Prisoned Series Box Set

by Marni Mann

  Thirty-Five

  Shank

  Before

  The kid thought I was the only bad one here.

  He thought it was just me who wanted him dead.

  He was so fucking wrong.

  I’d told him from the beginning that his mother was a cunt, a good-for-nothing whore who was only out for herself.

  What I was about to tell him would prove that.

  I reached across my bed of blankets to get my sheets of paper, and when I straightened again, I felt nothing. No pain in my ass. No tightness from the inmate pounding my hole. My fucking jaw hadn’t even been stretched open in a few days.

  I knew this letter was coming.

  I’d been thinking about it a lot.

  Toy thought I needed time to cool off, and he told me not to come to the shack for a whole week. That was the news he’d given me when he called me the next day. I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about because I didn’t need a time-out.

  I wanted that cunt and her baby dead.

  My mind wasn’t going to change.

  But Toy told me I needed to think about this, about what I was asking him to do, and in the meantime, he didn’t want to see me.

  I went seven days without speaking to him.

  Without being in his presence.

  Without having his lips around the end of my cock.

  By the morning of the eighth day, I couldn’t get my ass out of bed fast enough. Just as I finished getting dressed, Toy was calling my phone. He knew I’d be over there first thing, so he was probably reaching out to tell me what to bring.

  “Shank!” he shouted as I answered, sounding panicked as hell.

  “Toy—”

  “Get over here right fucking now.”

  “I’ll be there—”

  “NOW.”

  The phone disconnected, so I grabbed my keys and got there as fast as I could.

  I had no idea what had gotten him so worked up. He wasn’t into dramatics. He rarely yelled. He was a dedicated bottom, constantly wanting to please me and never demanding a thing.

  Until now.

  I drove there so goddamn fast, I almost forgot to put the car in park before I got out. Rushing up to the front door, I unlocked it, and when I stepped inside, I couldn’t believe what the fuck I saw.

  I knew Toy was yelling. Tyler probably was, too. I didn’t hear a thing they said.

  Because I was too focused.

  On the floor.

  On the blood.

  It was everywhere.

  And there was a pool of it not far from the door.

  My cock instantly got hard, and I fell on my knees, crawling toward it. My fingers dipped in the pool, and I held them in front of me, so I could watch it drip down each knuckle, the color now spreading to my palm.

  I couldn’t resist; I needed more.

  I brought my fingers even closer and rubbed them over my face. The metallic scent hit me. Fuck, I loved that smell.

  There was so much more that wasn’t on me yet. I wanted it to be. I wanted to take my clothes off and bathe myself in it.

  But, as I reached for the bottom of my shirt to lift it over my head, a noise penetrated my ears. It was Toy.

  He was screaming, “Shaaank!”

  I dragged my eyes away from the pool and looked to my right.

  “Get the fuck over here,” Toy ordered.

  He was huddled over the top of the cage, reaching inside it, struggling to get something out of Tyler’s hands. They were both covered in blood. So were the cage and the floor in front of them. The thin river ended in the pool by my feet.

  “Toy, are you hurt?” I asked.

  “I will be if you don’t get over here,” he snapped.

  “What the fuck is going on?” I asked. I still hadn’t taken a step. I wouldn’t until I knew why Tyler was naked, why Toy was fighting with her, why everything was red.

  “You!” Tyler screamed. “You’re what fucking happened.” She looked at me through the metal bars. Her eyes were thin slits, her teeth bared. There was even blood on the end of her nose. She was manic. And, for the first time since that cunt had come into my life, I could see why Beard was attracted to her. She looked so goddamn beautiful, all bloody and prisoned and animalistic. “You fucking raped me, and you got me pregnant.” Her arms swung up in the air, and they slipped out of Toy’s grip. When they shot back down, there was another squirt of blood. “I don’t want it, I don’t want it. Get it out of me, get it out of me. Get it fuuucking out of meee.”

  “Shank!” Toy yelled once Tyler had quieted. “Help me steady her, so I can get the spoons out of her hands.”

  Spoons? What the fuck is she doing with spoons?

  She might have stopped shouting, but she was kicking and slashing and punching Toy as he tried to control her.

  Hell. Fucking. No.

  I was going to stop this right now.

  I went into the kitchen and opened the drawer where I knew Toy had stashed the syringe and vile from when we’d transported Tyler here. I filled the chamber a quarter of the way and brought it over to the cage.

  “Fuck you!” she seethed. “Fuuuck yooou!”

  A wad of her spit hit my cheek and another coated the outside of my eye.

  “Toy, hold her.” I placed the syringe between the bars as close as I could get to her arm.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, out of breath, trying to keep them raised over her head.

  I tried to aim the head of the needle, but she was still moving too much to get a good shot. “I’m calming her down. Keep her fucking steady.”

  “You can’t give her that shit,” he said. “She’s pregnant. It’s bad for the baby.”

  I didn’t bother looking at him. What he’d said was fucking ridiculous. Who the hell cares what’s bad for the baby? It wouldn’t be around long enough to be born.

  “Toy—”

  “Shank, I mean it; don’t give her anything.”

  I’d had enough.

