by James, Gemma
I didn’t fully understand it either. If I’d let Rafe take care of him in that cage, none of this would be happening right now. How much more pain would Zach cause before I learned my lesson?
Because he would never give up as long as he was breathing.
“After lunch, I have to take off for a while,” Zach said. “Maybe a day. But since you were such a good girl, I’ll go easy on the thermostat while I’m gone.” As he rose to his feet, his words were a preamble, an omen I wished I could stow back in the box, because something about his demeanor had my senses going haywire. The tilt to his mouth was too sure, the leisurely fall of his footsteps too unworried.
A warning simmered my blood.
He was too calm.
Too confident.
Too satisfied, even for having just blown his load down my throat. I knew him too well, and this was more. Zach was up to something.
“Where are you going?”
He smiled. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
6. FAILURE
Rafe
Like the last two evenings, Military Dude smirked at me from the doorway, only this time, the tray of food was missing from his hands. I rose to my feet, sensing the guy’s changed demeanor.
“Has Shelton decided to use starvation to kill me, instead of creating a circus show?” My tone dripped with sarcasm. No way in hell would Shelton waste such a lucrative opportunity by withholding dinner. The bastard wanted me at the top of my game.
“Sorry to disappoint,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “Your supper will be ready after your visitor leaves.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Visitor?”
“Yep.” He gestured toward the shackles hanging over my head. “Raise your arms.”
“No way in hell.”
Military Dude shrugged. “Guess you don’t want to find out how your woman is handling her new owner.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ll find out as soon as you cooperate.” He pulled a gun from the waistband of his jeans. “Or do I need to take a trip down the hall to the kid’s room?”
“That’s not necessary,” I snapped through gritted teeth, lifting my arms.
A wave of self-loathing crashed over me as he strung me up on my toes. It was like being in those tunnels all over again, only Alex wasn’t here this time for them to use against me.
Now they had my son.
And Alex…God, I couldn’t stand to think of her at Zach’s non-existent mercy, bound by his evil will. I’d go mad and do something that would get us all killed.
“That should do it,” Military Dude said, testing the chains anchoring me to the beam in the ceiling. He returned to the door and yanked it open, and I settled my gaze on the asshole waiting on the other side with his usual smug smile. His hazel eyes zeroed in on me, sparking in amusement at the sight of my downfall.
“Just hanging around, huh buddy?”
“I’m not your fucking buddy,” I spat as Zach waltzed into the room, not a care in the world going by his expression and sickeningly sweet tone.
“That, we can agree on.” Zach remained just out of reach of my feet while Military Dude stood sentry near the door. I almost snorted at the uselessness of it all, because Zach sure as hell didn’t need a fucking guard while I was shackled to the ceiling like this.
“You are most definitely not my friend,” Zach said. “A buddy wouldn’t steal their best friend’s woman.”
“She was never yours to take, asshole.”
“Oh, she was mine. Her cunt wept for me, just like it’ll fucking weep for me again as soon as I get this over with.”
Pressure built between my ears, rage pounding at my temples, thrashing to explode. “Don’t you fucking touch her.” Vehemence shook my words, even though the threat was too little too late. She’d been at Zach’s mercy for two days.
Zach’s eyes darkened as he took a step toward me. Ten more inches, and he’d come within striking distance of my feet.
“Here’s the problem. I can’t touch her until I get her out of that goddamn prison you built in the cellar.”
I blinked, mind hitting a brick wall at his words. Why the hell would he lock her up on the island? It didn’t make any sense. “You put her in there?”
He scoffed. “Would I be here if I had?”
My heart soared. If he hadn’t locked Alex in the cellar, then she must have enclosed herself behind those bars, and I was damn proud of her for outsmarting the bastard. She was a survivor.
“That’s my girl. Fucking genius, isn’t she?”
“She’s fucking mine.” His face reddened to the wrathful hue of a demon, and that’s when it sank in.
He needed the key.
