Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
SUMMER
The bag over my head was making my face itch. I had bigger concerns than an itchy face, but that was the only one I was willing to think about. Everything else was too terrifying to contemplate.
I was not going to think about the ride from Rycroft to wherever we were now. I was not going to think about sitting in the back of the limo next to Tsepov, his cold, slender hand wrapped around my arm—
I ground my teeth together.
Nothing happened. Nothing fucking happened, Summer. Stop thinking about it.
I shivered. They had the AC cranked up, and it felt like fucking January in here.
When we got here, someone had carried me inside, dumped me into a chair, and wrapped something around the bag on my head, pressing it into my eyes and over my ears until I could barely hear or breathe.
They'd carried me again, up a flight of stairs, and dropped me onto a mattress. I was alone, my arms and legs bound, blind and deaf and scared out of my mind.
All I could think about was Evers. He would come after me. I had no doubt. His eyes were the last thing I saw before the bag dropped over my head, filled with desperate anger. Guilt. And love.
He would find me. I just had to hold on. Hold on and pray to whatever gods were listening that Evers didn't do anything reckless. I couldn't stand it if anything happened to him.
In another situation, I'd trust Evers' judgment.
Right now?
Right now, I didn't trust anything.
I refused to consider the gunshots. They echoed in my head, ricocheting back and forth until they multiplied into a barrage of gunfire.
It hadn't been a barrage. It had been two distinct shots. Two shots and I had no idea where they'd landed.
Not in Evers. It couldn't be Evers. Hadn't I told Tsepov he needed Evers? Which meant—
Don't think about it, I told myself. Don't think about your father. Don't think about pretty much telling the guy with the gun to kill him.
My father was the reason I was here. He'd put us all in danger, and for what? For more money?
I'd seen the numbers on those bank transfers. Where had it all gone? He'd had enough. He'd had more than most people saw in a lifetime, and I was here, half-naked, tied up, and blindfolded in the hands of a man who trafficked women. Because of my father.
I knew from Emma what kind of business the Tsepovs ran. I knew what would happen to me when I was no longer useful.
Worse, my father knew. My father knew exactly what Tsepov would do with me, and he'd betrayed us all anyway.
If begging for Evers' life at my father's expense made me a bad person, I could live with that. As long as Evers hadn't been on the other end of that gun, I thought I could live with just about anything.
I didn't sleep. I wasn't sure I'd ever sleep again, but I drifted. Maybe I was lightheaded from lack of oxygen. Maybe it was the stress or adrenaline. Everything started to seem like a dream.
When the door to the bedroom banged open, it took me a minute to realize someone had come into the room. Rough hands pulled me off the mattress and threw me over a shoulder.
Onions and cologne. The one who'd carried me out of Rycroft. I was on the move. No. It was too soon. Evers needed time. To get free. To find me. If Tsepov moved me, sold me—
He dropped me onto a seat. Soft. A couch? No, a car. Maybe the same one as before. Leather upholstery sticking to my bare thighs. A hand closing around my arm, dragging me across the seat, pushing me down.
Fine wool under my cheek. A hand on my shoulder, fingers curled, holding tight. My nightgown was twisted around my hips. Men’s voices. Where were they taking me? How was Evers going to find me if they moved me? I’d vanish and—
I shook with the effort to hold back my nausea. The bag over my head was strapped tight to my mouth. I could not throw up like this. I swallowed hard. Oh, please, please don't let me throw up.
I was so focused on holding back the need to puke, I barely registered the hand on my hip. I squirmed, trying to get away. It was fruitless. I was bound. I couldn't see. An arm came down over my chest, pinning me in place.
I went still, my lungs heaving, desperate for more than the muffled hot air I pulled through the bag over my head. Not enough oxygen.
Instinct told me to fight, to move, to do anything I could to get those fucking hands off me. Logic said that was only going to make it worse.
I needed to calm down. I could barely breathe. My head was spinning. Fighting would only make me weaker.
I stayed still, praying the ride would be over soon. If they took off the hood, untied me, I might have a chance to get away.
