My body reacts without my having to think about it. I ride through the pain as I get up faster than one would think was possible in my condition and deliver an uppercut to this fucker’s jaw. The low groan and curse set my body alight as I reach for the lamp and manage to flick it on while he’s still stumbling backward. A heavy thump sounds against the wall as his frame connects with it.
The swift moment of realization hits me like a bat out of hell as one of my security men that I’ve flown in from Sydney charges toward me. I know that he’s armed, and his impassive stare lets me know that he’s here to do more than fuck up my pretty face.
He manages to swing another fist at my face before I watch him pull a gun out of its holster, and then use the butt of the Glock to hit me. It connects with my cheekbone before I’m able to see it coming. In a matter of a second, the force of his impact makes my entire body fall back against the nightstand, which in turn sends shit flying. I grab hold of the base of the lamp and swing it around, using all of my force to bring it down on the side of his balding head. I hear bone fracture underneath the weight of the lamp as he falls in a pile of paralyzed limbs to the floor in front of me.
“I’m glad that we never agreed to play by the rules, fucker.”
My breath is raging through my body as I wipe at the blood that’s steadily trickling past my temple and into my eye. I lift myself off of the floor and step over his bulky figure before turning the overhead lights on to get a better assessment of my current situation.
“Isla?” I call out, but I don’t get a response. “Where are you, baby?”
I glance down at my feet and spit out a mouthful of blood onto the man on the hotel room floor.
“Worthless piece of shit.”
I glance around the suite once more before grabbing my phone off of the nightstand, but I pause when I see the folded piece of paper lying in my now vacant spot on the bed. I reach for it and flip it open, scanning Isla’s neatly printed words.
Liam,
If you wake up before I get back, don’t miss me too much. Grady has agreed to get me ice cream because someone knocked me up and then passed out. I kind of, sort of still love you, though.
Yours,
Baby doll.
I ball my fists together and swing, not giving a fuck what I damage, just as long as I hit something. That something was the headboard, and my knuckles crack against it in displeasure.
After shaking out my hand to get a better hold on myself and what I’m facing, I grab my phone once more and dial Isla’s number.
Where are you, baby?
Goddamn it, I won’t allow this to happen.
It rings for longer than I’m used to, and just as I’m about to hear the tone of her voicemail, the ringing halts, and a distinct rustling noise replaces it. The line remains silent, and I know that I’m expected to go first, so I do.
“Who is this?” I demand as I make my way over to the closet and start pulling on a pair of jeans and a shirt.
“How much are you willing to pay for a doll, Jensen? One that might come back damaged. Possibly chipped and scared? What would you do with the pieces if you can’t put her back together again?”
My mind narrows in thought and determination when I hear his low growl. The muscles in my body stretch and scream against my skin, waiting for me to detonate in an upsurge of fury.
“Grady.”
“You have a keen sense of hearing, mate, but not a keen sense of who is fucking with you.” I can hear his infuriating smirk over the line, and I’m on the edge of erupting.
“Where is she?” I grit as I grab my Glock from a hidden compartment in my suitcase and cock it.
“That, my brother, is not the issue. The issue is simple, really.”
“Enlighten me, motherfucker.”
“Gladly. You see, I’ve been sitting on your ass for years, steering you in directions that would lead you to shit-all during your pursuits. Fuck, you were so fucking intoxicated at times, I didn’t even have to try to convince you of anything. You believed every word out of my mouth. That is until your buddy Cooper got word of my camp. My ring. Don’t ask me how, because I have no fucking clue, but that piece of piss is the one that forced me to do all of this before I intended to.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“I wouldn’t speak so poorly of my mother, Jensen. Not while I have your bride between my knees about to see just how much I’ll be able to sell her for. How good is she with her mouth? Is she worth anything more than the price of plastic?”
“If you touch her, I’ll fucking kill you.”
