“Who’s the boss?”
“The Broker,” he says, watching for a flinch of recognition or fear and getting none. At least, none on the surface.
“You don’t need to worry about him,” Danner goes on. “You probably won’t see him. And definitely nothisboss. He’s old-school, that one. Particular about what he wants, how it’s given to him, and exactly how he’ll react. Hates a scene, and I have a feeling you’re going to be a scene-maker.” His mouth twists like he’s quoting someone. “You won’t have to worry about either of them if you learn fast.”
Learn fast. Like this is a job. Like I’m choosing to be here, and not forced against my will and literally chained to the fucking floor.
I hold his stare like I’m bored out of my skull because I know he hates it. Inside, I’m a wreck. My heart is pounding so hard my ribs hurt.
The little girl inside me is crying, shaking in fear, tormented by the nightmare she knows is coming. The pain I’m not going to be able to stop.
He stands, the chair feet scraping again. “Training starts now.” He crooks a finger. “Up.”
“No.”
He enjoys that. I can see the spark of pleasure in his eyes at my refusal.
“You’re gonna want to make this easy.” He closes the distance between us, pushing the chair aside with a casual kick. His hand clamps around my elbow, bruising. “I can make it hard. I think I’d almost prefer hard with you.”
I let him think he’s herding me. Two steps, then one more, my bare feet whispering against the cold floor. He grabs my wrist. I go limp enough that my body moves where he wants it, keeping my right hand angled away, the screw seated along my index finger, point forward, exactly where I need it.
He shoves me toward the bed.
That’s when I see what he’s doing.
Leather cuffs hanging from the rails—brown, thick, stitched with thread that’s fraying in spots. They’re old. Used. The leather is darkened in patches, spotted with stains that are too big and too random to be anything but what they are. Not rust. Not oil.
My skin goes cold from the inside out.
This is a system. A setup. I’m not the first girl who’s stood here with their heart hammering in their throat. Some of those stains might be from someone who never walked back out.
I swear I won’t be one of the ones who doesn’t survive.
He wants my wrists first. If he gets them, I’m done. I know that the way I know gravity. Once those cuffs close, once the buckles bite, my options collapse to zero.
“Good girl,” he says, his foul breath touching my cheek. “You learn quick, we don’t have to make a mess.”
He noses at my hair like he owns the right, dragging air over my scalp. Revulsion spikes up my spine so hard I almost shake him off by instinct. I pull the feeling down into my lungs instead, mix it with salt and rust and fear, and breathe it out slow.
He reaches for my left wrist, and I kick out with my legs, snapping as high as the chain allows, doing my level best to nail him in the junk. It’s a wild, ugly kick—no finesse, all desperation.
“Fucking bitch!”
His hand cracks across my face, open-palmed, vicious. White explodes behind my eyes. My head whips to the side. For a second the world narrows to heat and sound and the taste of iron blooming on my tongue.
I slap my hand to my cheek, feel the shape of his fingers in the forming welt. Rage flares bright, clean. It cuts through the fog.
He uses that moment. He grabs my thigh in a grip that promises bruises, fingers digging in hard enough to make my eyes water. The chain at my ankle screams as it pulls taut, biting bone.
The chain says I’m not going far. It also says he has to undo it if he wants all of me.
He has to undo it, and I have to be ready when he does.
Danner moves fast, sliding his hand down from thigh to knee to calf to ankle, claiming territory.
My skin crawls under his touch, my body trying to wriggle out of itself and away from the torment. He jerks me to the foot of the bed, my spine scraping over the thin mattress in useless protest. My head thuds against the rai, but I think I’m going into shock because I don’t feel anything.
He kneels by my foot, his foul breath puffing against my skin as he fiddles with the padlock, metal scraping metal. There’s a tiny pause as he finally slots the key, his thumb sure from practice. He’s done this before. So many times his fingers don’t hesitate or struggle to find the hole.
