“You didn’t have to do anything. I can handle myself,” she squeaks petulantly, trying to mask the way her body shakes as the memory of her ordeal becomes clearer the longer she’s awake.
“Yeah, you certainly were a force to be reckoned with while unconscious with your skirt pulled up around your waist,” I snap back and immediately regret it. Her cheeks flush crimson, and she bites on her lip nervously at being reminded of how she was found out the back of the party. It wasn’t her fault, and I want to reassure her of that, but I don’t. We came here to punish Ebony, not soothe her.
That being said, it doesn’t quieten the urge raging through my head to prise her lip from between her teeth with my own. Even looking all Kill Bill like this, her hair sticky with sweat, dirt caking her legs, and blood staining her face—fuck, I want to kiss her.
I’ll tell myself for a while longer that what happened between us was all a cruel trick to gain her trust.
Liar.
My cock hardens at the mere thought of her begging me for more, and I have to knock my side into the car to shift it. I grumble through gritted teeth as the spark ofpain whizzes up my side, my body stiffening. Thankfully, it’s the easiest way to get my cock back to flaccid status.
Caleb’s rage is palpable as he passes me to approach her. His brows pinched, his teeth clenched as he tries to tamp down the emotions he’s feeling. “Handle yourself? The man that had his hand in your knickers says otherwise. You need to pick better friends.”
Reaching into the boot of our car, he hauls Bobby out and lets him fall with a thud to the floor at her feet. The scene plays out as you would expect, like my brother is a cat presenting a dead rat to his owner. Slipping out my blade, I gesture with it to the man contorted and hog-tied into an uncomfortable position with my ropes, and she harrumphs childishly.
Guns apparently make her skittish, knives not so much.
Bobby’s not complaining, we injected that handsy fucker with something a little more LSD experiment and a little less FDA approved; his haze has long since dissipated. I wonder if our little Dove knows he was a serial rapist or how far he would have gone if we hadn’t found them out there.
“You put me in the trunk with a dead man?” she wails as she kicks him in the gut. He groans tiredly, his eyes fluttering as he circles the pan of whatever comedown he’s on.
“An unconscious man—we broke all his fingers and tied his hands behind his back; you were never in any real danger.” Caleb is tense, and I can see the visceral pain it is causing him to keep his distance from Ebony. I felt the pull the moment I saw her arrive at the party, and after hewas forced to witness our little closet fun time, he must be wound up to near breaking point.
“Besides It’s a two-seater car; strapping him to the hood seemed a little too showy, even for our tastes,” I add to sway her attention back to me. The persistent vitriol glares she’s throwing my brother’s way are doing nothing to help Caleb stay calm right now.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EBONY
The air hums with a strange energy, it’s off, but not in the way you’d expect. A normal person waking up in the boot of a car with their hands tied, kidnapped by masked strangers, would be struggling with a full-blown panic right about now. So why is it I feel anything but? Truth is, I feel safer here in this grim underground carpark with two goons masking their identity than I ever did lying in my bed back at the group home. If this whole scenario doesn’t have me begging for my life, I must’ve finally hit my limit. The two men are broad, tattooed, and tall, wearing wide-brimmed hats, white vests, jeans, and boots.
“You boys here to strip for me?” I tease, immediately regretting it when the slightly taller of the two begins to lift his top, showing me that the tattoos extend from his arms and cover his chiselled lower belly.
“We stick to the plan,” I hear the sterner captor say as he tugs his friend’s hand away from revealing more ofhimself to me. Their sharp gazes are pinned on me as they whisper back and forth. I contemplate whether I have onset Stockholm Syndrome kicking in as I think up new ways of how to get him to show me more. He clearly wants to.
Deciding my sense of identifying danger has officially gone to shit, and whatever they pumped me full of is some kind of mind-altering nerve agent, I go back to the basics and rely on learned behaviour, some old class safety tutorial running on a loop in my head.
‘Never let them take you to a second location.’
I contemplate whether this would technically be considered the second location as I started out my night at the party, but all this thinking has my head thumping.
A caterwauling scream bursts out of my mouth without warning, broken as my sore throat constricts around the sound. It seems to take everyone by surprise—myself included. I don’t do it because I’m eager to escape—which I’ll address with my therapist at a later date, but because it feels like the next natural step.
It’s too confusing, the idea of being here and not trying to escape, especially after the evening I’ve had already.
The backhand across my cheek comes out of nowhere and silences me instantly, my mouth snapping shut.My hands fly up instinctively. Of all the reactions I could have, I laugh heartily in response. My body leaning in to the guy closest to me who looks to his friend, shock clear in what I can see of his face.
This clearly isn’t how any of us had seen this playing out. At least he had the decency to hit me on the opposite cheek to where Bobby had backhanded me earlier—thebroken skin still stinging and raw there. This guy’s slap was a love tap in comparison.
“You can’t fucking do this,” I laugh. “You won’t get away with it. I’ve met plenty of small dicked men who thought they could take what they want from me, and I’ve had just about enough of it, so let’s get the show on the road. If you’re gonna kill me, do your worst. I’m bored.”
I don’t know how much time has passed, but my near-death experience with Bobby has skewed my bullshit meter, and I’ve had enough of men dictating how my evening is going to go. I could also really use a fucking drink if I’m honest. The buzz of alcohol would definitely help right now.
“Big boys without a plan, huh? You’re a joke,” I snap at the guy who likes to throw the orders around. The one who seems to be standing as far away from me as he possibly can. He bristles under my scrutiny, flexing his tattooed fists as he fills his lungs to steady himself.
Antagonising them probably isn’t the best response right now, but I can’t seem to stop my mouth from blurting out the words.
Maybe being strangled and left for dead has warped something in my brain.