His laughter is light, causing my accumulating rage and tacit fear to spill over. The urge to slaughter every single motherfucker in my way right now is stronger than it’s ever been before, and I won’t hold back. Not while he has my girl.
“I’d like to see you try. This,” he groans, and I’m able to hear Isla whimper in the background. My entire body freezes up at the one sound. My world comes crashing down, and I know that he plans on fucking her up until I find her. It’s the best way that he can get to me, and he’s well aware of that fact.
“This is going to be fun, and this, Jensen, is what you call payback for all of my girls that you took. The best thing about it, though, is that half of them are ones that you’d previously saved. I took them back and branded them as my own. You’ve been doing a disservice to the world and one hell of a service to my compounds. Do you have any idea, though, how many years and how much money I’ve had to invest to grow my ring to the size that it was before you showed your pretty little mug and took some of my most prized possessions?”
“I don’t give a shit. What do you want?” I hear my voice echo on the other side of the line, and I wrap my fingers around my phone tighter.
I’m moving once again, sprinting down the hallway of the Waldorf and down a stairwell. I can’t stand still and wait for the mechanics of an elevator to click into place while the world moves on without me. I won’t let one little thing take away what I need to do.
“I want to play in the dollhouse for a while. Maybe I’ll record it for you to watch and then I’ll let a few others inside to play as well. I’ll get to see what no one besides you sees. How are you with sharing a toy, mate?”
His words sting and add an obscene amount of gasoline to the burn inside of me. Jesus Christ.
This cannot be happening. I’m about to reply when I hear her scream for me. It’s a gut-wrenching cry that pushes my body off the edge, and I have to stop on the stairwell as my stomach forces me to rid itself of every ounce of liquid left inside of me.
“When I find you,” I finally say through a granite jaw, “you’ll pray for it to stop.”
He chuckles again, seemingly enjoying my threats. I wipe my mouth off with my sleeve as I turn another corner of the stairwell.
“Ah, but the best part about this is that I get two for one. Are you having a little girl, Jensen? Should I cut it out and let you know the sex? Or should I wait a couple of months and be the one to watch her grow, and then raise the child in my world? Would it be better if I taught the little fucker what I do? Or would you prefer that she or he is given the same fate as its mother? Huh? Tell me, pretty boy.”
“Liam! Please!” Her voice comes through mutedly, and I have to stop and lean my forehead against the concrete wall to help keep my body stable. The slight confirmation of his having her edges its way underneath my skin with venom.
I hear an outburst of skin slapping against skin and his saying, “Shut the fuck up, you plastic piece of shit. Let’s find out how you stack up.” Moments before I hear her scream fill the air, he cuts it off by hanging up, leaving me in a torrent of rage.
Primal instinct takes control as a burning ire whips through my body as its own deadly poison. I push my way past the heavy metal stairwell door and into the lobby where I sprint to the front desk, ignoring the guests in line as I leap over the desk and grab the phone from the agent’s hands, hanging it up and then hand it
back to her. “I need to speak to your manager. Get the police on the line. My fiancée has been abducted.”
I’m being engulfed by all of the boundaries of loyalty that have been furiously broken down and burnt, and the fact that this is happening all over again. The veins in my neck pulse with a wrath of pure black hatred as I start to type out a message to Cooper and Brass: I need all of RW on the ground, and I need eyes covering every fucking airport in and around Florida. Isla is gone. Get me all of the information on Grady Kent that we have.
As I hit send, I hear the agent speaking to the police on the other line. She feeds me some bullshit about having to wait twenty-four hours before reporting an adult as missing. I have to physically restrain myself from reacting as anger looms over me like a silent huntress in the fog of my mind.
“Motherfucker.”
I’m barely able to register what I’ve said to the agent as my world comes to a stop and starts over again, this time leading me down the stairwell to the nine circles of hell. The first time a woman was taken from me, I had no clue where to start, but now, now I know this business backward and forward, and I’ll get to her.
I have to.
I don’t have another choice.
Please, please, please.
