What if the blow killed him?
No.
No-no-no. This wasn’t real. None of this was real.
She tried bolting upright, but her shoulders screamed in pain and her head plopped back down on a hard surface. Tied? She was tied! With her wrists restrained above her head!
No…this…no…no, it couldn’t be happening.
She attempted to lift her legs but they wouldn’t move. The tissue along the crease of her inner thighs bulged when she tried pulling her feet together. Oh no. No. She was completely restrained.
Spread-eagle.
Helpless.
Shaking in fear.
And at his mercy.
Dear God, help.
She had to get out of there. Now. This instant. Before he appeared to satisfy his blood-crazed lunacy.
She yanked her arms hard. Abrasive bindings tore into her wrists, but the loops didn’t slacken. Not even a fraction of an inch. She yanked again. Nothing.
“Please,” she begged. “Please.” Tears filled her eyes. And as she tugged and pulled and twisted to release her hands, her flesh ripped and searing pain shot to her elbows. But she didn’t care. Not even the warm blood oozing around the restraints swayed her attempts at freedom.
Just then a switch clicked. Rays of light filtered around a corner on the left side of the room. Heavy footsteps pounded on what sounded like wood. Another switch clicked and the immediate area lit up. The brightness assailed her eyes. She blinked until they adjusted, then she squinted while acknowledging her whereabouts. She was inside a small room with chipped, gray brick walls. Dirty white sheets covered the bed she lay on, and she was dressed only in her lacy bra and panties. Below her navel, a dark bruise had formed on her tummy from the blow she’d sustained.
Reluctantly she glanced at the entrance. She swallowed hard and glared into the eyes of the person responsible for her fate.
Rashand.
She remembered the filthy white headband stretched across his forehead. He stood just inside the room, his lips twisted in an eerie grin. His nose was crooked. Dried blood covered the left side of his mouth. His bottom lip was swollen and twice the size as the upper.
At his heels stood the other man from the motel, wearing a tan-colored tunic and black, baggy pants. And if the devil had a face, she was looking at it. He glared at Annalee. A sinister smile contorted his face, exposing a gold tooth behind thin lips.
She gulped as that grotesque guy strode to the bed, removing something from the belt of his grungy clothes.
A knife!
No! Oh no! Oh God!
She tugged frantically at the restraints, her eyes transfixed on the curved, pointed blade.
Her ankles now bled too from the bindings, but she felt no pain. She felt nothing other than her pulse beating the hell out of her throat.
He grabbed her face in one hand and squeezed her cheeks. His gross mouth mashed down on hers and he slipped his tongue between her lips. Oh shit. Oh fuck. Get away from me!
His rank breath permeated her nostrils and she gagged, forcing him to back off. And, dear God help her, she instinctively spit in his face.
A gut-wrenching laugh rolled from the depth of the man’s bowels. As quickly as it’d started, it stopped. His eyes bored into Annalee’s. He wiped his mouth with the backside of his hand then whacked her hard across the face.
Her head flung sideways, but the sting from the blow hadn’t even registered before he sliced her bra in half, grabbed her breast and squeezed.
She clamped her jaws tight, fighting the agony.
“Give her more dose,” Rashand yelled.
Dose? Of what? Oh God. What?
The man released her breast and spun around. He shouted something foreign. Although she couldn’t understand him, his tone signified anger. Palpable fear raced through her blood.
“No so much this time. She no need to sleep so long now.”
Another inaudible, garbled response followed the order. The man glared into Annalee’s eyes as he slid the knife down her neck. She fought to breathe while watching the shiny blade move lower. In between her breasts he grazed it across her skin in the shape of an S, then he glided it along a straight path over her navel to her lower abdomen.
Short, choppy breaths flowed in and out of her nostrils. She sucked in her stomach, disengaging her skin from the knife. The reprieve lasted only a second before he pressed the tip along the inside of her left hipbone above the waistline of her panties and punctured her flesh.
