He’d killed her.
I kept running those three words through my mind, thinking they’d penetrate, but I still couldn’t believe it. That whole scene had been a nightmare because them dragging Nikki in didn’t make any sense.
Perrone slaughtering her didn’t make any fucking sense.
I must be delirious, drugged beyond what my body could handle. I’d hallucinated the whole thing. Tilting my head up, I pulled at the chains holding my wrists hostage. Assholes had strung me on my toes again, back in the pitch-dark room I’d shared with Alex. The echo of her name invaded my head to the bursting point.
The door opened, and I went on full alert even though I couldn’t do shit to protect myself. Perrone filled the entrance, lantern hanging at his side. He set the flickering light on the floor and quietly shut the door before wandering to me, his stride casual, unhurried.
“Alex has an exquisite mouth,” he said. “I’ll give you that. She just demonstrated her exceptional skill on my cock.”
I blinked him into focus, and he struck fast, pummeling my mid-section. I groaned and would have doubled over if my hands weren’t chained to the ceiling.
He grabbed my jaw. “So I understand why you had trouble keeping your cum inside your prick.”
I shook my head free, sucking air between my teeth. “I’ll fucking kill—”
He sent a fist to my jaw, and the pain jolted through my teeth, burned behind my eyes.
“She’s quite malleable. She got to her knees of her own free will and gave me the best damn head I’ve ever had.”
She wouldn’t have done that without being coerced. Unless…
Unless he’d threatened my life.
I wanted to scream at him, gouge his eyes out with a lethal jab of my fingers, rip his fucking cock off and mouth-fuck his goons with it, so I was shocked by the laughter that poured from me. Void of sanity or rationality, I laughed until my stomach cramped where he’d socked me.
I was manic, insane. Probably both. Maybe this was all a screwed up fantasy, and I was a mental patient living inside my own head.
“Why the fuck are you laughing?” Taking a step back, he folded his arms.
“She did it for me. She sucked your tiny dick because she loves me. She’ll always love me.” His eyes widened, and I laughed some more. “You can’t break that. No matter what you do, you can’t break what she feels for me.”
He brought a knee up and rammed me in the stomach. “How about I just break you then, starting with every fucking bone in your body?”
The blow strangled me, but I was still laughing through the pain, and it was a sick mixture of agony and madness.
Perrone’s mouth flattened into a line. He released my hands, grabbed my head, and slammed his knee into me, again and again until I couldn’t laugh anymore.
Until I couldn’t breathe. I slumped to the floor, wheezing air between tight lips.
“I was going to kill you, despite Alex’s oral bribery tactics. But now I think I’ll keep you around for a while, just long enough for you to hear the slut beg for my cock.”
The air stirred as he retreated. I heard the door slam shut, and he must have taken the lantern with him because the never-ending darkness came back. I pushed to my hands and knees, limbs quaking under my weight, and struggled to the cot.
I sprawled on that bed for hours, maybe even days, months…a whole fucking lifetime, and as I drifted in and out of consciousness, images of Nikki’s murder infiltrated my nightmares. So did Alex’s broken pleas for me to save her. I also dreamed of Cleft’s cock in my ass, the strong grip of fingers holding me down.
And the laughter. Always the fucking laughter.
Time passed in a jumbled mess of nightmares that never failed to spring me up from bed, drenched in sweat and shaking to my bones. I was pathetic. I couldn’t even protect the woman I loved.
I loved Alex.
Fuck.
I’d never told her.
I’d also loved Nikki, maybe not in the same intense, out-of-my-fucking-mind way I did Alex, but I’d loved her.
Had I ever told her? Even once?
I’m pretty sure I hadn’t. I was a fucking pussy incapable of telling anyone how much they meant to me. I didn’t need a shrink to tell me I had abandonment issues. I could blame it all on my mom for leaving the way she had, but I was an adult, even if I’d grown into adulthood on the inside of four prison walls. Even if I didn’t remember that transformation, I was twenty-nine fucking years old.
So where did that leave me?
Alone, fucked, and about to die without having ever said those important three little words to anyone.
To my own son.
I held my breath, heart thudding so hard, I thought I might save Perrone the trouble of killing me.
I had a kid.
Nikki.
Holy fuck.
I gripped my head and squeezed my eyes shut. I remembered nothing else, but I knew it was true. She’d had a son, and he was mine.
