Chapter Thirty-Two

Dev lifted her head at the sound of heavy footsteps outside her door. Joachim had been gone for hours and the room was a mess. He might as well know she wouldn’t go easy, not with him, Sly, or whatever rat bastard he was bringing with him.

Still manacled to the cursed bed frame, she stood and planted her feet, posturing for one or two good kicks to the big guy’s nuts. Damn him and damn all dirtbags like him who thought they could abuse women and get away with it. A woman shouldn’t have to be so scared that she couldn’t think. Her heart shouldn’t be pounding like a freight train so hard she could barely breathe. Her stomach shouldn’t feel so ready to crawl up her throat.

But Dev was all those things and more. The doorknob twisted, but just as a hairy knuckled hand reached in, feeling the wall for the light switch, she barreled into the door and crushed that arm between the door and frame. There! Take that!

Shaking like a leaf, she knew she’d lost the element of surprise, but fear had won out over common sense. She’d panicked and given herself away, and now Joachim was pissed. Well, so was she.

“You bitch!” Joachim bellowed as he cleared the door and slammed it behind him. Once again, he hit the switch and glared at what she’d done to the place. “You fucked up my room!”

‘Yeah, well, you’re next,’ she thought, shifting her weight on the balls of her feet, ready to go down swinging, but scared to death. Cord always told her to fight back. Well, today was that day. Or night. Or whatever. She honestly didn’t know what time or day it was.

“You ass,” she hissed, her tone as lethal as she could make it. “Unlock these cuffs and let me go.”

The idiot had the nerve to roll his eyes like some drama queen. “What part of ‘I paid for you’ did you not understand, woman?” he bit out as he took a menacing step toward her. “You’re mine and you’re going nowhere but where I tell you to go, and if you mess up my room like this again, I will beat the shit out of you.”

Damn, he was big, and he flexed those massive fingers like he wanted to choke her. Dressed in dirty jeans, a tie-dyed black-and-white Ron Jon t-shirt that looked like one big bird dropping, Joachim’s size alone intimidated Dev. He was wider than Cord, but not fit in any way. Over-weight, slack-jawed, and unkempt, the stench of body odor rolled off him in waves, along with the distinct stink of tooth decay, alcohol, and cigarettes on his breath.

Dev flexed her fingers, too. Yes, she was way out-matched, but it was time for some payback. “I’m leaving,” she told him. “Unlock these cuffs and let me go.”

“Sit your ass down,” he ordered, stabbing one long finger at the floor.

“Let me go,” she ordered, though she hadn’t intended the shrill tone in her demand. But damn, he had big, mean, capable-of-breaking-her-neck hands, and her false bravado would only get her so far. “I have a son, Joachim. I need to go home now, before my friend calls the police. I should’ve been home hours ago…” Maybe days. “So, let me go before she files a missing persons report with the police, and they come looking for me. I won’t say a word. I won’t tell anyone what you’ve done.”

Joachim cocked his head at that. “What I’ve done? Who do you think you are? Some kind of princess from Arabia I should bow down to?”

Damn, he knows about Lianna. What else does he know?

Her heart stalled, and Dev’s tongue took a futile swipe over her dry lips. “Please,” she murmured, her resolve crumbling as she took a step backward. “Please let me go, Joachim. I’m no one important. You don’t want me. I’m not one of your pretty, party girls. I’ve had a baby and my boobs sag and my belly’s got stretch marks all over it and… Please. No one will ever pay even a dollar in ransom money for my return, if that’s what you’re after.”

His chin came up at that plea, and those big hands settled on his hips. “You’ve got me all wrong, Angelique. I didn’t buy you for ransom money. Oh, no, baby, you’re my first investment in a scheme that’s gonna make me rich. Just wait and see. I’ve got big plans for you. You might not be a virgin, but you’re still grade-A, prime flesh on the hoof.”

What a creepy thing to say. It made her sound like a cut of beef.

“No,” she spat. “No, I won’t, and if you make me, I’ll fight everyone you force on me, and I’ll hurt you every chance I get. I’ll scream and I’ll—”

She only heard the pop inside her head when that big hand of his lashed out and knocked her to her knees. Dev fell, her jaw surely crushed, it screamed so loud inside her head with startling, blinding pain that radiated through her skull and down into the tendons of her throat. Tears came unbidden to her eyes to drip down her nose and onto the ugly, dirty carpet beneath her fingers. The room spun, and she could barely breathe, much less fight back.

All she saw was the dusty rounded tips of Joachim’s work boots right before he clenched a handful of her hair and jerked her head far enough from the floor that she had no choice but to look up at him. “Do you see me now, princess?” he hissed, spitting into her face.

Dev nodded, sure he meant to kill her right there, at his feet.

“Now you listen and listen good,” he breathed. “I’m only going to say this once, and it’s important, si? Sylvester tells me you love your kid. His name is Scottie, is that right?”

“Ah-huh,” Dev whimpered, her head bobbing as tears streamed down her cheeks.

Joachim’s nostrils flared, and for a moment, he looked like Satan come to life. Dark. Cold. Intensely evil. “There, that wasn’t so hard now, was it? It pays to be a good girl, Angelique,” he said, his voice turned as slick as oil. “Now you understand who is the boss of you, and that is me and nobody else. If you love your kid like you say you do, you’ll do as you’re told, because Sly knows where you live, and if you think he enjoyed gutting that puny lizard of yours, imagine how much fun he’ll have playing with your blue-eyed, blond little boy.”

Oh, God. Scottie. Sly has Scottie!

“No,” Dev cried. “Not my son. L-l-leave him alone!”

That earned her another head jerk, only this time Joachim lifted her off the floor by her neck. “Say it, Angelique! Say your name!”

“Ang… Angelique,” she whimpered.

He shook her like a rug. “And who am I? Say it!”

“Joachim…”

His hands slid to her neck. “No! Not Joachim! I am the boss of you, never Joachim! Say it!”

“You…” She could barely speak, he clutched her so hard. “You’re the b-b-boss of me.”

He shook her like a dog with a bone, an ugly light in his eye as if he’d won and she’d lost. “Yes, I am! And you will wise up and act like a good girl from now on, and you will do as I tell you. Me, only me! I am your master, and if you do everything I tell you to do, Scottie lives. If you don’t…”

“Okay. Yes. Just… yes.” Dev closed her eyes, kissing the last of her dreams goodbye even as she nodded and lied to the beast that held her in his dirty hands.

“Yes, what?” he growled as he lifted her up into his face.

She gave him what he wanted. “Yes, you are the boss of me, m-m-master.”

Dev wanted to throw up. No one was the boss of her. No one had the right! But for Scottie, she’d do anything, even—this.