by Dani Wyatt
Chloe’s voice.
My eyes closed as a warm thrill washed over my body, like a gush of water. I wanted her. Oh God, that voice.
“Why are you so far away from me, Baby? What did you do?”
My cock sprang to life at the mere sound of her voice, but I was focused on my mission. I had to figure out where she was. “Lead me to you, babygirl.”
So I can wrap you up in a blanket and carry you back to your new home. So you can sleep safe next to your Daddy. So I can take you and show you what it feels like to have me buried in your sweet pussy. I want you to spend your days with me forever, knowing nothing but love.
Over the microphone, a metal door slammed in its frame.
I heard Trixie.
“What are you talking about? What the hell did you do to her, Dad?”
My heart lurched into my throat, pounding with fear.
“She was getting away.” Edgar growled. “Running back to get to your man!”
“No. You said you asked to be close to her. What the absolute fuck? Does that mean what it sounds like it means?”
“She’s a little fucking whore, that’s what matters.”
A pause, then Trixie’s voice again: “Dad, this is too much. Don’t do this.”
“What the fuck did you do to her?” I slammed my fist on the desk.
“Chloe, I’m going to untie you.”
“No, leave her tied up like the dirty little pig she is.” There was a scuffled and stomp of boots and I assumed it was Edgar’s rush forward to stop Trix. “Do you want her to go back to Ryder?”
“You’ve already got the door bolted like Fort Knox. Untie her.”
“Trix, please.” Chloe’s feeble voice sent hot shards of pain straight into my heart.
“Tell me where you are, Baby.” I gritted into the laptop, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me.
“Shut the fuck up. You’re a traitor just like her if you do this.” Edgar tried to growl, but it sounded more like the hiss of a lizard, slimy little cold-blood that he was.
My eyes clenched tight. I imagined the pain my little babygirl would be in at that moment. She’d trusted those filthy humans because she was kind and hopeful and naïve. I didn’t want to be right. It shredded me, knowing how her heart must be breaking. She thought they would be different.
I knew better.
It was different this time. When she lived with them, she had nowhere to run. But now? She had her own home. She had a safe place to turn to, she had a man who loved her.
Now, when I got her back, which I knew I would no matter where she was, she would chuck that trash family in the garbage where they belonged. She would come back to her Daddy, who treated her like the princess that she was.
“At the very least, untie her legs. Her ankles are all twisted.”
Trix sounded desperate, and I was having trouble believing what I was hearing in that regard. Selfish, self-absorbed, evil Trixie...fighting for her sister?
That might be the first time in her godforsaken life that she had paid heed to Chloe. It was out of character for her, but I had a feeling from the tone of her voice that for the first time in a long, long time, Trix was sober. Her voice was stronger, her words clearer, and she sounded truly sickened by what was going on.
Maybe, seeing that her sweet little sister had stolen her boyfriend, she had realized that that ashtray smelling mouth of hers didn’t do anything for a man. But Chloe’s sweet-smelling wonder did.
Well, that sober moment where she fought for her sister? That took her right off my list of people to avenge for my babygirl. She had earned herself a get out of jail free card.
Edgar however, was still as drunk a fucker as he always was. His voice was laced with the drawl that his cheap whiskey provided.
And then I heard the woman who had given birth to Chloe. Janice sounded like she had a sore throat, but that’s what her voice was like all the time.
“Chloe stole your husband, Trix, and she's going to have his babies and live in that palace of a house he’s bought. This sister of yours has stolen your life.”
“I wasn’t ever going to have babies with him anyway. Remember? Your plan was I take him for whatever I could, then come back to you. Set us all up for life.”
“Of course, you’d have to have one baby. Imagine the child support he’d have to pay. But now, none of it is ever going to happen. Your little sister has fucked up everything and ruined my life...our lives.”
I wanted to hear Chloe’s soft voice again. She had turned quiet. It was so like her. She was used to being bullied and bruised by those people.
