Chapter 28

TWENTY-EIGHT

Now that whatever drugs they’d given me had worn off I was pissed.

Angry, scared, and really freaking mad.

Who the hell did Louis think he was, snatching me from my life?

And the woman who’d helped him—a woman. A freaking woman had helped him kidnap me.

Of course, I’d met Eden Dunhill so I knew women could be assholes, too, but seriously.

A woman had stabbed me in the neck then handed me off to Louis.

God, people sucked.

I paced the room, stopping every once in a while to stare out the window. There was something happening on the back patio. Four tables had been set up with white tablecloths and candles. Men dressed in suits were setting the tables.

I didn’t have a good feeling about this.

I glanced at the dress that had been delivered with my lunch, which I’d flushed down the toilet. It was better for them to think I was eating, therefore drugged. My stomach made itself known and growled with hunger. I’d been served two breakfasts, two dinners, and three lunches that I could remember. In that time, no one had spoken to me. No one had come into the room except the man who brought the food, and this afternoon, the dress.

The silence only added to my fear. Not that I wanted to be taken from this room, but not knowing what was going on or who had me now made for a scary blend.

My gaze went back to the patio. The tables were set, there were outdoor heaters glowing red. I vaguely wondered how cold it was outside. It couldn’t be that cold with the beautiful riot of colorful flowers surrounding the courtyard. Jacaranda trees that dotted the expansive lawn were in full bloom, the purple blossoms showcased with outdoor up-lighting. It would look magical if I wasn’t living in my own personal hell.

A loud knock had me jumping back into the bed.

I was supposed to be drugged and I had no way of knowing what those drugs were supposed to do to me.

“Get dressed. I’ll be back in five minutes,” a man said from the other side of the door with a thick Spanish accent.

Was I in Mexico? Spain?

Shit.

I eyed the dress still lying exactly where it had been placed this afternoon.

It was a purple lacy number I could tell would be damn near see-through.

I rolled off the bed, went back to the window, and planned.

* * *

My plan wasn’t goingto work.

There would be no sneaking away to disappear into the night.

Not only were there guards all around the backyard, there was one standing behind me and he hadn’t moved more than a foot from me since he’d escorted me from the room and pointed to a chair for me to sit in.

This after the only thing he’d said to me was a mean “remove your underthings” when he saw I wore my bra and panties under the dress. I’d removed my bra, which took some doing and twisting to get it off while keeping the dress in place. He could say whatever he wanted but I wasn’t flashing him my boobs. I’d bravely kept my panties on. When he realized I wasn’t going to remove them he grunted and grabbed my arm and didn’t let go as he dragged me through the house. The trek was long—the house was big—but the man’s fast pace didn’t leave me time to see much of anything beyond whoever lived here loved gold and had horrible taste in furniture. It was over-the-top grandiose and that was saying something seeing as I worked in Vegas—a place known for lavish and overdone.

Now I was sitting at a table alone but the other three tables had occupants. Two men and two women to each table. None of the women looked like they wanted to be there, each dressed in purple, but in varying styles.

This freaked me out.

It reminded me of that movie about the secret society. All that was missing was the masks and the orgy.

Please, God, don’t let there be an orgy.

The conversations around me were low enough that I couldn’t hear what was being said. A loud commotion from the back door cut through the murmurings. The men were silenced and all heads turned toward the door.

Louis.

The kidnapping asshole was in a tux, dragging the woman who had drugged me out to the patio by the arm.

“Behave,” Louis grunted and viciously shook her.

The men went back to their conversation like a woman wasn’t being manhandled.

Great.

Louis shoved the woman into the seat across from me. Even in the low light I couldn’t miss the bruising on the side of her face and around her throat.

If I thought I was afraid when I was locked in that room alone it held nothing compared to the reality I was now faced with.

I’d been taken.

Trafficked.

And at any moment I, too, could have those same marks on me.

“You look lovely this evening, Atlee,” Louis said with his eyes glued to my chest.

I was fairly certain he was straining to see through the lace and get a look at my nipples.

Sick fucking bastard.

I said nothing.

Louis’s hand shot out and grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him.

“You’ll speak when spoken to,” he rumbled.

“Thank you,” I ground out through the pain of him gripping my chin.

“Kindly release my property, Mr. Evans,” a man calmly said from behind me. Louis dropped his hand and righted himself in his seat. “And I’ll ask no other marks be given to my pet. I’d like to use her soon and I prefer to do that without another man’s bruises.”

I slowly—not wanting to, but needing to see who’d stolen me—tipped my eyes up and to the side. I didn’t know who I was expecting but a very normal-looking, classically handsome man who didn’t look at all like the monster he was smiled down at me.

“Atlee, my pet, you are more beautiful when those pretty eyes are open.”

Gross.

Gross. Gross. Gross.

Warning bells blared; did that mean he’d watched me while I was passed out? Had he touched me?

The woman across from me surged to her feet, knocking over an empty wine glass.

