More tears spill out of her eyes.
“No need to cry, sweet thing. Those fuckers had it coming.”
I whip my head over to find a ghost standing next to us. I don’t think I’ve ever been so elated in my life.
“Jett!” Ellie throws herself at him before I can move. Apparently I’m not the only elated one.
“Easy, killer.” He winces as he catches her in his arms. He looks like shit, all bloodied and bruised.
“You’re alive,” she weeps.
“Barely.” He smiles weakly, his left eye swollen shut. “It’s going to take more than three goons and a paring knife to take me down.” He lifts up his sleeve and shows me his arm. There’s a thick white bandage around his bicep. “That was unpleasant.”
“So was this.” I point to my bleeding shoulder. “The fucking thing went straight through.”
“I’m glad you’re alright.” He grins, dried blood caked on his mouth.
“You too.”
Jett looks uneasily between me and Ellie. He knows we need our time. And it’s now. “Well, I just wanted to find you and let you know I was alive before you started planning a funeral.” He smiles at me with sad eyes.
“The night’s not over yet. A funeral might not be taken out of the equation.” I glance down at Ellie.
She frowns.
That moment the solider chooses to return.
“Ma’am.” He holds up bolt cutters. Motherfucker. Then he snaps Ellie’s collar in two. The leather falls to the floor, landing right at my feet. It feels like a bomb just went off. Ellie looks up at me with wide eyes as she grabs her neck.
“Am I free?”
Jett takes that as his cue to leave.
“I’ll just be over there.” He backs up, thumbing in the direction of the door.
Traitor. I shoot him a death glare.
“You’ve always been free,” I reluctantly admit, snapping the delicate strings of crystals off her wrist cuffs.
“I don’t understand.” Her voice wavers.
“I did it to protect you,” I blurt out. Cause really how do you tell someone that you kidnapped them and turned them into your sex slave so some other pervert didn’t get to them first?
“Protect me from what?” Ellie spits.
“Not what, who. Javier, he wanted you. The night of Mark’s party, he wanted to take you. So I took you first.” I start to ramble. “I did it to protect you. You saw how he is. What he was capable of. I couldn’t let him get near you.”
“He did get near me.” She starts to tremble.
“It was a drop in the bucket compared to what he could have done.”
I see the storm brewing in her eyes. “It wasn’t a drop in the bucket to me. Why didn’t you just tell me? Why put me through all ...that?All thosethings?”The agony in her voice destroys me. I know she’s recounting every second of the last month. Everything I forced her to do, the brutal fuckings, the spankings, the chains, the collars, the beatings, the humiliation.
“I couldn’t. I had to make you believe. I had to make everyone believe.” I take a step forward and she takes a step back. It guts me.
“Ellie, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for lying to you, I’m sorry for hurting you, I’m sorry for falling in love with you.”
The words that have been stinging the tip of my tongue finally spill out. She looks at me dejectedly. I fly into a panic.