“Don’t untie her. Leave her, I said!” Edgar’s warning came out as a hiss.
“I'm untying Chloe’s legs. She's in pain.” Trix sounded determined.
“She's going to run back to that fucker, you want that?”
“She’s inside four walls in an old abandoned warehouse. She doesn't know her way back home from here. Plus, even if she did manage to get out of here, what would she do? She doesn’t have a car and I haven't even seen a truck cross that old road across the junkyard. This old electronics warehouse is in the middle of nowhere. I hate her for what she's done. But for Christ’s sake just loosen that rope on her leg.”
Abandoned warehouse and junkyard.
I stood up so fast the chair toppled and crashed on the floor. “I know where she is.”
I snapped my laptop shut and stormed my way down the stairs. I turned to check on Nanna, who had curled up on the couch and fallen asleep.
Just as well. I didn’t have time to explain to her where Chloe was.
I scribbled a note that I’d run to pick up Chloe, and if she needed to leave the driver outside would take her right back home, then I ran out the house and into my car. Ralph looked up, but he was a good soldier. Unless I asked, he’d remain at his post. My finger slammed into the ignition, and a mere second later, tires screeched on the driveway as I sped out in reverse, spinning the car around and making my way down the road.
My knuckles were white on the steering wheel. A thin rope was cutting into my Baby’s flesh where she was tied at the ankles and wrists. In a warehouse that produced electronics.
I swerved hard, my heart thumping loudly. I had the evidence to put those fucks behind bars now. I wasn’t just stopping at redemption anymore. I had planned to shake up their life and make them face some consequences of their actions—to teach them a lesson.
Now, my mission was total destruction.
I knew how Chloe must be hurting. I could just picture her, watching the door, waiting for me to show up and save her. The urgency of doing exactly that made me hit the gas harder.
“I'm coming, babygirl.”
Fifteen minutes of speeding, and it finally came into view—the old warehouse that I knew for a fact belonged to an old electronics factory.
It had to be this one. There was a junkyard between the warehouse and the main road, and an overgrown, hard concrete lot out front.
I scanned the perimeter of the building and spotted peeling paint on the back of a truck. A truck that was parked behind an overgrown hedge in an attempt to conceal it from view of the main road. That beat up old red truck had little paint left on its body and I’d recognize the scrap anywhere. It was Edgar’s car.
I hit the brakes and a storm of dust billowed around me as I jumped out of the car.
My feet hit the dry dust hard as I ran, tapping 911 onto my phone and pressing it to my ear.
“911. What's your emergency?”
“My girl’s been kidnapped by her sexual predator father and abusive mother. She's being held in the old warehouse owned by Janssen Electronics, that closed down five years ago. I'm going in. If I kill those kidnappers, it’s self fucking defense.”
“Stay outside and I’ll send units—”
I hung up, my heart pumping blood to my fists as I reached the large metal doors.
My Baby was on the other side. I was going in.
“Edg
ar, I'm going to fucking destroy you!”
Chapter Twelve
Chloe
“LOOK AT YOU, ALL DOLLED up in that fancy shirt.”
My mother’s spit sprayed the side of my face as she spoke, and I turned sideways to avoid it.
“I’ve never seen something so painfully white in my life. But don’t you feel fancy, Chloe? Rubbing your betrayal of your family in our faces?”
I curled into the corner, but the rope was digging into my bare ankles just above my new sneakers, and I winced, biting my lip to swallow the cry.
“She thinks she's better than all of us.” My father paced the room like a caged animal, his bloodshot eyes shooting sparks of distaste at me. “Look at her, showing up in her shiny new clothes and shoes.”
My mother wasn’t done. “You were always good for nothing. From the day you were born, everything went wrong. Even your father lost his job.”
My gaze settled on an ant making its way across the dusty floor.
Staring at something to detach myself from my situation was a survival tactic that had served me well throughout my life. My parents screamed and called me vile names that I didn’t even know the meaning of, and I stared at something until they were done ranting.
