CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I had to have entered some kind of alternate reality. That was the only explanation for all of this. The wetness between my legs and the masked man at my back, his grip firm and unyielding, were trying to convince me otherwise.

Every step I took felt heavier, like the air around me was thickening, pulling me down into a nightmare I couldn’t escape. My thoughts were a mess, torn between rage and humiliation. I wanted to scream, cry, tear my skin open to escape his suffocating weight, but I couldn’t do a damn thing. Not when my sister was caught in the same nightmare that I was. My mind raced, grasping at any hope for how this could possibly end.

I felt a small trickle of his cum run down my inner thigh and clenched my jaw. He’d come inside me. The thought flitted through my mind, sharp and unwelcome.

I hadn’t taken birth control since I left the penthouse, and I—

“I swapped those out with fakes months ago.” His soft voice cut through the chaos in my head like a scalpel.

I nearly stumbled, my breath catching. “What?” The word came out in a whisper, barely audible over the pounding of my heart.

“Be careful.” He steadied me.

“Why would you do that?” My voice teetered between disbelief and fury.

“I was going to tell you.”

“When?”

“When you got pregnant,” he said simply, as though it were the most logical answer in the world.

My knees threatened to give out beneath me. I couldn’t do this. Not now. My mind spun in circles, trying to piece together how the man I had loved could be capable of any of this. I wanted to be shocked, appalled, and disgusted but sadly I wasn’t.

Some dark corner of my mind whispered that I had known, all along, what he was capable of. I just hadn’t wanted to see it. I’d painted over the jagged edges of his personality with rose-colored strokes, convincing myself that his intensity was love and his possessiveness was devotion. Now I was caught in the web I had ignored for so long.

I didn’t know where carrying his baby ranked on the ever-growing list of horrors, but it couldn’t be my focus right then. I tried to prepare myself for what I might walk into, but nothing could have readied me for the sight of waiting at the top of the steps. The first thing I saw was Gabe. His head was entirely wrong, twisted at an angle no head should ever be.

I would have fallen over myself if Wilder wasn’t holding onto me. The house was cloaked in near-total darkness, save for the dining room, where a single light illuminated the space like a spotlight.

A classic song played faintly, the melody twisted and haunting. At the entrance to the dining room, my breath hitched again, this time from the sheer devastation in front of me. Everyone was tied up, their faces and bodies battered and broken.

Tears burned at the corners of my eyes as my gaze darted frantically over each of them. Ryan and Cherish were gagged, their arms bound behind their chairs. Ryan’s jaw was swollen, and a deep cut marred one side of his face.

Cherish’s eyes were wide with fury and terror as she struggled against her restraints upon seeing me. Liza looked dazed, barely upright, her head lolling as if she’d been drugged. Jason was slumped over completely unconscious, a dark bruise spreading across his bloodied temple.

Daniella was in nothing but a bra and underwear, her face pale, and streaked with tears.

One of the masked men held her close, a gloved hand gripping her arm hard enough to bruise.

And Naija…

Naija’s face was a swollen mess, one side red and grotesque from a vicious beating. Half her locs looked like they’d been ripped from her scalp, blood streaking what was left. She sat with her head down, her shoulders shaking.

The tears threatened to spill, but I blinked them back, gritting my teeth as I forced myself not to break. Six masked gazes swung my way as we entered the room, their presence suffocating. I knew who each of them was except for one. The masked girl in the corner didn’t move like the others. Her stance was more casual, almost playful, but it was her hair that drew my attention. Long, dark, and unmistakable. The girl from the gas station.

“Autumn,” Lucian’s voice broke through the tense air, smooth and sincere.

His mask tilted slightly as if he were studying me. “It’s good of you to join us. We’ve all been looking forward to this.”

I refused to speak. Wilder guided me toward an empty chair, his hands steady as he maneuvered me into it. I tried to resist, pulling against him weakly, but he only leaned down, his breath ghosting over my ear.

“Don’t make me force you.”

The chair creaked as he pressed me into it, pulling my arms behind my back.

“Kristy,” Lucian said gently.

The girl practically skipped over. Her gloved hands were quick and efficient as she wound what felt like coarse twine tightly around my wrists. I flinched at the rough texture biting into my skin, but I didn’t dare make a sound.

“Good girl,” Wilder murmured close to my ear.

The tears I’d been holding back spilled over, burning hot trails down my cheeks.

This couldn’t be real.

It couldn’t be happening, but every brutal, unrelenting detail told me otherwise. I didn’t want to cry in front of them. The last thing I wanted to do was give these psychopaths the satisfaction of seeing me break, but it was like everything was catching up to me all at once—the fear, the rage, the utter helplessness.

“Hey, hey,” Atlas’s voice broke through the suffocating tension. “You don’t have anything to be afraid of, Tums.”

