Chapter 11

Sadie

W hen I refused to answer, Keelan grabbed my wrists and dragged me across the room to the sofa. I dug my heels into the carpet, but it was to no avail.

“You’re going to make this harder than it has to be, aren’t you?” he said, his eyes briefly skating down to my throat again where the bruises were. As I debated covering my injuries with my hand, he shoved me onto the couch. There was an uncomfortable pause as his nostrils flared, and his eyes pierced into mine. “I have to tie you up, Sadie. Rope . Where is it?” His jaw tightened. My noncompliance was already irritating him, much to my satisfaction. I was positive that Mason had something like rope in the garage, but I wasn’t about to share that.

I leaned back against the soft cushions, folding my arms over my waist.

“Really, Sadie? Are you going to make me drag you around this fucking house?” I pinched my brows together and lifted my chin.

I wasn’t going to cooperate, and the bastard knew it .

“Fine,” Keelan said. “Dragging you around, it is. Let’s go.” He reached down, seized my thin wrist in a vise grip, and lugged me to my feet. He dragged me through the house until we went into the garage. There, Keelan found a pack of zip ties in Mason’s tool chest. “This will do.”

He moved me back to the couch and sat me down on the floor, proceeding to zip tie and secure my ankles and wrists with them. He then took some blue ribbon he found in my crafting chest, weaving through the holes to secure me to the heavy coffee table. While the throw rug I sat on was soft, my lower back ached.

“Alright, I think you’re secure enough. Do you want some water?” Our gazes locked, mine burning with fury, his cold and smug. Anxiety twisted at me relentlessly. I had no idea what he had planned for me, and the wait made it so much worse. At least if he was going to kill me, I could prepare myself. Waiting for the unknown was torture.

When I pressed my lips together and didn’t answer, he ran his hand through his dark hair, clearly frustrated. He styled it differently now since the last time I saw him. One side of his head had been shaved close to the scalp, with the longer hair brushed over it. Before he went to prison, he let the wavy locks hang loose around his ears, concealing some of his piercings.

Now, the haircut accentuated all the tattoos on his neck. Shapes and shadows danced and clashed across the skin of his throat. From the looks of it, Keelan had gotten a few more pieces on his arms. Little of his tanned skin was visible under all that artwork, ink trailing from his knuckles along his muscular arms and shoulder and painting his entire torso down to his hips .

But Keelan kept his face unmarked; his beautiful, cold features didn’t need any ink. He was alluring despite his tainted, evil heart.

“No, I’m fine,” I finally answered. I didn’t want Keelan to slip something into the water and drug me. While he had never hurt me physically in the past, that was before I betrayed him.

Keelan’s eyes narrowed, and he kneeled on the floor beside me. He grabbed my tied wrists and leaned in. I watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed while he re-examined the darkening bruises on my neck from Brian.

“He didn’t mean to do that,” I said, knowing exactly what he was thinking. “Brian cares about me, Keelan. He’d never do this on purpose—”

“And yet … he did.”

My brows furrowed as his blue eyes grew dark, nostrils flaring in … anger. Was he angry about me being hurt?

“It was an accident. Those happen, you know?”

“Not when you’re experienced and know what to do. Which, clearly, he doesn’t.” His tone grew bitter as he spoke. I knew better than to argue with him, so an awkward silence fell between us. “Are these too tight?” He rubbed his thumbs against my skin near the ties.

I shook my head, trying to ignore the smell of him near me. “No. It’s fine.”

Keelan inhaled sharply before standing up, moving to the reclining chair, and settling into the cushions.

“Are you expecting any visitors over the next few days?” Fear rattled me as I shook my head. Was he planning to torture me for that long before killing me ?

Over the last twelve months, my social circle has been pretty pathetic. Sure, I had met a few women in town with whom I would meet for coffee or wine on the weekends. But it never expanded to visits to my house. Mason, who was like family, never came over unless there was a maintenance issue. Given my circumstances, I liked my privacy and space. Now I was alone … and not even the neighbors would hear me scream.

“Good,” he said, glancing at the wall clock behind me. “I’m going to hop in the shower, and then we’re going to bed. It’s past midnight, and”—he smiled widely—“we have a very long week ahead of us.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and dropped my head. I didn’t want to play whatever game he was concocting. If he was trying to drive me insane, he was doing a great job at it.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “You hunted me down, broke into my house, and tied me up. What do you want if not to kill me?”

The bastard shrugged. “Let’s just say you’re more valuable alive than dead. I’ll explain more on the drive.”

My head snapped up. Drive?

“What do you mean ‘drive?’” I asked cautiously. “Where are you taking me?”

“Home.”

“Home?” I repeated. “Keelan, this is my home now. Besides, if you don’t kill me, your family sure as hell will the minute I’m spotted in Los Angeles.” I stopped, watching the smug grin on his face grow bigger. Temper flared in my head. “Did you really break out of prison, drive three thousand miles to find me, just to take me back to California?”

