Please kill me.

The next blow was to my thigh, cracking so loud I was sure my leg was broken. I welcomed the pain, adding it to all the rest. Compounding it until my heart raced and pumped, hurtling me closer to blacking out.

Someone hit me around the ear.

Then punched my breast.

A kick landed on my ankle.

A fist connected with my cheekbone.

They hurt me beyond hurt—they catapulted me into agony, but they never went too far. They restrained from killing me.

Each punishment hurt more than the last and I sobbed freely in my bindings. Every part of me wept for freedom.

I can’t do this anymore. I want out. I want to die.

Finally, something sharp pricked my skin, and another dose of medicine sent me cartwheeling into nightmares.

Chapter 11

You call me maître but I am the esclave—slave to inflict the pain I crave…

Time was my enemy.

I wanted to shatter every clock, dismantle every tick. Every second was a ceaseless moment that I let Tess down, every minute an eternity in missing her.

I ran only on hatred and the undying need to find her. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. Everything I did felt like a betrayal.

Every day that went past, my temper frayed further until I lost sight of the cool businessman who owned the world and morphed closer to the beast I truly was.

No one wanted to be around me. I swore and yelled and raged. Every day, I dropped a little further into hell, and I didn’t care. I welcomed the numbness, the emptiness, because I deserved it.

I’m not good enough.

I wasn’t even strong enough to hunt the woman I loved.

I’m a f**king loser who deserves to be alone.

I wanted to gut the Wolverine and read his intestines like tarot cards. He had answers but I’d been too stupid to make him talk. I was too hasty, and now he was f**king dead along with the chance of ever finding Tess.

I slouched and poked at the wound in my arm. The dull pain wasn’t enough. I deserved more. I deserved to be electrocuted, to be mauled by rabid tigers. I deserved every horrible way a man could die. I deserved to be put down for failing my esclave.

My fingers plucked at the stitches. Some lucky pre-med student got a free flight in a G650 to patch me up on our way out of Moscow. We’d managed to get out before word had spread, but I had no doubt a bounty hung around my neck from more than one trafficking bastard now.

Sitting at some desk, in some office, in some city, in some country, I hung my head and wrapped my fingers around my skull. I squeezed, digging harder and harder, inflicting pain, inviting a migraine. I wanted to crack open my brain and stop all the emotional pain.

Some moments I couldn’t breathe with the thought of what was happening to Tess. I wanted to suffocate all thoughts of her from my head until I no longer had to endure such agony.

But on the heels of such self-pity and loneliness, came furious anger. Livid hot temper that she left me. I hated that she made me care. I cursed her for the way she turned me into this tangled, twisted creature and then disappeared.

Six days passed.

Then a week and a half.

Twenty-four hour blocks all stacked on top of one another creating an unmovable mountain, barricading me from ever finding the one person I ever cared for. Time obstructed me from finding my f**king other half.

I would live alone. I would die alone. I would exist in the netherworld all f**king alone because Tess had been stolen and I was too worthless to save her.

Fuck. Where the hell are you, Tess?

“We just had a tip-off. We’re flying to Singapore in an hour,” Frederick said from the doorway.

I looked up, still clutching my head.

I couldn’t even remember what country we were in. We’d been everywhere. Russia, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Thailand. Following whispers of rumours. Hints that someone knew someone who knew where Tess had been taken.

It’d been a f**king rabbit chase. All lies. All of them hiding the truth.

The truth would be found only by finding the source. Not bribing underworld contacts, or threatening to turn their precious names into local authorities. I had power, but it didn’t mean shit when no one knew a thing.

Goddammit. You’re a f**king imbecile, Mercer! The truth can only be found at the source! Why didn’t I see it?

It was as if someone wrenched back the curtains, inviting piercing sun to chase away the gloom of a disused room.

I stood up so fast the chair fell back and clattered against the tiles. I remembered now. This office belonged to Lee Choi. A man I’d built two casinos for in Macau in return for four slaves. Hong Kong was sleek and money-shiny, but beneath the surface—just like every cosmopolitan city—lurked the dangerously sick and twisted world.

