from my chin.
From my hairline.
From places I didn’t even have time to identify.
Every breath burned.
Every inhale felt like dragging glass into my lungs.
The double doors slammed open again.
Hard. Violent.
Too many.
This time—twenty men flooded in.
Armored.
Weapons raised. Eyes hard.
No hesitation.
They had learned.
I saw it in the way they moved.
In the way they spread out.
In the way they didn’t rush me the same way the first group had.
I tried.
God help me—I tried.
The first one came too close.
I swung—caught him across the jaw.
He staggered.
A kick followed—into the gut of another man rushing in beside him.
He doubled over.
But my body—my body was failing me.
My arms felt heavy.
Like they were filled with lead.
My legs shook with every movement.
My vision blurred at the edges, tunneling in and out like I was slipping in and out of consciousness.
My lungs burned.
Refused to fill properly.
There wasn’t enough air. There wasn’t enough time.
And there were too many of them.
They swarmed.
Hands seized me from every direction.
Wrists. Ankles. Shoulders.
I struggled.
Kicked. Twisted.
Fought with everything I had left.
But this time—
it wasn’t enough.
They slammed me back onto the table.
The impact knocked the air from my lungs in a sharp, brutal burst.
Leather cuffs snapped around my wrists.
Then my ankles.
Then across my chest.
My thighs.
Each strap tightened with ruthless precision.
Metal buckles clicked into place.
Final.
Locked. Unbreakable.
I jerked once.
Twice.
But the restraints held.
My body sagged against them, trembling with exhaustion I could no longer fight.
Blood smeared beneath me on the steel surface, warm and sticky against my skin.
The men stepped back.
Slowly.
One by one.
The chaos faded.
The alarms continued to wail in the background, but the immediate violence was over.
The room settled into a tense, suffocating stillness.
Most of them filed out.
Some limping.
Some holding bruised ribs.
Others nursing broken noses or swollen faces.
Only two remained. One tall, the other short.
The taller one rolled his shoulder, wincing as he adjusted his stance, a fresh bruise blooming along his cheek where my elbow had connected earlier.
The shorter one lingered beside him.
Wiry. Scarred.
Blood still trickling from a shallow cut at his temple.
The taller man exhaled slowly, shaking his head.
“...Honestly,” he muttered, half in disbelief, half in something like reluctant respect, “this girl’s got a fucking iron spirit.”
His gaze flicked toward me.
“Took down six of our best like they were nothing.”
A short pause.
“Gave the rest of us real hell.”
A faint smirk tugged at his lips.
“Where the hell does she pull that kind of strength from?”
The shorter one didn’t answer immediately.
Instead—his eyes moved over me.
Slow. Appraising.
Wrong.
My stomach turned cold.
“I wish I could fuck her bloody before the doctor gets here...”
The words dropped into the room like something rotten.
My entire body went still. My breath caught.
Cold terror spread through my chest, sharp and suffocating, locking my lungs in place.
I stared at him through the haze of pain and exhaustion, my vision blurring at the edges but my mind forcing itself to stay sharp, to stay present—because if I let it slip even for a second, I knew what would happen.
“That’s the boss’s wife,” the taller man said flatly from a few feet away, his tone laced with caution.
The shorter one scoffed, a rough, humorless sound that bounced off the sterile walls.
“You call this bitch a wife?” he shot back, his voice edged with crude amusement.
“She’s about to die on that table. What the fuck does she have left to lose?”
My chest tightened at his words, anger flaring hot and sharp, cutting through the fear just enough to keep me grounded.
He stepped closer.
Too close.
I could smell him now—sweat, antiseptic, and something metallic like blood that hadn’t been washed off properly.
His fingers flexed at his sides, restless, predatory, as his gaze dragged over me.
Slow.
Undressing.
“Might as well give her one last ride,” he added with a low chuckle, like this was some kind of joke he’d been waiting to tell.
Something inside me snapped.
“You wouldn’t dare!” I thrashed violently against the restraints, straining with everything I had left.
The leather straps bit deeper into my wrists and ankles, cutting into already bruised, torn skin. Pain flared, sharp and immediate, but I didn’t stop.
I couldn’t stop.
I wouldn’t.
The tall man exhaled sharply, taking a step back toward the door.
“This is too fucking dangerous,” he muttered under his breath. “I’m out.”
For a second, hope flickered—thin, fragile.
The short man didn’t follow.
He stayed rooted to the spot, glancing back at the taller one as he left, a flicker of hesitation crossing his face.
“Close the door behind you,” he said quietly, watching the tall man exit.
Then the tall man vanished.
The door slammed behind him.
Sealing me in.
Now it was just me—and him.
The shorter man turned back toward me, rolling his shoulders as if loosening up for something he’d been anticipating.
His lips curled into a grin that made my stomach turn.
“Stop pretending you don’t want this.” He said, almost conversational now.
Almost... amused.
“It’s just one last fuck. I’ll make it feel good before they slice your heart out with knives.”
Rage surged through me, hot and blinding.
“Do not lay your fucking hands on me.”
The words came out sharp, defiant, but they were laced with something else underneath—fear.
He laughed.
A low, pleased sound, like my resistance only entertained him more.
Before I could move, his hand struck my inner thigh.
The slap cracked through the air, burning instantly.
I jerked violently against the restraints, but there was nowhere to go.
Nowhere to hide.
His hand lingered for a moment too long
Panic surged, sharp and suffocating.
“Let go, you bastard!” I screamed, my voice breaking, raw with fury and desperation.
“Get off me—don’t you touch me!”
He only laughed again, low and breathless, like he was enjoying this far too much.
Then he stepped away.
My heart stuttered.
For a second—
I thought maybe—just maybe—he was done.
But instead—he crossed the room.
Straight to the instrument tray.
Metal clinked softly as his fingers hovered over the tools, selecting something with slow, deliberate care.
My blood ran cold.
He picked up a scalpel.
The blade shimmered in the surgical light, silver and sharp.
He turned it in his fingers, admiring it.
Testing its edge.
“I don’t need to take your boyshorts off,” he said casually, like he was discussing something trivial. “Just cut a nice little opening right here—”
He gestured crudely toward my body, toward the space between my thighs.
“—and I can fuck you deep.”
My stomach twisted violently.
“Nice and easy.”
His grin widened.
“You might not thank me now, but you’ll sure as hell thank me when you get to hell.”
He took a step closer.
Then another.
The scalpel gleamed in his hand.
My pulse roared in my ears.
Loud. Relentless. Drowning out everything else.
Everything narrowed down to this single moment.
This single man.
This blade.
And me.