Ohhh God! She swallowed a scream and snapped her eyes shut against the excruciating pain while warm blood oozed toward her belly. Don’t scream. Don’t cry. Dear God, help me. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction—tears might only intensify his perversities. But he didn’t appear to thrive on weakness. Blood seemed to be his driving force and he dragged the blade an inch, carving her flesh.
Ahhh, Jesus, please! She bit her lip, trying to suppress screams, but one long, bloodcurdling cry blared from her lungs as tears slid from the corners of her eyes.
He laughed. The maniacal sound crept through her veins like ice. Her eyes bulged as he repositioned the knife and carved another slash diagonally across the first. Cries of pain expounded inside her head. She clenched her fists and eyelids shut, digging nails into her palms, and flexed her stomach. Holy Mother.
Seconds droned on and on. Hesitantly she opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was the amount of blood oozing from the cuts. What hadn’t absorbed into her panties pooled in the hollow of her stomach. On the mattress beside her waist lay the knife, and in his hand he held a syringe filled with clear fluid. He shot a stream of liquid into the air. As he lowered the needle to her throat, she scrunched her eyes closed and held her breath.
What is it? What’s he going to inject into me?
She broke into a cold sweat. The instant the needle sank into her vein, shooting its contents into her bloodstream, her head turned fuzzy. A burning sensation wormed through her body all the way to her toes. Her legs and arms grew heavy and limp then she felt nothing at all. Nothing but dizziness, like she’d been drinking, only much worse. Soon a floating sensation accompanied it—as if she drifted on a cloud in slow motion. Then suddenly, she dropped. Her stomach vaulted and a rush of nausea choked her.
Deeper and deeper she plummeted into a dark, bottomless pit. The dizziness in her head became intolerable. She prayed for sleep, or death, or some type of escape, but she couldn’t descend far enough into that realm. Please, God, make it stop. The only objects holding her onto consciousness were voices. Deep, distant, masculine voices, fading in and out of range.
* * * * *
By the time they’d turned onto 130th Street, sweat bathed Brent’s forehead. He didn’t have a damn thing to use as a weapon, but his adrenaline pumped too fiercely to give a shit. He couldn’t get past the thought of what Annalee might be going through. And he needed to get her out of there right fucking now.
He hadn’t taken time to examine the motel so he didn’t know if there’d been a struggle, or if they’d blindsided her like they’d done to him. Fuck! If they whacked her that hard, they probably killed her. He recalled the water still running when they’d busted him upside the head, and if they’d entered the bathroom before she’d finished showering… Christ, they would’ve been tempted to rape her on the spot. Had they? His guts flipped. “Turn off the headlights,” he said, rubbing his palms along his thighs. “I think it’s the first driveway.”
When Brody slowed down and flicked off the lights, the area faded to darkness. “I can’t see shit. I’m going to put us in a ditch.”
“Then stop right here.” About fifty feet ahead and nearly one hundred feet on the right side, a light faintly glowed.
After the vehicle stopped, Brent threw open his door, climbed out and dashed toward the end of the driveway. Frozen slush crunched beneath his boots as he trudged toward a white ranch-style house. The wind cut through his leather and spun mists of snow through the air, dusting h
is sleeves and hair. As his eyes focused through the night, he noticed a For Rent sign in the yard surrounded by a mound of snow.
Brody’s footsteps fell into a crunchy beat behind his as he closed in at Brent’s back. “That’s the car I saw leaving the motel,” he said. “I wish I would’ve known it was them. The fuckers wouldn’t have gotten this far. Do they just move into vacant houses whenever they want?”
“They’re probably renting it. They need some type of shelter while planning their dirty work.”
“Slugs.”
A muffled, bloodcurdling scream blared from inside the house, tearing through the darkness. “What the fuck!” Brody exclaimed.
It didn’t sound like Annalee, but Brent never heard her scream in fear or pain so he couldn’t say whether or not it was her. What in the hell were they doing to provoke such a terrified response? Christ, he didn’t want to know. He charged to the closest window and glared into a vacant kitchen while Brody ran to an entrance door. Styrofoam food boxes and sandwich wrappers were stacked and wadded on a butcher block counter.
