Leather Jacket pressed his lips against my ear. “Oh, but we do. That’s the fun of it.” He pulled back and tapped a vein, then stabbed the needle into the crook of my arm. The sharp prick heralded more doom.
Instantly, the heat of my fever was replaced with numbness. My head lolled on my shoulders as liquid horror made its way around my body—stealing limb control, turning the volume down on my soul.
My personality faded, muted by distance and echoes. The drug stole my thoughts on why I should care, blurred boundaries of right and wrong.
I screamed silently as I drowned in venomous smog until finally I sighed, completely dead inside.
Leather Jacket chuckled, speaking in a string of words that made no sense. His head seemed to swell to gigantic proportions, and I giggled.
He’s a fucking idiot—he can’t even speak properly.
Visions of dancing alphabets kept me company. Vowels pranced by in drag; consonants strutted past in dominatrix wear. An S tangoed with an X, while the Q—
Fuck, the Q.
Why did I hold such fondness for that letter? Such a lifeless character and yet it dragged hot, determined emotion from the dregs of my heart.
That letter belonged to someone else, someone worthy, not the drugged captive.
A heavy wall of nausea slammed into me, chasing lethargic blood, trying to remember.
I flinched as Leather Jacket squeezed my breast and breathed hot on my face. “Forget everything you ever knew, bitch. You thought Mexico was bad? That was fucking Disney World compared to this carnival ride. You aren’t human anymore.”
His slimy hands twisted my nipple, cutting through the haze like a whiplash. “I’m going to enjoy every moment we have together. You’ll never know what’s coming, you’ll never heal. The drugs will turn you against everything you’ve ever known. They’ll tear your brain apart with hallucinations. I’m gonna fuck you up, pretty girl, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
His touch dropped from my breast to between my legs and squeezed. “Then let’s see you fight.”
*****
Roast chicken.
The smell of delicious food roused me from my drug-coma, fluttering my eyes back to the world of the living.
The moment I woke, I wanted to descend back into the fog-filled abyss I’d lived in since Leather Jacket made promises that made me want to slit my wrists and paint my cell red.
“Hello, girl. How pleasant to see you again.”
The man who ran the operation—the same one who ordered me to be drugged and stuffed on a plane bound for Paris—sat on the edge of my pallet. His sky blue eyes, so like Brax’s, reminded me how drastically my life had changed. His perfect clothes and blond shaggy hair looked as if he’d stepped from an Aussie beach and needed a surfboard under his arm.
“Here, let me help you up.” His hands scooped under my arm, levering me into a slouch. I wiped away drool from the corner of my mouth as fumbling life came back into my body.
My eyes latched onto the platter of chicken, vegetables, and bread. Gone was the ability to think. My stomach roared and stabbed with a thousand desperately hungry knifes.
White Man chuckled, nodding. “That’s for you. If you do what I say.”
Shit. What the hell did he want? What more could I give?
“Esclave, don’t give up. Stay alive. For me.”
Tears pressed and every regret I felt for pushing Q too far choked me. I should never have made him come that morning. I should’ve thanked him for every bit of attention and fair treatment he gave me. Why would he come for someone who promised to make his life hell so she could own him?
Why did you push him away?
My mind couldn’t focus anymore—everything was upside down, back to front.
Suddenly, no matter how hungry I was, I couldn’t stand the thought of eating. My heart was empty; my stomach should be, too.
White Man ran a fingertip along the back of my hand. “Stop thinking. It gets easier if you let the drugs take you.”
A loud cough stole my oxygen, racking my body with barks. Once the spell was over, I looked up with watery eyes, begging him to let me go. “Please. I’ll do whatever you want.”
He stiffened, and shadows lined his face. “You didn’t do what I wanted the first time. I must say, I’ve never had a client demand us to collect his purchase before. I almost didn’t agree—after all, it’s not my business once monies have been exchanged—but the Red Wolverine had a very valid point.”
