“Please, Jason. Make them stop. This has nothing to do with him. He didn’t know who you were when we first started seeing each other. He thought you were out of my life for good. Please. Let him go. I’ll do anything. I’ll be good, I promise.”
“Charlie,” I grunt, breathing through the pain. “Don’t you dare offer this piece of shit anything on my behalf, you hear me? He doesn’t deserve it, and neither do I.”
“You don’t understand,” she cries, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. “They’re going to kill you.”
“I don’t give a shit. I’d rather die than watch you give yourself to this asshole to protect me. It won’t do any good. We all know how this ends, so you keep that pretty mouth shut.”
“Listen to him, Charlotte,” Jason sneers, lifting a hand and gripping my face hard. When I look into his black soul, my suspicions are confirmed. In his mind, I’m already dead. But I’ll be damned if I make it easy for him. “He doesn’t deserve your loyalty,” he continues as he searches my eyes for a sign of weakness. “You really think a guy like him would be happy playing house out here in the sticks, running some run-down little resort with a basic piece of ass like you? He wouldn’t last a year. Men like him need adrenaline, the high, the danger. You’ll never be enough to keep him satisfied.But don’t worry, darlin’. That’s where I come in. I’ll give you what you’ve been aching for. If I’d known you were such a needy little slut, I‘d have put in the extra effort. Maybe then I wouldn’t have wasted my time on club tail, and you wouldn’t have run. But that’s done now, because I’m back. And I’m gonna take such good care of you.”
With his sinister promise hanging in the air, he steps back and gestures for his men to continue their assault. I grit my teeth against the onslaught of heavy hits raining down on my body, twisting myself every which way to protect my soft spots and major organs. But it only takes a few minutes for me to realize that no matter what I do, this next bit is going to suck.
thirty-four
Charlie
He’s out cold again.They’ve been beating him relentlessly for what feels like an eternity, and he’s slipped in and out of consciousness for the past half hour or so. At least I think that’s how long it’s been. It’s hard to keep track when you don’t have a way to tell time and terror consumes your whole being. You know it’s bad when the person you love passes out from the sheer assault on his system, and your whole body sags with relief, because you know it’ll give him a few minutes of peace before they rouse him again to deliver more of the same.
I’m not even the one experiencing this sick display of violence, but I don’t know how much longer I can stomach it. Jason’s lost his cool with me a few times since he first took me.
The colorful bruises on my body are vivid proof that I’m no stranger to his ferocity. But I don’t think I’ve ever been on the receiving end of such unrelenting cruelty. Cole’s head hangs heavy between his shoulders. The tops of his feet are dragging over the dirt floor now that his knees have given out. He’s swaying back and forth in an almost hypnotic fashion as Razor and Bones pat each other on the back for a job well done.
I’m huddled in the corner, back pressed to the wall, knees drawn into my chest as I wrap my arms tightly around myself and pray to a god I’m not even sure I believe in to stop this torture and save the man who’s put his life on the line to find me.
“Wakey, wakey, asshole,” Jason taunts, slapping Cole’s cheek hard enough to draw a low groan. Razor releases an evil chuckle at the sound, and Bones reaches for the half-empty bucket of water at his feet. At Jason’s nod, he throws the whole thing into Cole’s face, and he jerks, sputtering and shaking his head to clear it before he attempts to get his feet under him. I can’t see his face from this angle, but I just know it must look awful, given how many times these brutes have rammed their ham-sized fists into it.
“C’mon now, Agent. Try to keep up. Hard for a lesson to stick when you keep drifting off like that.”
“If this is a teaching moment, you might want to work on making it more interesting,” comes Cole’s slurred reply. “This shit got old ages ago. I can’t help that your guys are such boring fucks.”
Stop goading him, you fool,I think to myself as Jason’s eyes flash with unrestrained fury. Bones’ bulging bicep twitches a second before he draws his arm back and sends his fist forward, snapping Cole’s head to the side, where it remains for several moments.
His chest inflates with a deep inhale, and he spits a crimson blob of saliva onto the ground before he straightens up once more.
“Damn, you really don’t know when to shut up, do you?” Jason’s face is a twisted mask of rage, and I know he’s about two seconds away from losing his shit.
“You want interesting? Alright then—let’s switch it up. Wouldn’t want you thinking I’m predictable,” he drawls, patting Cole’s cheek condescendingly before he cocks his head to the side to study his captive. “I’ll give you this… you’re a tough son of a bitch. But I’m a sadistic bastard who likes a little sniveling with his torture, and since you won’t give me what I want, I think it’s time I moved on to someone who never disappointed me, because Charlotte’s always begged so damn sweet, and she’s downright beautiful when she cries.”
“Don’t you fucking dare, you piece of shit,” Cole snarls, twisting in his restraints in a last-ditch effort to free himself. Razor delivers ajab to his side that has him grunting out his pain, and I can feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up as the implications of Jason’s words begin to sink in. The man I once loved calmly walks around Cole and locks his beady eyes on me.
“Turn him,” he tells his goons. “Wouldn’t want him to miss the show.” I try to scurry back, but there’s nowhere for me to go. Panic claws at me as Jason bends down and takes hold of the metal chain attached to my ankle. He flashes me a bone-chilling smile and yanks, almost tearing my leg out of my hip joint as he drags me over the floor toward him. I cry out, twisting and flipping onto my stomach as I claw at the dirt to anchor myself. Cole is shouting behind me, cursing Jason to hell and back, but it doesn’t deter the man. In fact, it only seems to amuse him.
“I think we’re finally getting somewhere,” the monster at my back chuckles, as his muscle joins in the laughter.
“You’re a dead man, Markham. If you so much as disturb a hair on her head, I swear to God, I’ll find a way to end you.”
“Oh, but I don’t think you will,” my ex taunts as he drops down heavily on the back of my thighs, keeping me pinned beneath him. “You don’t see it yet, but you’re not gonna be around long enough to do a damn thing about any of this, and before I put you out of your misery, you’re gonna watch me take back what’s mine. I wantyou to die knowing you failed all over again, and I want her screams to be the last thing you hear before it all goes black.”
Jason grabs a fistful of my hair and violently jerks my head back, whispering against the shell of my ear, “Time to erase every last trace of him from your whore body and remind you who you belong to. Who you’ve always belonged to.”
The metallic clank of his belt buckle hitting the ground is deafening, and Cole’s slew of threats is cut short by the incessant sound of fists hitting flesh. Suddenly, all the fight leaves my body, and the only thing that’s left for me to do is retreat to that hauntingly familiar place I once spent so much of my time in. Deep into the recesses of my mind, where the monster can’t touch me. I close my eyes, flipping the switch and cutting off all conscious thought when I feel the first press of Jason against my center, demanding entry to a place that no longer belongs to him.
thirty-five
Cole
Irear back when a spray of warm blood splatters across my face, and Razor looks at me in stunned surprise, a trickle of crimson seeping from the bullet-sized hole decorating the middle of his forehead. The other one doesn’t even have a chance to get a hand on his weapon before a whizzing sound flits past my ear, and he joins his buddy on the floor, where he remains, staring at the ceiling with unseeing eyes.
“Stop,” I shout, when Jason abandons his hold on his cock and whirls around, jumping to his feet and raising his hands in a show of surrender. “Don’t shoot,” I bark, louder now as I fight against the ropes chafing my wrists raw and try to twist my body enough to get a visual on the shooters. When I spot a group of masked menmove into the room with military precision, covered head to toe in tactical gear, I release an audible breath. “Tell your guys to hold their fire, Mads. I want that motherfucker alive. If anyone gets to kill him, it’s me.”
