Tall trees…warm rain…smell of cypress…
He’ll come for you.
He’ll always come for you.
Lucas had a plan. Healwayshad a plan. But I had no idea what to expect. Lucas Scott was not a hero. He was a realist. A pragmatist. He knew if he timed his rescue poorly, we’dbothdie, and in the interim, who knew how much more torture I’d be forced to endure.
The Hangman turned out to be some sort of luxury home transformed into a gaming hell. Miller yanked me from the trunk and marched me to an opulently appointed room, all leather and mahogany. A felt-covered poker table served as the centerpiece. We passed by it on the way to our destination—a silver cage at the corner of the room, large enough for a single human. Miller shoved me inside and slammed the door shut. The padlock secured with a click.
“See you tonight, sugar,” he said with a wink, then left me alone.
Until that point, I thought I could survive it, but being given to Jack Miller by the man who’d told me my life mattered more than anything to him did horrid, soul-shattering things to my psyche. The core of me had cracked like safety glass struck hard, webs of fractures spreading out, distorting everything.
A single window provided me company, and I stared at the square of sunlight as it traveled across the room, the ache in my back dulling. I dozed for a time, and as I drifted in the pain-free state of oblivion, the thought floated through my mind that I wanted to stay there. It would be lovely, I decided, if the oblivion never spat me back out.
I was sitting in a cage awaiting a group of men who planned to gamble for the rights to my body. This was what my country had reduced me to. Currency. Something to be used and traded and wasted away.
And I wasn’t the only woman to have found herself inside this cage. I was one of many who had come before, their blood staining these bars, and my heart shredded to confetti as I imagined what had become of the rest of them.
I wanted to die.
Now, before anything else bad could happen.
But I wasn’t that lucky. I didn’t get death. I got slavery.
I startled awake sometime later at the slam of a door. The sunlight had faded, leaving me shivering in the dark.
Male voices filtered through the air outside my room.
At the squeak of a door hinge, low light flooded the room. Sconces along the wall came to life.
Two men entered, chatting, laughing. Chilling recognition settled over me as my mind replayed the various executions they’d performed, the people they’d tortured and killed live on air. Miller joined next, his swagger oozing from his pores. He gave one man a good-natured shove, and patted the other on the shoulder—a brotherly, affectionate gesture.
I wanted to throw up.
They ignored me, continuing to chat and pour drinks from the nearby wet bar. Slowly, a handful of other Blood Colonels joined the room, and my hateful gaze tracked Paul Kingston as he sipped from a glass and chatted with his buddies. I knew so few of the Blood Colonels by sight alone, but that man had killed Tekqua.
I hoped he died today.
Eventually, one of them peeked out the door and muttered a curse. “I can’t believe you showed. We finally got the house to ourselves, thanks to you. You should sentence private games more often.”
Lucas entered the room wearing a black long-sleeved tee and tactical pants. My heart went wild trying to beat out of my chest.
“You’re all shit card players.” Lucas accepted a glass from one of the others. “This was too good an opportunity to pass up.”
Several heads turned in my direction, and I shrank into the smallest corner of my cage. One of them—Nicholas Blake, maybe?—strolled toward me, leering. Revulsion boiled in my stomach, and I glared at him.
He held my gaze while his fingers curled around the bars. “You’re not the first Defiant to grace this cage, baby girl, but you’re definitely the prettiest.”
My jaw clenched.
“Nice little dress you got here.” His gaze traveled across my hunched body. “Looks like you’re asking for it.”
Rage spilled out. “For what? Dick? Do you even have one of those?”
His mouth quirked in a smile. “You need proof?”
“Nicky,” Miller said with a chuckle. “Should I remind you she’s not yours yet?”