Lee Choi no longer ran that world.

Lee now rotted in a foetus position stuffed in his closet.

“I don’t care about a tip,” I snarled. “I know where we need to go.”

Frederick frowned, coming closer. “Q, when was the last time you slept? You need to eat. You’re gaunt. You can’t live on revenge and bullet casings.”

The urge to hit him rose, but I swallowed it back. “No more leads. They’re useless.”

He shook his head. “One of Choi’s underlings gave up a name of a man who has a harem in Singapore. He might know where Tess is.”

I rubbed my face, trying not to snap. “It’s a waste of time. He won’t have Tess. We need to go to the source.”

“The source?”

I moved fast, pushing past Frederick. No one in the usual circle would’ve bought Tess. Gerald wouldn’t have sold her to be used so…kindly. He was out for blood. Where was the payback if she was sent to a sick f**k, but someone who would ultimately keep her alive? No, he’d send her to someone who would ruin her. Break her. Someone who would stand to earn just rewards for destroying her.

Fuck. Why didn’t I think of it before?

It felt right. My gut knew I was on the right path.

“Pack up. We’re flying to Mexico.”

*****

Four days.

Four long f**king days we’d patrolled the sin-stained world of Mexico. Hunting drug dealers and spineless thieves, we lurked in dives and sniffed around illegal enterprises. No matter how many men Franco tortured, or how many palms I greased, no information was forthcoming.

No one knew who kidnapped a blonde girl on a scooter four months ago.

“Eat this, boss.” Franco skidded a plate of noodles under my nose, obscuring the map of the slums of Mexico I’d been studying for the past three hours.

Tess could be anywhere in this filthy city, and I might walk right past whatever building she was imprisoned in and never know.

As much as I was starving, the thought of eating, of surviving, when Tess might not even be alive, ate at my soul.

I ignored him, shoving the plate away.

Franco clasped my shoulder as Frederick came over from the bar with three mugs of icy beer. “You need your strength. For her. Your brain will work better with fuel.”

Frederick sloshed the beer onto my map, taking a seat.

I glowered, swiping my hand over the paper before the liquid could ruin it.

Frederick nodded. “I agree. Eat and recharge. You’re no good to her if you’re passed out from hunger.”

The animal inside didn’t need such petty things like nutrition. It only needed blood. But you’re not a f**king superhuman, so eat up.

Sighing hard, I tried to return to the land of men and sat taller. Acknowledging they had a point, I dug into the noodles and forced myself to swallow. I was a world traveller. I’d lived in cities around the globe, but the man I was at heart was French, and I missed Mrs. Sucre’s duck and homemade baguettes. I missed simple perfection. I missed my regimented life. I missed Tess with every f**king part of me.

Half-way through my meal, I gave up and growled, “There has to be some other way.”

I slouched, scowling at the droplets of condensation on the beer mug. Frederick mumbled something around his mouthful of food and Franco cocked an eyebrow. “Like what? We’ve tried bribing men we know in the sex trade, we’ve tried beating it out of others. We’ve argued, we’ve threatened, we’ve pleased. Either no one knows who took her, or they’re too terrified to say.”

I rubbed my chin, letting my brain race for clues, answers, conclusions that might work better than our current methods.

“All Mexicans are linked somehow. I read that the city is one of the friendliest on earth,” Frederick said, wiping his mouth and swigging some beer.

Yeah, apart from the raping trafficking bastards.

“It’s said that it’s a matter of pride to have the largest family possible. I’m talking cousins upon cousins upon cousins. You need to go for a—”

“Cousin.” I bolted upright, smiling for the first time in fourteen days at Frederick. “T’es un putain de génie.” You’re a f**king genius.

Franco stood, glancing around the crowded, dirty bar, making sure my abrupt standing didn’t attract unwanted attention. My muscles were rock-hard at the thought of a bar fight. I craved to use my fists, to pull out the knife and lose myself in anger.