Keelan just kept looking at me with that damn beautiful smile .

“You do realize that you’re a fugitive, right? Meaning that if a cop stops us and recognizes you, you’re going right back to prison.”

And I’ll happily testify again to make sure you rot forever.

“Then we’ll have to work extra hard not to get caught.”

“There’s no ‘we’ in your scheme. You thought it would be a good idea to kidnap someone and then force them on a cross-country drive back to where they imprisoned you in the first place instead of lying low. That’s literally insane.” Shaking my head, I scoffed. “How did you even escape, anyway?”

“The details aren’t important.”

Oh, great. “Did you kill people again?”

His lips turned up. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

Silence spread across the room. What that meant was Keelan may not have pulled the trigger; someone he hired or that his family hired did the killing. Not that it mattered. It was all the same to me.

Death by his hands.

His gaze intensified, forcing me to avert my eyes from his. Whenever he looked at me, his expression was always too intense. Of course, Keelan always acted inconvenienced by my presence unless I stripped off my clothes for him. For the sake of our families’ business agreement, we tried to tolerate each other. There was no love and certainly no respect. If anything, we used each other’s bodies to numb the situation our fathers tied us to so we didn’t kill one another.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing the scissors from the coffee table and heading toward me. I tried to wrench on the plastic ties to get them to break, but they just burned into my wrists. Keelan crouched down and cut the ribbon instead of slicing my throat. Then he held onto my wrists and lifted me to my feet.

“I’m going to trip up those stairs,” I snapped.

Keelan looked down and nodded before cutting my ankles free. “It’s a good thing you have a whole stack of these ties. I’ll re-tie new ones once I get you on the bed.”

“I’m not going to lie in the same bed with you!” An angry growl escaped my lips. “Tie me up. I don’t give a shit. But you’re sleeping on the floor. That’s the least you can do after putting me through all this.”

A laugh escaped Keelan’s lips, his grin growing into a playful smile. “Oh, you’re still the little princess I remember. If you think, after months of sleeping on a prison bed, that I’ll take the floor over that soft, plush mattress, you’re out of your goddamned mind.”

Once he had me on my feet, he pulled me to his chest and looked down, his tall, muscular six-foot-four body towering over mine.

I’d forgotten how tall he was over my five-foot-seven stature.

“Then I’ll take the floor,” I suggested, practically pleading now. “Tie me to the vent. I don’t fucking care. I don’t want to be anywhere near you.”

“Princess, I’m not so sure about that. Your eager pussy seemed to enjoy my touch not too long ago when you came all over my fingers.” Keelan smirked down at me. Before I could call him a fucked-up pervert or kick him in the shin, a tiny meow broke our stare down. Poe had jumped up to the back of the couch.

Regardless of my well-being, I knew deep down Keelan would never hurt Poe. Keelan was a lot of things, but he loved animals as much as I did. Especially cats. His violence was only ever toward humans, ever since we were kids. He was a vicious asshole who thrived on hurting people. But animals? Never.

“What’s your cat’s name?” he asked, still holding the zip ties with one hand and scratching Poe behind the ear with the other. By how Poe leaned into the scratching, it seemed he liked Keelan well enough—little furry traitor.

“That’s Poe,” I explained, my voice trembling slightly. “I found him as a stray in the forest while on a run last spring. Someone had dumped him there.”

Keelan’s blue eyes softened. “You always wanted a cat.”

I nodded. Father was allergic and hated animals in general. No matter how many times I begged him for a cat growing up, he always said no.

“Does Poe sleep in the bed?” he asked, petting him along his back. The tuxedo purred even louder, and his green-yellow eyes closed in kitty bliss.

I shook my head. “He usually sleeps down here or the bedroom window perch. But if I keep the door shut, he won’t beg.”

Because Brian would randomly stop by to stay overnight, I had to keep my bed clean from cat hair. But I couldn’t tell Keelan that; it would send him into a rage at just the thought of another man beside me while I slept.

Keelan nodded. “Alright, then. We’ll keep the door shut. I need to know that if you try to run, you have a few barriers to slow you down.”

I knew then that I wouldn’t run. Not while Keelan was next to me, at least.

Once tied to the bed, I leaned back, watching Keelan slowly remove his clothes before disappearing into the bathroom. Despite already being in good shape, it was obvious that he prioritized his workout routine during his time in prison. His body was much more chiseled and toned than I remembered. I let out a small exhale. Keelan and my personalities constantly clashed, but physical attraction was never absent from our time together. It annoyed me that was still the case. I felt fucked up in all kinds of ways. And that was precisely why I needed to find a way to get away from him.

After hearing the shower turn on, I immediately started working on slipping my wrist through the zip ties. Keelan had kept them somewhat loose, so they didn’t pinch my skin but not loose enough that I could slip my thumb through it without breaking the bone first.

