Theirs To Defy: a Reverse Harem Romance

by Stasia Black

  Drea’s blood went cold at his ominous words. What the fuck did that mean?

  She didn’t have to wait long to find out because the next second Garrett had his flashlight on and—

  “Oh God!” Drea cried, shoving Garrett to the side. Or trying to. He still wouldn’t let her past him—he moved out an arm to block her when she tried to squeeze between him and the door.

  But she couldn’t take her eyes off of the horror she was seeing. All around the room, women hung limp, naked and chained to the painted cinderblock walls by their wrists and ankles. There had to be eight or more of them and—

  “Elena!” Elena was alive. Oh God. Oh God, oh God. Drea pushed at Garrett. “Let me through, dammit!”

  Garrett finally moved forward into the room, but he kept his arm out, still trying to hold Drea back. “Stay back until we know it’s safe. We’ll get them down.”

  Son of a bitch. As soon as this was over she was going to be having a serious fucking talk with him. But for now, she ducked underneath his arm and finally got into the room. It looked like it had once been a lobby though it was now stripped of all furniture. There was still a glassed-off little room inside the larger one where a receptionist might have sat.

  Drea took this all in with a quick glance before running straight to Elena.

  “Drea,” Garrett shouted, following her with a hoarse, “fuck.”

  She didn’t care. She’d left Elena behind all those months ago when Nix had saved her from Nomansland. Her. When it was the women like Elena who’d been tortured for almost a year at that point. Raped over and over. God, Drea had only gotten glimpses of them except when Thomas wanted her to see, to know what was happening to the women she’d only ever wanted to protect—

  “Elena,” she shouted again as she got close to her once friend, and then she said her name again, except this time, it was full of anguish. “Elena.”

  Elena had been among the most beautiful of all the women who’d sought refuge at Nomansland.

  And now— Oh God.

  It was dark but for Garrett’s single flashlight but when Elena turned her face toward Drea, into the light, Drea saw that scars covered the once perfect skin of her face. Like it had been slashed repeatedly with a razor. Some of the scars were old, red and raised, but healed over, while another was so fresh, dried blood was still crusted at the edges and smudged down her cheek.

  “Drea,” Elena croaked, reaching out feebly with one of her cuffed hands.

  “Oh honey, I’m here. I’ll get you free. Once and for all. I swear I won’t fail you this time.” Drea turned desperately to Garrett. “Help me get her down.”

  He nodded though he kept looking around the room anxiously. Drea got it. She did. Where was Thomas? Why were these girls here laid out like sacrificial lambs? It all stank of a trap. But Drea refused, she fucking refused to leave Elena behind a second time.

  Drea didn’t care if it was a trap. Death had been knocking at her door for ten fucking years now, ever since the night her father stupidly volunteered to take her place. Well come and fucking take her.

  But let Elena go free. Let all these girls go free first. Please God. Just that.

  Drea held on to Elena while Garrett lifted the ax he’d grabbed downstairs and smashed the chain where it was attached to the wall. One of Elena’s wrist shackles came free and her arm fell around Drea.

  “Get the other one, the other one,” Drea said, pulling Elena further away from the wall. Garrett hurried around and smashed the other. It took a few blows to get her ankles free, but in less than a minute, she was detached. They’d have to worry about getting the actual cuffs off her wrists later, but it was enough to have her free of the wall for now.

  “The other girls,” Drea nodded to the girl hanging beside where Elena had just been. Across the room, Jonathan was using well aimed gunfire to get girls free of the wall. He had one down and was onto his second.

  Drea turned back to Elena. She was probably dehydrated. Drea would have to find somewhere to stow the girls until the army got through and it was safe to show themselves. Maybe an abandoned store along the Riverwalk? Somewhere just deserted enough so they could escape notice until—

  “Drea, look out!” Garrett shouted and Drea spun his direction just in time to see the woman he’d just freed from the wall lifting a knife behind him.

  “Garrett!” she shouted, lunging toward them both.

  But she was too late.

