Survival

by J Marie

  “Well, now that’s just a given.”

  I shrugged again. “Could have been worse. I considered blowing up one of your sports cars, but I didn’t have the time. You should consider yourself lucky.”

  A soft laugh left his throat as he rubbed his face and began to pace the room slowly. His suit was a little disheveled and he looked like he hadn’t slept much.

  “Do you have any idea of the amount of bullshit I have been dealing with because of you?” he roared at me.

  “Well, considering the amount of bullshit you’ve already put countless other women and me through, you cannot imagine the immensity of the fuck I do not give,” I replied harshly.

  He slowly shook his head at me. He seemed somewhat collected on the outside, but inside, I knew he was boiling with rage. I couldn’t really blame him, though. But, of course, I wasn’t done fueling the fire.

  “I don’t know what the fuck was going through your head when you thought you might actually get away from me. You had to have known I would find you.”

  “You and I both know this was never about escaping,” I replied. “It was about sending a message, and I successfully did that, so whatever happens next doesn’t matter to me because I did what I needed to do. And ya know what, let’s just be honest here. You’re not mad at me for getting away. You’re mad at yourself because you underestimated me like I said you would. It’s okay, Darren, you can admit it.”

  Darren stared at me for a short second before his mouth curved into a smile and a low chuckle left his throat.

  “I suppose you’re right, princess. You are full of unexpected surprises … but it won’t happen ever again,” he promised darkly.

  “I’m sure it won’t.” I glared back at him.

  Challenge accepted.

  ~*~

  I’m not really proud of what I did next, but Jaden had to learn who was in control, that running away or even thinking about running was never an option and that she would always pay for it. For the last twenty-four hours, I had been dealing with some serious damage control. I was running on only a few hours of irritated sleep and was stressed and aggravated beyond belief.

  At least, my meeting in New York turned out to be successful as fuck, with this year’s contract promising to be more profitable than last year’s. If Jaden had fucked that up, things would be even worse for her.

  I had sent orders out for my men to finish tracking the rest of her family, but most of the immediate ones had suddenly disappeared. Her old boyfriend had vanished without a trace, along with her mother, brothers, and best friend, which sorely pissed me off. I wanted that fuck’s head on my fucking desk. They did manage to find one family member, though …

  I knew Jaden was weak and tired from the slight starvation Hagen had been putting her through. Normally, I would have been against it, but I wanted her to realize how grateful she should be to me for taking care of her at my home. Plus, I wanted her essentially diminished for what I was about to do to her.

  The first thing I did was backhand her across the face, purposely splitting her lip. I wanted it to hurt every time I kissed her for the next few days. She groaned, slumping to the side of the bench before I grabbed her and tossed her around the room, slamming her into the walls while she fell to the floor in a heap. She tried defending herself, but when I used as much of my strength as I did, she could barely even stand. I picked her small frame up from the floor and slammed her down onto the padded bench. She groaned as I ripped her skort from her lower body in shreds, finally plunging into her so hard she screamed and immediately began to cry.

  Her tears only made me harder as I fucked her with so much force I expected her to feel it for the next several days. But what made it even better … was that she was fucking wet. I had successfully trained her body for this specific conditioned response so that every time she was afraid of me, her body would still want me. And I fucking loved it.

  I ripped her shirt in pieces from her body and tore apart her bra, roughly gripping her flesh and biting into her. She tried to claw and punch at me, but I grabbed both of her wrists and slammed them down above her head causing her to shriek in terror.

  Good. I wanted her scared. I wanted her absolutely terrified so she would know who she was fucking with and that she was never to run from me again. She would fear me for the rest of her life because she would know exactly what I would do to her should she ever disobey me like this again.

  After about a minute, I flipped her over onto her stomach and re-entered her just as hard. She screamed again, clawing at the bench, but she had nowhere to go. I then took out my phone and began to play the video my men had sent me from a day ago. I set it down in front of Jaden’s face and pulled her head back by her hair so she had no choice but to watch.

