OLIVIA
The full sweep took less than an hour and yielded some surprising—and disturbing—results.
I’d just started to feel disheartened by the lack of anything incriminating (and I even dug through his literal underwear) when Madoc opened a random door at the back of the utility room and made a soft “aha” sound that immediately put me on edge.
Madoc was a piece of work. I hated him more than I hated my neighbor Donovan, who found excuses to loiter around the fenceline whenever I was in the pool. I knew I wasn’t the most likable person on the planet—I was no Molly, after all—but Madoc’s icy demeanor felt personal.
All of that vanished the moment I peered around Madoc and into the secret room.
It was too dark to see much, but the location was pretty suspicious.
My heart thumped at the possibilities. Was this the room where he kept Molly?
A shiver wracked through my body, and I knew Madoc felt it because his head snapped toward me.
“Calm down,” he said flatly.
“I am,” I lied. “So calm. The calmest.”
Madoc rolled his eyes like I was being overdramatic. God, I hated him. The surge of anger I felt toward him was welcoming, a grounding force that I latched onto like a lifeline.
Jax pressed behind me. “Wait here. We’ll go in first.”
I scoffed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
His hand latched onto my wrist in a bruising hold. “It could be bugged. A trap.”
“Or a place to store detergent.”
Then Jax was rolling his eyes. With pathetic ease, he pulled me away from the door to stand behind him.
“We don’t just run headlong into the unknown,” he said, as if lecturing a toddler who wanted to jam a fork into the electrical socket.
“Madoc will go first.” I opened my mouth, but he cut me off: “It’s not a sex dungeon. ”
My eyes bulged. Jax’s mouth flattened in amusement as he tapped his ear.
Right. The earpieces. I forgot he was communicating with the rest of his crew.
I was hideously out of the loop and only got snippets of information.
I tugged on my arm, still caught in his grip. “What sex dungeon? Who said that?”
“Scooby,” Jax said with another eye roll. Who the hell was Scooby?
Movement caught my eye as Madoc lifted his shirt, exposing pale tattooed skin across his lower back, and removed a gun from his waistband. Of course he was armed. He didn’t need my knife. He just wanted to screw with me.
He walked confidently into the darkness, and I viciously hoped it was a trap and it involved something sharp and pointy.
Jax gave me one last warning look before he followed.
What felt like an hour went by without a signal, so I crept to the door and squinted into the darkness. Tall shapes moved within, and for a heart-stopping second, I thought there were more than two of them. Then I heard a switch flick, and sinister red light filled the room.
“Oh,” I said. The one word stole my remaining air.
Lo and behold, it was a sex dungeon.
The walls were painted black, hosting various tools like paddles and whips, and leather handcuffs.
One side of the room had a wall-length mirror and an elevated platform with an honest-to-god stripper pole.
The furniture, ultra-masculine leather, and low pine wood tables, were facing the stage like a high-end private strip club.
There was a small bar in the back corner, the red light coming from a bright neon sign above that spelled ‘Sinners’.
I didn’t realize I was making any sort of noise until Jax was standing in front of me, gripping my chin and wrenching my face up to him. “It’s just a playroom,” he said.
Just a playroom? I blinked at him owlishly.
I didn’t think I was a sheltered little lamb, but the way he said it, like it was inconsequential, like it was normal, made me question myself.
Did most people have a playroom? Was I too vanilla?
Should I know what that long, curved rod with the bristles was used for?
“I’m…” I started, but stopped. I didn’t know what to say. My stomach was full of withering snakes. Not fear, exactly, but something in that family for sure.
Jax’s fingers flexed on my face. “You’re panicking.”
“Am I?” My voice was high and reedy.
“It doesn’t mean what you think,” he said, and I wished he would tell me what I was thinking, why I was panicking. “Come on, princess. You grew up in this world. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a playroom before.”
“Do you have one?” I wasn’t sure where that came from. I wanted to stuff the question back into my mouth.
It was hard to tell because of the red light, but I could’ve sworn his cheeks pinkened. His fingers, however, remained unwavering. “No,” he said. “But there’s no shame in it. It doesn’t mean he kidnapped your sister and brought her here.”
I recoiled like a slap. He’d put words to the tight pressure in my chest. I was thinking about Molly, imagining her on the stage, forced to perform against her will. Then I looked at Jax and considered what he said. No shame.
