Berry reaches into his pocket and pulls out a phone. He shows me the screen—a map showing my house, with a blinking red dot on it.
“They make it really easy to track your wife these days.”
“She’s not your wife,” I snarl, on fire with rage. “Just because the law says—”
“The law says she’s mine,” he laughs, shrugging and taking a puff of his cigar. “And there ain’t shit you can do about it.”
“Rick! Help me!”
I glance at the barrels of the two guns aimed at me, grinding my teeth. If I move, I’m dead.
But just seeing those other bastards with their hands on my future bride has me raging inside.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” I warn Berry. “I’ll make you a deal. You let her go now, and I won’t come after you. But if you take her, I will rain down hellfire on you.”
Berry looks at me and laughs, then signals one of his men, who clocks me in the side of the head with the butt of his pistol.
“Youare gonna make a deal withme?Give it a rest, pal. It’s over. She’s mine. And there ain’t shit you can do about it.”
My vision starts to blur. I feel dizzy.
Ava’s voice rings out in a distorted echo.
“Rick, don’t let him take me!”
I have to help her. I have to do something. Losing her is not an option.
But the next thing I know, the world is going black. All I see are silhouettes.
If I live, I’ll kill him.
My body gives out, and I fall to the floor.
But I don’t even feel the impact because I’m out cold.
10
AVA
“You thoughtyou were pretty smart, didn’t you?” Berry smirks, sitting beside me, his eyes on my exposed legs. “It’s not your fault. Your brain just isn’t the size of a man like mine’s.”
I want to snap back at him. Spit in his face. But I just don’t have the energy.
My body feels heavy. Like my soul has been crushed to pieces and pulled out of me.
Why didn’t Rick fight for me back there?
He’s done it before. Why not now?
It’s been almost twenty-four hours since Berry took me, and Rick’s just gone. Was all that talk about me belong to him now just that—all talk?
I screamed for him as Berry’s men snatched me up, their filthy hands all over me, dragging me out the door. But he did nothing.
His T-shirt and shorts are all the cover my body, and it pains me to think that what we had together was nothing…
…just a game. A game with no conclusion.
No. It can’t be. He loves me!