The silences have become longer with each hour, and the bouts of adrenaline are no longer coursing through my system. The fear is now shutting down any ability that I might have had to think logically. I’m rooted to the spot and curled into a tight ball on the floor of some blacked-out and locked cramped room before the door bounces off of the back wall, pulling me out of my internal pleading chant.
Grady steps in front of me and bends down at the knees. I reluctantly meet his blank stare as he remains quiet. Instead of leaning down to pick me up, he aggressively grabs hold of a fistful of my hair, actively hauling me a few feet by it and causing my scalp to scream out in agony.
He’s been carting me around from location to location because I can’t find enough physical strength to carry myself. However, he’s now dragging me across a well-worn carpet, down a jetway and into a cabin of a plane that I don’t recognize. I feel numb, but the only thing keeping me going right now is the knowledge that my baby is in danger. We both are.
I clutch my stomach as he tosses me like I’m some flimsy rag doll against a leather seat. He takes the seat beside me and pulls out two guns and a knife from some holster on his body, setting them out in front of me as if it’s some sort of scare tactic.
My body turns against me, and I dry heave at the sight of the knife with my dried-up blood on the tip. I pull my knees up to my chest and tell myself to keep breathing.
I’m denied a spike of salvation when no hit of adrenaline releases itself into my body this time around. My eyes remain wide as Grady reaches over to encroach on my space. I pull back from him as my paranoid mind silently cries for aid. I’ve screamed so much that my throat is burning and raw. I’m not sure that I’ll manage another cry for help if I’m given the opportunity.
The lights dim in the cabin as the plane develops enough speed to lift us off of the ground and into the air.
Once we’re high enough in the air and I can no longer see the ground below us, some man walks up to us and hands Grady a roll of silver duct tape and a package of zip ties.
“I thought that you might need these.”
“With this little skank? No. The bitch can’t even fucking stand up on her own.” He takes them regardless and places each item in my lap. “You’ll be good, won’t you?”
“Fuck you,” I spit out and move as far away from him in my seat as I possibly can.
He chuckles and grabs hold of my knee, digging his fingers painfully into my skin. He’ll bruise me, no doubt, but I’m just grateful that he hasn’t aimed his anger at my unborn child. Yet.
“It took your little hero two and a half hours to wake up before he realized that your fine ass was gone. He must think that you’re a one-time-use blow-up doll. A fuck-and-chuck kind of thing, huh?” He turns his head to look at me, and I turn away, staring out the window and into the dark of the night.
“Shit, I got you as far as Miami before he woke up. You know . . . I got bored of waiting, so I sent in one of my men to pay him a little visit.”
My eyes flick away from the window to the overhead light before I close them in a silent prayer. Liam is the only one who will know who has me. He’s my only chance. Our only chance.
Please, please, please no.
Please.
“Go cry about it, dirty doll. I’m sure that my clients wouldn’t mind some tears leaking out while they take what they want from you. You know, a lot of them enjoy it rough. It’s the reason why they come to me to get their needs met instead of their wives. I’ve got some high rollers who’d enjoy a little tease from you. You do anal, right? What about double penetration? Ah, or one of my favorites—playing with sharp objects around a wet clit. I’ve made a few women come with a knife. I’m sure I could do the same to you.”
I don’t respond to him because I know that’s what he wants. He wants to see the fear in my eyes and drink all of it in while he tortures Liam from afar.
“Nice. The silent treatment. I’ll add that to your resume when we get to my camp. You know, I knew that the fucker was coming for my girls, so I had the majority of them transferred out of Mexico to our current destination. You aren’t afraid of a little moving around, are you? I need to make sure that he can’t trace our whereabouts.”
I close my eyes and try to imagine myself lying beside Liam on the beach earlier today instead of with this man beside me who tried to force his dick past the seal of my lips.
I bit him in the van earlier. I’m not ashamed to admit it.