  The waifish girl sank the blade deep into his back. He dropped where he stood.

  “No!” Drea screamed, rushing forward. But before she got two steps, she tripped and landed hard on her knees.

  She looked down and behind her, realizing in the same moment that she’d tripped on Elena’s chains and that Elena was the one who’d thrown them in her path.

  On purpose.

  “Wha—”

  “Shoot her!” Jonathan shouted from across the room. “Shoot her. Now!”

  Right then the lights turned on—completely blinding after the near total darkness.

  Drea scrambled to sit up but was knocked back down almost immediately.

  By Elena.

  Elena who’d jumped on top of her and was grabbing for her gun she’d tucked back in her waistband.

  “What the hell? Elena. Elena!”

  Elena didn’t say a word, she just bit her lip, the vein in her neck pulsing with strain as she grappled for Drea’s gun.

  What the fuck was going on? Had everyone gone crazy?

  Drea grabbed Elena’s wrist right as Elena’s fingers wrapped around the grip of the Glock. Elena grinned as she jerked it upwards.

  Oh fuck.

  Drea jerked Elena’s wrist to the left only milliseconds before Elena pulled the trigger. The bullet fired harmlessly into the floor. But if Elena’d had her way, that would have landed in Drea’s belly.

  And the other girl had stabbed Garrett.

  They were trying to kill them.

  Little Elena. Sweet Elena. Why?

  Elena growled and twisted, trying with all her might to wrestle the gun so it aimed at Drea.

  “Stop it,” Drea barked, even as she rolled them so that Elena was on the bottom and Drea on top. “Elena. It’s me. Drea.”

  “I know who you are,” Elena spat. “You’re the bitch who abandoned me. Who abandoned us all. You promised us we’d be safe on your little make-believe island. When all you were really doing was making us a target. Then the first chance you had to get free, you fucking left us there to rot!”

  “No. That’s not how it was! I tried to get them to go back for you. I swear. I tried. Elena, if we could just—”

  “No!” Elena screamed. “I don’t have to listen to your lies anymore. I know what real love is now. And I’d do anything for him. Everything. I’ll give him everything.”

  Then, with a burst of strength Drea wouldn’t have thought her capable of, she tore her wrist free and aimed the gun at Drea’s head.

  “Elen—”

  Drea grabbed her arm and jerked the gun down again but Elena just jumped on her, tackling her back to the ground, both of them rolling several times.

  Drea didn’t even know when the gun went off. Her finger wasn’t on the trigger, she knew that much.

  But it didn’t matter. Because when she scrambled backwards…

  “Noooooo!” Drea screamed. “No! Elena!”

  Elena was naked so there was no hiding the bullethole that sliced through her chest or the blood that pumped out with every last pulse of her heartbeat.

  Drea scrambled to put her hand over the wound. If she just put enough pressure, she could stop the bleeding long enough for— And Billy could— Or one of the other doctors. This was a hospital, they had to have—

  “He’ll love me forever now,” Elena whispered, bloody spittle spilling out the corner of her mouth.

  And then her eyes rolled back in her head and her body went completely still.

  “No. No,” Drea shook her head. “No, no, no. El
ena. Elena!” she shrieked, hand still over the gunshot wound.

  She looked around desperately. There had to be something she could do. Someone. Something. “Help! Please!”

  But all she saw was the two girls Jonathan had freed holding him at gunpoint, his hands raised in the air.

  What was—

  But as she watched on in befuddled confusion, the other girls who’d been chained up all freed themselves with keys they’d had in their mouths the whole time.

  Drea recognized only a couple of their faces as girls who’d been with her at Nomansland. The others must just be women Thomas had picked up along the way. Women he was trafficking but had decided to keep for himself?

  What was going on? What sort of trap had they walked right into—had she led them into?

  Drea glanced over again at Jonathan. Oh God. He would die, too. Just like Garrett. Oh God. All because of her and her crusade that in the end was for nothing.

  But surely not all of these women were under Thomas’s control.

  Then, as she watched, all but the two not holding Jonathan at gunpoint raised knives.

