I slowly turned and found myself taking in a tall, lanky man with auburn hair and forest green eyes. He stood there with a tray clutched in his hands with his gaze piercing straight into my soul. My God, he was tall. He had to have been at least six-and-a-half feet tall.
Well, maybe not quite that tall.
But close enough.
“You guys are never gonna let me go, are you?” I asked him.
He answered my question when the stick figure glanced over my shoulder at the man behind me.
“Why don’t we take it one step at a time?” Mav asked.
“Answering a question with a question is never good,” I said, tilting my head and continuing to stare into those hunter green eyes. “But then again, something tells me you already know that.”
Mav was still the one to answer me, though. “I don’t have an answer for you. But you should probably reserve your opinions until you speak with Dante. He’s got a lot of information you need to hear.”
My gaze dripped down the lanky man’s surprisingly chiseled form. “And if I still choose to leave?”
Dante moved the tray in his hands a bit, almost as if to lift it up and offer it to me. And of course, he stepped right around my question.
“I’ll hand you your food once you’re in the bath,” he said plainly.
I scoffed. “I’m not undressing in front of either of you. So, both of you go stare at a wall or something until I can get beneath the bubbles.”
I watched the two of them as they stared at one another. Were they debating my request? Because it certainly wasn’t something that was up for debate. I crossed my arms over my chest and stepped off to the side. I got out of their line of sight, giving them plenty of time to silently make out or whatever the fuck it was they were doing while they held one another’s gazes from across the bathroom.
Then, the two of them pivoted on their feet and faced their respective walls.
“Thank you,” I said as my hands gripped the hem of my shirt.
My once-pristine white silken blouse had holes and blood stains on it. I clocked them as I pulled it over my head, grunting and groaning with the pain that coursed throughout my body. I turned toward Mav, who stood in a corner next to the bathroom mirror, and I tossed my top onto the counter. I caught my reflection in the mirror as I unhooked my bra, and the bruises alone stole my breath away. I had dark rings around my neck. Bruises on the tops of my breasts. I unzipped my pencil skirt and dragged it down my legs, taking in the bruised indentations on the backs of my thighs from fighting with the chair so damn much. It brought tears to my eyes. Hell. I had been in hell for the last couple of days, and it didn’t look like my torturers were going to let me leave anytime soon.
“I see you peeking, Mav,” I said flatly, catching his gaze in the reflection of the mirror.
He cleared his throat and shuffled on his feet. “Just making sure you didn’t need any help.”
“Trust me,” I grunted, shoving my urine-stained panties down my legs, “you guys have helped enough.”
Standing there, naked, in front of the mirror, I caught a glimpse of what they had actually put my body through. The dark bruises that covered at least thirty percent of my body. The missing fingernails from where I tried clawing my way out of my binds. The pain had subsided in my extremities, but it did nothing for the pounding in my skull.
Maybe I had a concussion.
Maybe it would kill me, and this nightmare would be over.
“Do you need help getting into the bath?” Dante asked.
I slowly turned toward the bubble-filled tub. “If you so much as flinch to turn away from that corner, I’ll claw your eyes out.”
Mav chuckled. “Feisty.”
I stepped into the tub and hissed at the pain. “You don’t know the quarter of it.”
I eased myself slowly beneath the warm coating of bubbles that popped against my aching skin. My bones grew weak. My skin gave way. It took all of the energy I had to lower myself into those bubbles without collapsing and making a fucking mess. Why couldn’t they take a cue out of Axton’s book and just leave me the hell alone? All I wanted was to be left with my thoughts.
So, I could find a way out of this fucking place.
“Okay,” I said after covering my breasts with soap. “I’m ready.”
Mav spun around. “Great. Dante?”
