Chapter 18
Eighteen
Knox
D uring the long drive back to the cabin, I’d been filled with a feeling of wrongness. A churning in my gut for every mistake I’d made since I’d brought her here. The biggest one was touching her, giving in to my needs. Yet my steadfast resolve melted with every mile I grew closer to her, hungry, ravenous for the salvation she provided. The knife through my flesh no longer did anything. No release, no purification. Nothing.
She was it.
Could I let her go?
No.
I knew that instinctively. I would have to make her let me go. Make her hate me. The idea sent acid through my chest.
My dread crawled higher up my throat, strangling me with unease, and I knew something was wrong the second I turned off the highway onto the overgrown road that led to the cabin. The overhang of trees that had partly obscured the road had been disturbed. It had rained, and there were fresh tire tracks in the drying mud.
My foot flattened on the gas of the SUV, tearing down the road, my guts in my throat. Something told me I was too late, yet I did something I never did… I hoped. Fucking hoped that somehow, Piper was still there, breathing, battling. Hoped that I could get there to kill every single intruder to our cabin, whoever dared come near my woman.
There were no cars when I pulled up to the cabin, but the front door was wide open, so I knew. I fucking knew.
They’d come. Found us somehow.
And they’d taken Piper from me.
I’d done this. By leaving in the first place. By wishing that she would be rid of me. And now she was. Rid of one horror yet thrust into another that would strip her of everything, if it hadn’t already.
My palms slammed down on the steering wheel.
“Fuck!” I roared, unable to keep the cool that had been my trademark for however long. Since I made my first kill, ruined my already tattered soul.
Except it wasn’t ruined, my soul. It seemed there was a shred of it left, enough for Piper to hold on to, to fucking own.
My boots sunk into the mud as I got out of the car, not even bothering to draw my gun. There was no one there. Senses honed over years told me that.
Inside, I took in the cabin, the curtains blowing in the crisp wind, the unmade bed that still fucking smelled of her. The flowers in the vase were drying at the petals, about to die, still hanging on.
Her presence was undeniable, her absence fucking visceral.
The painting was gone too. That didn’t matter. I had it etched in my brain. Seared into my insides.
I’d find her. I had to find her. Alive. Stone took her, it had to have been him. The loss of the painting meant he’d gained the knowledge that Piper was something more to me. That she was everything. I knew the man well enough to know that he was going to try to prove that only he could own her. He’d use Piper as an example of how no one crossed him.
My fists clenched at my sides, thinking of him laying a finger on her.
If he did, I’d put her back together. And if she was too broken to fix, I’d love every single piece of her till the moment I died. Then I’d tear Stone apart with my bare hands.
My plans for revenge were cut short by a cool barrel against my temple. I hadn’t even noted that someone had entered the cabin. Clumsy, too fucking clumsy of me. Not that I was afraid of death, but if whomever this was pulled the trigger, Piper would be fucking doomed.
And that was unacceptable.
“You better be ready to die,” I said to the person holding the gun to my temple. “Because I sure as fuck am not.”
Nothing, not even a bullet, would stop me from getting to my woman.
Piper
They’d come in the night.
I hadn’t been sleeping. I hadn’t slept well since Knox left. Couldn’t sleep in the bed that smelled of us. Of him.
I’d been waiting for him to come back. He hadn’t left me. Of that I was sure, once the sting of abandonment had worn off. What was between us was real. Was solid.
There was no acting there, there was no escaping or running from it.
Knox had left because he had to. For whatever reason, I didn’t know.
What I did know was that he was coming back. I had to trust in him. I’d forced myself to go about my days, not wallowing, not crying. Tending to the garden, cooking, reading, cleaning.
I hadn’t thought he’d be gone for long. We had enough food and supplies for about another week. He would likely not push it that far. Three days, maybe four was what I’d guessed.
Despite my certainty—in the daylight, at least—that he was coming back, night brought with it doubts. Doubts about his nobility, thinking that if he left me, I’d be better off. But those thoughts quickly evaporated. Knox wasn’t noble. That’s what I loved about him, his villainous soul. And even if he had decided to be noble, he wouldn’t have left me alone in a remote cabin with limited supplies and no vehicle.
So that was out.