  “Toy!” I hollered as loud as I could, causing Tyler to pause for just a second. It gave me enough time to stab her and empty the drugs into her body.

  It hit her immediately, and she relaxed and started to slump forward.

  “I can’t believe you,” Toy said as his hands left the cage with the spoons. “I told you not to give her anything, and you—”

  “Toy,” I gritted through my teeth.

  I grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the cage. He’d lost it. I needed him back here with me and not thinking about her.

  “Look at me.” I waited longer than I wanted to. “Look. At. Me.” When our eyes finally connected, I said, “She was going to hurt you. Nothing I did will change the outcome. She’s going to die.” I could tell I still didn’t have his attention, so I turned his back toward her. “Tell me what happened.”

  “We needed food, so I went into town to get some stuff.” He swiped his arm across his forehead, and it left a massive streak of blood. “When I got back, she had two spoons stuck up inside her. Shank…” He tried to swallow, and I could tell it was difficult for him. “She was trying to give herself an abortion.”

  I couldn’t knock the girl for creativity. Spoons were certainly an interesting choice, although they were probably the only things she could reach.

  “All that blood is from her cunt? And the baby?”

  Jesus, I could have been wiping the kid all over my goddamn face, and I wouldn’t have even known it.

  “It’s not from inside her. I got them out in time before anything happened.” He looked down, like I’d just taken my knee and shoved it into his stomach. “But, once I got them out, she somehow snatched them from me and started attacking her body.” He took a breath, and his faced filled with more emotion. “She wanted to cut herself open, so she could rip the baby out.”

  I glanced over his shoulder and finally saw what he was talking about. Long, thick, angry gashes crossed her stomach, and there were more on her thighs.

&nbs
p; They matched the ones on her wrists even though those were healed now.

  Fuck, this chick couldn’t even kill when she was really trying to.

  “Do you think it’s still alive?”

  He put his hands on his cheeks. All ten fingers were dark red. “I think so. If she’d lost it, I would have seen something come out.” He glanced up again. “That didn’t happen; I’m sure of it.” He took the spoons out of his pocket where he’d stored them. “Look what she did to it.” The corner of the handle had been whittled down to a point. “That’s what she was cutting herself with. She must have been scraping it against the metal bars or the floor while I was sleeping to give it that sharp tip.”

  There was blood on the back of his hand that was still dripping. Hers would have dried already. That meant she’d cut him. I held it up to my face to inspect and saw the deep slice. I ran my tongue over it, hoping my spit would help it heal.

  “Get rid of her, Toy.” I kissed the center of the wound. “It’s going to be nine months of this if she doesn’t kill herself before then.”

  He shook his head, and our eyes locked. “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you fucking can,” I roared. “And you fucking will.”

  “That baby is yours, Shank. I already love it.” He turned his hand around and gripped mine so tightly. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to do at the prison, but I cannot murder your child. Don’t make me. Please don’t make me.” He took a breath. “If that means I have to live in this shack with the two of them for the rest of my life, then I will.”

  “Toy, no. I won’t let this happen. She has to die.”

  He yanked his hand out of my grasp and pounded it against my chest. His other fist joined, and the two knocked and beat as hard as he could. It didn’t hurt. But Toy wasn’t trying to hurt me. He was the one getting hurt.

  He squeezed my shirt into his palms. “Don’t take away the one thing I want.” He sucked in some air, and it sounded so raspy. “Don’t hurt me because you don’t want it. I’ve never asked for anything. This is the only thing I want. You saved me, so now, let me save this child.”

  I’d never seen this side of him—this amount of emotion, this level of need. He was right; he’d never asked for a fucking thing from me. And, now, he wanted this baby?

  “Toy, I can’t. Don’t you understand?”

  He pulled me closer, our bodies now pressed together. “You don’t have to raise it. You don’t have to have anything to do with it. It’ll be mine. I’ll take care of it. You won’t have to worry about a thing.”

  “No—”

  “Don’t make me choose, Shank, because, if you put me in that position, I’ll pick them. I promise, I’ll pick them.”

  It wasn’t even a threat. He was telling me the truth. He wanted that baby so fucking bad, he was willing to lose everything for it.

  Goddamn it. This was the hardest decision of my life.

  I loved this man.

  I wanted to give him everything.

  I didn’t want this to be the end of us.

  It wouldn’t be.

  I didn’t know how any of it would work. I didn’t know if we could stop Tyler from killing herself. But that wasn’t my problem; it was his.

  Toy didn’t want her dead, so I lifted the order I’d given him and said, “If you can keep her alive, then the baby is yours. We’ll figure out the rest.”

  He collapsed in my arms, and I hugged him. Hell, I hugged that motherfucker with everything I had, and then I kissed him.

  I could taste your mother’s blood on his lips.

  Shit, it tasted good.

  The kid had been right about Toy. He was the only person who’d wanted him alive. If it had been up to me, I would have gutted Tyler that very morning. I would have chopped up her body and brought her to the incinerator at the prison. Even if Beard saw me, he wouldn’t have recognized his girl when she was cubed like pieces of fucking ice.

  It didn’t matter; I never got the chance to kill her.

  Tyler had stayed alive.