  The video showed her uncle, who lived on his own in Muskegon, Michigan. After my men had tortured him for a short while, they lit his house on fire, leaving him to the flames as she had my home. Luckily, I had a sprinkler system set up for any such occasion.

  Jaden screamed and cried even harder as she watched the video. She tried to fight me again, but she had nothing to go on.

  “I hope it was worth it, Jaden,” I spat in her ear. “Because if you thought things were bad before, they are about to get so much worse for you. I told you running was a mistake. I told you I would always find you, and now, you’re going to pay the fucking consequences.”

  A few seconds later, I came inside her and she continued to scream and cry under me, but I wasn’t letting up. I would never let up.

  I picked her back up and tossed her again, fury boiling in my veins as I thought about all the other bullshit she could have accomplished had she had more time. I grabbed her right wrist, pulling her to me and squeezing hard until I felt the bone finally snap from the pressure. She screamed and thrashed as I brought her to my chest and crushed her to me. I cut off her cries as I pulled her face to mine and kissed her fiercely, tasting the fresh blood on her lip.

  “Darren, stop, please!” She screamed when I finally pulled away, terror filling her voice, but I refused to back down. I suddenly had no desire to hear her speak. She had broken so many rules, and now, she would learn.

  I gripped her jaw, squeezing it in my hand until I felt the bone crunch like sand. Jaden’s muffled screams sent a flurry in my chest as I held her there, her tears falling over my fingers as I kept her mouth shut. I tossed her against another wall before grabbing her again, snaking my arms around her rib cage and tightened my grip until I felt the bones crunch under my weight. Jaden tried to scream, but it only came out as tight little screeches and gasps. I then let go of her and she dropped to the floor in a heap at my feet.

  She shook at my feet—fear, pain, and regret pouring from her eyes. I pulled out the needle I had in my pocket and bent down over her broken body. I plunged the needle into her arm and she groaned a little more. I then reach down and spoke into her ear before the drug kicked in.

  “Run from me again, Jaden,” I challenged her. “Because if it ever happens again, I can’t promise you I’ll stop next time.”

  I heard her whimper slightly before the drug finally took over and she passed out on the floor. I then gently picked her up, wrapped her naked and bruised body in my suit jacket, and carried her in my arms as I walked out of the cell and back toward the lobby. Scott, Hagen, and a few of my men were waiting there as I walked out with Jaden in hand.

  “All set?” Hagen asked me as I approached, a little bit of concern in his eyes.

  I nodded gravely at him. Now was not the time to ask me questions.

  Scott joined me while the rest of my men followed behind. I headed out to the black armor plated Escalade that was waiting for us in the parking lot. I carefully righted Jaden in my arms and laid her in the backseat with me. I eased her head on my lap as she slept the pain I had just caused her away. When she woke up, she wouldn’t be feeling much better.

  Everything I did, I had already planned to do. I fractured her jaw becaus
e I didn’t want to hear her fucking speak for the next month. I fractured her ribs because I didn’t want her to move a single inch without the painful reminder of her stupid attempt to run. And I broke her right wrist because I wanted her skills diminished so she could see that I could easily take them away if I wanted to.

  The car quickly took off as Scott got in the driver’s seat and we headed for my private jet. With my house under construction and Jaden clearly capable of manipulating the shock collar, I needed her recovery to occur in a secure location – one I knew she would never be able to escape from – my private island in the Caribbean.

  I already had Sid set everything up for Jaden since she’d be out of commission for a while. He was already there, waiting with a private nurse who would finish the job once Sid had to leave. I only planned to be there for the first couple of days as I had so much more shit to take care of back home. Once I had that under control, I would lay low for a while on the island with Jaden while she recovered, reminding her every day of the rules and what would happen if she didn’t follow them. I was not about to let this fuck-up happen ever again.

