35
“Sierra… Come on, princess, wake up…” Alec’s voice is the first thing I hear when I wake, the dense fog that clouds my mind slowly fading away.
The ache in my neck has me wincing from the odd angle it’s bent at, but it’s not the only place that hurts.
Everywherehurts. Every joint. Every muscle and every single bone aches and I’m almost certain at least one of them is broken—at best.
I crack my eyes open a fraction and the light blinds me, but as I adjust to its harshness, Alec is the first thing that comes into focus.
He’s tied to a chair to my left with less than a metre separating us, his hands secured behind him. Streaks of dried blood track down the side of his face from his hairline all the way to his chin. His shirt is torn and covered in blood, his arms cut and bruised.
If he looks like this, I hate to think how I look.
I go to move, that’s when I feel the roughness rubbing at my wrists, bound together so tight my hands are beginning to go numb, rope biting into my skin.
Oh my god.
We’ve been kidnapped.
My mind nosedives into a tailspin, imagining the worst possible ways this could end, the things they’ll do to us.
A shiver wracks through my body as tears begin to burn in the backs of my eyes, the memories from the last time I was in a situation not far from this one threatening to break down the wall I created around them. Memories that threaten to unravel all of the progress I’ve made these past few months.
I thought I was past all of that, but now I find myself right back in the middle of it, with the man I love at my side in just as much danger as I am.
“Sierra, look at me,” Alec says, stealing my attention. “I’m right here, princess. Are you alright?”
I nod weakly, pain shooting down the back of my neck as my head throbs. I swallow thickly, my throat tight and dry. “Are you okay?”
“Nothing you need to worry about, baby. I’ll be fine.” The smile he gives me doesn’t fill me with confidence.
“Where are we?” I ask.
A cold draft sweeps through the broken windows across the wide, empty space we’re in. It must be at least one-hundred foot in length and width, if not more, the off-white walls covered in mould and graffiti.
Three men pace around the edge of the room, clutching the guns strapped to their hips while two others stand closer to us, two men I’ve already had the displeasure of meeting before, the first time Austin captured me; Wayne and Peter. Wayne’s eyes track me head to toe, his gaze making me nauseous.
“A warehouse. The one Bryce Tanner brought Della last year when he kidnapped her. The place where…”
“Where your brothers killed mine, I think is where that sentence was heading.” That voice alone sends a tremor up my spine.
Austin.
“Hello again, Sierra.” My blood runs ice cold as he takes a step closer, seeming to appear out of nowhere. “How wonderful it is to see you again.”
I don’t dare look up. I can’t bear to see his face, the same face that haunted my dreams for weeks after he and his sick friends raped me. I’ve fought so hard to move on, to leave it in the past and for a while, it was working, but as he stands only metres from where I’m tied up, defenceless, I can feel myself unravelling.
I keep my eyes fixed to the floor, forcing back a torrent of tears threatening to spill over, but I refuse to let him to see how he affects me.
Men like him feed off of fear, and I won’t allow him think he holds any power over me.
“Can’t look at me, sweetness? I’m a little hurt.” He moves to stand over me, the fabric of his trousers brushing my knees. He reaches out to tip my chin up, forcing me to look at him.
“Don’t touch her you fucking bastard!” Alec seethes.
His eyes snap to Alec. “You should watch your tone with me, McKenna. Need I remind you who controls who here? I don’t need you alive to get what I want, you’re alive simply because I’m allowing you to live.”
He returns his gaze to me. “It’s not often someone escapes me, Sierra. Did you really believe I’d just let you go? No… No, that’s not my style, sweetness. I was always going to come back for you.”
He caresses my face, but all his touch does is make my skin crawl beneath his fingers. It’s like a million tiny critters scuttling across my face.
“You’re probably wondering why you’re here. I thought it only fitting I bring you to the place your brothers killed mine. Poetic justice don’t you think?”
“The bastard deserved it,” Alec spits, and it earns him a hard blow to the face and I flinch.
Alec’s lip is split, but he recovers from the punch as if he felt nothing.
“We’ll see how much he deserved it when your little girlfriend here has her brains carpeting the floor.”
“What use is killing her?” Alec asks, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the floor.
“So that her precious brothers know the pain that I feel. Speaking of…” He pulls out a phone.
My phone.They must have found it in the wreckage of the car when his goons pulled us out.
He taps on the screen before holding it up to his ear. “I’m feeling a strong sense of Deja vu, are you? I feel like we’ve done this before…”
I can hear Gage on the other end, and though I can’t make out what he’s saying, by the tone of his voice I can only imagine.
Austin chuckles. “She’s fine, for now, but that all relies on you. I want you and Rafe here within the hour. No funny business and be sure to leave your FBI buddies at home. Any sign of them I won’t hesitate to put a bullet in her pretty head, though I might have a little fun with her first,” Austin shoots me a grin, “for old time’s sake.”
Alec stiffens in the chair beside me, cursing under his breath.
