She wanted to pull her face away from the foul-smelling hole in his, but she gritted her teeth and held her place. Then, her attention was diverted when the Banshee headed in her direction across the dirty, cracked concrete floor.
The woman was incredibly fit. With each efficient step, her muscles rounded her shoulders and bunched her thighs. But she managed to be extremely feminine, too—curves in all the right places.
“Tell your friends you’re alive.” The Banshee shoved the phone near Sabrina’s face as the four men gathered around Sabrina’s chair in a semicircle.
She’d noticed they instinctively moved closer to the blonde whenever she came near any of them. It was like she was a magnet and the men were metal. And Sabrina hadn’t missed the various looks of lust and longing in their eyes when they stared at the blonde.
Whoever the Banshee was, she was in charge. And it was clear she used sex—or the promise of sex—to stay in that position.
“Do it!” she snarled, her blood-red lips pulling back to reveal teeth that were too white, too perfect.
Veneers, Sabrina decided, even as she shook her head in refusal.
She would not be a part of this ransom demand. She absolutely would not put the Black Knights in the position of having to sell everything to race to her rescue.
It wasn’t the short man who gripped her breast in a cruel fist. It was the biggest of the lot. The guy who had a face like a tank, all solid and square and mean-looking.
“Do it,” he snarled. “Do what she says.”
When Sabrina only shook her head again, he twisted her tender flesh until tears sprang unbidden to her eyes.
“One sore titty will be child’s play compared to what I’ll do to you next if you don’t fucking open your mouth and do as you’re told.”
Shame, hot and cloying, flooded into Sabrina’s system. It wasn’t just from the pain, but from her own weakness.
Reminded of all the ways Eddy Torres had tortured her, knowing she couldn’t survive another assault like that, she couldn’t hold on to her bravado. She broke.
“I’m here!” she yelled, hating the catch in her voice. Hating the smell of her own fear. Hating the hot tracks her tears left on her cheeks. “I’m alive! But don’t give her anything! They won’t?—”
Pain, white-hot and inescapable, slammed into her cheek, snapping her head back on the stem of her neck with enough force to rock the chair beneath her.
It was so sudden that, at first, she didn’t know what had hit her. Didn’t have time to cry out or wince. She could only blink stupidly as agony bloomed, as she felt her heartbeat in the teeth on the left side of her jaw.
When the stars stopped exploding in her vision, she saw Tank Face flexing his thick fingers and grinning in satisfaction.
He had been the one to slap her. And she was lucky he hadn’t broken her cheekbone. He had fists like ham hocks.
Fuck you! She wanted to scream as she tasted blood, felt the split in her skin directly over her cheekbone and the warm trickle that leaked from it. But that would only give the bastard more of what he wanted.
More of her fear.
More of her indignity and shame.
Instead, she smiled. Wide. Knowing it looked macabre because her teeth were coated in blood.
He blinked in surprise, then revulsion, before turning away to watch the Banshee with hot, covetous eyes.
The woman played with the zipper on her form-fitting top as she continued pacing and spouting instructions to the Black Knights. The move looked inadvertent, but Sabrina knew it was intentional.
Maybe I should start calling her the Succubus instead, she mused. She’s a demon sent to lead these wicked men straight back to the sulfurous pit they clawed out of.
She used Tank Face’s distraction to spit out the blood in her mouth. She hadn’t aimed at his big combat boots. But she hadn’t necessarily not aimed at them either.
He grimaced at the wad of saliva and congealing plasma that splattered on the black leather toe of his boot. When he lifted his leg, she thought he might kick her and clamped down her jaw against the scream that threatened. But he simply shook off his shoe as he glared at her with enough fury to mottle his skin red.
“You want another?” He balled up his fist, knuckles gleaming white.
“Cut it out!” the Banshee shouted, having finished the call. The woman’s phone glinted like a weapon as she shoved it into the front pocket of her skintight tactical pants. The smile that crept over her face was sleek and cruel—a raptor’s grin—when she announced to the group, “It’s done. Now, we get ready.”