I gulped, hanging my head. What did I do wrong as a slave? I fell for my master. I taught him that two people could be perfect for each other. What was so wrong about that?
White Man continued. “I grow rather close to the clients who buy merchandise from me. So you can imagine I want to maintain a happy relationship with them. This particular buyer sent us to collect you for a rather unforgivable reason.”
He stopped, buffing his fingernails on his trousers. “Do you want to know what you did wrong?” Not waiting for my reply, he carried on, “He bartered you for a business transaction. That same business transaction met with…difficulties.” He laughed. “Of course, it does help that he paid double what you cost with strict orders to ruin you.”
My eyes shot to his, trying to unscramble the mess of sentences. Drugs clouded me, leaving me in a stark reality where I could only hope death was short and fast.
As a last resort, I asked, “How much did I cost? I’ll buy myself. You’re a businessman, let me make it worth your while.”
Q would give me the money. I had no doubt about that.
White Man stood, throwing his head back in mirth. “You’re worth more to me than money now, girl. You see, my orders are simple.” His eyes narrowed and all humanity dissolved—I stared into a killer’s soul. “You are to be unrepairable. And after your little stay with us before, I know your strength lies in your mind. You won’t be broken by physical abuse—your key to breaking is something harder. Something I haven’t come across, but I’m looking forward to seeing put into action.”
He leaned down, eyes looking deep into mine. His cologne gagged me with its cloying, syrupy stench. His blue gaze ripped me into bleeding pieces. “You will work for me. You will do what I say, when I say it. You will beat other women. You will hurt them so fucking bad their minds will shatter and you’ll wear their lives on your soul. If you don’t do what I tell you, I’ll kill them to make you obey.” He grabbed my chin; his Mediterranean accent snapped every word into violent shards. “Do you understand?”
I understood. I understood that I would become well and truly deformed as a human being. I would be made to abuse other women in order to keep them alive.
No.
I wrenched my face out of his iron grip, glaring. “I’ll give you a million dollars to release me. Give me access to a phone and the money can be in your account tonight.”
And then Q will rip your intestines from your stomach and burn you alive, you bastard.
He stood, smoothing his black shirt and jeans. “You’re a fighter to the end. I respect that. But the next time I see you, if you speak back, you’ll regret it.”
I had every intention of fighting back. I would make them hurt me. I would never be responsible for another woman’s spiral into madness.
“You’re worth more than dollar signs now, girl. Better get used to taking orders.”
He pushed the plate of food toward me before striding toward the door. “Enjoy your last meal as a free woman. Tomorrow you belong to me, and you’ll have a full day’s work ahead of you.”
The door slammed behind him, resonating in my barren cell. The fever roared in my blood, making me weak and terrified.
I was no longer merchandise. I was an employee.
I can’t contain him, you set me free. This isn’t a role I play, the monster is me…
“Anything?” I demanded as Frederick hung up the phone.
“Nothing. He says he’s been banned from their operation for months, ever
since he won a knife fight and killed one of the Wolverine’s guards.”
I stared at the ceiling, struggling with my anger. The rage bubbled in my blood, never granting peace. All I wanted to do was tear through the globe and kill anyone who stood in my way. I wanted goddamn answers. I wanted a victim I could string up and torture names from. But nothing.
Fucking nothing in two long days.
Two long fucking days where I turned my entire book of contacts upside down, and nothing. I harassed, I cursed, I pleaded, I threatened. Every single trafficker, every single man I’d ever accepted a bribe from and not one of them knew a fucking thing.
Tess had vanished. No one knew anything. No one would talk.
“Try harder, Roux. We’re running out of time.”
Frederick scowled, tapping the phone in his hand. “I know you won’t rest until you find her, man, but you’ve been awake for forty-eight hours. You barely survived a migraine that kicked your ass, and your blood pressure is through the roof.”
