TRENT

I’ve never smelled flesh burn before. However, when I wake, the rancid smell causing the muscles in my stomach to tighten reminds me of just that. It’s a smell like no other. One that will cling to my nostrils for the rest of my life.

I keep my head down. I don’t think I could lift it if I tried. Not out of fear of what I might see, but because I know if I move, the chains binding me down will squeeze harder against my chest.

While we all would love to believe that you should make every day better than the last, I can honestly tell myself the day I laid my eyes on Tara was the best day of my life.

I’m not giving up by any means; I simply have no clue where the hell I am or how long I’ve been out. One thing I do know is, I’m fucking freezing in this place.

I open my eyes, my head throbbing like a Goddamn bitch, ready to explode. It’s dark as fuck, cold as ice, and if I had to guess, I’m in some sort of damp, musky underground cellar.

How he found us and concocted all this beats the hell out of me. The guy is good, but once I find a way out of here, he’s as good as dead. Fuck my parole. Fuck everything else. I’ll give Tara up if it means this sick son of a bitch doesn’t get the chance to coerce his sick antics on her or her daughter. I’ll live in solitary confinement for the rest of my life as long as I know she’s safe.

“Tara,” I groan, my throat dry and in desperate need of water. This is a fucking joke. It triggers shit deep in my mind that I’ve tried to bury. Memories flood. My chest heaves and the chains pull tight. I count back slowly from ten to control my breathing. My hands are tied, my legs are bound, and the smell has me choking down my vomit.

“Goddamn it. You crazy motherfucker. Come untie me and face me like a man. You fucking pussy!” I roar.

I’m slowly going mad. The walls are beginning to cave in around me. I feel as if I’m in prison all over again. Only this time I can’t escape my tormenting thoughts. My brother, my mother, all the abuse I endured from my own father.

The way he would beat me. Leave me for days. Starving. Thirsty and so fucking scared of what he would do when he returned. I was a kid. A damn child who should have been loved, taken care of, and taught the difference between right and wrong. Instead, I was taught to hate, and eventually that hate led me to take away someone who wasn’t mine.

Son of a bitch. I shifted in my chair again. A jolt shot straight down to my cock, which was constantly hard when it came to her. I’d been watching her for half an hour while she sat staring at the wall in front of her and frowning. Every few minutes, she glanced down at her daughter, then back up again.

I would have given anything to say that precious, innocent baby girl was mine. Letting my father and Tina convince me to have a vasectomy was the dumbest thing I had ever done, even though it didn’t fucking matter. Clove had already been pregnant before I kidnapped my brother, anyway.

I focused on her face. It was full of pain. It killed me to see her suffering the way she was. I would have given anything to be able to go in there and fuck her raw, to hear her scream my name. Not my brother’s. Mine.

I watched her bend down and lift Journey. I wished I could see her beautiful face; the way she looked at her daughter with so much love in her eyes would have been a dream. I would have given anything to have her look at me and see even an ounce of it staring back at me. It would never happen. She wasn’t mine. It was a fantasy, a dream that would never come true.

I still wanted her. I needed her so Goddamn bad, it hurt. I wanted it to be me making her fall apart every night, but I knew she would never love me the way I loved her. She hated me. I saw it in her eyes every time I looked at her. Did I blame her? Fuck, no. I was everything she thought I was. I was fucked up, a killer, and an asshole.

I hated myself for all the pain I had caused her.

Clove’s beauty was soul deep. She’s loving, caring, and put others before herself. If anyone were to ask me the definition of love, it would be her. I had never known what it was until I’d first laid my eyes on her. I envied the way her face would light up every damn time she would look at Turner, or the way she would look at her father and brother. I understood now why Clove let me do everything I wanted to do to her. It was out of love, the love she felt for my brother.

I jolt. My body is shaking. I hate those fucking memories more than I hate myself. That’s the thing about memories, though. They are a part of you no matter how hard you try to escape them.

I refuse to believe that Tara isn’t mine. That the love I feel for her isn’t some made-up infatuation in my troubled mine. Somehow, there has to be a way for me to get Tara to her daughter.

My lids grow heavy again. I can’t seem to fight it.

“Trent.”

Jesus Christ. The sound of Clove’s mother's voice sickened me. This bitch had got to go.

“We need to get the hell out of here, Tina,” I told her. God, I hated her.

I took a long pull of my beer as she sipped on her glass of wine.

“We leave when I say we leave. This isn’t your call,” she snarled at me.

“You know, I have had just about enough of this horse shit. You have no fucking idea what it’s like to be a fucking prisoner here. Jesus Christ, woman, her family knows she’s alive. The fucking news stations are still talking about it. And your son will never give up trying to find her. I didn’t sign up for this shit. I’m this close to saying fuck it all to hell, turning my ass in, and living in a Goddamn jail cell, because right now, that sounds like a hell of a lot more fun than being trapped in here.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Fuck, yes. I am. I want out.”