“I’m sorry. He made me do it!” she screeched. “He has my—”

Before she could finish, a guard stepped behind her and slapped a hand over her mouth while Louis stood and pulled a syringe from his coat pocket.

Oh, God.

I was never getting out of this.

Tears filled my eyelids as I watched Louis plunge the needle into her neck. She immediately swayed and it was like I was having an out-of-body experience—thrust back to the ladies’ room when this woman had done the same to me. I knew what she was feeling—the hazy confusion. The desire to yell and scream, move, run away but having no control over her body.

“Take her back to her room,” the man who had yet to introduce himself declared.

He sat next to me and immediately began to speak to Louis as if I wasn’t there.

I guess owners didn’t speak to pets?

Not that I wanted to have a conversation with him, but them pretending I wasn’t there, or that I wasn’t worth their acknowledgement, made me want to scream.

Instead, I counted guards.

There were five I could see.

Plus eight men.

I knew without a doubt Louis would hurt me if I attempted to get up from the table. I wouldn’t get far enough for a guard to have to lift a finger.

What is this?

By all accounts save the silent, scared women, it looked like a fancy dinner party.

With no food.

Oh, God, would I have to eat? Would my food be drugged? Would my water? I’d only drank from the water faucet in the bathroom. I’d poured out the orange juice served with my uneaten breakfasts, same with the water with lunch and dinner.

I eyed the other women. Were they drugged or simply docile because they’d been trained to be such?

Trained!

We were women, not dogs.

Could I fake an illness? Maybe if I told him I was going to vomit he’d let me go back to my room.

I tried to think up symptoms of some horrible disease the Good Doctor had told me about but my memory was failing me. All I could think about was the man next to me and what he was going to do to me. What was he going to have these other men do to me?

I wouldn’t be able to protect myself. I’d fight, and they’d hurt me.

You’re gonna be hurt either way, dummy.

I couldn’t stop my breath from coming out in fast puffs. I couldn’t get enough oxygen.

“Relax, my pet,” the man said and placed a hand on my shoulder.

Not rough but disgusting, nonetheless. His hand stroked down to my elbow. I tried so hard not to but I couldn’t stop myself from shrugging off his touch.

Mistake.

The sting of his slap set my cheek on fire.

“I said relax, pet. It’s time for you to get used to my touch.”

Never!I shouted in my head.

Louis smiled.

“She’s got spirit,” Louis told the man.

“So you said,” the man returned. “I’ll enjoy breaking her of it.”

Panic swam in my stomach.

I couldn’t sit there and let that happen to me.

I had to do something.

Anything.

I’d rather die trying to escape than let him break me.

Fuck this.

And fuck him.

I shifted my bare feet under the table, preparing to shove my chair back, and inched my bottom to the edge of the chair.

Louis and the man went back to their conversation.

This is it.

I was going to make a run for it.

In…three…two…

I never got to one.

Louis stopped speaking mid-sentence.

Suddenly, blood dripped down his forehead. Unlike in the movies his body didn’t blow back nor did he immediately hunch over. No, he stayed upright with his eyes freakishly open, staring ahead.

The man next to me moved. I dodged his hand and shoved out of the chair. He reached for me again but that was as far as he got. Red stained his white shirt, he tipped to the side and went down, hitting the table before knocking over a chair and landing awkwardly on the bricks.

That was my cue to run.

I took off toward the lawn, tripped, and landed hard on my hands and knees.

Stupid goddamn dress.

I lifted the material up to my thighs and ran as fast as I could with one hand holding the material up.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get far before men dressed all in black descended. They were everywhere, coming straight toward me out of the darkness.

Shit.

I weaved to the left, hoping I could make it to the bushes before they caught me.

No such luck. Two men ducked out of the darkness. One of them turned, saw me, changed course, and started running directly at me. I dodged to the right and ran as fast as I could, my heart in my throat, my lungs burning, the muscles in my thighs reminding me I didn’t exercise nearly enough.

Two arms wrapped around me, bringing me to a screeching halt.

“No!”

I struggled and twisted and kicked my feet.

“Atlee, stop.”

“Fuck you!” I kept twisting.

“Princess, you’re safe.”

I kicked my legs, shoved my elbows back as hard as I could. I heard grunts and groans but the arms didn’t release me.

“Princess, stop!”

Princess.

I froze.

Wilson did not. He spun me around and lifted me.

There was shouting and commotion all around us.

He paid no mind and with me in his arms, he broke out into a sprint.

“The other women,” I whispered.

“They’ll be fine.”

“Louis is dead.”

I didn’t know why I said it, but I think I just needed to say it out loud.

“He’s rotting in hell,” Wilson amended.

“Did you—”

“Yes. My only regret is I couldn’t kill him a second time.”

She’ll have a man that will burn the world to the ground.

Now was not the time to have a proper conversation while he was running through the dark after rescuing me from a fate I didn’t want to think about.

So I settled on, “Thank you.”

* * *

I was sotired I could barely keep my eyes open.