I clenched my jaw. “Sounds like you’ve got a problem then.”
“Tell me where the key is.”
“It’s hanging on the keyring of go fuck yourself.”
“If you don’t tell me where the goddamn key is, I’ll starve her. Do you understand me?”
I fought the chains holding me. “You would make her suffer like that?”
“No, you will make her suffer like that if you don’t cooperate, and don’t get me started on what will happen to the kid. Now tell me where you hid it!”
I couldn’t draw in a full breath, pressed between what I wanted to do, and what I needed to do. Zach hadn’t touched her yet. He hadn’t taken her off the island. But he would as soon as he got hold of the key. And what if he explored the cabin before taking her from me forever?
Every twisted and wrong idea I’d entertained, had even prepared for, came at me like a fucking wrecking ball.
“I’m not giving you the key.”
Something lit his eyes, and I realized my mistake too late.
The slip-up of all slip-ups.
“You have it on you, don’t you?” Triumph braided his tone as he narrowed the distance between us by another inch.
“No, it’s back at the cabin. You’ll never find it.”
His lips turned up at the corners. “I don’t think so. I think it’s right here in this room.” Another step, another moment closer to getting his hands on my wife.
My pulse did double time. Adrenaline pumped through my veins. My entire body went rigid in preparation. Zach reached for the pocket in my pants, and I struck, lifting my knee and catching him in the groin. Wheezing his wrath through clenched teeth, he bent over, face darkening to a deep red-purple hue.
And that’s when I really went on the offensive.
Grabbing the chains above my trapped hands, I hoisted myself off the ground and came down on his shoulders, wrapping my legs around his neck in a variation of a triangle chokehold born of desperation. The brunt of my weight cut into my wrists, but I didn’t give a fuck.
Not as long as I had him, and I intended to kill him. He thrashed for a few seconds, frantic fingers clawing at me to let him go. Then he went limp, and I doubled down on the pressure.
It wouldn’t be much longer now.
And that’s when Military Dude pried my legs from around Zach’s neck. Alex’s tormenter dropped like deadweight, irritatingly out of reach as Shelton’s guy pummeled me in the stomach until I lost my breath.
Until my hope fractured and my eyes burned from the pain. It still didn’t compare to the pain Alex would endure if Zach got his hands on that key.
“You’re lucky the boss wants you alive,” Military Dude warned, his beefy face flushing with color incongruent with his blond hair. He was so pissed he looked ready to burst. Zach awoke a couple of minutes later and crawled to his feet, huffing shallow breaths through tight lips.
“He’s got the key on him somewhere,” he rasped out past his bruised throat.
“Don’t you fucking move,” Shelton’s guy said, holding the gun to my head as he searched my pockets. Time seemed to stop as he withdrew the gold chain from which a single key dangled.
The key to Zach’s ultimate triumph.
The key to my ultimate failure.
The key that would end Alex’s life as she knew it.
7. SHOCK AND SUBMIT
Alex
Zach hadn’t returned since he’d come and gone with lunch and another water bottle. As each dark second ticked past with no sound of life coming from above me, I started to panic.
Where had he gone?
When was he coming back?
Was he even coming back?
The scenarios plagued me. The what-ifs. What if he’d wrecked his car and was laid up in the hospital somewhere? I couldn’t care less about his well-being, but until someone found me down here, I was at his mercy. I needed him for survival, and I hated it.
I was close to needing a paper bag to breathe into when I heard it. The faintest of sound. A door opening. A thump. Feet on the stairs to the loft bedroom?
He was back.
And then, for the longest time…nothing.
I railed at the darkness surrounding me, fought tears that begged to fall for the hopeless isolation that trapped me. I was going mad down here.
I was going to die down here.
“Please, please, please, please…” The chant was a whisper on my parched lips. A friend to my lonely ears. It had been a day since I last saw him. Maybe two.
It felt like a fucking eternity.