The more likely reason was that he was off on some sinister, dangerous task. My fear came out of the worry that whatever task he was completing had gone wrong somehow, that he’d been hurt.
The thought of it had my heart hammering, my breath shallowing. Knox was like a marble man, unbreakable in my eyes, his skin too thick, impenetrable, to wound.
But he bled. I’d seen it.
I had not forgotten that we were in the midst of a bit of a pickle with the Italian mafia. If we were going to be together, it was infinitely dangerous for us. I didn’t think Stone would casually step aside and just let Knox have me.
‘No hard feelings. I tasked you with breaking the woman I wanted to forcibly marry, and she fell for you instead. It’s not a blow to my masculinity at all .’
Yeah, right.
People would need to die for us to be together.
Stone likely needed to die for us to be together.
That didn’t bother me. I thought it might have, but the people who had to die were the same people who were part of the plot to force me to marry a man decades older than me who just so happened to be the head of a major crime organization and likely was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people.
I’d lose no sleep over that.
It was Knox.
He was powerful. But he was one man against … however many were in the mob. Fifty? A hundred? More?
He already told me he didn’t have friends, allies. He’d have to take them on alone.
So that’s what kept me up at night, him going to battle for me, for us, alone.
And when I heard the crunch of tires against gravel, I lost all sense. I leapt out of bed, not even bothering to put on shoes or pants then sprinted out the door in nothing but his tee and my panties.
I immediately knew it wasn’t Knox.
But it was too late.
They’d left me in a cheap motel room bathroom, handcuffed to the sink. My wrists were bleeding. So was my lip. My eye was swollen, and it throbbed like a motherfucker.
I’d fought them. Which maybe wasn’t smart, but I’d reasoned that I was fighting for my life. Knox was either dead—unthinkable—or hurt enough to leave them to hurt me. And he’d have to be heartbeats away from death to stop protecting me.
Either way, I wasn’t going to go quietly.
The men I’d fought against were much stronger than me and had no qualms about beating an unarmed woman.
I was still wearing a tee and panties. Luckily, the panties had remained intact, even though one of the men—Groves, was his name—had tried to wrench them off as I’d writhed on the cheap sheets of the bed, terrified that I was about to be raped.
But the second one, the one who was quieter, older and likely in charge, had stopped him.
“Stone wants her untouched,” he growled, ripping the man off me.
The younger, vile one was breathing heavily, eyes on me, on my exposed panties. “What does it matter?”
The man had let him go. “It’s your hands. Then your life.” He shrugged.
For a terrible moment, when I thought that man was willing to risk an empty threat and go for me again, my blood sang with real fear.
I exhaled with relief when his eyes darted away, and he muttered a string of curses. “What’s the point of this shit gig if I don’t get pussy?”
The older man glanced at me, sighing, as if to say, ‘ Can you believe this guy’ ?
I scowled at him, refusing to engage in any kind of false comradery with my captors. I was under no illusions that this experience would be anything like what I had with Knox. This was different. This was real. The throbbing in my eye, the stinging in my wrists and the bone deep fear coursing through me told me that.
Before Knox took me, if I was tied to a bed in a tee and underwear with at least one man who had made it clear he wasn’t opposed to rape, neither of them shying away from violence against women, I’d likely be a simpering mess. I would’ve been begging for my life.
But I’d changed in the cabin with Knox. I knew I’d softened him in a way that couldn’t be described, and he’d hardened me.
The strength he helped me discover inside myself meant I was able to scowl at both men, refusing to give up my power.
They stopped speaking to me after that, my would-be rapist sulking and scrolling on his phone, the other just sitting there, staring off.
My mind raced with escape attempts, with worry for Knox, wondering about my sister, if this meant that they had found out where we were because of her.
I knew she wouldn’t give up our location easily. The vision of how they might’ve extricated the information from her turned my stomach.
With my mind torturing me relentlessly, I struggled to keep my expression even, to hold the tears at bay. Creating grief in the unknown was a surefire way to insanity. I had to maintain my head. I gathered all of those panicked, painful worries and images, then I shoved them into a closet, bracing the door shut.
It rattled, but it didn’t open.
Stone had arrived at the motel after a few hours, wearing a three-piece suit and a sedate expression. As if he were walking into a boardroom and we were having a civilized meeting rather than a cheap motel where he had me tied to the bed.
