by Sadie Jacks
Only the legs carried the current.
I could work with that. Come into my parlor—just call me Spider. I took a deep breath, made sure it was noisy and obnoxious. Gave a soft moan of pain. I lowered my hand, made sure to keep the legs of the electrode away from my skin.
Come here, little fly. I’ve got a nice treat for you.
The electrode heated in my hand again.
I smiled and gasped dramatically. Just a little closer. Almost there.
His shadow curled around the corner before I saw his shoes.
I whimpered, cowered back. Lean down here, Ethan. Make sure I’m okay. Look into my eyes when you hit that button again.
He stood over me, silent. Waiting.
I forced my limbs to tremble. Granted, all I really had to do was relax them, but still. He didn’t need to know that.
He huffed a laugh. Hiked up his pant legs and crouched down.
His fingers plowed through my hair as he jerked my head forward and forced it back at a sharp angle. “You should have stayed. You should have been better. You should have listened to me.”
I licked my lips. Wanted to make sure he heard my words clearly. I opened my mouth.
He shook his head. “Tsk, tsk, Willow. I’m in charge. You will be my next subject. But the avenue of research has changed. I’m more interested in the body’s ability to withstand tremendous pain. What it does to the mind.” He slid the back of his other hand down my face.
He had the controller palmed.
A fierce jolt of joy shot through me.
“Your mind has been honed in the flames of earlier research. I had no idea I was training you. Molding you into my greatest experiment.” He leaned forward, his eyes closing.
He pursed his lips as if to kiss me.
I shoved my fingers into his mouth, dropped the electrode. As quickly as I possibly could, I crimped my fingers around the hand that held the controller.
His body danced as my soul delighted.
I kept the button on the controller depressed as long as I possibly could. His involuntary muscle contractions were helping quite a bit, too.
“That’s right, love,” I sneered the word. “You have been honing me, training me, molding me. But in the end, you are the experiment. Tell me, what does that excruciating pain feel like?”
His eyes widened as his lips pulled back to expose his teeth in a grimace.
“On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?”
“What the fuck, cupcake?” Ryker said from behind me.
Chapter 46 – Ryker
I shook my head. “There’s no way,” I said again. Even as we passed underneath the canvas, I didn’t believe it. It had to have taken a fortune to go to these lengths of concealment.
“Shut the fuck up or go back to the car,” Massimo said softly from behind me.
I zipped my lips and pulled up the tracking data on the phone again. The solid blue dot was still in the same spot. “The phone is still here,” I whispered to Domenico.
He nodded and pulled a gun from his waistband.
I rolled my eyes. Really? Wasn’t that just a little cliché, even for the mob? Amateurs.
We continued in a single file line down bunker-like hallway. Where the fuck had Errington found an abandoned bunker? Why were there even bunkers in New York? Let alone in New Trenadie?
“Boss, I think I found something,” Nik said over my earbud.
I rolled my eyes. “Pretty sure we already found it. Send it to me. Encrypt it. Forget about it.” I could have sworn I heard her grinding her teeth.
“Expect a lengthy conversation, boss.” She hung up.
I snagged the earbud and dropped it in my pocket. I winced as the action pulled on my stitches. I pushed the pain aside again. I could worry about myself when I had Willow in my arms.
After a couples minutes of walking, Domenico came to a stop in a wide doorjamb. It looked like blast doors had resided here at some point, but there was no sign of them anymore. Nothing was as it seemed, I guess.
We lined up against either wall. Guns were out and ready. Rafael even slapped a little one into my hands. “Don’t shoot her, yourself, or us.”
I rolled my eyes. These guys…man, break their trust once, never hear the end of it. I snorted mentally. They better get used to me being around. I was keeping Willow. Forever and always.
Massimo slid up to the front of the line, his steps made no noise whatsoever. Like the specter he probably was, he faded around the corner. We followed in silence.
Twenty feet past the doors, we met another fucking odd sight. We were up on a catwalk of sorts. And down below…a massive portable maze. Bright lights lit the entire thing from one end of the room to the other. And it was roughly the size of a football field.
Massimo stopped at the top of the stairs. When he turned back, he had a finger over his lips.
We all nodded.
Massimo pointed to his ear. Pointed to the maze.
I held my breath as I listened. How the man heard anything over the pounding of the blood in his ears, I didn’t know. But that was a mystery for another time.
A man’s voice I recognized from that night in the hospital sounded from somewhere deep in the maze. “If you’d just done what I’d told you, expanded your mind, you could have saved them.”
That fucking jackhole was angling to get dead. Right now, I didn’t even fucking care which one of us did the deed as long as he failed to breathe Willow’s air ever again.
Willow’s voice rose in taunting challenge. “Just like my actions saved the last girl, right? You stabbed her through the head with a piece of metal, you sick fuck. No. You can try to defer blame as much as you want, but I know exactly who you are, Ethan. Poor little boy who didn’t fit in with his family.”
