78. Kiera
KIERA
My breathing was too loud, and this fucking room was too quiet. The brick echoed every single sound.
“Fuck you!” I screamed out, my voice hoarse and my wrists raw as I twisted against the restraints on my wrists. The chain that held me down clinked as I moved.
I’d barely managed to make out any details about where I even was. From the light that had seeped in when the masked men would walk into the room, I could tell it was small — some sort of back office in a factory.
But I didn’t remember there being a factory anywhere near Valemont.
In the dark, I could feel the grime of the floors on my fingertips, the damp walls keeping everything moist.
Like a caged animal, I was ready to rip my kidnappers' throats out. If I could get a clear shot. Rage flowed through every part of my body.
I had no idea how long I’d been here. It could have been hours or days. Fuck, it may have been weeks for all I knew.
Maybe the wedding’s already over.
Maybe I’d been trapped here long enough that my mother was married to a pedophile, to a sex-trafficker.
Maybe my angels were losing faith that they could find me.
Left in the silence of this dark room, there was nothing to distract from every horrid thought that entered my brain.
Even the racing of my own heart was beginning to drive me mad. It felt loud enough to make me rip my ears off, if I didn’t need them to hear incoming danger.
There was a schedule of some sort, just not one I could discern. Periodically, someone would bring me food. They wouldn’t look at me or speak. Most of them wouldn’t get close enough for me to identify them or lunge at them.
Probably wise.
A feral anger was ready to burst, one that had been spurred on by a particularly nasty visitor.
He’d come in with a gun on his hip, one that he kept his hand rested on as he sauntered round me, just out of my reach. Once he’d sized me up, he came closer and started to reach into his pants.
I’d thrown my leg toward his crotch, hitting his nutsack as hard as I could.
When he keeled over, I considered lunging for the gun. But with my hands tied up, there wasn’t a hope in using it.
Only once he left the room, wailing and clutching his dick, did I feel the way my hands could slip in the restraints. I could get out of them. But if I did, I needed an exit strategy — especially with two machine-gun-wielding guards outside.
And Mr. Trigger Happy wasn’t going to be my first test subject.
But even he hadn’t actually laid a finger on me.
It might have been the piece of this puzzle that disturbed me the most.
Despite having a young woman completely held against her will, none of those dirtbags would touch me. Even the man I’d kicked in the balls, he’d only touched himself.
I knew what most kidnappers did to the people they took. I saw it firsthand, the way Dom, Leo, and Spencer had roughed Grant up. They wanted answers, or to vent their own frustration. But they wouldn’t have just left him there, untouched.
I’d been trying to decipher who their boss would be. The first answer felt obvious: Isaac.
It was too easy, he would’ve come to gloat by now. Or killed me if the wedding had gone through. And Isaac wasn’t one to stop his cronies from taking whatever they wanted. He would’ve sold me to his friends if Dom hadn’t found me.
Besides, he’d put a hit out on me. Any number of seedy men could have tracked us down with Spencer’s picture all over the news.
Whoever had sent these men after me cast such a large shadow that their lackeys wouldn’t even play with their food.
The pounding of my heart was making my eyes bulge out, looking over my shoulder as if someone was lurking behind me.
But I was alone. Completely alone. All there was to do was wait and wonder how much power my kidnapper truly wielded.