Chapter Thirty-Six
I should’ve been dead.
Not hanging by my bound wrists from a hook in a small, windowed room, naked.
I’d prayed for death.
I hadn’t struggled to stay here when the darkness had taken me under.
“I hate you,” I whispered.
Dex stared at me.
But since I was alive, I now understood more. Not the ways something could go wrong, but the depths of depravity one could suffer through. I no longer wanted to die.
I wanted to kill.
“When they find me, I hope I’m still alive. I hope it’s me who stabs you straight through the heart,” I told him.
He continued to stare at me with his dead eyes full of nothingness.
The door opened. Dex stepped to the side and a sixth man entered the room.
Like the five before this one, he carefully inspected every inch of me—mercifully, they weren’t allowed to touch, not until they bought me.
But now, they could look, examine the product, make sure I was what they wanted before they made their purchase.
“You’ve outdone yourself with this one,” the man said. “I think I’ll stay for the auction.”
Auction.
Like I was livestock and not a person.
“You’re the last to view,” Dex said. “Bidding will open in ten minutes. You’ll have ten minutes after closing to wire the money.”
The man’s gaze came back to me, and I couldn’t stop the tears from falling.
“Yes, you’ve outdone yourself.” Then to me. “We’ll be on our way shortly, pet.”
Without permission a sob tore out of my throat so painful my body bucked with it.
“Yes, my pretty pet is perfect.”
The door closed behind the man, and I was back to wishing for death.
Sheer terror infused every cell of my body.
Pet.
My heart was pounding so hard, flipping over itself, skipping beats, erratically thumping, making it hard to breathe.
“Just kill me,” I pleaded.
Dex’s eyes swept over my body.
“And deprive Zack his pretty pet and myself the fuck ton of money you’ll make me? No, sweetheart, I think not.”
“I hate you,” I spat.
Dex’s lips twitched, showing the first sign of emotion since I’d first seen him at the Vault.
“I have no doubt.”
With that he walked out of the room, leaving me hanging naked by my bound wrists from a hook.
I looked up, and they came into view through the glass.
Six men.
Waiting to place their bids.
I closed my eyes and prayed.
“Still no signal,” Aiden said from the passenger seat.
“But Shep tracked the vans that left to general locations using traffic cams. The florist van was last spotted three blocks from the flower shop. Obviously, he couldn’t dive deep, but he says the florist looks legit and the plates match.
The other van’s plates belong to a Honda Accord, and he couldn’t find any trace of a rental company in the area called Tents and Events. Make a left up here.”
I switched lanes and waited for him to continue. We were out of the canyon where the mansion was situated in the valley. We’d passed through a residential area with graceful old homes and were now headed northwest toward Utah Lake, if the street signs were anything to go by.
“Last known location for the van was pulled from a camera owned by a quarry on Sixteen Hundred North Street. Van’s headed east into an industrial area.
The road dead-ends at a marina. Before that, there are a lot of warehouses, but there’s only one that’s currently not rented. An old water-treatment facility.”
I pressed my foot on the gas and asked, “How far away?”
“Fifteen minutes. Maybe more depending on lights.”
We’d be there in ten.
No way in fuck I was making Chloe wait a second longer than need be.
“Need you to promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“You get Chloe and get the fuck out.”
Aiden remained silent.
“Promise me, brother. Chloe is priority. You get her out.”
“You got it.”
“I’m gonna make a mess,” I warned.
“Know you are, brother, and I got you with that too.”
“Every motherfucker we find is mine.”
With a heavy sigh, Aiden agreed to that, too, with a caveat. “As long as it’s not you or them, you got that too.”
The rest of the drive was done in silence, save Aiden giving me directions.
I didn’t need or want reassurances. I didn’t want empty platitudes. I needed silence to beat back the fear that was threatening to overpower my rage.
I needed the fury. I needed to feed it until it swelled in my gut, blanking my mind from everything but my need to maim, murder, and shed blood.
Rage that would turn savage.
Wrath that would surpass my humanity, leaving me cold down to the bone.
I need the devil to prevail, and once he takes hold, he’ll be at my command to unleash and there will be a reckoning.
A bloody one.
The time was nigh.
I don’t know how I knew, but I felt it.
There was no countdown timer on the wall.
I had not been counting down my last seconds before I was sold.
But I knew.
I felt it.