My girl wasn’t down or out yet. She was poking the bear. Forcing him to acknowledge his own weaknesses. I knew the feeling. Good thing I wasn’t actually a psychopath.
Back and forth they bantered as we crept down the stairs at a snail’s pace. I wanted to bolt down them, crash through the walls that looked flimsy enough they wouldn’t stop a rat on downers. “Boo hoo. He was too young, too smart to have friends in his classes.”
We each branched off into the maze at different points. We didn’t have time to wait for him to find her in this shitshow. We needed to find her, kill him. Get her to safety.
“How did you end up this way?” Willow asked. I could hear the genuine curiosity in her voice. The true desire to understand.
The doctor’s laugh was past the boundaries of sanity. “I’ve always been this way. My experiments have kept me company since I was twelve years old. No one understood me. No one bothered to reach out. To try to befriend me. If someone had, I wouldn’t be like this. It’s society’s fault for everything that I’ve done. It made me do it.” The man’s breath sobbed out before he cut off the sound.
I understood that kind of isolation. That level of abandonment. But I hadn’t turned to the dark side because of it. At least not the go-kill-people dark side.
“Sure, of course. If only smart people were treated better.”
I tuned them out. I couldn’t afford to get wrapped up in the drama that was unfolding. I just needed to find her.
Unfortunately, his next words froze my heart where I stood. “I placed the electrode next to your femoral artery. If I press the button long enough, it could cauterize that nerve branch. How would you like that, Willow? Would that be a good enough experiment?”
As quickly as I was able, I started darting around corners. Sweeping each side of the hallway with my gun. I had to find her. Had to get that monstrosity out of her body.
He can’t have her. Ever again. She was mine and I was going to make sure he couldn’t bother her. Steal her. Hurt her.
I crossed a juncture point, blazed forward. Movement out of the corner of my eye drew my attention. I backed up. Winced at the strain on my body. I was going to get Willow and we were going to go rest a
nd recover some place with no phones, no internet access, and no one else but personal medical staff.
I crept down the short hallway where the movement had come from. Their voices were closer. Softer. “You should have stayed. You should have been better. You should have listened to me.”
Fury and searing pain lit up my belly. How could he blame it all on her?
You mean just like you did, asshole, my inner voice said.
I flinched away from the truth. It might not have been in the exact same way, but I’d done the same thing. Pushed her away, punished her when she didn’t do what I thought she should.
I’d make it up to her. I would. I would live at her feet if she’d let me. Treat her like the hero she was.
Errington’s soft voice broke my internal torment. “Tsk, tsk, Willow. I’m in charge. You will be my next subject. But the avenue of research has changed. I’m more interested in the body’s ability to withstand tremendous pain. What it does to the mind.”
I eased around the last corner, my gun up and level at the back of his head. I exhaled slowly as I sighted down the barrel of the gun.
“Your mind has been honed in the flames of earlier research. I had no idea I was training you. Molding you into my greatest experiment.”
He leaned forward, ruined my shot when he bent down to her face. I pulled the gun upright. I couldn’t risk her. Not this close to finding her. Not this close to saving her. Saving myself.
His body jerked as she pushed him away. Her hand caught his, her fingers a vise around his free hand. As I watched, his body began dancing and jerking. Twitching so hard his bones probably shook together.
Her tone was venomous when she said, “That’s right, love. You have been honing me, training me, molding me. But in the end, you are the experiment. Tell me, what does that excruciating pain feel like?”
Part of my heart broke to hear her words. To understand. But the other part of me rejoiced. She’d saved herself. My Willow didn’t need anyone.
Not even me.
“On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?” Willow asked as the doctor’s body continued to dance near her feet.
“What the fuck, cupcake?” I said.
She looked up at me, her face bone white, beads of sweat forming on her brow and upper lip. “You found me. You’re here.”
I nodded. I eased down to my knees beside her. “You’re amazing.” I reached for her hand. Wanted to rip it away from his.
She pulled back. “I can’t let go. The electrode is in his mouth. If I let go of his hand, he could get me.” She shook her head, her sage eyes wide with fear. “I have to get away, Ry. I can’t stay here.”
I tugged her head to me. Eased her face into my shoulder. Lifting my gun, I shot Ethan Embry Errington in the head.
“He can’t hurt you anymore, cupcake. Not ever again.” I pulled her hand from his, pushed it from her skin. “Never.”
She catapulted herself into my arms as the Amatucci brothers sent up enough yells to raise the man from the dead.
We crashed through the wall behind me. As my head bounced off the cement floor, I looked up just in time to see Rafael pull his gun up and shoot at the ceiling. “Fuck, Penn.”
I shook my head, my gun forgotten as I pulled Willow’s trembling body into my arms. “Are you hurt?” I asked her, my lips against her ear.
She was trembling so bad, I couldn’t get anything more than sobs as an answer.