“Piper.” His oily gaze traveled up my exposed legs. “Not the circumstances I wanted us to see each other again in.”
I pursed my lips, refusing to greet him.
“I’m disappointed,” he sighed, unbuttoning his jacket before sitting on the edge of the bed. “I thought Knox was loyal. But it seems he is just another snake who can’t control himself.” His eyes ran over me again, and I shivered in disgust. “Not that I blame him. I can understand why he thinks you’re worth dying for.”
My vision went blurry and a low roar erupted in my ears. I struggled to catch a full breath, as if all the oxygen was stolen from the room. “He’s dead?” I whispered, forgetting my vow to myself that I wouldn’t speak. The two words were rasped out, coated in pain, agony so visceral I could barely swallow a scream.
Stone smiled with satisfaction. The pain, the despair in my breath made him happy. “People who betray me, Piper, do not walk this earth for long.” He gripped my neck, hard. I might’ve focused on that pain if my heart hadn’t been splintering in agony right then. “You’d do well to remember that.”
I wouldn’t cry. Not in front of him. Knox wouldn’t want that. I wouldn’t give him that. “Fuck you,” I spat.
Another smile. “I will be fucking you, Piper,” he returned placidly. “The night you become my wife. And I’ll ensure that I do it so thoroughly that I remove any trace or memory of Knox that remains.”
His cologne was sickly-strong, an assault on my senses, making my head pound. Or maybe that was his grip on my neck. Or maybe it was the world falling apart on top of me.
“Where is my sister?” I demanded. I needed to understand how much pain I was going to be in.
“Safe,” he smiled pleasantly. “She’s dancing in a production tonight. I hear she’ll be wonderful. Such a talented dancer. So much ahead of her. But that future is so fragile. So reliant on her small body staying healthy. Whole.”
My mouth went dry. Not from the fear of his threat—I’d been living underneath that pressure for months. But from relief that she was okay. Unharmed. Stone might’ve been the biggest piece of shit to walk the earth, but I didn’t think he was a liar. Killing Daisy was losing the leash he’d fastened me on. He was smart enough to understand that.
Still, the question remained of just how he’d found me. Not that the how of it really mattered at that point. He had found me.
I was screwed. I understood that. I was chained inside a motel room with men with guns, the mob, guarding me. I didn’t have a weapon, no protector, no man who loved me more than anything coming to rescue me.
Knox was dead.
Dead .
I couldn’t breathe around the agony of that.
Cold certainty circled around my neck like a noose. There was no escaping this. My fate was sealed. Because Daisy was their bargaining chip. And I’d give up for her. My fight was over.
Don’t you dare , Knox’s voice growled in my ear. Don’t submit.
I steeled myself and stared into Stone’s brown eyes. “You can try,” I hissed. “You and your pathetic excuse for a cock can try. But Knox has ruined me completely and utterly for all men. No matter what you do to me, I’ll always be his.”
Fury, white-hot, flashed in Stone’s eyes, and I thought he might hit me. I wanted him to. I wanted to show him that I could fracture the control he valued so dearly. But he tamped it down, sucking in a deep inhale and squeezing my neck harder.
“We will see, fiancée,” he murmured, pulling me so our lips almost brushed. “I know I seem civil now, but I have thought of all the ways I will bring you to heel. I will break you, Piper. And you’ll be nothing but my obedient wife. If you’re not, I’ll throw you to my men and let them fuck all of your holes until you’re bleeding from the inside out and begging for death.”
His threat was a velvet promise.
Dread wrapped around my heart, squeezing. I knew that threat wasn’t empty. He’d do it. And thought parts of me wanted to die right then, I didn’t want that .
One monster or many? Was that my fate?
I struggled to keep my breathing even. There was only one monster I wanted, and he was gone.
Stone stared into my eyes a moment longer before letting me go and standing, putting his jacket back on and smiling at me as if he hadn’t just threatened to have me gang raped.
“I’ll give you time to consider.” He glanced at the expensive watch on his wrist. “Twelve hours should be sufficient. Enough time for my staff to pull together a wedding. Daisy has already been informed that she’ll be maid of honor. We’d hate to disappoint her, wouldn’t we? Then she’d feel as if we no longer have any use for her, and that would be terrible indeed.”