A shift in my soul, preparing for what was next.
I didn’t look at the six men staring at me from behind the windows.
I wouldn’t give them my fear. That was the last bit of control I had. My body was no longer my own. It would soon belong to one of them.
Actually, no. Hell to the motherfucking no.
I should’ve listened to Ryan.
He knew all the ways this could go wrong.
Selfishly, I’d asked him to give me something that went against the man I knew him to be.
And now because of my stupidity, he would feel guilt and anguish.
Because of me, my mother would mourn her daughter while she was in the process of mourning her husband.
The only silver lining was, my father wouldn’t know I was gone.
He wouldn’t be ravaged with pain at losing me.
But my mom would feel it.
Ryan would.
The rest of the guys would.
I love you that much, Chloe.
I should’ve loved Ryan that much and given him what he’d asked—me home safe, working at the Plank.
But Poppy. I couldn’t leave her.
A loud sound pulled me from my thoughts. I lifted my eyes and wondered if I’d slipped into some sort of catatonia where Ryan was with me and I wasn’t in a room waiting to be sold.
A loud bang rent the air, and I watched one of the men fall back.
Then I felt it, the moment Ryan’s eyes found me. A mighty roar pounded into me. More loud bangs. I could not move, but I could close my eyes and block out the violence playing out in front of me. Yet I watched every savage punch, kick, slice of the blade Ryan was now wielding.
I watched.
Not in horror.
In peace.
Suddenly the door to my room banged open.
“Jesus fuck,” Aiden growled as he stalked into the room. “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me. Gonna get you down from there, sweetheart.”
I was very aware I was naked.
Very aware that he’d have to touch me to cut my wrists free.
My gaze went back to Ryan, and I watched as he plunged his knife into the throat of the man, Zack, who’d called me his pretty pet.
I felt my lips curl up into a smile.
“Where’s Dex?” I asked.
“Don’t know which one he is, but if he’s in there, likely dead.”
“Six,” I told Aiden. “Seven, including Dex.”
I heard a growl roll out of Aiden that sounded like it’d emanated straight from hell.
“They didn’t rape me,” I quickly told him.
“Okay, Chloe, I’m gonna do this as quick as possible,” he told me from behind me. “I’m gonna cut you free, but when you, fall I’m gonna need—”
“Just do it.”
“Chloe—”
“Cut me free, Aiden.”
My wrists were freed. I cried out in pain as they fell to my sides. My muscles screamed in agony.
“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” Aiden chanted. “Can you stand?”
He loosened his hold around my middle while I tested my balance. “Yeah.”
As soon as the word came out of my mouth, I felt a whoosh of air on my bare back, then he stepped around me and methodically, if not remotely, while staring into my eyes, put me in his shirt.
Once it fell into place, he swooped me up and started running. I had approximately one second to take in the carnage before we were out the door and Aiden was running to a black SUV.
Before I could get my bearings, Aiden had us on the road.
“What are you doing? You’re leaving Ryan.”
“Gavin and Jack are on their way to pick him up.”
“No! Go back.”
“Chloe, he wants you far away and safe.”
Panic set in. The kind that violently shook my insides.
Ryan wants me far away and safe.
Wants me safe.
“I need him,” I whispered.
“Know you do, Chloe. He’ll come to you as soon as he can.”
Wants me safe.
“I need him so bad, Aiden,” I panted, feeling my lungs fill with anxiety.
I felt the SUV swerve, then come to a stop.
Aiden was out of the car in a flash. My door was pulled open, Aiden pulled me out, opened the back door, and climbed in, holding me in his lap.
“You’re going into shock, Chloe. Slow your breathing.”
“My fault,” I wheezed. “I didn’t listen. I didn’t give him what he needed.”
“Slow your breathing.”
“I need him so bad right now,” I gasped. “He wants me safe.”
Thoughts were chasing thoughts. So many of them were flashing through my mind I couldn’t catch ahold of one.
“Thank you.”
“Just breathe.”
“I need to give him what he wants. Need to be safe. Love him that much. I didn’t.”
“Chloe—”
“I can’t breathe. I can’t . . .”
Words were jumbling in my head, and I couldn’t catch my breath.
I vaguely heard Aiden talking to me. In in abstract, faraway feeling I felt Aiden’s arm get tighter. But when my head hit his shoulder, everything went black.