27. Grace
27
GRACE
T he lobby lounge offered a sweet escape from the suffocating air in Brian’s apartment. After watching the emotions cascade from Nora like water from a broken dam after a harsh rainstorm, I felt like I was drowning.
Above all, I couldn’t help but think that Fran might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe because of my history, sex trafficking was the first thing that came to mind. I prayed that wasn’t the case.
Thea, my dear ride-or-die friend in captivity, had been fooled by a seemingly lovely woman who called her, claimed to be a nurse, and convinced Thea that her mother had been in an accident. After Thea hung up with the woman and ran out of the mall to her car, she’d been kidnapped and thrown into a van.
I was probably off my rocker to think anything that crazy could happen to Fran. She was probably locking lips with her boyfriend, and time got away from them.
I prayed that was the case. If not, Brian would explode if Fran ended up in the hands of a savage—a deplorable man who didn’t care about anything but getting his rocks off.
Better to be safe than sorry, which was why I had left a message for Ted. I also wanted to talk to him to find out if his team had located Drew Lopez.
I chomped on a nail, relishing in the quietness only broken by a tenant coming into or leaving the building. My stomach was in one big knot the size of the Atlantic Ocean since we’d learned about Drew Lopez. At least I knew I wasn’t losing my mind.
Nevertheless, the strength I was trying to portray was weakening as the days went on with no resolution or confirmation that Drew was following me. I couldn’t keep looking over my shoulder, waking up with night terrors, sleepwalking—and the list went on. I was afraid I would end up in a mental health facility. My past was threatening to break me, once and for all.
Yet as much as dread coiled like a rattlesnake around me, I would not go back to being anyone’s sex slave. I would stab my eyes out before I did.
My phone alerted me to its low battery. I dug in my purse for my charger then huffed as I pulled out my keys. I had a charger in my car, which was right outside the front entrance.
“I need to get my phone charger out of my car, Ray. I have a key card to get back in.”
Ray was a big, burly man, sweet and kind. “Sure thing, Grace.”
A cool March breeze swept over me the minute I was outside, and I sighed as that feeling of suffocation faded.
I pressed on the key fob, and two beeps pierced the quiet street. I opened the passenger door of my Subaru, grabbed the portable charger, and connected my phone as I leaned against my car.
“Grace.” A man’s voice resonated somewhere nearby.
My pulse stuttered until I recognized the guy strutting toward me.
“Josh?”
Janet had called Ryan’s advisor from the Boys & Girls Clubs. Maybe she told him she and Nora were going to Brian’s apartment.
“Did you reach Ryan?” I asked.
His smirk contained a cross between happiness and something else I couldn’t put my finger on. “You remember me. I can’t tell you how happy I am about that.”
His words slithered down my spine, carrying an undertone that transformed the quiet street into something sinister. He sized me up, his dark eyes eerily appraising, as if he was deciding on which body part he wanted to dismember first.
My panic level shot sky-high, his dark eyes fucking with my mind. I studied him long and hard, but I couldn’t see a resemblance to John Smith.
My mind was playing tricks on me.
He waved a hand in front of me. “It looks like you’ve seen a ghost.” He was still wearing that smirk that had me ready to run.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said.
“I’m here with news about Ryan and Fran,” he said.
My hackles were up. “You could’ve called.”
A breeze blew, ruffling his perfectly styled dark hair.
“True, but they’re saying goodbye to each other in my SUV on the corner. See the one with the headlights on? I wanted to give them some privacy, which is when I saw you.”
My heart sputtered at his words. Fran was okay. She was right here. But those hackles that were on high alert drove me forward as I was desperate to see for myself.
I bolted to his SUV and looked through the tinted windows. No one was in the front or back seat. So I circled around to the trunk and peeked in, but all I saw was an empty dog cage of the size that would fit a German shepherd.
The memory slammed into me before I could stop it, and suddenly, I was spiraling through a portal straight back to hell.
The metallic taste of blood in my mouth, the raw burn of wire against my palms, the way my throat had gone hoarse from screaming. Past and present blurred together until I couldn’t tell if the trembling in my hands was from then or now.
Voices echoed in my head, layered with the sound of my own racing heartbeat.
“You’re going to feel so sweet around my big cock.”
“I can’t wait to shove my dick in your mouth while my buddy here fucks you from behind.”
I bared my teeth at them, spewing words like, “Fuck you, and go to hell.”
“Now, now, bitch,” John said, entering the barn where he kept us. “Save your screaming for when I’m fucking you. I love a girl who fights me.”
No. No. No. Not again. Not ever again.
I forced myself to focus on the present—the cool air, the distant sound of a car engine, anything to anchor me to the here and now. But it was hard to outrun my past—a past that had sunk its claws in deep and hadn’t let go in ten years since my escape.
