Hudson walks over to her—he’s the only one not in a cloak and Lords mask—and she kicks and screams as he drops to his knees and grabs her legs. He pushes them to her bare and bloody chest and takes her arms, pulling them underneath her bent legs. He ties off her wrists, locking her legs in place. He stands and the guy who tackled her stands as well. They both stare down at her, admiring my very naked and helpless wife.
“Pl-ease.” She sobs, rolling onto her side and pulling on the rope. “HAIDYN!” she screams my name.
I’m…sorry.Not only am I paralyzed, but I also can’t speak. I’m fucking useless. One more person in my life who I’ve failed.
The man still kneels beside her with the gun pointed at her head as if I could do anything to them to save her. I can’t let him take her from me. Not like this. Not here in this hell. I can help her through it.
Hudson drops to his knees and unzips his jeans. He pulls out a pocketknife and flips it open. He grips her ass cheek in his hand and cuts off my name I branded onto her. I gave her that with plans to send her back to her mother. A show of ownership that I had over her. A way to rub it in Isabella’s face that she fucked with us, and I fucked her daughter. Now it’s a way to cause her pain.
Charlotte lets out a blood-curdling scream, and he tosses it to the side as blood flows from the chunk now missing.
“Go ahead and take that gun she gave you and shoot yourself afterward,” he tells me. “Because it won’t matter that you’re toomuch of a coward to kill her. She’ll never be the same after I’m done.” Then he begins to rape my wife.
She’s screaming and sobbing. So loud, that I hear her even over the ringing in my ears. I look down at the gun they gave me that was knocked out of my hands. It’s close enough to reach if I could move. I could have killed Hudson instead of Isabella. But I guarantee there’s only one bullet in that gun. The one they wanted me to use on Charlotte, and I wasted it on her bitch of a mom. If I killed him, they would have killed me. And I can’t die. She’s going to need me after this. Now more than ever.
“Hai-dyn.” She sobs, and a lump forms in my throat while he pins the side of her face down into the mud.
I’m sorry, doll face.
Hudson grunts, pushing deep inside her, and comes. He gets to his feet and laughs down at her as she holds her eyes tightly shut, gasping for breath.
“Next,” her mother calls out, and another man falls to his knees. She fights the rope that’s got her tied in place. “It’s just sex, dear,” her mother tells her. “We’ve all been through this. It will make you stronger.”
“Ple-ease,” she begs, and it kills me. “Haidyn, stop them…help me!”
I’m sorry.
She closes her bloodshot eyes, unable to look at me. They’re doing this to her because of me. It’s about torturing me. My wife is innocent and was never given all the facts about the life she thought she wanted.
I’ve betrayed her. I’ve failed at the one thing I told her I’d do—protect her. Instead, I’m allowing men to line up and rape her like an offering to the Lords while I lay on the ground unable to move and forced to watch it happen. To remind me that I have no say in what happens to her. She belongs to them now, and they’re going to do whatever they want.
When the last guy is done, Hudson throws the knife down, and it lands blade down in the mud next to her head. Everyone leaves us alone out by the fence, and I’m finally able to move again.
I crawl to her, grabbing the knife and cut the rope that binds her wrists behind her bent knees. Then I pick her up and take her straight inside to a bathroom, where I lay her in the tub. I start the water and set the drain.
She’s covered in dirt and blood. She’s bleeding in multiple places—wrists, ankles, and her neck where she fought the barbed wire. Her ass where Hudson removed her brand. I turn to the cabinets and yank them up, slamming them shut. I find three washcloths and duct tape. I wrap one around each of her wrists as tightly as I can and then place the tape around each one, making sure the washcloths stay in place to help stop the bleeding and not to get wet while she’s in the tub. Then I fold the last one and place it around her bleeding neck, holding it tightly to her throat.
My eyes go to hers and see they’re dead, lifeless. There’s nothing there. Those dark blue-sapphire eyes that I fell in love with no longer exist. She stopped crying during the third guy and shut down. Went numb.
“You’re okay, doll face,” I tell her, knowing it’s a goddamn lie. This is what they wanted. Her broken and compliant. The water fills the tub as the dirt and blood swirl around her. “I’m sorry, Charlotte. I couldn’t kill you. I love you.” I couldn’t do it. I know it’s the most cowardly thing I’ve ever done. But I just can’t let her go. It doesn’t matter what she’s been through; I’ll love her the same way and take care of her. She’s my wife. I took vows.
A single tear falls from the corner of her eye before she speaks. “I hate you.”
I blink, and she’s gone. I’m no longer in the bathroom. She’s no longer in the tub. “Charlotte?” I bark, starting to panic when I see nothing but darkness. “CHARLOTTE!”
“How was it?” A woman’s familiar voice fills my ears as a light turns on, blinding me.
“What the fuck did you do to her, you fucking bitch? Where did you take her?” I’m gasping for air, trying to get up, but I can’t move. I blink rapidly needing my eyes to adjust to the harsh light.
“Haidyn, you’re hallucinating,” Isabella speaks.
“No—”
“Yeah, that’s what the drugs do to you. Nothing is more terrifying than a mind. It knows your worst fears. You can’t escape it. And I was in yours for six months. I know how it works.”
“History has a way of repeating itself, Haidyn. Remember that.”She had said to me when I found her in my house while Charlotte was in my bed. She wanted me to remember what she made me do to Sierra and put Charlotte in the same position.
“For the next several days, you’ll have hallucinations. It’s poetic, really. You’re going to drive yourself mad, putting the woman you love through so much pain and suffering because we both know your biggest fear is living without her.” She snorts. “And although I tell you it’s not real, it’ll feel real. Every single time.”