“It’s just a playroom,” I repeated quietly, needing to give truth to the words. Meaning. “He’s just a nice, normal sex deviant who wants to be paddled.”
“Exactly.” Jax’s teeth flashed red. He stepped back and glanced at Madoc, who was examining the whips with a curious tilt of his head. Jax looked away jerkily. There was definitely color on his face now.
Interesting.
“We’ll sweep the room,” Jax said, back to business. He gave me a considering look. “You can wait outside if you want.”
But I didn’t want that. Not anymore. The panic was ebbing away, replaced by a new curiosity.
I pushed past him and beelined straight for the stage and the wall-length mirror behind it.
My reflection was demonic in the red light, but I could see how it could be appealing.
It sharpened my edges, highlighted my cheekbones and lips, and deepened the natural copper in my hair.
My white linen shirt turned pink and nearly transparent on my frame.
I could see the outline of my underwear, the slight swell of my lower belly, and the cradle of my rib cage above my hips.
Behind my reflection, I saw Jax watching me. Madoc was lurking at the bar, messing around with the bottles before ducking out of sight. I became overly aware of them in the room, this room, full of sex toys and stale desire.
On a whim, I stepped up onto the platform.
I didn’t touch the pole (who knew how often it was wiped down), but I circled it slowly, feeling a strange sense of power overcome me.
I’d never considered stripping, and evidently, I was way too sheltered to ever dabble in the bedroom.
But I could see it suddenly. The flashing lights and body glitter and thumping music.
I eyed the pole consideringly—I had the core strength to work it, thanks to my cheer regimes.
Madoc popped up suddenly behind the bar like a jump scare, and I was wrenched out of my daydream. Our eyes locked, and Madoc’s widened just slightly. It was the most expressive I’d seen him so far, and it was gone so quickly that I thought I had imagined it.
Jax stepped toward me with a hungry expression. He didn’t even try to pretend he wasn’t eyefucking me to death. I flashed hot all over, that same tingly power turning my brain to mush.
“Go on then,” Jax goaded. His pupils were blown wide.
Insecurity and a little bit of fear stopped me in my tracks. “I already said you can’t buy me.”
“I’m not about to start flinging singles.” He approached the stage at a saunter. My heart thumped with renewed fear. “We both know you don’t have what it takes.”
I knew what he was doing, and I wouldn’t buckle. I wouldn’t play his game.
“Guess not.”
He didn’t look surprised, or even that disappointed, which bothered me. “Get down, then. It’s just mean.”
“You’re mean.” It was a childish retort, and I wasn’t proud of it. Mulishly, I shuffled to the edge. By then, he’d reached me, and instead of stopping, his boots thunked hard into the stage and made me stumble. I gripped the pole for balance.
Ew, ew, ew.
“Asshole,” I spat at him.
“Priss,” he shot back.
Then his hands snapped out and grabbed my waist, lifting me to the floor. I was used to being flung around, thrown into the air, tossed and tumbled, but it had never made my stomach swoop so violently.
It never made my toes tingle.
“There’s nothing here,” he said, smirking at whatever dumb expression I failed to hide. “Scooby?”
I heard no reply, but Jax’s face suddenly darkened. “You did what?”
Madoc prowled toward us, his expression blank as always, even though I knew he was also listening to whatever was happening over their communications. When he neared, I swallowed my anger enough to ask: “Who is Scooby?”
Madoc waited a beat, then turned toward me, his own eyes like pitiless black holes. He belonged in the shadows, but he was downright sinful in the red light. “Guess,” he smirked.
The anger surged up like word vomit. “God, can’t you just—”
“Shut up,” Jax snapped, pressing a finger to his ear, trying to listen. “No, not you,” he said a beat later as he turned away. “Fine. Meet us back in the war room.”
Jax stormed out, pausing at the door just long enough to shoot me an impatient glare when I took too long to follow.
Whatever had happened had turned him into a broody thundercloud.
I treaded carefully as we returned to the utility room and through to the service corridor.
When we came to the spiral staircase, I stared down into the basement, stomach clenching.
Apparently, Jax’s crew had already searched it and found nothing. I was both relieved and disappointed. When all else failed, I was counting on the basement to give me some answers. So far, all I had was an uncrackable safe and a bunch of receipts that were definitely useless.
I was running out of time.