I had another idea: slide the plastic up and down the metal headboard poles until it shaved off enough to snap it free.

It would take me hours.

I didn’t have hours. My heart was hammering again; I had to get out of this.

After fifteen minutes of rubbing the inner part of the zip tie against the metal post, the shower turned off, and I stilled. “Shit.” I was out of time.

When the doorknob turned, I sat upright, resting my back against the bed and straightening the blanket with my untied hand.

Keelan came out with a towel wrapped around his hips, water trickling down his torso over the raven tattoo that covered his belly .

My breath hitched as he bent down to pick up his pants, and the towel moved slightly. I swallowed and turned away, not wanting to watch when it fell to his feet.

“I need to throw these in your wash. Where is it?”

“Are you planning on making yourself at home?” I sneered. The bastard was acting like this was his place, too, and I hated it.

“Sadie,” he said, my name like a warning of punishments to come if I didn’t answer. “Where’s the washer and dryer?” He wouldn’t ask me again.

Despite the fear and something darker roiling in my stomach, I rolled my eyes and jerked my head to the bedroom door. Having Keelan away a little longer would give me a chance to focus on getting out of the restraints without being distracted by his chiseled, half-naked body.

“Down in the garage. There’re detergent pods on the shelf above them.”

“Alright,” he said, eyeing my laundry basket by the closet, throwing his stuff on top, and then picking it up. “Stay put now.” He walked past me with a broad smile and then had the audacity to wink at me as he left the room. With all the time I spent away from him, I forgot how much I hated that man.

The moment he stepped into the hall, I got to work, sliding the zip tie up and down and wincing every time the plastic bit into my skin. In my mind, a plan had already developed. With the washing machine being as old as it was, it usually took a little while to get started. I’d grab Poe and run to the nearest gas station. In my frantic head, that made perfect sense … aside from one thing. I couldn’t free my hands.

I might have to break my thumbs .

Shit! This wasn’t working. I kept at it, sliding it up and down the headboard posts, watching the cheap paint chip off little by little.

After roughly ten minutes, I gave up, plopping back on the mattress and looking up at the ceiling fan, tears once again running down my face.

I’m dead. There was no way out of this. Right now, he was playing with me, but the moment I let my guard down or stopped being valuable to him, he was going to kill me for what I did to him.

Keelan walked back into the room and stopped at the edge of my bed. “Alright. I’ll throw everything in the dryer in the morning. For now, it looks like I’ll be sleeping naked.”

“Absolutely not. Are you insane?” I barked out a nervous laugh, trying to move to the edge of the bed, but I winced as my chafed wrists rubbed against the zip ties. “Ow!”

Keelan slid underneath the covers before reaching over my shoulder, the mattress dipping beside me. As his arm crossed my vision, my eyes caught the sharp end of a kitchen knife. I gasped, trying to move further away, but his other arm wrapped around me and pulled me up against his chest. His hardened cock pressed up against my ass, and I stilled, a tinge of arousal hitting my core.

How can any of this be turning him on?

When I braced myself for the knife to press into my throat, he continued reaching before cutting off the ties. “You’re hurting yourself, princess.”

I tried to wrench from his bear hug, but he only squeezed harder, his cock once again pressing into my ass. “Why the hell do you care if I get hurt? ”

He responded to me by pulling my hair tie, freeing my bun, and then burying his face in my damp hair, inhaling deeply.

This can’t be happening. Is he sniffing me?

Anger burned the fear in my gut into ashes. That bastard thinks he can do what he wants to me.

“Keelan, I’m seeing someone else. He could call or come back at any moment. You need to stop this.”

He didn’t remove his irritatingly lovely face from my hair and neck, only chuckled a little before he touched my stomach. His fingers slid under the hem of my tank top and grazed the skin where the tattoos he gave me were.

“Do these marks make you think of me?”

What the hell? That’s what he wants to talk about right now?

I swallowed. “Never,” I lied. “I wish I could burn them off.” In fact, briefly, after I escaped, I had planned to but didn’t go through with it. For whatever damn reason, I couldn’t.

He chuckled again, finally moving his head back and resting it on his pillow. “Good night, Sadie,” he said. “If you try to run or get out of my hold while we sleep, I’ll know.”

Keelan was right. He was always a light sleeper. It was rare that I stayed the entire night with him during the times we hooked up when we were engaged, but when I did, it only took a shift on my pillow for his eyes to snap open.

“And if you run, I will catch you before your feet reach the hallway. I don’t have to tell you what will happen to you once you’re caught because I think you know. Am I clear?”

I nodded quickly, taking heed of that warning and biting back an insult. I would wait until morning when I knew for sure I could reach my car. Until then, I had to pretend he wasn’t there so I could fall asleep.

But it was going to be impossible.

Not with an escaped convict keeping me caged against him.