And now he was motherless, about to be fatherless. But he’d been fatherless all along. I wasn’t fit to be a parent anyway. I wasn’t fit to be loved by Alex either.
Fucking dying down here was for the best.
Eventually, that door opened again, but I didn’t move or acknowledge whoever had ventured into this shithole. Part of me wished they’d just end this hell already.
“You here to kill me?” I asked, a challenge in my tone.
The door shut with a quiet click and a flashlight came on, the beam gliding over my prone figure on the bed. Footsteps sounded, and my pulse sped up in preparation for a fight, because even though I wanted them to get it over with already, I couldn’t go down without one last battle. And I wanted a fair fucking fight. It’d been a while since they dosed me with drugs, and I wouldn’t get a fair go at whichever asshole was in here if he pumped me full of them again.
A bundle of denim landed beside my head, followed by soft cotton. I sprang up and launched myself at whoever was here to drag me into another scene of torture.
“Rafe!” Jax said in a low whisper.
I let go of him and stumbled back.
He aimed the beam of light into my face. “I’m getting you outta here. Get dressed.”
I didn’t move at first, too stunned in trying to wrap my head around what was happening. Jax blinked several times, and the stress on his face, the defeat in his grievous eyes, sent a spear of dread through me.
“Is Alex…?” I swallowed hard, but I still couldn’t get the words out. If she was gone, she was in a better place now, but I about hit the ground at the thought.
“Alex is fine.” He hung his head. “Nikki’s gone. What happened to her is on me.” Taking a deep breath, Jax appeared to shake it off and gestured to the clothing he’d tossed on the mattress. “I have to end this. I’m getting you guys out of here, but we don’t have much time. The old man will be back in a few hours.”
I grabbed the jeans and pulled them on. “What’s the plan?” I asked before yanking the T-shirt over my head. My pulse pounded, and I gritted my teeth. Trusting Jax wasn’t easy, but what choice did I have?
“We need to get to the office. It’s our best shot out of here. But getting down the tunnel is gonna be tricky. I need you to pass yourself off as Cleft.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to do that?”
Jax shrugged out of his jacket. “He wears a hoodie just like this. Can you pull it off?” he asked. “Once we break Alex out, she’ll have to crawl down the hall. It’s the only way we’re getting out of here.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes.”
With a nod, Jax pushed the hoodie into my hands. I shoved my arms through the sleeves and flung the hood over my head, burrowing my face into the soft lining.
“Got a smoke?” I asked.
Jax aimed the flashlight at my face. “You’ve never smoked.”
“No, but Cleft does.”
“Quick thinking.” Jax pulled a pack from his pocket and passed it to me. I pulled out a cigarette as he sparked a lighter to life.
Hopefully, the stench of tobacco, along with the hoodie and the leashed girl, would be enough to convince any passerby that the man at Jax’s side was one of them. Since Cleft and I were about the same height, this might work.
I put the nasty butt in my mouth but didn’t inhale. “What about you?” I asked. “Is anyone gonna question you roaming the tunnel?”
“I learned a long time ago how to put up a good front. The old man thinks he put me in my place.” He turned his head away for a moment, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “It’s back to business as usual. He’s a fucking heartless bastard.”
“Why’d you go along with this then?”
“We’ll get into all of that shit later. Let’s just get the fuck out of here.”
“It’s about time,” I muttered, stomping the cigarette with my bare heel. I prayed to fuck no one would notice how I wasn’t wearing shoes. The jeans were on the long side and would hopefully hide the barefoot problem.
“Ever since your escape attempt, the guys have been on high alert, and today the clients are visiting the underground to sample the goods, so keep an eye out.”
A sense of smothering fear overcame me. “What about Alex? Is she safe?”
Jax reached for the handle. “She’s the old man’s pet. No one’s touching her but him.”
That didn’t make me feel any less sick. “She doesn’t deserve this.”
“You used to feel differently,” he said.
“I’m not the same guy. Shit, I don’t even remember that guy.”
But I put too much effort into convincing myself it was true. Even now, with my memories gone and a drop of decency careening through my bloodstream, I’d wanted to own her in this dark cell, had thrilled at thrusting my cock down her throat in their torture room.
How long before I snapped and let the monster possess me?
Could she handle it if I did?
Could I?