  I looked down at my sleeping broken beauty and began to string my fingers through the softness of her hair. Even with all the bruises, she was still the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and the thought of her being gone from my life had the storm inside me raging for blood. In a very short span of time, she had become my obsession, my light, my reason for living.

  It was the most remarkable thing and completely unexplainable. I didn’t know how to rationalize my need for her, but anything more than a moment away from her presence was absolute torture. I craved her all the time and the fact she fought me at nearly every turn always had me excited as fuck. She was the color in a white room, the sugar in black coffee, and the fire in my darkness.

  My addiction.

  When Jaden woke up, things were going to be very different for her. If she thought she hated me now, she had no idea what she’d soon be feeling when she finally opened her beautiful amber eyes. Jaden was mine. And I made it my lifelong goal to make her embrace it. And I knew just how to ensure it.

  A dark smile formed on my lips as we pulled up to my jet, the sun setting beyond the horizon in a wave of golden embers. The wheels in my head turned a thousand miles a minute while I twirled a strand of Jaden’s red hair around my fingers. So beautiful, so mine … and so infinitely fucked.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Recovery

  ~*~

  I woke up to the sounds of a slow rhythmic beep. Beep … beep … beep over and over again. My eyes felt heavy, my entire body roared with pain, and it felt like a jackhammer was pounding away inside my head. Forcing my eyelids to crack open, I saw the source of the beep. It was a heart monitor. I looked down to notice I was in a hospital bed with an IV inserted into my arm and the heart monitor clip attached to my finger. Groaning, I adjusted my body only to wince in ultimate pain. Everything hurt. Everything.

  I tried to open my mouth to call out for someone, and suddenly realized that I couldn’t. I heard the heart monitor spike as fear took over my body as I realized my jaw wouldn’t open. I began to panic and nearly screamed.

  “She’s awake,” I heard a male voice call out to someone, and I instantly turned my head to the source to find a guard dressed in a black suit and tie standing beside the door. Then a woman, whom I didn’t recognize, quickly came out of another door near the guard.

  “Oh, good,” she said as she rushed over to me. She was older, had short, thin brown hair, with a plumper frame and bright red lips. She looked to be about in her mid-sixties as she came up to my bedside. “Good morning, Miss Wilder. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. You must be terribly confused.”

  No shit!

  I looked at her with panic in my eyes. Who the fuck was this woman and where the fuck was I? And why the fuck couldn’t I open my jaw?!

  “Shh, shh, calm down before you further injure yourself. You’re going to be okay. I’m Nurse Ginsby, and I’m going to be taking care of you while you recover from your recent injuries.”

  I tried to calm my breathing down as I attempted to get her to tell me the extent of my recent “injuries.” I wanted to know what kind of damage Darren had done to my body. I lifted my right wrist only to wince in serious pain and look down to find it was in a cast.

  Motherfucker.

  “Now, don’t struggle,” she urged me. “Your right wrist is broken and two of your ribs are fractured. Your lower jaw was also fractured which is why you’re mouth has been wired shut to prevent further injury. You also suffered a slight concussion along with multiple external bruising.”

  Now, I was pissed. Darren had not only completely immobilized me, but he also took away my ability to speak and cry for help. He was such a cruel son of a bitch!

  “Your prognosis is good, though,” the nurse beamed positively. “You’ve been asleep for a couple of days and your body is already beginning to heal itself at a fine rate. Depending on your amount of rest, you should be all healed up within a few short months and your jaw will be unwired within the next thirty days.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Thirty days? My jaw would be wired shut for thirty days?! Rage started to fill me again and the beeps on my heart monitor sped up.

  “Now, keep yourself calm,” she pleaded. “Mr. Davis will not be happy if you do something to slow your recovery.”

  I gave her the glare of death.

  “Where is he?” I mumbled without opening my mouth and then winced. Any kind of vibration I made with my throat hurt my jaw.