On that warning, he left.
He stared at the man who had been standing silently in the corner of the room. “No more marks on her face,” he barked. “I want my wife presentable. We can cover this with makeup.” He waved to my black eye as if he knew what could and couldn’t be hidden by cosmetics. As if he had experience in that. I shuddered at just how many brides he might’ve considered before me.
“But I want her looking presentable. Arms too. They’ll be exposed. If she fights, make sure you don’t leave any marks.” His eyes went to my exposed thighs. “And no one touches her sexually, unless I decide that this wedding will no longer be prudent.”
My eyes clouded with tears I refused to let fall. I was nothing but a piece of meat, property, to a man assuming my body was a collection of trophies, his to control.
“I’ll be seeing you,” Stone promised, looking at me again. “It would be in your benefit to wear white and be smiling at me as you walk down an aisle. You’ll like your life. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll plant babies in you, and you’ll be the dutiful wife and mother I know you can be.”
And then he left.
Left me with the horrifying knowledge that Knox was dead, and I was destined to marry a true tyrant.
Plant babies in me.
I felt triumphant knowing that at least that threat would never find its way to actuality. I felt grateful for the cancer that had made it so my womb would never be home to babies that bastard could‘ve used to control me. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to be tortured in all the ways a woman could—and those were many.
I’d lain, staring at the ceiling, mute for hours. It had bored my captors, who had probably been expecting, hoping, for more of a fight. They were bloodthirsty to cause me more pain. Their boss had okayed it, after all.
But I didn’t give them a reason. They couldn’t cause me any more pain anyway. Nothing would rival the excruciating anguish tearing at my insides
“I’m hungry, and this bitch isn’t going anywhere, so let’s eat,” Groves said.
The older one eyed me with a more practiced eye, as if he thought my behavior was all an act to lull them into doing something just like that.
I didn’t care what they thought. I was drowning in my fate. In the knowledge that Knox was gone. The ceiling tiles numbered 148, with three of them peeling, thirteen of them covered with a yellowish water stain. I’d counted and roamed my eyes over every one, cataloguing precisely so I didn’t have to think of it .
Knox is dead.
Knox is dead.
Knox is dead.
I knew I couldn’t give up, that this weakness was essentially spitting in the face of his memory, but I couldn’t find any fight in me when I was uncuffed from the bed and carried roughly into the bathroom before they dumped me on a cold tiled floor and refastened my cuffs to the bottom of a filthy sink.
I barely even whimpered when one of them kicked me, hard, in the ribs. There was a loud crack then a feeling of warmth in my abdomen, but I barely noted it.
“Don’t scream,” Grove hissed, yanking my hair so my face was exposed to him. His eyebrows needed plucking, and he had pock marks from acne dotting his skin.
Scream? I was already screaming, wasn’t I? Maybe it was just on the inside.
“You scream, anyone hears you and calls the cops, it’s goodbye little sister.” He grinned, showing gleaming white veneers, fingers bending in a daunting wave. “Not before we chop off her limbs. Or maybe we do that and keep her alive? That would be a fate worse than death for a dancer like her, wouldn’t it?”
The mention of Daisy jerked me out of my stupor. My mind cleared as I focused on his dull-gray eyes.
“You hurt my sister, and I’ll pull your fingernails out and feed them to you,” I promised him, my voice cold, unfamiliar.
He laughed, pulling my hair harder so pain exploded in my scalp. “Big talk from someone about to be chained to Stone forever. Which, for you, may not be long.” He leaned in and laid a long kiss on my lips, shoving his tongue in my mouth.
I bit it.
“Bitch!” he yelled, rearing back as if to hit me in the face before remembering Stone’s instruction.
Another kick to my ribs. More warmth flooding my body.
I hoped that he had punctured something vital. Then I’d die, and Daisy would be safe. But would she?
There was no way to be certain of that. All it would‘ve ensured was that my bright flower of a sister would be utterly alone in a wasteland full of violent criminals. Not an option.
Dying and leaving my sister alone in that world wasn’t an option. Even when grieving, toxic parts of me wanted to escape into whatever afterlife Knox was in.
I had to stay alive, I told myself as darkness clouded my vision.
Stay alive , I told myself.
As if I had any kind of control over that.