I blinked away the sleep and tipped my head back to look at Wilson. I was on his lap and he was seated in a plush leather chair. Jack, Asher, Davis, Reese, and Cole were all scattered around the private jet. Jack sat the closest to Wilson, stealing glances in our direction. I wasn’t sure which one of us he was checking on—me or his friend.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Wilson’s mouth brushed over my temple before he answered.

“Sure.”

“Who had me?”

His face completely shut down. He shifted his hands under me and started to lift me off his lap. I burrowed into him and curled my fingers around his bicep.

“Don’t you dare push me away, Wilson McCray. I’ve been held hostage for… I don’t know how many days, saw two men get killed, and sat through some weird dinner party I was fairly certain was going to turn into an orgy. I’m in no mood to fight you, but I will if you think I’m getting off your lap when I finally feel safe.”

I heard Jack chuckle.

Wilson’s hard glare only made Jack laugh harder.

“His name was Andrew Stevens. Billionaire investor who moved to Buenos Aires five years ago. We don’t know how he met Louis but since Andrew has moved to Argentina he’s tasked Louis with finding him two new women each year. Now he’s rotting in hell next to Louis.”

Wilson said that like it was the end of the story.

I lifted my arm to show him my dead watch.

“It was dead when I woke up. How’d you find me?”

“The last location it pinged before it died was Peru. Seeing as I pissed off Louis it wasn’t a stretch he took you.”

I sucked in a sharp breath.

“You think he took me because you bankrupted him?”

“I don’t think it, I know it. I took him out of play. He couldn’t go to the auction but he needed to find two women to deliver to Andrew and collect his payment.”

“This isn’t—”

“Princess, it is. It’s my fault you were drugged, taken, held hostage for four days, and had to sit through that sick fucking dinner wondering when you were going to be violated. Which, I haven’t asked, and, baby, I am begging you…selfishly, straight-up dick move, begging you to give me the next thirty minutes to prepare myself for the details we need to discuss.”

I knew what he needed to ask.

“No one touched me.”

“I watched that motherfucker slap you so I know that’s not true.”

“You saw that?”

“I watched you get dressed, I watched you get seated, I watched Louis drag out the girl. I watched him grab your face. I watched the whole fucking thing. So I didn’t miss when that piece of shit touched your arm and when he hit you.”

Wilson was working himself up into a rage.

“He’s dead, honey, he can’t hurt me or anyone else. And what you saw was the first time I laid eyes on him. He never even told me his name.”

I just had one more…no, two more questions then I’d give him a break.

“Did everything go okay with the auction? Is Cat okay?”

“Cat beat the absolute fuck out of Martin,” Wilson told me. “The rest went smooth. Bad guys were locked up. And the girls are getting the help they need before they’re reunited with their loved ones.”

Thank God.

“He’s forgetting the part where he almost killed Dale,” Jack interjected.

“You almost killed Dale? Why?”

“With his bare hands,” Jack added. “It pained me to stop him but Rhode called in a possible location where you were being held. I figure you’d appreciate a rescue from your man and not having him behind bars for homicide.”

I didn’t bother repeating my question.

The why didn’t matter—not right then. That was a question for another day.

“And the women at the party?”

“They’re all being taken care of, even the one who drugged you.”

Clearly, Wilson didn’t like that. And honestly, if I’d been rescued before seeing her again I wouldn’t have cared what happened to her. That might make me a horrible person but her actions sent my life spiraling to hell. But after seeing the fear and remorse in her eyes I didn’t have it in me to hold a grudge.

“She said Louis had something of hers.”

“She has a daughter,” Jack told me. “The little girl is safe, but she thought Louis had taken her, too, so that’s why she drugged you for him.”

Now I felt like a bitch for ever being mad at her. Any mother would do anything to save their child.

I sighed and snuggled closer to Wilson.

“Is this going to mean on top of everything else I’m now going to have to convince you none of this was your fault and you cannot feel guilt for something you didn’t do?”

Without hesitation he shocked the shit out of me and said, “No.”

“No?”

“There is nothing you can say that will ever convince me that Louis taking you wasn’t my fault.”

Here we go again.

“Well, too fucking bad for you. There’s nothing you can say that will ever convince me that it was your fault Louis kidnapped me. So we’re at a stalemate. Agreeing to disagree. I told you, Wilson, I will fight you. Perhaps you misunderstood. What I meant was, I will fight you. You can push me away, and I won’t let you. You can try your shock and awe, and it will bounce off me. You can tell me a thousand times you’re going to fail me but I won’t believe you. Me sitting on your lap right this very second is proof you will never let me down. I love you, Wilson, and I’m not letting you go.”

Wilson’s hand hooked me around the back of the neck. He pulled my cheek off his chest and stared at me.

“Princess,” he groaned.

“You can’t kiss me,” I told him. “I haven’t brushed my teeth in—”

Apparently, my man didn’t care the inside of my mouth hadn’t seen toothpaste in four days.

And when his tongue swept mine, neither did I.