“Do you understand why?”

“Yes.” I had no choice. Hours I sat, blindfolded, shivering, wet, cold and alone while I contemplated my life. Fighting them would only make it harder on me. They wouldn’t kill me. No, instead they’d make me suffer each and every day until I gave them what they wanted. I saw the proof of that with those girls. There was no running and hiding from what Logan had brought me into. There was no fighting. All I had left was survival and hope.

“Good.” He put his hand under my elbow, helped me stand then guided me out of the room. He didn’t remove my blindfold, and I didn’t ask him to.

We walked for a while, going through doors and turns until I felt the brilliant sun beat down on my bare skin. I inhaled the scent of meat cooking and smoke as if I was at a barbecue. It mixed with the smell of flowers and ... Logan.

I had the urge to tear the blindfold from my eyes. Without my sight for hours on end, all other senses was heightened. Anxiety crept up on me with every step. I had no idea where we were going, if I was going to be tortured again. God, he could be leading me to a pit of lions and I wouldn’t know it. The fear escalated with each unknown step, and I started shaking so badly that I stumbled.

“Emily.” His voice was steady and calm, and for some reason it settled me enough to keep walking.

I jerked as I heard a door shut behind us. Logan put his hands on either side of my head, and I wondered if he was going to snap my neck, but when his fingers fiddled with the knot in the bandanna I breathed a sigh of relief.

He stopped, then he hands fell away. “Emily ...You’re safer if you cannot see.”

I was trembling so bad that my teeth started chattering. I wasn’t certain whether it was from the weakness in my limbs or the fear of what he was going to do to me.

I heard him walk across the room, stop, and come back toward me. His tone was ... deadly. I’d never heard anyone’s voice vibrating with such controlled fury before.

I jumped when his hand touched my cheek. “You need to fear me, not hate me.”

I did. I feared him. But I think I hated him more. No, I knew I hated him more. For what he’d done. For what he was doing. For the betrayal. Most of all, for tarnishing something so beautiful and making it ugly. I trusted him. I gave myself to him, and he took me, peeled back layers of my soul until he saw it all. Then he took me.

“Do you understand what must happen here?”

I nodded. I did. I understood what Logan wanted of me. He wanted what that girl with the dead eyes had become. The girl being rocked back and forth as some guy pounded into her from behind. He wanted the girl beneath the table. He wanted complete and utter submission.

He wanted me to be his slave.

“Answer me.”

I jerked at his abrupt tone. “Yes. Yes, I understand.”

His finger caressed my lower lip. “Open.” I didn’t want to. God, my mind fought it, and yet I swallowed my pride and opened my mouth. His finger slipped inside, and I wanted to bite down hard, but I didn’t. “Suck.” I did that too. “Good girl,” he soothed. His other hand came around my waist and brought me up against him.

I remained calm, using my breathing to release the panic that tip-toed across my body. Being blinded kept the fear alive inside me. This is what he wanted—fear.

“Leave us.”

I gasped, not realizing we weren’t alone. I heard footsteps walk past us, then the door opened and closed.

“Raul is testing you.” He ran a finger across my collarbone and then lower to the top of my breast. “And me.” A feathered touch swept across my nipple causing it to become erect as if I wanted his touch. Oh God, how was my body reacting to him like this? Why? How could I like what he was doing? Why was there a familiar twinge between my legs?

No. Stop.

I stiffened and tried to tune out his movements. Block him. Keep him out of me. “Please Sculpt, let me go.” It was natural calling him Sculpt as if using his real name would somehow weaken me to his power even more.

“That’s not possible.”

The anger simmered at the edge of my sanity. “So, what do you get for bringing me here? Besides the satisfaction of seeing a woman beaten, tortured, and humiliated?” I braved asking the question, knowing he may not answer, but hoping he’d give me something.

His hand stilled on my neck. I thought for a second he was going to choke me, but he remained completely still and quiet. I was waiting to be hit or dragged back to the basement, and I was now worried that I’d spoken when I shouldn’t have. I wanted to run and hide—cower. I was a mouse quivering and scared of every squeak I made or movement. I was so uncertain of everything that I sought the only reassurance I could get, and that assurance was from Logan.

“I get you.”

I felt the twitch of his finger on my skin. Logan was steady as a rock; he didn’t twitch. Never did he falter. There was something more to his answer. Raul may be giving me to Logan, but there was something else he wasn’t telling me.

“Why? Why are you doing this? Was everything we had ...” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I shouldn’t have asked, and yet, I was losing control. I wanted answers. To know why he lured me into his trap.

Logan pulled me further into the room then turned me to face him, hands on both my arms. “Do you fear me, Emily? Because if you don’t Raul will know. He excels at knowing fear. You give him something else, he’ll know. Then we’re dealing with more than you ever imagined.”

“I hate you,” I shouted the words, and his grip tightened.