  In unison, they said, “You did this to us, Drea Valentine.”

  And then they slit their own throats.

  Drea screamed and tears blinded her vision. Blood. So much blood. Drea looked down at her own hands, covered with Elena’s blood.

  And all around the room. All the blood.

  “Why?” she screamed, sobbing. “Why?”

  She was crying so hard, she didn’t see him come into the room. Jonathan must have, though, because distantly she heard his shouts but it was like through water. Everything was muted, moving slightly slower than it ought to be.

  She was only jerked out of it when firm hands wrapped around her neck and a body landed on top of her.

  She sucked in one last breath before all her air was cut off.

  And then she looked up into his face, his dark features twisted into cruel and mocking delight.

  Her own personal demon.

  Thomas Tillerman.

  She twisted and fought to get him off of her but he sat on her chest, pinning her arms down by her sides with his legs.

  Her gun. Where was her fucking gun? Her eyes searched frantically, finding it on the ground—all the way across the room. Thomas must have kicked it there before he’d jumped on her.

  “How many people have to die for you, little Belladonna?” Thomas’s dark brows narrowed as his hands tightened around her throat even tighter. “First Daddy. And then all the women on that little island? Was that you trying to make up for the women in the warehouse you failed to save that night? It was, wasn’t it?`”

  He lifted her head up slightly only so he could slam it back down against the tile. She blinked as the world slid and tilted sideways.

  “But that’s become a pattern with you, hasn’t it?” he continued. “Failing people? Getting them killed? These two men you brought with you today. Elena. If you’d tried harder, you could have saved her. She was half starved, for Christ’s sake. But you took the easy way out and just killed her.”

  He tutted. “And growing up all I ever heard was how strong the Valentine stock was. Valentines this, Valentines that. How the Valentines had led the Black Skulls to prosperity for generations.”

  He shook his head. “But all it took was a few months tickling your titties and one whispered rumor in your ear, and you took down your own dynasty, didn’t you?”

  Drea wept, the little breath she had left escaping with her sobs. She tried to suck in air but only a trickle made it in through Thomas’s death grip around her throat.

  She hated him.

  Hated him.

  Needed more air.

  Hated— Hated—

  Herself.

  She was the daughter of a slave trader and a crack addict. Every time she’d tried to prove she was more, to do good and help people to make up for all the bad they’d done, all she did was end up getting more people hurt.

  Her father wasn’t the devil but he might as well have been. Yet still, she’d loved him. He was a monster and she loved him, even after learning what he was. Her whole life she’d paid penance for that original sin.

  And now the reaper was calling, wearing the face of her greatest tormentor.

  This was how it was always meant to end.

  Her poison could only be stamped out by an even more vile poison.

  “That’s right,” Thomas cooed as he smiled above her. “Let go. Give in and let go.”

  Drea let her eyes fall closed. He wouldn’t be the last thing she saw in this world. She thought of her father. The familiar contours of his face beneath the skull tattoo. The way his eyes would crinkle when he smiled at her.

  Sure do love you, Lil’ Bit. Always have, always will.

  I love you too, Daddy.

  Always have…

  … always… will.

  “Drea, no!”

  Eric?

  Drea’s eyes flew open and she twisted in Thomas’s grip. No! Two bikers dragged Eric into the room from the open elevator, two more following with a struggling Billy. How had they—? They couldn’t be here!

  “Drea. What are you doing? Fight him!”

  “Muzzle him,” Thomas growled above Drea, pressing down harder on her throat. Spots immediately began dancing in her eyes. He hadn’t been pushing with his full force before—he’d been allowing in just the tiniest bit of air to draw it out. He enjoyed her struggle. Her torment. But he was done with that now.

  Because Eric had come. Eric had come in spite of those terrible things she’d said to him.

  “I love you, Drea,” Eric shouted, struggling against the bikers who were trying to gag him. “Fight for us. Fucking fight.”

  Eric was fighting for her.

  He was here.

  Eric loved her.

