Chapter 25
ASHLEY
Jocelyn: Is the girl dead? Did my son get the message?
Jocelyn: Why have you not checked in??? My instructions were very clear, Martin.
Jocelyn: Oh for duck’s sake, don’t tell me you’re dead. Must I do everything myself?
Jocelyn: FUCK**
W hat the fuck? What the fucking fuck? How did I get here? Why the fuck ? —?
The last thing I remembered was leaving the massage room for one of my clients to change, ducking into the staff lockers to take a sip of water and then…
and then I woke up bound and gagged in the creepy as fuck DB meeting hall.
No wait, it got better, because I’d barely just managed to figure out what a shitty position I was in when all hell broke loose.
One minute, a gold-masked fuck was preaching about teaching the guys a lesson and raising a fucking enormous hunting knife as though he was going to murder me in some kind of overly dramatic sacrifice scene.
The next minute, Royce was slashing throats and the other guys turned into goddamn assassins.
Sure, I knew Carter had it in him—I’d witnessed that firsthand.
I also wasn’t shocked to watch Nate literally snap a man’s neck as if he were a glow stick.
Heath, I already knew, was well capable of bludgeoning a man to death with a marble duck, so it didn’t scare me to see him eviscerating soldiers with nothing but his bare fists. But Royce ?
He just cut a man’s tongue out of his mouth! Yet he vomited when he saw an eyeball that had been stuck in my hair! What is happening?!
“Bro, that was brutal,” Nate said out loud, saying exactly what I was thinking. “Are you okay?”
Royce seemed confused as he stared at Nate, then shifted his gaze to me. Concern and fear washed over his face as he locked eyes with me, then he seemed to remember what he was holding and recoiled like he’d just found a spider in his hand.
“Oh. Fuck. Gross,” he exclaimed, making dramatic gagging noises. “I wasn’t even thinking straight. I just saw red. Fuck, Squirrel, are you?—”
“I’m fine,” I replied before he could panic too hard. Except of course, I had a gag firmly wedged in between my teeth and all that came out was a muffled, Mmphmmm.
Nate was closest to where I was bound and moved closer to look me over with critical eyes. Other than being tied up like a Christmas ham, I wasn’t hurt. At least not that I could work out without moving my body. So why the fuck wasn’t he cutting me free?
“Are you okay, Layne?” he asked softly, eyes meeting mine with sincere concern.
Confused as fuck, I nodded as much as I could and tried to say, Yes, I’m fine, now cut me loose, you idiot! But once again, only muffled sounds escaped my gag. He grinned, and the next string of muffled noises from me were threats to his life if he didn’t release me.
“Nate, don’t be an asshole. Cut her loose,” Heath barked from where he stood across the room.
He stared down at his own bloody hands with fascination and calm satisfaction.
That was a man who regretted nothing of what he’d just done.
It gave me a shiver of fear along with a whole quake of affection and desire.
“Nah, I think I quite like this version of Ashley,” Nate replied with a teasing smirk. “Tied up and gagged…helpless…”
Thankfully, Nate wasn’t the one calling the shots, and Royce slashed my ropes with his very useful pocketknife. The very second I could move, I lashed out and punched Nate in the junk. Hard. With full force and all the adrenaline flooding my system just coiled up in that punch.
As soon as it landed, I had regrets. That had been harder than necessary.
He hadn’t seen it coming in the least and doubled over in shock and pain, the air gusting out of him with a wheeze. It almost sounded like he whimpered something as he collapsed to the floor, and I sat up to pull my gag off as I watched him.
“What did you say, Essex?” I demanded, ready to fucking fight. They didn’t seem to understand how hard it’d been for me just lying there watching them all nearly die over and over again in the space of mere minutes. I was so fired up on adrenaline, my fingers were shaking.
Nate rolled onto his back, still clutching his crotch in agony. “I said pineapples ,” he groaned. “That was too much, even for me. We need a safe word, babe.”
Carter scoffed, shaking his head. “Pussy.”
“Wait, why do you need a safe word?” Heath asked, crossing the room toward us as he wiped bloody knuckles on his robe, then winced. He inspected his right hand and sighed, shaking that hand out like it was hurting.
Nate was in no state to answer that question himself, still groaning and holding his crown jewels on the dirty floor.
Fuck, now I felt bad because I hadn’t meant to do quite that much damage.
I’d just intended to remind him I wasn’t someone to fuck around with, and I definitely didn’t appreciate the implication that I should be bound and gagged more often.
There was only one person—maybe two—I’d let do that to me, and this definitely wasn’t the time or place.
Royce was more than happy to share the gossip, though. “Nate likes when Squirrel gets rough with him,” he announced with a gleeful grin. “Which I think technically makes her a switch because she likes it when I’m rough. Isn’t that fun?”
I rolled my eyes, not bothering to deny it. He wasn’t wrong, even if he was being a smug shit in having firsthand knowledge of that fact. Instead, I shimmied my ass off the big stone table and sank to my knees beside where Nate was still in the fetal position.
“Sorry, that was a bit much,” I admitted with a wince. “So, um, there’s definitely a limit, huh?”
My attempt to make light of the situation seemed to work because Nate gave a pained laugh and nodded. “Yep. Sure is. I don’t think you did any lasting damage…but if I can’t have kids later in life, we all know who to blame.”
He said it teasingly, but I blanched. We were not in a position to even discuss sharing a toothbrush, let alone procreating . God, how would that even work with four potential daddies? Ack. Nope. That was not in our immediate future, not by any stretch of the imagination.
“You okay?” Carter asked in a low voice, crouching down to peer at me with worried eyes. “You just turned a bit pale. How did they abduct you? Drugs or head trauma or?—?”
I frowned, touching my scalp. “My head doesn’t hurt.