“The door is locked,” Brody whispered. “But it can easily be kicked in.”
“That won’t work.” Brent trotted to the porch and jiggled the doorknob, testing its strength. “We have to get in quietly. We’re unarmed and I don’t know how many assholes we’re dealing with.”
Another scream blared from inside. This time he instinctively knew it was Annalee. He kicked in the door, using her voice to obscure the bang. Fuck how many assholes they had to deal with, he couldn’t postpone entry. He barged into the kitchen. The scent of cedar and fresh paint smacked him in the face. On the left, lights filtered through an open doorway that led to a basement or cellar. He expected to hear footsteps charge in from all directions, but silence droned throughout the house.
“Please help me,” a female whimpered.
“I think it came from over here,” Brody whispered, pointing toward a dark hallway.
Brent flew past his brother, running his hands along the walls, feeling for a light switch. He couldn’t locate a damn one, but he spotted strips of light peeking beneath three closed doors. As he approached the first, he held his breath, quietly turned the knob and cautiously pushed it open. A blonde woman dressed in nothing but her bra and underpants lay on a bed tied to tall posts. Dried blood was matted in the hair along her temple. A bloody X was carved into her stomach. What the fuck?
Rashand’s mark.
What the hell was going on?
She looked ready to scream. Brent held his index finger over his lips. “Shhh. It’s okay. We’re not going to hurt you.”
Her eyes widened.
“We’re here to help. Do you know where they are?”
She shook her head.
“We’ll get you out of here, I promise. The police are on the way.” He glanced over his shoulder at Brody, who stood so close behind him they nearly butted heads. “Do you have your pocketknife?”
“Yeah.”
Brent looked at the woman. “We’re going to check the rest of the house, then we’ll come back to cut you loose.”
“Please hurry,” she pleaded timidly.
“We will. Brody, I’ll call Sterns to make him aware there are more women here than Annalee,” he said, yanking the phone from his pocket.
Brody nodded and shot down the hall while Brent dialed Sterns’ number. The call instantly went to voicemail. What the hell? The man knew the situation, he should’ve been sitting on his phone. “It’s Delaney. We’re inside the house. Annalee isn’t the—”
“She’s not down here but I’ve found two more ladies,” Brody said. “They’ve been cut and are bleeding too.”
Brent acknowledged him with a nod. “Sterns, we’ve found at least three additional women. They’re all injured. We need a couple of squads dispatched.” His guts knotted as he closed the phone and shoved it back into his pocket. There was a good chance they’d hurt Annalee too, and that stirred a whole new pot of bullshit to swallow.
Where in the hell had they taken her? As much as he wanted to call out her name, he checked his tongue.
“Let’s go, Brent,” Brody said while jogging by. “We’ve run out of rooms up here. We need to check the basement.”
Brent stayed close on Brody’s heels as they fled into the kitchen. Brody stopped beside the stove but Brent headed toward the doorway leading to the basement. Brody grabbed his coat sleeve and yanked him backward before he reached the stairs.
“Shhh. Don’t make any rash decisions, Brent. If they’re down there with Annalee, they’ll use her to ward us off.”
Brent nodded. Yeah, his brother was right. At least he’d kept his wits in order. The only thing on Brent’s mind was getting to Annalee, and he didn’t care how they’d do it. “Then let’s go. I’ll stay on the left side, you cover the right.”
As quietly as possible they approached the stairs and stepped onto the first wooden step. Brent kept his eyes glued on the basement floor, but he felt Brody’s intense gaze on his face, waiting for the first command, as was the same protocol utilized when taking over ships.
Foreign voices echoed up the stairwell, growing louder as they descended the stairs one at a time. Brent kept his back flush to the wall and held his breath, waiting for a board to creak. And just as they dropped one more step, leaving only three to go, Brody’s foot rolled and his knee buckled. He squeezed his eyes shut and rested his head against the wall while fisting his hands against pain.
Oh Christ. That hurt—he’d heard Brody’s ankle snap.
Brent poked his brother in the chest. When his eyes opened, Brent pointed at the stairs, instructing him to sit down, but Brody shook his head, folded his lips together and dropped another step.