“Rafael, check her over,” I said as my vision went a little bright and hazy. “Her leg feels like it’s wet.” I tried to turn us over, but the stab wound in my side decided I’d done enough for the day.
Rafael pulled her from my arms. Or tried to. She shook her head as her arms turned to steel against my neck.
“I had to get it out. He was using it against me. I had to get it out. Don’t be mad. Please don’t be mad. I didn’t mean to do it. Please don’t be mad. I had to. I had to,” she mumbled against my chest. “Don’t let them drug me.” She pulled back, her eyes going glassy with shock. “Promise you won’t let them drug me.”
“I promise, cupcake. I promise. Let me see, okay. Let me see. I’ll make it all better. No one will be mad at you. Not anyone. Let me see it.” I murmured it over and over as her arms gradually went limp around me.
I barely caught her as her body went slack. Easing her down against the floor, I sucked in a breath as I saw the blood soaked pants on her right leg. “Rafe,” I said, not caring that I hadn’t been given permission to use his family name.
“I see it. Give me your belt. Now,” he barked as he ripped her pants down her legs.
“Where the fuck is everyone? Is she okay?” Domenico shouted.
“Call for an ambulance, Nico. She’s going to need a transfusion and surgery immediately.”
“Good Shepherd,” I shouted as I lifted my hips to unthread my belt. I thrust it into Rafe’s hands. “Tell me what to do.”
“Push down here. Hard. Harder than you think you need to.” He placed my hands into the bend of her body.
I got up on my knees, fisted my hands where he’d told me to. I pushed so hard, I felt like I was going to meet the cement floor on the other side of her body. “Is too much just as bad?”
He shook his head. “Not right now. We can’t move her without stabilizing the wound.” He looped the belt around her lower thigh, cinched it tight. “I’m coming at you. Get out of my way, but as soon as I pass your hands, put the pressure back on. Understand.”
“Yes. Do it.” Just like we’d worked together to save her with CPR, we worked together now to keep whatever blood we could inside her body.
“Coming at you,” he announced.
I felt him bump into my hands. I lifted them away for a brief second, watching him pull the belt up against her groin and tighten that sucker for all he was worth.
“What now? Do I keep the pressure on?”
“No, back up. I need to move her.”
The automatic denial pushed at my lips, but I knew I would never be able to carry her out of here. Not in the shape I was in. I stepped aside and forced myself back to my feet.
I looked up at the ceiling, spied the catwalk up and to the left. “Follow me.” I got a good head start and rushed towards the wall that stood between Willow and the ambulance.
Rafe’s chuckle was strained as he followed behind me. “Keep going, Kool-Aid man. Find the Penn-sized holes. We’re headed topside,” he shouted over his shoulder.
“And hurry the fuck up. I’m going to need some help to get through the rest of these walls,” I added.
Turo and Domenico shot by me and took down the next wall. Massimo shot past them. We became a rotating battering ram to get our girl out of this hellhole.
The stairs were the worst, but I got my ass up them. Sweat poured down my face as the literal stitch in my side stole my breath with every rise. Breath billowed in and out of my lungs as I struggled to get enough air.
It was Massimo who pushed me on. Forced me to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Helped me up the second set of steps out of the bunker. Massimo who shoved me at a medic as he lifted the keys from my pocket. “See you at Good Shepherd.”
I nodded as I collapsed against the gurney.
The last thing I remember was an oxygen mask sliding over my face.
Chapter 47 – Willow
I blinked away the cobwebs as that familiar awful feeling stole through my body.
“Hey, just so you know, they had to drug you to do the surgery. It went fine, you’re back and off the sedatives. You’ve been clean for the last eight hours,” Ryker said in a rushed voice.
I felt tears flood my eyes at seeing him. “I’m so pissed at you. But you’re what got me through.” I grabbed the neckline of his shirt and yanked his face down to mine.
I assaulted his mouth with my own. Plundered his lips, pillaged his tongue. I took possession and I took it hard. When my body started to whine for air, I pushed him back.
&nbs
p; “That’s how you kiss me from now on, asshole.”
**
Willow and Ryker story continues in
His Love is Pain
Releasing September 2020
**
Could you do me a huge favor? If you like Willow and Ryker’s story, could you go leave me a review on Amazon or BookBub? Reviews help indie authors in a ton of ways, the least of which is telling other readers that you enjoyed the book.
Much love,
Sadie J
About the Author
Born and raised in Tornado Alley, Sadie Jacks has experience with the BDSM community, reading way too many sexy-times books, and has an unhealthy addiction to Dr. Pepper. given up her beloved Dr. Pepper. She’s trying to get in shape for her 40th birthday…in four years. And yeah, it’s probably going to take that long to do it.
Connect with her on social media!
Facebook (@sadiejacksauthor)
Join her reader’s group, (www.facebook.com/groups/sadies.seekers/)
Bookbub (https://www.bookbub.com/profile/sadie-jacks)