Jax wrenched the door open, taking the lead. I walked at his side, vigilant of every sound, which left me with no time to question or war with myself. If we didn’t get out of here, none of it would matter anyway. A man entered a room down the tunnel, and the faint pleas of a woman drifted to me. She wasn’t a willing participant in whatever he was about to do to her. None of them were. If we got out of here, I vowed to take this place down and free these women.
Jax halted a few doorways down and inserted a key. The room was dark and nearly identical to the one they’d held me in. At the soft pads of our footsteps, Alex sat up, grasping the blanket to her chest. Jax’s flashlight lit up her face.
God. She looked like hell. She’d been through too much, seen too much, had experienced too much.
For years. She’d been going through this shit for years.
I was about to hurtle the distance and crush her in my arms, but she shrank back at the sight of our towering forms, her eyes squinting against the light.
“It’s me, baby.”
“Rafe!” The blanket pooled around her, and she catapulted into my arms.
“We’re getting out of here,” I said, words muffled in her hair. “But I need you to act like I’m Cleft. Can you do that?”
She nodded, her hands roaming my cheeks, her gaze wondering over my face, lowering to my chest, as if checking to make sure I was in one piece. “I thought he was gonna kill you.” She buried her head in the crook of my shoulder and inhaled. “God…I thought you were dead. It’s been days.”
I shared a look with Jax. Had it really been that long? Man, had I been out of it.
“Timing, man. It’s now or never.” He lifted his shirt, revealing the gun jammed in his waistband. “You have no idea what I had to do to get this thing. Old man took my damn weapon.”
But one gun wouldn’t do shit against a bunch of guys with guns and access to human shields. Alex shifted in my arms, and her chain grated my ears.
“Tell me you have a key for that?”
“Sure do.” He bent and released the lock with a quick turn of a key. “But you’re gonna have to crawl,” he told her. “Keep your eyes on the floor, like a slave would, and we might make it out of here.”
With not a tinge of hesitation, Alex dropped to her hands and knees and lowered her head.
“Let’s do this.” He wedged the door a crack, peeked into the hall, then opened it all the way. I followed, Alex behind me on all fours, and we hadn’t taken more than a few steps when a man exited a room.
“What’re you guys up to?” he asked.
Jax slowed, and I turned to Alex, yanking on her chain with a growl. “Sit,” I ordered in a low voice, hoping to fuck the guy didn’t realize I wasn’t Cleft. Curling my toes inside the hem of the jeans, I kept my attention on her dark head and hoped it was enough to shield me from the guy’s scrutiny.
“Boss is on his way in,” Jax explained. “He wants her in the office.”
“What about the boyfriend? Should we grab him?”
I watched from the corner of my eye and recognized the puny kid I’d taken down during our first escape attempt.
“Nope. I think she has a private date with the boss and his spanking horse.”
“Lucky for him, huh?”
“Yep. Mason’s out cold. He won’t be a problem.” Jax turned to me. “Ain’t that right, Cleft?”
“Uh-huh.”
The kid laughed. “Boss is making the two of you work together? Man, he must really be punishing you.” He slapped Jax on the back before ambling down the hall.
Jax let out a breath. So did I.
“Fuck, that was close,” he muttered.
We made frustratingly slow progress down the hall, as Alex could only move so fast on her hands and knees without drawing attention to ourselves. We passed by two more men, though they didn’t stop to talk. Keeping my head low, I hoped it was enough to hide my face in shadow. Once we reached the door to the office, Jax glanced down the hall. A door opened and shut somewhere.
“If we don’t make it out of here—”
“We will,” I interrupted his quiet words.
“But if we don’t, I just wanna say I’m sorry, man.”
I peered over my shoulder. “Just open the damn door. You can kiss my ass all you want later.”
He let out a shaky breath and rapped on the door.
Was someone else in on this? Was this a fucking trap? But I didn’t have time to process shit. Jax pulled the gun out and raised it. The damn thing shook in his hands, but the firm set of his mouth said he meant business.
“What are you—”
The door opened, Cleft’s eyes widened, and Jax pulled the trigger.
No warning.
No hesitation.
The blast ricocheted down the tunnel, through my ears. Voices echoed, but Jax was already yanking Alex to her feet. I shoved him out of the way and tossed her over my shoulder, and we stepped over Cleft’s body and into the office.