I think…maybe chloroform? Is that a real-life thing or just a movie thing?
Using it for abductions, I mean. I don’t remember getting stabbed with a needle, and my skull is still in one piece…
” I tried to remember what had happened at the country club, but it was murky.
“We should get you checked out, just in case,” Carter said thoughtfully, offering me his hand to stand up, but I glanced to Nate, still lying on the floor.
I sighed, shaking my head. “Can I speak with Nate for a moment? And, um, what the hell do we do with all of this?” I gestured to the room full of bodies. “Do you guys have a plan or…?”
Carter actually looked stumped as he scratched the back of his head, looking around. “Yeah, right. Good point. I’ll see what the boys think.” He took a few steps away, heading for Heath and Royce in order to give me the illusion of privacy to apologize.
I bit my lip, eyeing Nate. Then I poked him in the muscular shoulder. “Quit being a baby, Essex,” I said, instead of the Sorry, Nate I’d intended. “You’re fine. At least your tongue is still attached, right? It could always be worse.”
He huffed another strangled laugh, shifting out of his fetal position to sit up beside me with a groan. “You’ve got a good point, Layne. Royce is going to have nightmares about himself now.”
I grinned, glancing over to where Royce was gesturing wildly as he and the other guys tried to brainstorm a cleanup for a very incriminating scene. After seeing what had happened to Royce’s mom, there was no way we could trust the “hypnosis” defense.
“Are you actually okay?” I asked in a slightly softer voice, looking over at him from under lowered lashes. Scared he was going to be angry or, worse, cold . But in a surprising move, he shifted closer and draped his arm over my shoulders, pressing our sides together.
“I’ll be fine,” he murmured, his face lowered to line up with mine. “But if you really want to check for yourself, just to make sure everything is in working order, I won’t say no.”
I scoffed, giving him a playful shove in the side. “That’s the kind of cheesy chat I expect from Royce, not you. But I am sorry. I didn’t mean to punch you that hard.”
“Ah, but you’re not sorry for punching me in the dick, only how hard it was?” He quirked a brow with amused disbelief.
I drew a deep breath, turning to look him in the eye as I exhaled.
“Nate…here’s the thing. I don’t really know what this thing is with us, with any of us, and I definitely don’t know whether it will last. I don’t know if we have a future together, or if you’re all just going through a phase, or if the jealousy will start eating away at everyone.
I don’t know how this even works in the real world…
and I don’t know where we even stand, considering how adamant you were that this isn’t what you wanted. ”
He inhaled, clearly about to respond, so I placed my finger over his lips to hush him.
“Shh, use your listening ears, Nate. I’m getting to a point here.”
He scowled, then teasingly bit my finger to make me move it, but he kept quiet, gesturing for me to continue with what I’d been saying.
“Where was I?” I murmured to myself, placing my hand on the back of his neck as I refocused my thoughts again. “Right. I don’t know about a lot of really important factors in this thing between us…but there is one thing I know with absolute certainty, beyond any shadow of doubt.”
I paused then, gazing into his warm brown eyes as my thumb stroked the nape of his neck. He was so fucking handsome, it was actually unfair. It was also a test to see if he could follow instruction, to keep quiet and wait patiently for me to finally get to the point.
“What’s that?” he asked, breaking after barely thirty seconds. I was not shocked.
I snorted a laugh, shaking my head. “That this won’t be the last time I junk punch you. I can try not to do any lasting damage, and sure, occasionally I might feel inclined to kiss it better after the fact, but even you have to admit…you sometimes deserve it.”
He barked a sharp laugh, tossing his head back. Then he shrugged. “Yeah. Fair.”
I smiled, glad he agreed, then kissed him to show there were no real hard feelings. He seemed a little startled by me taking the initiative, but quickly deepened our kiss to the point I almost forgot where we were. And that we had an audience.
“ Ahem .” Carter interrupted us with an annoyed sort of fake cough. “If you two are done talking , we might have an idea how to clean up this mess but need your approval, Nate.”
“I’m all ears,” Nate replied, pushing to his feet, then offering me a hand to get up. I wasn’t wobbly or injured after my abduction, so that was a silver lining. “Are we calling in your mom’s connections? Fuck knows we can’t call the Colonel unless we all want to end up behind bars.”
Carter shook his head, reaching out for my hand and tugging me to his side. “No, I can’t risk upsetting the paper-thin truce we have currently agreed to. If she had this to lord over me, I’d be firmly back under her thumb and probably stuck marrying fucking Jade by the end of the week.”
I grimaced and gave a fake vomit noise, to which Carter slid his arm around my waist and squeezed me.
“Fuck, you’re right,” Nate agreed with a tired groan. When he ran his hand over his face, I noted the cuts and bruising on his knuckles. They were all going to need some first aid once we were out of this basement. “Okay, what are we thinking, then?”
Carter glanced at Heath, who shifted his weight uncomfortably. “We could call my grandfather and leave this for the Society to clean up.”
I had no idea what the implications of that were, or what Heath’s relationship was like with his grandfather, but Nate nodded thoughtfully.
“Go above the elders council? It’s not a bad idea.
And we already know for a fact they can make the bodies disappear when it suits them…
If we’re clear enough about what’s been happening and what the implications would be for the Society if this hit the news, then he’d have no choice. ”
“Exactly,” Royce agreed. “And maybe it’ll work in our favor if they’re fully aware of what’s been going on here.”
“Make the call,” Nate agreed. “Let’s leave this room sealed up, and they can deal with it.”
I wasn’t totally sure what it’d cost Heath to make that call, but I couldn’t deny the relief that we weren’t going to jail tonight, or worse…
dealing with body disposal. Burning the building down with this many bodies in the basement would be beyond suspicious.
But if push came to shove, it was still an option.