It’s why I currently have a deep ache on the right-hand side of my face. I remember him slapping and then punching me before my head knocked against the dashboard of the passenger seat, sending me into so deep of an unconsciousness that I thought I was deceased.
I continue to ignore him as he rambles on about the types of sexual fantasies that I’ll need to meet for these sick monsters that he keeps referring to as his clients.
“My highest bidder may take you. He has this sick fascination with fucking pretty little corpses.”
My stomach heaves and this time, I truly get sick all over his worn leather seats.
“Fucking cunt,” he yells out and grabs hold of the back of my neck before tossing me onto the floor. I hit a sharp metal edge of the chair in front of me and writhe in silent agony. Warm blood slides down the side of my face. It gently kisses the corner of my lips before it slides farther down past my chin. Thick crimson drops hit my chest, and I beg for all of this to be a nightmare from hell, but it’s not. As much as I wish for it to be, it won’t change the sudden turn in the course of my life.
I watch as his body moves over my now-seated position. He runs his index finger from my chin, up the side of my face that is covered in my blood before he places the tip of his finger into his mouth. I watch as part of who I am disappears between his lips and I want to die. Right here. Right now.
Instead of leaving me be, he grabs me by my neck and hauls me to a half-standing, half-seated position as he runs his tongue up the side of my face, cleaning me of my own blood before he discards me on the floor. He gets up with his cock now hard behind his jeans and walks to the front of the cabin.
As I sit in the dark cabin, I endure horrid visions of what my future holds. The knowledge that psychopaths run free around his compound instills a fear deep inside of me. The idea of grimy bodies taking control of mine makes my stomach lurch a second time, and I purge the last of the contents of my stomach.
I’ve been transferred to and from three different planes in the last twenty-four hours, and I’m currently strapped down to a seat in a helicopter as it hovers atop the deep blue sea. I have no idea how long it’s been that he’s been flying me around the world for, but it feels like I could fit a full lifetime into these sparse hours.
<
br /> I lean forward to rest my aching forehead against the cool glass of the window. My actions pull on the restraints around my wrists, and they dig into my skin, but I choose to ignore it as the cool provides the slightest bit of relief against my bloodied temple. He tied me up after my failure of an attempt to knee him in his junk.
My impending future is hard to see through the haze of concern as the aircraft whips through the sky for a couple of hours before it lowers onto the roof of a low building in the middle of a city. I’ve never been here before, but I’m hopeful that I’ll see it in the daylight again before my limited number of days are up.
As the propeller blades come to a stop, I try to prepare myself for what I’m about to witness and possibly take part in. From Liam’s involvement in saving the women who survive these kinds of experiences, I know what to expect on some level.
They’ll get pleasure from raping and torturing me, and my strongest defense will be to remain as neutral as possible. I don’t know how I’ll be able to do that while my dewdrop suffers along with me, but I have no other choice but to figure it out.
I’m hauled out of the helicopter like I’m cargo and not human.
“You’re the one who had Chloe, aren’t you? That’s why he couldn’t find her . . . because you knew what his next move would be before he even made it,” I accuse.
“Well, would you look at this? The doll isn’t completely made of plastic or porcelain. Now shut up, you useless bitch.”
I start to speak, but his hand shuts me up as his palm swipes across my face once more. I collect myself enough to stop the tears from falling as I’m manhandled away from the aircraft and into the building. I almost gag on the thick air as I breathe in the sickening stench of involuntary sex and fetid blood.
Distant piercing screams fill my ears as I’m led down a hallway with closed doors on either side of me. There are no windows that I’m able to see as I’m escorted farther into their dollhouse. The acrid-smelling hallway comes to an end, and I’m shoved through an open door where I’m first cut free from my restraints and then left inside of the dark, empty, dank room. Instead of showing my weakness and sitting huddled up in the corner of the room, I move to the center and take a seat on the unforgiving concrete before folding my legs over each other and placing both of my palms against my stomach.
Intertwined (Redemption #2) Page 22