“I know,” his voice was steady and composed as if he was unaffected by my words. “But fear must override your hate. Remember what I taught you? You can’t have that here.”

What he taught me? The self-defence? What did ...?And then it hit me—he’d wanted my anger when he’d been teaching me to fight. After Logan reluctantly agreed to be my teacher, he took my fear and turned it into a controlled anger. He gave me confidence to fight back, and now ... now he wanted the fear back?

“You will fear me, Emily. And if you don’t ... I will make you.” His words were abrupt and unruffled. It sent shivers down my spine.

Did I fear him? Yes. I was scared of who he’d become, of what he was, and of that cold, emotionless face I thought I once knew. I was scared of how my body still reacted to him. How it betrayed me. And yes, I was scared that he’d give me to Raul. Because Raul I feared the most, and I was uncertain if I could survive him.

“This is his business. Raul kidnaps girls, women. They are trained then auctioned off. They bring him lots of money. You would bring him lots of money.”

“Kat and Matt—”

“You’re twenty, old enough to disappear. Raul made you disappear. One more girl missing won’t bring the law down to Mexico looking for you, especially with a mother who doesn’t give a shit about her daughter.”

That hurt, but was unfortunately true. My heart rate picked up, and I licked my dry, cracked lips. Kat and Matt wouldn’t give up on me. They’d come for me; they had to.

He took my wrists and tied what felt like rope around them. I start to hyperventilate, afraid of what he’d do, scared of being so vulnerable. “I do.”

“You do what, Emily?”

“I do fear you.”

Silence as he continued to tighten the ropes. All I could hear was the coarse nylon as it moved back and forth from whatever he was doing to it after he tied it to my wrists. Suddenly, he let me go, and I heard his footsteps stride away like he was angry. Then a door slammed in the opposite direction of where we entered the room.

I fell to my knees, my wrists tied together, and my skin cold and clammy and ... dirty. I felt so dirty inside and out. I’d been in the same clothes for days, no shower, little food.

The door opened again.

Footsteps. He stopped in front of me. “There are rules you have to follow. Kneel when someone enters the room. Never speak unless spoken to. Keep your head down, and if you want to live then you will submit to me.” He grabbed my wrists, pulled me to my feet, and raised my arms above my head. I felt something snag on the rope.

He let me go.

I yanked and realized he’d tied me to something above me. I tugged harder, but I couldn’t get free. Panic crawled over my skin.

His knuckles brushed over my neck, and then I felt the tug on the neckline of my shirt. With one yank he tore my shirt from my body.

I begged Logan in my mind. Begged and screamed to let me go, but I never emitted a sound. I took several deep breaths, knowing to fight would only prolong whatever he was going to do to me.

His hands undid my jeans, and he dragged them off as well; then my panties followed. I hung naked, quivering, and blinded. The degradation was so powerful that I wanted to curl up in a tomb and die.

He cupped my chin. It was soft and kind as if he was trying to give me some kind of reassurance. “It’s in you. I saw the strength,” Logan whispered. He ran his finger down my cheek then across my lips. “You need to be the lion here, Eme.”

I choked back the sob in my throat at the sound of his voice, the one I had known and loved. The coldness had dissipated, and my mind was screaming for him.

I heard the door creak open. “He is ready for you.”

Logan’s hand stiffened on me. “No screaming.”

I jumped at the tone of his cold voice.

He let me go, and I heard him stride across the room then abruptly turn and come back again. “Follow the rules. If you don’t ... you will be lost to this world, and I can’t stop it.”

Maybe I want to be lost.

Yes. No. God, I just wanted to go back. My mind was so screwed up that I couldn’t think straight. I was clinging to a man that no longer existed ... No, that was wrong. The man I knew had been a lie.

His breath drifted across my face, and then his hand was in my hair, pulling my head back. “Emily,” he breathed, saying my name like it meant something to him. “Don’t fail me.” His words were barely a whisper. If I could have seen him I’d have imagined those eyes, the ones that pulled me in day after day as he taught me how to fight, when he sang to me in the horse field, when he wiped ice cream off my chin. His sweet whispered words were in the voice I grew to love, the one that promised to protect me no matter what.

He promised never to hurt me. He promised.

“When I come back ... remember the rules.”

I heard his steps fade away, then the door closed, and the lock turned.

Oh God, help me. Don’t leave me like this. Come back.

Three hours later

The blindfold was wet from my silent tears. I lost all the feeling in my hands from the ropes tied tight around my wrists. I prayed. For salvation. For death. For Logan to come back. I had nothing left inside. Nothing. The emptiness was like a vacant shell, hollow, alone without a single thought except the instinct to survive.

My lips were so dry now that they’d split open in several places like tiny paper cuts. I was cold despite the warmth in the room as I stood naked for hours. I listened for doors opening and footsteps constantly. It became so surreal that every few seconds, I swore I heard footsteps, yet it was nothing.

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