Fucker.
Beth cradled her cheek as she stared up at Demo.
The man who’d pulled Melody out of the van came over and whispered something to Demo.
Where the hell had he stashed Melody?
“Why the fuck is he here?” Demo asked with a hard head shake. “He’s a low-level dealer. Tell him to get the fuck out of here if he still wants a job.”
The guy nodded and jogged back outside.
Beth began to stand only to have a boot slam into her chest, driving her flat onto the concrete. Demo loomed over her, all his weight pressing down through that single point of contact.
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Her ribs groaned under the pressure, and she clawed at his boot with fingers that felt like they belonged to someone else. Black spots danced at the edges of her vision.
I’m going to die here. On a filthy warehouse floor. Before I fixed things between Saint and his family.
One more ounce of pressure and her sternum would crack like kindling.
“I don’t give a fuck how much power your daddy thinks he has. We have his princess. He’ll come running when we contact him.”
Beth wheezed. “It’s funny you think that’s how this is gonna go down.” She managed to squeeze the sentence out in one shallow breath.
Demo chuckled, but there was something almost like respect in it. “A bitch ’til the end, huh? You know what I like about you, princess? You remind me of my sister.” His boot pressed harder for one agonizing second. “She had a mouth on her too. Never knew when to shut up.” The pressure eased just enough for her to gasp. “Didn’t end well for her either.”
His boot disappeared off her chest, and she sucked in an enormous greedy breath only to have it whooshed back out when he kicked her in the side with his steel toe.
She curled into a ball, coughing and dry heaving. Demo strode away, but two sets of hands yanked her up and dropped her on the chair. She still gasped for air as her diaphragm spasmed. Someone jerked her arms behind her back, securing them with a zip tie, while another goon tied her legs to the chair.
Then they walked away, leaving her alone, struggling to breathe.
She coughed and spat blood onto the concrete. The red splatter against the gray floor was almost fascinating in a detached, shock-induced way.
Internal bleeding. That’s internal bleeding.
Her head dropped forward. For a long moment, the only thing she could do was focus on the simple act of breathing.
In. Out. In. Don’t pass out. Don’t give them the satisfaction.
Demo had to know she wouldn’t be of much use to him if she died.
Maybe she should stop antagonizing him and let him think he’d won.
Beth closed her eyes and let the fear wash over her. Thirty seconds. She’d give herself thirty seconds to fall apart.
Her hands shook. Her breath came in shallow gasps that made her damaged ribs scream. Tears leaked from beneath her closed lids, hot, shameful, and unstoppable. She thought of her dad. Of her mom. But mostly of Saint’s face when he’d said he loved her. Would she ever see any of them again?
Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.
Beth opened her eyes. It worked. Thirty seconds to freak out, and now she was angry.
Incensed.
Fuck fear.When she left Jason, she promised herself she’d never cower before another man, and she didn’t plan to start now.
Fuck Demo and fuck these other assholes.
The Handlers would come for her, and they’d rain down hell on these assholes.