“You want out? Out of what? All that money we’re going to get once they get that baby?” she spit, pointing her nasty-ass finger toward the stairs.

“Guess what? I’m at the point where I really don’t give a shit about the money. How much do you think they will actually give you, anyway? Your son is a fucking cop, or have you forgotten that little bit of information? A cop you haven’t seen for years. Shit like this doesn’t go down in the real world like you think it will. Your son will slice you open from one end to the other.”

“It’s not my son I’m going to go talk to. I’ve told you that at least a hundred times. Were you not listening to me? Or”—she stood up, eyes flaring like the whack job she was—“do you have some kind of plan with Clove? Is that where all this hostility is coming from?”

I jerked back a bit, laughing.

“Oh, you bet. Clove and I are just going to drive off and live happily ever after, aren’t we?”

“In your mind, you probably are, but I will never allow that to happen. I told you, once you kill her, you can have your money.”

“Then pick up the fucking phone, call my mother, and get this shit over with. You have two days. Two damn days, Tina, or I am out of here.”

“You’re a fucking jerk. I have done everything for you; given you a place to stay, eat, and sleep, and now you come after me? You’re a selfish bastard.”

“And you’re a fucking cunt.” She gasped.

“What did you just call me?”

“You heard me.”

“That’s a low blow coming from you, Trent. The man who kidnapped his own identical twin brother, pretended to be him, and fell in love with his wife!” she screamed. “Oh, and let’s not forget the grand finale here. You want to stand there and call me vile names, then, by all means, go right ahead. I may be every name you want to dish out at me, but one thing I am not is a murderer. Oh, yes, that’s right. So, don’t stand there thinking you’re any better than I am. At least I didn’t kill my own father or shoot my brother.”

Motherfucker. I would be lying if I said part of those words she just threw at me didn’t stab me in my gut. They did. I shot my own brother and left him for dead.

“Fine, throw it in my face. I really don’t care anymore. I’m done.”

“You’d better care, you son of a bitch.”

“Care about what? You? I care about you about as much as you care about me.”

“I do care about you, Trent,” she insisted in a low voice.

She stepped my way cautiously. I held a hand up, and she instantly halted.

“Not this time. Your little act of seduction isn’t going to work on me anymore.”

I placed my beer on the table and went to move past her. Her hand reached out and grabbed my arm in the crook of my elbow. I looked down to where she was touching me, then backed up at her. A hard look crossed her face.

“I swear to God, I will kill her myself if you ever talk to me like that again.”

“And I swear to God, I will cut you up into a million pieces, starting with that hand you have on me, if you lay one finger on her.”

“That will never happen.”

“You don’t think so?” I sneered.

“I know so.”

We stood there, staring each other down. What kind of game was she playing with me here? Wait a damn minute. I brought my hand up and wrapped it around her slender throat as I walked her backward, slamming her angrily up against the wall.

“You . . . fucking BITCH!” I roared.

Her malicious smile widened.

“Finally, he realizes,” she mocked.

“You said I killed my father and shot my brother. You never said I killed Turner. What the hell are you hiding from me?”

Our eyes locked, mine boring into hers.

“Tell me, Tina. I want to hear you say it.”

“Very well. Turner is alive.”

“Tara, answer me!” I belt out. I need to keep my promise. Let go of my past and fucking find her.

“Luciano, if you can hear me, you better listen. I’m the man you say I am. The one thing I’m not is the man who stole your wife. How could I be when she was never yours in the first place? I’m going to get out of here, and when I do, when I’m done with you, I’m going to find Tara’s daughter. She deserves to raise her. You selfish son of a bitch. If you touch her, I will make you realize that hell has nothing on the things I will do to you. Get in here, you cowardly motherfucker!” I scream so loud my throat burns.

The door slowly opens. Footsteps fall on my ears. I hold my breath, lift my head, and exhale slowly. The chains pull, the chair I’m sitting in tilts back. What kind of tripped-up device does he have me in?

“Fuck,” I retch out. My breathing is becoming short. My eyes are burning from the now violent light shining in my face.

“Trent.” The sound of my name sends heat down my glacial spine. The frost in my veins thickens to a boiling, red-hot liquid as the lack of oxygen in my lungs increases.

This is impossible. A downright fucking bloody nightmare. There is no Goddamn way. And I deserve it all. My name is spoken by someone I never thought I’d see again.

What the hell is going on here?

My chair tips forward. The chains loosen. I let out a deep, sharp breath as I stare in utter shock in the eyes of my brother.

“Turner. What the fuck?”

An infectious laugh hits my ears, and blackness engulfs me.

I gulp, but not out of fear. It’s from the noises I hear as something scrapes across the floor and stops directly in front of me.

“Watch, and if you take your eyes away, she dies.”