Only two remained but Brent couldn’t see anyone within the restricted visual line. They could either walk straight ahead or to the right—those were the only choices. Inhaling sharply and stiffening his shoulders, he squatted and leaned sideways to enhance his view. The backsides of Rashand and his lackey emerged. About twenty feet ahead of them he spotted Annalee in her panties restrained to a bed. Her bra had been severed in half and her breasts were partially exposed. Blood covered her left hip and lower abdomen. Her blood.
Good God.
His guts spun and tightened. And in that instant, he’d never wanted anyone as bad as he wanted Rashand.
Instinctively he felt like jumping off the stairs and beating the motherfucker to death, but he regained control of his emotions and looked Brody in the eye. Brent nodded once indicating it was time and slowly raised his hand to signal the first move.
Rashand and the lackey conversed and laughed amongst themselves, but when Rashand took a step closer to the bed, unhooking his pants, Brent dropped his hand and charged into the room. Brody limped in behind him, heading toward Rashand’s sidekick.
The lackey spun around. Brody pounded him in the face with his fist, knocking him to the concrete floor. Rashand dashed toward Annalee but Brent grabbed his collar and yanked him backward. With the bastard’s hands flailing and feet shuffling to gain balance, Brent tightened his grip on Rashand’s shirt, dragged him across the room and flung him against the brick wall.
“You fucker. You motherfucker,” Brent seethed. “I should’ve killed you months ago.”
Rashand laughed. The feral thunder crawled under Brent’s skin and he wanted the man’s blood. Now. On his hands. No one hurt his woman without suffering the consequences. And from Annalee’s condition, the asshole hurt her bad.
“No, no, no more,” Brent heard at his back. A thwack and a groan accompanied the wail, indicating Brody still had control of the lackey.
Brent grabbed the front of Rashand’s shirt and lifted him off his feet then back- slammed him into the bricks. He saw red, and every ounce of fear he’d held in check on Annalee’s behalf rushed forward in a rage. He released Rashand and uppercut his chin. Rashand’s face flung to the left. Brent delivered a blow directly to his cheek. Tissue and bones
folded under his fist. A tooth flew out of Rashand’s mouth and sailed toward the steps.
Brent punched him again, his knuckles splitting on contact with the bastard’s teeth. Two more flew out of Rashand’s mouth, but Brent kept beating his face, not giving him time to fight back. Even after he rendered Rashand unconscious and he slumped forward, Brent let him drop to the floor, where he squatted and pummeled his face and gut over and over, until Brody came up behind him and grabbed his arm midair.
“He’s had enough, Brent.”
“Your definition of enough differs from mine.”
“Seriously, he’s not worth it. Tend to Annalee. She needs you. I’ll drag these lugs to the steps.”
Brent glanced at the blood gushing from Rashand’s head, nose and mouth. “You’d better thank your lucky stars, you son of a bitch. If it were up to me, I’d put you to sleep permanently.” After wiping the blood off his fists onto Rashand’s sleeve, Brent shot to his feet and raced to Annalee.
Muffled footsteps assaulted Annalee’s ears, followed by a dragging sound. The noises grew loud and immense, one surging into the next, becoming a constant, overbearing flow. Then silence reigned in the darkness. A long, drawn-out silence she succumbed to.
“Annalee?”
Hmmm?
“I’m going to cover you with my coat. Don’t be alarmed.”
It smelled like leather, spicy musk and man—so much more refreshing than mildew. And it was warm and cozy when placed over her breasts.
Her eyelids were lifted one at a time, but she couldn’t see to identify who’d pried them open.
“Her pupils are dilated. I don’t know whether she’s been drugged, has a concussion or both.” Something moist pressed and lingered tenderly against her temple. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
Brent?
“Wake up, Annalee. Open your eyes. Look at me.”
Brent!
Brent’s here?
“Come on, sweetheart, you can do it.”
Brody?
“Brody, cut her loose. Slice the ropes at the posts and keep that blade away from her wrists. Her skin is pretty torn up.”
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