My mother’s shrill voice was scratchy because of all that smoking. “We had such a wonderful plan. We were going to get out of the trailer park and go somewhere nice for once. We’d have taken you with us, Chloe, we’re not monsters. Why did you have to steal all of it for yourself, you selfish little bitch?”
“She’s always been selfish. I never liked that about her. And your sister, Chloe, your beautiful sister, what did she ever do to hurt you?” Dad spat at me. “You stole her husband. Her future. Our future.”
In some twisted, fake, fantasy world, even if Ryder had married Trix, Trix was just going to steal his money and leave. It was Dad himself who had sketched out the entire plan of robbing Ryder of the wealth he’d inherited.
I also did not bother pointing out to Mom that Dad had in fact not lost his job after I was born. He had exaggerated the damage from an accident at work and decided to stay home, so he could live off a disability check his whole life.
They didn’t listen. They never cared.
That’s what Ryder said.
Why didn’t you listen?
He told you everything would work out just fine, if you always mind him.
I closed my eyes and a lone tear rolled down my cheek. I missed Ryder. I missed the safety his closeness provided. But I had betrayed him. I had made him trust me, and then I had slaughtered his pride. That’s not what he had expected from me.
What if Ryder never came back for me? I was back in the prison he had broken me out of, and I had no one to blame but myself. I glanced wistfully toward the door, but I knew I’d blown it. I’d set fire to all the love and adoration Ryder had for me.
I had put myself back in this hellhole, surrounded by people who didn’t give a fuck if I lived or died.
They didn’t even care that I’d come here so they wouldn’t have to leave the trailer they called home. I’d betrayed my Daddy for them, the scum of the earth. From the corner of my eye, I saw my mother’s leg pulling back. Her pointed shoe struck the side of my thigh and I screamed, jerking back and moaning. Her hand slid over my thigh and I recoiled, expecting to be hit again. But she pushed her fingers into my pocket.
“You must have some cash on you. All fancy t-shirt and new jeans. What's this?”
I glanced at what my mother had retrieved from my pocket. The price tags from my clothes I’d snapped off on the bus. She grimaced as she realized it wasn’t the cash she expected, before her eyes bulged out of their sockets.
I covered my face with bound hands, waiting for a punch, a slap.
Instead, those wide eyeballs protruded until I was sure they would pop out and hit me in the face. In a mixture of awe and distaste, her gaze drifted from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
“Edgar, this little shit is wearing $900 jeans and a $150 t-shirt.”
My father’s black eyes stared at my chest, then at my legs.
“You slut! Must be sucking off his rod good and hard for him to be throwing that kind of money on your worthless ass. Getting those A’s at school and bragging about your nice little scholarship to taunt Trix. In the end, all you are is a slut who sucks off a cock because he’s a millionaire. Cleaning up his jizz to get to wear fancy clothes. You disgust me. I should have taught you a lesson all those years ago, when I had the chance.”
Tears burned my eyes, and a hollow ache throbbed in my chest. I searched frantically for that little hardworking ant that had provided a distraction just a few minutes ago.
How long would I stay here like this? Forever?
The thin plastic rope dug into my flesh. Next to my white sneakers, a pair of glossy pink sandals appeared. “Trix?”
Trix had heard everything. I knew things were about to get worse now that she knew how expensive my clothes were. She wouldn’t be bothered about her tied-up sister being in pain anymore. She’d be burning up in a jealous rage.
“This is enough.”
I gaped at Trix in happy surprise.
“She’s sucking off your man’s cock in return for thousand-dollar jeans, Trixie. Don’t feel sorry for her.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Trix said in a slow whisper.
I noticed that her eyes were open wider than usual. She didn’t look as gaunt as she did the last time I saw her. Without that awful yellow-toned dollar-store foundation and her cheap fake eyelashes, she looked...her age.
I didn’t know if it was the grief of losing Ryder that had made her lay off the makeup cakes, but it worked for her.
She wasn’t the old Trix anymore.
