He’s tall. All veiny muscles. The kind of physique designed to deliver excruciating pain: substance over style. His face is all hard angles, a square jaw set in a permanent sneer, hair buzzed military style. He opens his mouth but ends up moistening his lips again when he hears the slam of Matthews’ car door.
Shaking harder with every step, Jonathan rounds the hood, resembling a spooked shadow. He avoids my gaze, squaring off with Darius. “Delivered as ordered. Now give me my daughter back.”
He’s quaking in his boots when Darius turns toward him, exuding the same flavor of confidence as Nash, but Nash never made me feel this scared.
Darius carries himself with a similar predatory grace, a lion among sheep, but unlike Nash, Dariuswillhurt me. A complete lack of scruples or morals burns from his eyes. His black shirt stretches over his broad, muscular chest, but I think he works out to intimidate rather than impress.
The other men trail his every move, looking up to him as if every word he speaks is gospel and Matthews visibly shivers when Darius moves.
I wish I could muster an ounce of sympathy for the predicament Matthews’ found himself in, but I can’t. He betrayed not only my trust, but Dad’s too.
Darius looks far from merciful and Jax’s painful hold on me is a clear statement that all I’ll face within the walls of this mansion is pain.
“Ah, that’s right... thedaughter.” Darius chuckles, raising his hand and pirouetting his finger in the air.
Matthews cranes his neck, peering over the heads as the main entrance opens again. Gravel crunches under heavy boots, every deliberately slow step measured.
I can’t see what’s happening but I know it’s bad when Jonathan’s eyes pop and a pained wail rips from his chest. He tumbles, his knees connecting with the ground as the dead body of his daughter is flung before him.
He crawls closer to the lifeless girl, discarded like a broken doll, and cradles her to his chest, rocking back and forth. His cries echo in the chilling air, the sounds so anguished my heart curls inwards and my breath falters in my throat as if a rope’s coiling around it.
I’ll share her fate...
“We’ll have so much fun, little princess,” Jax whispers in the shell of my ear, every word edged in darkness.
My vocal cords strangle any attempt to speak, wrapped together like strands of overcooked spaghetti, when Darius pulls his gun out, snarling a quietshut the fuck up. A single bullet exits the barrel, the shot ringing loudly in the still air. Matthews drops dead, half of his brain splattered over the passenger side of his sedan.
Pained whimpers slip past my lips, my mind spinning faster than a rollercoaster, lungs screaming for air I can’t pull down.
“Get her inside,” Darius snarls over his shoulder.
Obeying the order, Jax digs his fingers into my arms, dragging me away. Fear chokes me, kicking my fight or flight response up to infinity, but before I try making a run for it, Nash’s words reverberate inside my head.
“Smarter, Hailey. You need to be smarter.”
Despite the all-consuming horror, rational thinking wins, and Idon’tfight. Wasting energy on kicking and screaming is pointless. I’m surrounded by twenty armed men. How far would I get before they’d shoot?
Ten, twenty feet?
Probably less.
And even if they missed, there’s those dogs. They’d soon outrun me.
Defying my instincts, I cooperate, hoping—praying—that if I give them the evidence, I won’t end up lifeless on the graveled driveway. Two men open the tall, wooden door, ushering Jax and me inside the mansion.
It’s warm, a bizarre mix of luxury and thinly veiled threats. A grand staircase looms directly opposite the entrance, and Jax drags me that way, one arm firmly around my middle, the other on my shoulder, fingers gouging in so hard he’s not far off crushing my bones.
He leads me upstairs, nothing but our footsteps and my racing heartbeat polluting the silence. We navigate the maze-like corridors of the mansion, passing countless closed doors before we stop.
“Consider yourself lucky. You get first pick of the beds,” he says, opening the door. “If I were you, I’d chooseverycarefully.”
The large room is chock-full of three-high bunk beds, each neatly made with plain gray sheets. A row of college-styled lockers stands at the far wall, numbered from one to thirty.
Just like the beds are.
“Get comfortable,” Jax clips, shoving me inside. “If you behave, we might feed you.”
As soon as I clear the threshold, he slams the door shut so hard the frame rattles. A second later, the grating click of a key turning in the lock follows, and I’m alone.