  “Mr. Davis is away on business and is not currently on the island. He means to return as soon as he knows you’re awake. I imagine he will be here tomorrow.”

  “Island?” I asked her. We were on an island now?

  “Yes, sorry, you were unconscious when they brought you here. We are on Mr. Davis’s private island.”

  “Where?” I spoke softly hoping I might actually have a location disclosed to me for once.

  “The Bahamas, and we’re expected to have great weather this season so there should be plenty of motivation for you to get better so you can soak up some of that sun.”

  The only motivation I had to get better was so I could kill Mr. Davis myself one day. I sat back against the pillow and tried to relax, looking around the room to familiarize myself with my surroundings. A few chairs were spread throughout the white linoleum floor, a small dinner table complete with four chairs, a comfy looking couch against the window, and a fridge next to what looked like a small kitchen complete with counters, cabinets, and a sink. To my left looked to be the bathroom and another door that I didn’t know what it led to. Further left was another door, where the guard sat in a chair next to it, staring straight ahead. I had a feeling he was a permanent fixture in the room.

  “I’m just going to give you a quick assessment, and then I’ll fix you something to eat that your stomach should be able to handle.”

  I nodded, and it fucking hurt.

  Nurse Ginsby assessed everything—checking my breathing, drawing some blood, and determined my pain scale, which was a fucking twenty, by the way. She told me the IV was for my fluids, antibiotics, and my pain medication. A lovely catheter had also been inserted, and I wondered if that was the source of the soreness I felt down there, or maybe it was from Darren.

  When she was satisfied, she went over to the kitchen area and started pulling out some fruit from the fridge. I couldn’t see much of what she was doing, but it looked like she was making me a smoothie, which was probably all I could eat right now. When she returned, she came back with a bottle of water and a smoothie cup with a bendy straw. She cracked the bottle of water open first and put another bendy straw in it.

  “Drink this first,” she said. “It’ll ease your stomach.”

  She held the water to my mouth, and I tentatively barely opened my lips to take the straw. I lightly sucked on the straw, groaning in pain as I did, but when the water r
eached my mouth, I felt a wave of instant relief wash over me. The water felt so good in my mouth, and it calmed my now aching stomach. I finished half the bottle before she took it away and put the smoothie in a cup holder that was close enough to reach my face.

  “I want you to sip on this for a while. It’s a fruit smoothie with lots of protein and vitamins. I tried to make it as thin as possible, but you’ll need to be careful with the suction so it doesn’t hurt too much.”

  I gave her a tiny nod and wrapped my lips around the straw, sucking the thicker liquid down in my gut, the sweet taste of bananas and strawberries on my tongue. It wasn’t easy to suck the smoothie through my teeth and swallow, but when I did, I felt a small wave of nausea come over me and backed off.

  “It’s the medication,” she said. “And the fact you haven’t eaten in the last three days.”

  I looked at her in shock. It had been three days? What the fuck?!

  “We’ve kept you asleep to help your body heal faster,” she replied without looking at me as she checked my heart monitor. “Now, if you can manage to get a good fourth of that down, I’ll let you sleep, but you really need to get some food in your stomach first.”

  I glanced away from her, trying to relax so I could finish more of the smoothie. I took a few more sips before the door to my left opened and I turned to see who it was. A man I recognized instantly. Sid. Darren must have brought him in to help take care of me. He walked his short, fat, old ass toward me, his hands in the pockets of his white doctor coat and addressed the nurse.

  “How’s our patient?” he asked her.

  Uh, I’m right here, asshole.

  “Doing well,” she said, turning to him with a smile. “Vitals are up and her awareness is good. Just trying to get something remotely solid in her stomach so she can rest.”

  “Good,” Sid said as he looked over my chart. I eyed him with hatred to the point where I swore he could feel it. When he finally found his balls, he looked up at me with a no-nonsense look on his face. He didn’t care about me. He was just here on Darren’s payroll.