“I’m cutting off that rope, right now.” Trix announced.
“Leave her, I said!” Edgar’s warning came out a hiss.
“I'm untying her. She's in pain. You want to stop me, stop me.”
“She's going to run back to that fucker, you want that?”
Trixie disappeared behind me, and a moment later I felt the cord pull tighter as she worked at the knot.
“Forget about the little shit’s legs being tied! I say we take the truck and this pile of trash and get on the road. Make Ryder pay to get her back.” My father looked at me like I was a slug sitting on his sandwich, his mouth twisting in disgust. “If Ryder would even want her back now. He's had his taste of her pussy, and he’s going to throw her out anyway.”
My mother’s scratchy voice was shrill. “Stop that, Theresa! Let her suffer.”
My father kicked the ground in frustration, but Trix still pulled at the knot behind me. I doubted he had the courage to actually step in and stop her.
“Call Ryder and ask him for money if you want, Dad,” Trix said slowly. “If that’s your plan now....”
The softness in Trixie’s voice made a sob break free from my chest. I’d never heard it directed toward me. I’d never heard it directed at anyone. That tone of voice did not ever escape Trix’s lips—until now. The lack of cheap alcohol in her bloodstream had revealed my long-lost sister from somewhere inside, and I was grateful from the bottom of my heart. Knowing there was one person in that place that still cared about me meant more than I could say.
“I’ll get these off in a moment, sis, just hold on.”
But where my father was a coward, my mother was an uncompromising bitch, and she couldn’t bear to see Trix’s kindness. “She is an ungrateful witch! Don’t untie the whore, I’m warning you, Trixie. She's gobbled up all our dreams.”
Trix ignored her, and I felt the cord loosen, but it was like a storm had just broken loose. Mom flew across the room, and I heard a yelp as she grabbed Trix and pushed her to the ground.
“No!” I looked up to stop Mom, and instead saw bright flashing lights behind my eyelids. Her palm landed on the side of my face with enough force to snap my head sideways and slam it against the wall.
/> And the world went blissfully black.
Chapter Thirteen
Ryder
I heard a scream from the other side of the door, and a growl ripped from my chest as I hurled myself sideways against the door. It flew open and slammed into the wall with a crash like thunder.
And three pairs of eyes looked up.
Edgar and Janice’s eyes were bloodshot and wild. Trix’s were large and worried as she knelt down next to a tiny bundle on the floor.
My bundle. It was my Baby.
“What the fuck did you do to her?”
Instinct made me yank Trix’s hands off Chloe harder than I might have meant, and she stumbled back.
Trix was a flurry of words. “She hit her head against the wall. I think it knocked her out. I tried to—”
“Chloe!” I cupped my babygirl’s face between my palms and pulled it up to mine.
My fingers pressed onto the soft spot behind her ear, and the drumming pulse gave my heart life again.
“Chloe, wake up. It’s me.”
Her eyes, the large brown pools of innocence, fluttered open. She seemed to not see me at first, and stared back with a glazed look.
“Chloe, it’s Daddy,” I whispered. “I'm here. You’re safe.”
A sob broke from her pink lips. “I'm s...so sorry.”
I yanked her little body into my chest and reached for the pocket knife, snapping it out. Edgar screamed and hid behind Janice. Distaste boiled inside me. I’d puke just watching him. The sick fucker.
I reached down and quickly cut the thin ropes off my babygirl’s delicate wrists, and lifted her up in my arms.
“You can’t take her!” Edgar peered from behind the human shield he’d made of his wife.
I glared at Edgar with enough hot fury to make him lurch behind his wife again. “You're lucky I have Chloe to worry about right now. Or this would end with your blood splattered everywhere.”
“Who are you to her?” Janice screamed in a gravelly voice, her bleached hair burnt and tangled around her face. “She can’t leave us.”
“Chloe is an adult. She already has left you vile fuckers. You better accept that. And, just so you know, I recorded every single word you said to Chloe in here. It’s with the police right now.”