“You’re a clever boy, I’m sure you can figure out for yourself where we are. Let’s just say it’s a place of great significance for all of us, history after all has a nasty habit of repeating itself.” Austin cuts the call and pockets my phone.
Pointing out three of his men, including Wayne and Peter, the three of them follow Austin towards the door on the far wall, leaving the last two to stand guard.
“We’re gonna die, aren’t we?” I mutter.
“No. We’re both walking out of here, together. I promise.”
“You can’t know that. Austin’s only bringing my brothers here so they can watch him put a bullet in my head in person.”
“Sierra, have I ever given you reason not to trust me?” I shake my head. “And have I ever let you down before?”
“No.”
“Then I need you to trust me, princess. Okay?” His eyes bore into mine, and the intensity of his gaze settles something inside me. Even in this impossible situation we’re in, I trust Alec with my life and with not much faith left, I put the very little I have in him.
“Okay.” I nod.
“That’s my girl.” He smiles, and it’s a smile that has me clinging onto the tiny shred of hope I have left in my heart.
My eyes catch on the movement of Alec’s hands behind his chair, noticing his rope looks significantly looser than mine feels around my wrists.
When my gaze returns to Alec’s face, he’s wearing a smirk.
He’s breaking himself free.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Alec. Please,” I whisper.
We can’t afford for Austin or his men to catch on to what he’s doing. It’s lucky that the few men that remain in the room are either looking out of the windows or chatting between themselves, unaware of what Alec is doing.
I can only hope Alec has some sort of plan to get us out of here, because other than being carried out with a bullet between our eyes, I can’t see another way out for us.
It’s only half an hour or so when Austin returns, followed in by the three men from before, flanking Gage and Rafe as they walk in the middle.
I smile with a sigh when I spot them. After not seeing them for what feels like a lifetime, it’s good to see them, even under such circumstances as these. Even if it will be for the last time.
Gage’s jaw clenches so hard I’m sure his teeth must be cracking and Rafe just looks… deflated. I know he’s feeling guilty, after all he was the one who shot Bryce in the first place and must blame himself for everything that’s happened since, not just to me, but to the rest of our family. Since that day it’s been like a butterfly effect, everything that has happened to our family has stemmed from that exact moment Rafe shot Bryce.
But I don’t blame him, I couldn’t. He was protecting Gage and Della, anyone would’ve done the same in his position, he couldn’t have foreseen what would happen.
Gage forces his way past Austin’s men towards us, but he doesn’t get very far, Peter has the tip of his gun presses into his temple.
“I wouldn’t. It won’t end well for any of you if you do something stupid,” Austin warns.
“Let them go,” Gage spits.
“No, I don’t think I will.” Austin stalks towards where I’m sat. He towers over me, and I have to force down a wave of nausea as his fingers trail over my face.
In a flash, he has his fist wrapped in my hair, wrenching my head back to face him, my neck bent at an uncomfortable angle, and for the first time since I woke up, I’m forced to look him in the eye.
His eyes are piercing as they bore into mine, a mixture of hatred and arousal in his stare but I don’t allow the fear wracking through my body to show on my face.
I decide to show defiance in the face of my abuser.
“I like having your sister tied up for my pleasure,” he says to my brothers, his eyes not leaving mine. “And you like it too, don’t you sweetness?” His other hand trails down my body before cupping my roughly between my legs.
I spit onto his face, satisfaction rolling through me at the sight of my saliva coating his face. “Fuck you.”
“Oh, I already have, remember? And with any luck, maybe I will again.” The speed of the back of his hand against my face makes my head spin. “But that’s the last time you do that, you little bitch,” he snarls, wiping his face on the back of his sleeve.
“You bastard!” Alec shouts, earning him yet another punch to the face while Gage and Rafe lunge forward, fighting to get to Austin as the room erupts in chaos.
There’s shouting everywhere. My brothers struggling against Austin’s men, the whole scene turning into chaos.
Something cold and hard presses to the back of my head, and the sound of the safety clicking off a gun has my body locking up.
Noticing the gun trained on me, my brothers concede, their shoulders slumped in defeat as Austin’s men regain control. Peter has his gun trained on Gage, and Wayne has Rafe on his knees, a knife pressed against his throat.
“I really wanted to drag this out, boys,” Austin begins, “Play with you all a little, maybe play with her a little, too. But I think I should just get this over with, don’t you?”
My heart is in my throat as he presses the gun deeper against my skull, anxiously awaiting the moment he pulls the trigger.
“Austin. Don’t do this, please,” Gage pleads, the sound of his voice cracking has my heart squeezing.
Austin scoffs. “Did you listen to my brother when he begged for his life? Huh?”
“Kill me! Leave her out of this. I killed Bryce, I’m the one you want!” Rafe shouts, hissing against the sting as the blade bites into his neck.
“I hope now you’ll know the feeling of having a sibling murdered in cold blood.”