I stopped rifling through some old transaction files. I wanted to rip his fucking head off for suggesting I sleep. As if that was an option when Tess could be God knows where, dealing with fuck knows what. “I’m not wasting energy telling you to piss off, Roux.” I waved angrily. “Go and help Franco. Be useful or leave. I have shit to do.”
I didn’t have time for anything but searching. I ran purely on vengeance and the need to kill.
I’d never had people in this space before, but now I didn’t give a shit about having a private zone. All I cared about was finding Tess.
If it meant I had to demolish every building I owned to do so, then so be it.
Standing abruptly, I grabbed the stack of files from my desk and strode into the bedroom.
For two days I hadn’t left my office. The rooms were a mess with strewn paper and scribbled notes. I had a small army of people in the lounge, overseen by Franco. The moment we looked at the security footage and saw how two black-haired men bypassed the coding on the lift, we knew it had to be a trafficker with money. They’d had the password—only someone with a substantial bank balance and knowledge of how I worked could figure it out—or buy it.
They strolled in, bold as fucking day, and took an unconscious Tess to the basement level where another accomplice had been waiting.
The only people who had security clearance on my private lift were head of cleaning and head of building security. Both were being interrogated right now. I didn’t fucking go to all the trouble to keep my office out of bounds for the fail safes not to protect it.
And the bitch was, I knew who would’ve bribed or tortured to get the passkey, but I daren’t move until I had proof Tess was there. If I was wrong the entire company would come crashing down. The real kicker was I didn’t care about the company, but I did care about the women who hid in its protection.
“Fuck.”
I slapped my cheeks, trying to stay alert. It was hard fighting through the sludge. The residual brain-crushing pain of my migraine had stolen more from me than just coherent thought and vision.
It stole time.
For twelve hours, I was useless. Finding Tess’s hair ripped out on the bathroom floor with the syringe had been the final bullet, and I’d blacked out.
My body had reached its limit—turns out I wasn’t invincible after all—and if it hadn’t been for Frederick, I would’ve lost the plot entirely. I vibrated with loathing; I ached with the strength of a thousand beasts to cover my hands in blood.
I needed to make the cocksuckers pay; I’d never rest until I did. But the headache cursed me to be a useless invalid, hogtying me to a long-suffering sentence.
I physically hit a fucking wall. And it gutted me.
Frederick organised the team to help search. He ordered Franco to arrange his top men to leave at a moment’s notice. He made a thousand calls, sent a hundred emails, all the while I lay dead in the dark.
My vision completely deserted me, and I was sensible enough to know I was a hindrance, not a help. But it still fucking hurt to stay out of their way, concentrating on myself rather than Tess. It was wrong, and I cursed the weakness in my blood.
I let Tess down. I left my woman to suffer at the hands of bastards all while I huddled in a fucking corner and popped painkillers like Tic-Tacs.
It wasn’t until Frederick snuck a sleeping tablet into a handful of codeine that I fell asleep, and the migraine lost its power over me.
But the sleep wasn’t restful; it robbed the rest of my sanity.
Images of blood and broken bones and Tess screaming ceaselessly for my help. Her voice stabbed my heart over and over, full of accusation for letting this happen to her.
The moment I woke, I’d thrown myself headlong into tracking down the cunts who took her. But I hadn’t stopped to use my useless brain.
Breathing hard, I perched on the end of the bed and fanned out the files. Now that I had no one prying down my neck, I opened the paperwork that might hold some clues to finding her.
The records on all the girls I saved.
Tess’s details were at the back and I cracked the folder open.
Subject: Blonde Girl on Scooter
Barcode reference: 302493528752445
Age: Twenty to thirty
Temperament: Angry and violent
Sexual status: Not virgin
Sexual heath: No diseases
Ownership guidelines: Recommend strict punishment to break temper. Trim body, fit enough for extreme activities.
History: No living relatives
My eyes fell to the number. I’d tried to track Tess using the device when I sent her back to Australia, but it didn’t work. I always thought she removed it when she went home to Brax. I’d been pissed and proud at her for cutting it out because it meant she was safe even though I couldn’t spy on her whereabouts.