“Grace.” Josh’s honey-toned voice drew me from hell as he wiped a tear from my cheek.
I rapidly blinked. I was not weak. I was not the teenager who was na?ve to the world around me. I would not break in front of this man.
Josh smirked as though he was getting his rocks off by imagining what I was thinking.
“You know, my dad never liked when you cried. I always loved watching him whip you.”
His words hit me like physical blows, each one shattering another piece of my carefully constructed reality. My phone fell from my hands, the clatter exploding like my damn heart.
I silently scolded myself for not trusting my instincts.
“Ah, I see you’re remembering,” he said, sounding all too giddy. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a very long time. I almost put my plan into play before now.” He tucked my hair around my ear. “But, according to the man I call Dad these days—you met him: Drew—I wasn’t ready.”
“You’ve been watching me.” It was more of a statement than a question.
“Between Drew and me, yes. But then you had to go and hire bodyguards,” he whispered in my ear. “What a lovely surprise when I saw you come out of that building alone. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this moment.”
All my training, every defensive move I’d practiced until my muscles ached, every scenario I’d rehearsed—all of it evaporated like water in dry air. My body refused to respond, frozen between fight and flight. Bile rose in my throat as I realized how pathetically unprepared I still was despite years of preparation.
“Zane,” I said, internally screaming at myself to run now. But terror had rewired my brain, at least for the moment.
“I never liked that name.” He dragged his fingers down my neck to my cleavage. “My dad came up with the alias from some movie he watched. Fucked up, if you ask me.”
“Is Josh your real name?” Curiosity and all.
“Joshua Kinley, if you must know. My dad’s name was Victor Kinley. And he was a great man until you killed him.”
I wanted to puke, kick him in the balls, and pull out his eyes. But again, I couldn’t seem to move. I had to keep him talking. Brian would realize I’d been gone too long and come looking for me.
“Drew is your dad now,” I said. “He’s a weirdo.”
Josh laughed in my ear. “He likes to give people mindfucks. I thought it was brilliant that he wore a G-shaped earring and told you about the meaning of your name. He told me the look on your face was priceless.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “He doesn’t have a mother by the name of Grace.”
Keep talking to him. Brian will be out any minute.
“Of course not.” Hunger jumped off him as he pinched one of my nipples, and his voice turned harsh so that he sounded like his father. “I always had a hard-on for Thea, but you’re just as beautiful.” His face darkened as he pinned me against the SUV then clutched my throat.
I’d spent years looking over my shoulder, years worrying that this day would come, and now, here I was, facing a monster once again. Only this time, I had a strong feeling this monster would be far worse than his father.
But I wouldn’t go down without a fight.
I drove my knee up hard toward his groin, but the asshole anticipated my move and twisted, taking the blow on his thigh instead. The movement caused him to let go long enough for me to slam my fist into his nose.
Victory was mine as I darted toward the sidewalk—until he caught my arm.
He wiped blood from his nose. “You’re not going anywhere but in that cage that has your name on it.” He pointed at his trunk and slammed me against the cold metal of the car.
I spat in his face.
He laughed. “That’s all you got? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Grace. I’ve seen you train. You’re stronger than this.”
“You want to fight? Then fight me.” My fists were ready to go a few rounds. Maybe by the time we exchanged a few blows, Brian would be here.
With blood running down his upper lip, Josh bared his teeth. “We’ll have plenty of time for you to show me what you got. In the meantime, I’m going to destroy everyone you’ve ever cared for before I end you for taking my father away from me, and I’m starting with Fran.”
Horror careened through me at the thought of my fear coming true. Fuck . I loosened my muscles, giving in. “Leave her out of this. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Too late, Grace. She’s been part of my plan all along, and someone like her is in high demand with my clients.”
Nooo! The word blared through my head. I couldn’t live with myself if Fran experienced the torture I’d been through. I couldn’t face Brian ever again.
Josh slipped a hand in his coat pocket and pulled out a syringe.
“Please, Josh. I’ll go willingly.”
Where was Brian? I shouldn’t have left his apartment.
He jammed the needle into my arm. As the warmth spread through my veins like poisoned honey, I could think only of Fran. I had to find a way to save her.
My muscles were turning to mush as Josh watched me intently.
He had the same cruel features that his father had. The same ruthless twist of his lips. The same dead eyes.
Inwardly, I screamed as I fought with every ounce of my being to stay awake, but as the streetlights above fragmented, splitting into starbursts that flickered on and off, I was fading fast.
Through the encroaching darkness, I made a promise—not just to survive and rescue Fran but to end my past, to end Josh Kinley and everything he thought he could resurrect.