The kindness in his voice doesn't match the situation. Doesn't match the fact that his men grabbed me from my sanctuary and drugged me unconscious.
"Why?" The word scrapes out of my raw throat like gravel. "Why am I here? Why did you—" I can't finish. Can't say kidnap because that would make this nightmare real.
Viper's expression shifts to something that might be regret. Might be calculation. I can't tell which. "That's what I'm trying to figure out myself. We were told you were being held against your will by the Hellbound Devils. Being trafficked." He pauses, studying my face. "We don't tolerate trafficking. So we looked into it. Saw you'd quit both your jobs with no notice. Saw you were at their compound. It seemed to check out."
The bottom drops out of my stomach. "So you just...took me?"
Before he can respond, the door bangs open hard enough to hit the wall.
Everything inside me goes cold. Not the cold of ordinary fear—the cold of nightmares made flesh.
Because standing in the doorway, face arranged in a perfect mask of parental concern, is my father.
"Oh, thank God." He rushes forward, and I scramble backward so violently I nearly fall off the far side of the bed. My back presses against the concrete wall. "Baby girl, are you okay? Did they hurt you?"
“No.” The word tears from my throat like broken glass. "Don't come near me."
But he keeps advancing, that fake worry plastered across his face. The same expression he wore at the hospital two years ago while I lay there with three broken ribs and a concussion.
"Sweetheart, it's okay. You're safe now. I'm here to take you home?—"
"No!” I'm shaking so hard my teeth chatter, but I force the words out anyway. "I'm not going anywhere with you."
Viper is on his feet now, one hand raised in a gesture that stops my father mid-step. His eyes track between us, sharp and calculating, and I can see him processing. Reading the situation.
"She's terrified of you." It's not a question. It's an observation.
"She's confused," my father says, his voice smooth as poisoned honey. Too smooth. The voice he uses on cops and social workers and anyone else he needs to manipulate. "Those biker scumbags have been holding her against her will. Probably drugging her, raping her, and god only knows what else. She doesn't know what she's saying."
"I know exactly what I'm saying." I find my voice somewhere in the terror, find the strength Rhett has been slowly helping me build. The strength that comes from finally being valued insteadof beaten down. "He's lying. About all of it. The Hellbound Devils saved me. They gave me a family. A home. Rhett—Wrath—he protected me." My voice cracks, but I push through. "From him. He's the one who hurt me. Who made my entire childhood a living nightmare."
My father's mask slips for just a heartbeat. Just long enough for Viper to catch the flash of fury beneath the concern, the truth under the lies.
“I’ve seen enough." Viper's voice cuts through the room like a whip crack. He turns to the two Iron Serpents standing guard by the door. "Take him to the basement. Make sure he's secure."
"What?" My father's false concern evaporates into outrage. "She's my daughter. You can't—I came to you for help.”
"You came to us with lies." Viper's expression is vicious, feral. "And we don't take kindly to being played for fools."
"She's lying. You have to see it. She's always been a liar, a troublemaker, turning people against me?—"
But rough hands are already grabbing his arms, yanking him backward. He fights them, shouting, but they're bigger and stronger and his protests fade as they drag him down the hallway.
The door slams shut. Silence crashes down.
I'm shaking so hard I can't make it stop. My hands, my arms, my whole body trembles like I'm freezing from the inside out. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold the pieces together.
"Please." The word comes out broken. Desperate. "Please don't make me go with him. Please let me go back to Wrath. I'll do anything. Just please?—"
"Hey." Viper's voice gentles in a way I wasn't expecting. He holds up both hands, palms out, showing he means no harm. "You're not going anywhere with that piece of shit. Not today, not ever. You have my word."
"Then let me go home." My voice cracks completely. "Let me go back to the Hellbound Compound. Rhett will be—" I can't finish. Can't articulate the fear he must be feeling right now, the rage that's probably tearing him apart. "He'll be losing his mind right now. Please. Just let me go home."
“Yeah.” Viper runs a hand over his face, and for the first time I see how tired he looks. "I fucked up. I fucked up bad, but I'm going to make it right."
"How?" I don't mean to sound so desperate, but I can't help it.
He looks at me, and something in his expression makes me think he's calculating odds that don't favor his survival. "I'm going to call Steel. Going to explain what happened and work out how to get you home safely.” He pauses, his jaw working like he's chewing on words he doesn't want to say. “You don't deserve to be caught in the middle of this clusterfuck, and I swear to you, I’ll make this right for you." Then quieter, almost under his breath, “Not sureI’llmake it out of this alive, though.”
