“Wanting to know where you are.”
Does that mean Ryker’s alive?
Hope crawls through me. Fragile, a tender, spring vine in the face of the annihilation in my heart.
“What do you want?” I choke out as he stalks around me.
Don’t shake.Keep it together.
“Ah,” he laughs, bracing his hands on his hips. “I want fun. Don’t weallwant fun?”
“News flash. This isn’t fun.”
“Not yet.” He slips a hand into his pocket, looking down at me. “I think you’re going to do great. Didn’t know what to expect, but now I know you’re gonna make me a fuckton of money, sweets.”
He shifts toward me, drawing a cold finger up the column of my throat, over hard edges of the collar they’ve put on me, stopping below my chin, forcing me to look up into his face.
“Too bad I don’t have time to sample the goods.”
“Fuck you.”
I rarely ever say the word, fuck, but all I want to do is spit in this man’s face and stomp his throat until his head rolls across the floor.
I’ve snapped. Nothing of the old Jade remains.
When he presses his thumb to my bottom lip I jerk my head away. That’s when I hear a sound. An animalistic growling. Huffing. Almost like snorting.
“There he is,” my tormenter says, “I see he’s ready to get loose and make me pay. Only that’s not how this game works.”
The man reaches between my legs making my heart stop, but he only grabs the chair and drags me to face the other direction.
The metal scraping loudly on concrete.
But I lose all ability to hear when I see why he’s turned me around.Oh Christ.That sound is Ryker.
Four gigantic men in masks are carrying him into the patio area, bound to a chair just like me.
There’s foam around the tape covering his mouth. A big, shiny black collar catches the light.
Above that, Ryker’s eyes are furious enough to destroy entire worlds.
Every muscle in his body straining as he tries to break the cuffs and ankle restraints.
I’ve never seen anything scarier in my life.
Focus locked on me, Ryker doesn’t look at any of them.Only me.And his eyes say it all.
He’s crossed a line that can’t be uncrossed. He’s not backing down until bones are crushed with his fists. Death delivered by his blows.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” I shout. “Please, don’t. I’m okay.”
But my voice is broken, my chest won’t work right, my wrists are bleeding and I see no way out of this alive.
I’m not okay.
I’ve never been less okay in my life.
Even with the beatings and the horrible things my father did, nothing compared to the torture of seeing Ryker like this and knowing they’ll make him pay.