  Toy had gotten his baby.

  And then all hell had broken loose.

  But I wasn’t ready to tell that part yet. The kid needed some time to stew over his spoon-cutting cunt of a mother.

  Thirty-Six

  Arin

  Yesterday’s shift marked a full week of work at the brothel, so Lawan called me over to her desk this morning and handed me an envelope.

  “Your pay,” she said with a smile and a bow.

  I’d never discussed money with Huck. I had no idea how much he intended to pay me. I only knew that I would keep working until the moment I got on the plane to head back to the States. No matter what happened between us, I didn’t expect any of this for free.

  “It feels heavy,” I told her, opening the flap to see how much was inside.

  I did a quick count; it came out to thirty-five thousand baht. Doing the math in my head, I estimated that to be a little over a thousand dollars.

  It was more than I’d expected.

  More like triple.

  There was no way the women in this brothel, the ones who worked the same position as me, were paid that much. They probably didn’t even earn that in three months.

  Just because I was sleeping with the boss didn’t mean I deserved a higher wage.

  I needed to speak to Huck.

  “Can I keep the money locked in your desk until the end of my shift?” I asked her.

  She reached for a section of my hair and ran her fingers around it, like she was trying to tame the frizz. “Course.”

  I thought she would have backed off and doted less as I healed. Just the opposite was true. The more time I spent here, the warmer she was around me.

  It was her touch I enjoyed the most.

  It was soft and motherly. For the briefest of seconds, I just wanted to close my eyes and let it bring me back to my own mother when she had done the same thing to me.

  Her touching was her thing.

  But I couldn’t close my eyes, and I didn’t want to get emotional, so I took a breath and asked, “Do you mind if I take my lunch outside?”

  She let go of my hair to reach inside her desk, returning with a key that she placed in my palm. It went to the back door. I’d been using it every day since my walk.

  “Bring it back when you’re done.”

  I knew that, too.

  “Thank you,” I said, bowing my head as I left.

  I grabbed a cup of mango and brought it outside with me. I took a seat on the ground, leaning my back against the building. While I ate, I pulled up the Internet on my cell and found the website for the embassy. I’d already researched the process, what paperwork they needed, and now, I had the money it required.

  Once I was sent my replacement passport, I would be headed home.

  I typed my answers along each line of questions, and then I exited out of the website and brought my empty cup of mango back inside the brothel. It was too hot to spend any more time in the sun.

  As I was walking to Lawan’s desk to return the key, a man stood from one of the chairs in the lounge and started coming toward me. The closer he got, the more he mirrored my path. If I stepped to the right, he did, too, and the same when I shifted to the left.

  He was tall, like Huck, but he wasn’t nearly as built, and he was probably somewhere around his mid-twenties. His light coloring told me he wasn’t from India.

  I’d never seen him before.

  When I couldn’t take another step without running into him, I said, “Can I help you with something?”

  I’d never spoken to a client. I didn’t even know if I was allowed to. Huck had made it very clear that he didn’t want them anywhere near me. Maybe I would wait for this guy’s response, and then I would kindly ask him to get out of my way.

  “How much are you?” he barked.

  How much…am I?

  He wants to buy me?

  He was American. For some reason, that made his question hurt even mor
e.

  His stare dropped to my breasts, and he licked across his top lip, showing teeth that were dark and chipped.

  I felt like I was going to be sick.

  “I’m not for sale.”

  When his hand ran across my cheek, I tried to slap it away, but he grabbed both of my wrists with his other hand. He was so much stronger than me.

  “Get off me,” I snarled. “Let go of me right now.”

  He ignored me, continuing his journey all the way to the other side of my face where he paused at the corner of my mouth.

  “I’m not kidding. Get your hands off me, or I’ll—”

  He squeezed my cheeks, so I couldn’t open my mouth. “You’ll what? Scream? Looks like you can’t do that now, can you?”

  Panic ran through me.

  Where’s Lawan? The bouncer? Why is this man touching me, and no one is stopping him?

  I looked a little past his body to see where everyone was. Lawan was standing next to her desk, speaking to a client and the girl he had chosen. Her back was to me; therefore, she had no idea this was going on. I looked to the right, and the bouncer was patting down a group of men who had just come in. He was too busy to notice me.

  “Mmm,” I tried to hum to get someone’s attention.

  A knee jabbed into my stomach, and all the air was kicked out of my body.

  “Make another sound, and I’ll shove my fist straight up your cunt.”

  I tried inhaling though my nose, but I was so worked up, I couldn’t calm myself enough to let any air in. My body turned numb. Anxiety had completely filled my chest. I was shaking. I was seeing black dots.

  He released my cheeks, and I opened my mouth enough to fill my lungs. But air wasn’t the only thing that went inside. His fingers did, too, spreading my jaw as far as it would go. When I tried to make a noise, he pushed down on my tongue and gagged me.

  “This one will do,” he said.

  My heart rate sped up even more as another man joined us and said, “Think we can carry her back to our motel?”

  The new man moved behind me as the first guy continued to inspect my mouth. It watered so badly, saliva dripped off my chin. My nostrils were flaring, and I still wasn’t getting enough air in.