And I knew I was in trouble now that I welcomed the sight of him. Now that my sandpaper mouth yearned for the water he could give me, and my belly grumbled for the food he could provide.
Footsteps.
Above me.
I tilted my head and imagined the nondescript ceiling from my perch on the cot, free of spackle or other interesting patterns that could keep a person company, if only there were light to see by. Another footfall landed, and I tracked the noisy movement above me. A few moments later, the cellar door creaked open. Sharp light flooded the space, and I blinked until the ache in my temples subsided.
The way his boots hit each step, with deliberate and careful footfalls, set me on edge more than usual, because his presence owned the air around me. Zach managed an unhealthy dose of smugness in everything he did—the way he talked, the way he smiled, the way he moved.
The way he was moving now.
I braced myself for another interaction with the monster as he came to a leisurely stop on the other side of the bars.
“Sorry I disappeared for so long.”
I was scared to ask, but I recognized his game. “Where did you go?”
“I paid Rafe a visit.”
The mention of his name sent my heart into a tumble. I sat up straighter, interest piqued. Knowing Zach the way I did, this wasn’t good news, but I thirsted for any information on my husband.
“Is he okay?”
Zach let out a bitter laugh. “Of course that’s the first question you’d ask.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key, dangling it from a gold chain I remembered all too well. “Maybe you should have asked why I went to see him.”
He didn’t have to elaborate. My gaze latched onto the familiar key, and I swallowed a lump of terror. Locking myself inside this prison, sacrificing my pride for more time…
It had all been for nothing. Now the standoff was over, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
Zach pushed the key into the lock and turned, and I barely heard the echoing click. I was frozen, held captive by the loud buzz in my head—the alarm giving me a warning I was incapable of heeding.
“He didn’t give that key to you.” Certainty infused my tone. No way did Rafe give that key up willingly, and the realization grabbed me by the throat. “Did you hurt him?”
“I didn’t have to.” Zach pulled the door open and stepped inside, and a telling tick went off in his jaw. He didn’t like where this conversation was headed. “He knows what the stakes are.”
“So you used his son against him.” I didn’t have to ask the question—I already knew the answer.
“Don’t look at me like that, Lex. I don’t want the kid hurt any more than you do. Fortunately, Rafe knowns when to cooperate.” He took another step toward me, and I shrank away, pushing up against the wall.
“Don’t touch me.”
With a sigh, he crossed his arms. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Either way, you’re coming upstairs with me.”
“Why? So you can take me off the island?”
“No,” he snapped, grabbing me by the shoulders and hauling me to my feet. “So you can wash that bastard off of you.”
“Let me go!” I screamed at him as he dragged me from the safety of the prison, my voice escalating in panic with every hard-earned foot Zach won. We were halfway up the stairs, my feet dead-weight underneath me, when he backhanded me.
I gulped down another hysterical plea for him to stop, and the resulting silence rang in my ears.
“Goddamn it, Lex. I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t make me fucking hurt you!”
“Please let me go. Please.”
He kept pulling, and I dug in my heels, determined not to let him take me from the cellar. But he was too strong, and as he dragged me through the cabin Rafe had built for us, as if I weighed nothing, the panic inside me bloomed, shining a spotlight on the futility of the moment.
I couldn’t stop this.
Inevitability wound around me, enshrining me in helplessness as he forced me up another set of stairs to the loft bedroom. Sunlight poured through the skylights, washing the room in a late afternoon glow. Drawers stood open, contents spilled. The closet had been unlocked and ransacked too.
My eyes veered to the dresser where I’d left my folded wedding dress.
Gone.
Just like Rafe.
Just like hope.
Zach pushed me to the end of the bed, and I bit back a sob as he grabbed a contraption that resembled a collar. He must have set it there, because I sure as hell hadn’t spotted that thing the morning I awoke to find Zach in the kitchen.
“Wh-what is that?”
He pressed into my back, effectively pinning me to the mattress, and snickered in my ear. “Guess who had a shock collar locked inside one of those drawers?”