Try it anyway. You ever know.
My mind spooled back to letting Tess go. My sacrifice hadn’t been voluntary. I wanted to keep her forever, but I didn’t want to crush her. Tess was my phenomenon. The once in a lifetime dream that I never thought I’d get. And I’ve fucked it up.
Motherfucker, screw it. I wouldn’t sit here holding my cock while the Red Wolverine had Tess. He’d left his note—deliberately to get me to hunt him. If it was a trap, I didn’t care anymore. No one was more important than Tess.
Grabbing the spare laptop I kept in the bedside table, I called up the program associated with the tracking number and entered in the code. It was a waste of time, but I had to check.
The connection took a while, and I placed my hand on the lid to close it. See, she did remove it.
Then a small map appeared, followed by zooming in, faster and faster until it zeroed in on the one country I’d suspected and hoped to avoid.
Intense anger throttled my limbs. I wanted to howl. A month she’d been back in Australia. A full fucking month and she didn’t remove it? What a moron. An idiot. Did she enjoy playing roulette with her life?
I wanted to kill her for being so stupid. She gave them the perfect way to find her!
When I get my hands on her, by God I’ll make her pay.
If she’d been standing in front of me, I would’ve cut it out myself and wrung her neck for being so stupid.
At least I now had proof.
The Red Wolverine had her—it was undeniable.
I wanted to ruin him. I wanted to take away his business, his money, his very flesh and blood. And only when he had absolutely nothing would I torture him until he begged me to kill him.
That’s how much I hated Gerald’s guts.
Tess was in Russia.
“Frederick, get your ass in here!”
Footsteps charged down the corridor, soft on the carpet. “What is it? What’d you find?”
I threw the laptop to the side. “I’ve confirmed he has her in Russia. We’re leaving.” I brushed past him, but he stopped me.
“But we asked the contacts we have in his team. They sai
d they haven’t seen a girl matching Tess’s description. If we barge in and start shooting, you’re ruined, Q. The rest of your contacts will come after you. Think clearly for a moment. Are you sure he’s got her?”
I bared my teeth and rushed back to the bed. Grabbing the laptop with the flickering red dot in Moscow, I shoved the machine into his arms. “Enough fucking proof for you?”
Leaving him to worry that my company was about to dissemble and fall into ruin, I careened into the lounge to find Franco.
I moved like a fucking whirlwind of male fury.
His dark brown hair hung over his forehead and lack of sleep made his eyes raw and brutal. He looked up as I crooked a finger for him to come to me. When he was away from the other staff, I muttered, “Call up nine of your top mercenaries. Meet me at the airport in an hour. We’re going in. I don’t care if we have to kill every last bastard if it means we find her.”
No element of surprise or pause; Franco knew when to just obey orders. His eyes glinted with pleasure. “Yes, sir. I’ll see you at the airport.”
Frederick, with his old fashioned style and friendly personality was the polar opposite to me—he lived a tame life, married the sweet girl, lived in a presentable house—while Franco, the man I hired because I saw how efficiently he killed, indulged in the same hobbies I did, just on a more acceptable scale. Franco and I never talked about our similarities, but we knew. It was easy to spot the monster in others. He may look like a gentleman: moving sedately, speaking eloquently, but beneath the sleek façade lurked a killer with a temper. Franco had no remorse for dealing out vengeance to those who deserved it.
And that made him fucking perfect.
I may be going to Moscow, to the den of the Red Wolverine, but I went with armed men whom I trusted with my life.
My cell phone rang in my pocket. I grabbed it with one hand, nodding at Franco to go and fulfil his orders.
“Mercer,” I snapped.
Frederick came back into the lounge and gave me the thumbs-up sign. The tightness in my chest unwound a little. His approval for smashing the reputation of Moineau Holdings meant more than I wanted to admit. Who knew what we would be able to salvage from the rubble once this was all over.