My hands ached from their tight grip on the bars. My face pressed against them, cold metal digging into my cheeks. Luke’s eyes flicked to me for half a heartbeat, and he pushed all his chips to the middle.
Blake’s brows lifted, and he pursed his lips. “Alright, then.” He pushed his own chips to the middle. “Showdown.”
Lucas flipped his two cards. Silence stretched while Blake slid his own cards off the table. I held my breath.
Hands revealed, the men at the table burst into groans or cheers.
“You almost had him,” one said.
Who did he mean?
Lucas stared at the cards on the table, and Blake stood, a gloating grin alight on his face.
No.
The giant of a man stalked toward me. I retreated, my back meeting the frigid bars behind me. Sparks lit in my skin with the contact.
He reached for the key to the padlock, lying on a table out of my reach. “Mine now. Bet you’re wishing you hadn’t mouthed off, huh?”
I pressed further into the bars as the lock fell away and the cage opened. Blake tugged me forward by the rope holding my hands together. “No! No, please!”
“There’s that begging I love,” Miller called as Blake dragged me toward the door.
“No! Help me! Please!”
I fought and cried, but Blake only laughed. I tried to find Lucas, but Blake jerked me off my feet and threw me over his shoulder, rounding the doorway.
He took me upstairs, through a hallway, into a bedroom, and tossed me on the bed. Wasting no time, he pressed my knees open, but the rope around my ankles impeded him. I tried to kick him, and he caught my ankle, twisting until electric stabs shot up my leg.
“Try that again, and I’ll break it in half.” He flipped me onto my stomach and pulled until my feet met the floor. Bent over the bed, I cringed as his hands slid down my sides to my hips, and lifted the tiny slip.
“Please,” I whispered.
“Please what?”
“Please don’t do this.”
His hands stilled. A small gurgle emitted from his throat. His filthy touch slipped away from me, and a heavy thump hit the floor.
I twisted in time for Lucas to slide my dress down and haul me to my feet. Nicholas Blake lay dead, bleeding from his neck onto the carpet.
Lucas set to work cutting through my restraints with the bloody knife in his hand. The ropes fell away, and for the first time in almost a week I was free to move my body however I wanted.
He gripped the sides of my head and stared into my eyes, expression strained, voice wavering. “I searched for you everywhere.”
Crushing my fingers into his shirt, I brushed against a multitude of oddly shaped objects underneath. “It’s you, right? I’m not hallucinating?”
“It’s me, Sophia. I’m here.”
I crashed into him before he’d finished speaking, throwing my arms around his neck, burying my face in his shoulder. Thanks to the wounds in my back, he couldn’t hug me the way I wanted, but his hands gripped my ribs as I cried in silence. He kissed my hair, the side of my face, anywhere he could reach. Over and over again.
“I’ll get you out,” he whispered. “Okay? You have to do everything I say. This— It isn’t going to be pretty.”
I lifted my head.
Wait. What?
“Lucas, you’re not going back down there to face four men by yourself.”