“No! Get off of me!” Screaming at him, I pushed against the bed, frantic to buck him off my back.
Zach was like a fucking tank, armed with the type of obsession that made him immovable. Strength slowly bled from my limbs, and I muffled a defeated sob into the comforter, going limp underneath his weight as he worked the collar around my neck. The locking mechanism latched into place, and the fit was snug, ensuring the prongs of the electrodes bit into the back of my neck.
“Rafe will kill you for this!”
Zach laughed. “It’s poetic, really. I had no idea he was so twisted.”
Betrayal stormed through my blood. This was Rafe’s fault. He’d left me here in his depraved funhouse of sadistic kink, and then he’d given the fucking key to Zach, allowing him free rein. Even knowing that Rafe was in an impossible situation didn’t stop the rage from simmering, because now Zach had access to each one of my husband’s twisted ideas.
Rafe had left knowing what I was facing. The knowledge sank in a little more, and my heart ached…scorched and burned as if he’d stabbed it with a knife made of ginger.
It didn’t matter that logically, I knew why he’d done it—knew that he hadn’t had a choice without harm coming to his son. I still hated him for leaving me, even though the same protectiveness for our unborn child ruled my actions.
Zach’s lips brushed my ear. “Just give in. Stop fighting. He’s not coming back for you.”
Another sob rose, became a hiccup caught in my throat. “I don’t love you. I’ll never love you.” His frustrated sigh rustled my hair, and as he rose to his feet, I pushed off the mattress and turned to face him. “Why would you want someone who doesn’t love you?”
“Even a feral animal can learn to love the hand that feeds them. I’m all you’ve got now.” Dread strengthened in my gut as he held up a remote. “And I don’t want to do it, Lex
—swear to God I don’t want to hurt you—but I will if you don’t cooperate.”
“Is this the best you’ve got?” I raised my chin, clinging to false bravado. “This plan of yours to keep me prisoner in my own home? Rafe’s brother, or someone else, will find me here eventually.”
“Adam is out of town, just like Rafe’s prison buddy. We’ve got time.” His eyes darkened, taking on a stony hue. “And get this. Lover Boy has this place wired. If you go beyond the doors, you’ll wish you hadn’t, so don’t try running.”
The weight of the collar cinched like a vise around my neck, slowly squeezing the hope and breath from my being. But I had to hold on to the silver lining, because Zach wasn’t taking me off the island yet.
“For the last four days, I had to wait.” He reached for the buckle of his belt. “I’m done waiting.”
“No.” My voice was unnaturally high, on the verge of hysteria. “No, Zach. I’m telling you no.” The words shook off my lips as I placed a hand over my belly. Protecting the life growing inside me had become instinct.
His gaze zeroed in on my wedding ring. “Give it to me.”
I hid my hand behind my back, fingers locking into a fist. “No.”
“Yes,” he hissed, taking a step toward me. “Unless you want to test the effectiveness of that collar.”
My heart broke at the thought of taking off my ring. I still remembered in vivid detail the day Rafe had slid it onto my finger for the first time. Alone in the woods, naked against a tree.
It’d been one of the happiest days of my life.
“Please, Zach.”
Not my wedding ring.
“Do as you’re told, and I promise I won’t hurt you. It’s as simple as that.”
My eyes stung as I pulled the ring off my finger, but I couldn’t bring myself to drop it into his outstretched hand.
Not yet.
Eyes downcast, I fisted it, and the jade stone dug into my palm.
“Now, Lex. Hand it over.”
I lifted my arm, forcing my fist closer to his. Giving him my ring was harder than submitting to a blowjob. It was harder than standing before him naked because that piece of jewelry symbolized the commitment between Rafe and me. It made our vows real and not a figment of my imagination; reminded me that no matter what Zach did to me, no matter how long he kept me prisoner, I still belonged to Rafe, and he belonged to me.