As long as I was alive there was hope.
Whatever they did to me, whatever happened, I had to stay alive.
Evers would find me. If I could just stay alive, Evers would—
The gunshots hadn't been for him. They couldn't have been. Tsepov had no reason to shoot Evers.
Evers would come for me.
Tears leaked from my eyes, absorbed by the bag tied so tightly around my face.
Evers was coming for me.
Whatever happened, I just had to stay alive.
It was all I could think. Everything else—the car, those hands on my body, my burning lungs and spinning head—everything else was too horrifying.
The car came to a stop, and the lap beneath my head slid away.
The door at my feet opened, and I was pulled across the seat, my nightgown riding up over my hips, baring my flimsy bikini panties.
I didn't have time to cringe before I was airborne, tossed over that now familiar wide shoulder, assailed by the stench of onions and cologne.
For a minute, the smell of wet grass joined the onions and cologne. Then it was pot. Why did it smell like pot?
The air on my skin had changed, the dew of early morning traded for stale heat, like a house that had been shut up for too long. I took another breath, and through the hood, I caught mildew and marijuana.
I knew that smell. Why did I know that smell? I was dropped on something soft. A bed? A couch?
I thought about trying to stand but tossed it out immediately. My hands were secured behind my back, ankles bound so tightly the bones rubbed. What was I going to do, hop? Hop right into a wall was more like it.
I hated being this helpless. I wasn't much better than a sack of potatoes, hauled around, unable to speak, unable to protect myself.
It was quiet, as far as I could tell, but I didn't think I was alone. Before, laying on the bed, I'd known the room was empty even without being able to see. The air had been flat. Still.
Here, wherever I was, I heard nothing, but I felt people. Movement.
I tried talking, begging, but no coherent sound got through the hood. Only desperate mumbling that stopped when a fist cuffed the back of my head, and a muffled, accented voice said, "Shut up."
I was lifted again, this time cradled like a child tucked against a solid chest, the reek of onions and cologne making its way through the hood. Him again. Someone should tell him about his cologne. And the onions.
Steps down and cool air on my skin. Voices. New arms, and I was tossed onto something soft. A car seat. Leather.
Before I could get my bearings, a body fell half on top of mine. Car doors slammed. There was a jolt of movement, tires squealing, and we slid, almost falling off the bench seat.
Hands closed over my arms, pulling me up, and I snapped.
It was the hands. More hands, grabbing, touching my bare skin, pulling at me, dragging me onto the seat.
No more.
They'd sold me, traded me away, and Evers wouldn't be able to find me. Despair and terror drowned out everything else. I fought, the sounds in my throat feral and panicked.
I tried to pull my knees up to my chest, to duck my head down, do whatever I could to block any access to my body. I twisted and burrowed into the footwell to get away from the hands reaching for me.
Voices, indistinct and urgent, filtered through the hood. Hands yanking on the fabric, and the constriction around my mouth and ears fell away.
My name.
I heard my name.
"Summer. Summer, for fuck's sake, stop screaming. It's Griffen. Cooper and Lucas are here. We've got you. We've got you, Summer. It's okay. It's okay now."
Griffen?
I knew that voice. Griffen.
The fight drained away, and I fell limp, breath heaving in my chest, clearing my head. Griffen's hands hooked under my armpits and dragged me up on the seat.
"Don't move. Let me get you out of this thing."
My wrists were free, and he was feeding my hand into a sleeve. Thick, soft cotton. The smell of my body cream. Lemon and flowers. My robe.
Fabric draped around my body, shielding me, and some of the ice in my bones began to melt. A tear ran down my cheek. I never thought I'd be so grateful just to be covered.
I pulled the robe tight and sat back in the seat, drawing my knees to my chest as Griffen pulled the bag all the way off my head, and I sucked in a sweet, clean breath of air.
My eyes darted around the interior of the vehicle. One of the Sinclair Security SUVs.
Cooper was driving. Lucas sat in the passenger seat, and Griffen was in the back with me.
But where was Evers? Where the hell was Evers?