  “He’ll be just one more who dies because of you,” Thomas growled, eyes flashing as he squeezed even harder.

  No!

  Eric couldn’t die. Not Eric or Jonathan or anyone else.

  Thomas was the fucking poison.

  Drea felt herself growing weaker with every moment that passed.

  But Eric was here. Stronger together. They were stronger together. She didn’t have to fight alone anymore. Ever again.

  But as much as she needed him, he needed her right now too. They all did.

  She was still pinned as firmly as ever by Thomas sitting on her chest. But while she’d thought about her gun earlier, she’d forgotten about her secondary weapon. She bent her knee. Fuck, it was an awkward angle with Thomas still on top of her.

  She reached frantically for her boot with her right hand.

  Almost there. Almost—

  “Well, this has been fun, cunt,” Thomas said, “but now it’s time to—”

  Got it!

  Drea grasped the hilt of the knife, flipped it, and then buried it to the hilt in Thomas’s lower back, in and upwards with all her might.

  Thomas screamed and the pressure on her neck immediately released but Drea tried to keep her focus even as she gasped in a deep breath.

  “Kill her!” Thomas shrieked.

  Drea ripped the knife out and then stabbed again even as Thomas twisted off of her, crawling away.

  She yanked the knife out again and launched herself at him, throwing her arms around him from behind like she was giving him a bear hug.

  Except for the fact that this hug was lethal, because she didn’t wait to hear his last words or to hear him beg.

  No, she just slashed the knife she held in her ruthless grip across his neck, ear to fucking ear. He collapsed to the floor and she fell on top of him, still gasping for air.

  Any moment now, she thought. One of his thugs would come and kill her. Or one of the brainwashed women.

  No, goddammit. She couldn’t just lay here and give into death. She owed Eric and Jonathan more than that.

  So she rolled off of Thomas, ignoring the pool of blood spreading outwards from h
is body and holding her knife feebly in front of her as she struggled to a sitting position.

  Only to see Billy shakily holding his gun on the two women who’d previously had Jonathan at gunpoint while Jonathan and Eric kicked ass.

  Of the four bikers who’d brought Eric and Billy in, three were already on the floor unconscious or dead, and Eric and Jonathan were closing in on a fourth.

  He lunged at Eric. Right in time to get a bullet in the head from Jonathan.

  “Watch them,” Drea cried out, pointing to the women. “They’ve got knives.”

  Eric turned toward the women Billy was guarding right as they pulled the knives. They didn’t advance on Billy or the other guys, though.

  “Stop them!” Drea shouted as they lifted the knives to their own throats like the other women had earlier.

  “You did this to us, Dr—” they started to say in unison, but Jonathan jumped in front of Billy and knocked the knives out of their hands before they could cut their own throats.

  They tried to fight him to get back to the knives, but Billy helped in holding them back. In the end, they had to tie their arms behind their backs to keep them from harming themselves.

  Eric stumbled over to Drea and collapsed down beside her, dragging her into his arms.

  But she immediately struggled away. “Garrett,” she cried, but Billy was already at Garrett’s side.

  “He’s alive!”

  Billy pulled the knife out and Drea crawled over to him as Garrett sat up. She didn’t even try to hold in the tears anymore.

  “Garrett.”

  He blinked and winced as he experimented moving his arm. “Shit, I think she hit the metal disk replacement in my shoulder.”

  “Oh my God.” Drea buried her face against his thigh and cried and cried and cried, Eric rubbing her back as Jonathan and Billy hovered nearby.

  It was minutes later before, hiccupping, she finally lifted her head and turned to Eric. “How? How are you here?”

  He dropped his forehead to hers.

  “I didn’t get very far before I realized that it doesn’t matter.”

  “What?” Drea coughed out incredulously, tears still running down her cheeks.

  “It doesn’t matter how mean you try to be. I know you in here.” He pressed his palm to her chest, right above her heart. “And I promised you forever. You’re my family as much as my daughter is. And while she might be heading into danger, I knew you were. And I knew you needed me.”