Tums. The nickname Wilder’s friends had always called me. Hearing it now, in this setting, from a man wearing a mask and gloves, felt like a slap in the face. My eyes shifted toward him, and it was only then I realized he was holding Amber’s head.

One of his gloved thumbs was casually pressed into the empty socket where her eye used to be. Thorne chimed in, his voice smooth and just as sickeningly reassuring.

“This is nothing but an intervention, pretty girl. Relationship counseling in a sense.”

Relationship counseling? The words rattled around in my head. My mouth opened, a sharp retort on the tip of my tongue, but before I could get it out, something soft and damp was shoved between my lips. I jerked back, my muffled protest barely audible. It was a cloth, a gag.

His gloved hand stroked my hair soothingly, the gesture eerily gentle. I wanted to scream, to kick, to lash out, but I couldn’t do a damn thing. My heart pounded as his thumb trailed down the side of my face, his mask close enough that I could feel the faint heat of his breath. Then he straightened, stepping back to join the others.

His movements were unhurried, as if he knew he had all the time in the world to make his point. Each of their masks carried its own horror, and together, they formed a wall of terror that was impossible to ignore.

Wilder stood slightly apart, his towering presence commanding attention even without words. His mask, molded into a devilish visage with curved horns and an expression of restrained cruelty, glinted in the dim light, its black sheen absorbing the shadows around him. It was eerily formal, paired with his tailored attire that only added to the uncanny effect.

The girl’s mask was equally disturbing in its simplicity, a childlike porcelain doll’s face, grotesquely exaggerated with hollow eyes and painted lips that twisted into a mockery of innocence. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating, as their collective stares pinned me to the chair.

I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing for a moment of clarity. The soft hum of the music in the background only amplified the heavy tension in the room. My wrists throbbed where the twine cut into my skin. The cloth in my mouth was suffocating, forcing every shaky breath to echo in my ears.

Lucian stepped forward first, his movements calm and measured, like he was addressing an audience instead of a woman bound and gagged in a chair. His mask tilted slightly as if he was studying me. "You know us, Autumn. Maybe not as well as you thought, but you do know us.”

My stomach twisted as he stepped closer. I wanted to look away, but his voice had a magnetic pull that kept me rooted.

“You’re probably sitting there convincing yourself Wilder isn’t the man you thought he was,” Lucian continued, his voice deceptively soft. “Let me make this simple for you. He is. Wilder would never betray you. Never. Everything between you was and is real, including us.”

Someone laughed. Hunter. That had to be Hunter. “He only lures them into a sense of safety and want, but that’s all part of our job. He never follows through with more.”

I recognized the next voice just as easily. They were no longer distorting them. Atlas stepped forward to say his piece, Amber’s head dangling from his gloved hand by her bloodied strands of hair. Most of it seemed to be gone. I couldn’t fathom what was done to her for the end result to be this.

“It’s one of us who does the rest,” he added casually. “Wilder keeps his hands clean—well, most of the time.” He chuckled darkly, jiggling Amber’s head.

“Some girls have a mask fetish, you know. They don’t even realize who they’re really talking to.”

“Except this nasty cunt,” Romeo drawled, gesturing to Amber’s head. “She knew. And she was dealt with accordingly.”

“She was an entire trash receptacle,” Thorne added bluntly.

I worked against the twine cutting into my wrists, every instinct in me screaming to get away.

“I’m genuinely sorry we didn’t get rid of her sooner,” Lucian continued. “We always look out for each other. As part of our family, that includes you too.”

When I didn’t react, Wilder took over.

“We don’t just have money because of trust funds or good investments. Our real line of work is… specialized.”

I glared at him, biting down hard on the cloth in my mouth to keep from making a sound.

“I don’t want you to think we’re monsters that just randomly kill people,” he stressed. "We work for a very specific clientele. The kind that likes to watch."

My stomach churned violently, bile rising in my throat. I shook my head, trying to convince myself I’d misheard him.

“The girls are only a portion of our work. Believe it or not, people love watching others be terrorized.”

He gestured to the mask he wore.

“These? They’re usually streaming. Our clients get their kicks watching people lose their minds. Fear, chaos, death—it’s a profitable business.”

“We skipped the streaming for your benefit this evening, though. What happens between us is personal,” Lucian reassured me. We care about you.”

His tone was disturbingly sincere. “We won’t let anything hurt you. That’s the whole point of this.”

He said it like they were doing me a favor, and this was all some deranged act of love.

“All this,” Thorne gestured around the room, to the scene of chaos and terror they had orchestrated, “it’s for you. To protect what’s his and in retrospect, ours.”

I sat there, my mind racing in frantic loops. Every piece of this nightmare felt impossibly heavy, each revelation landing like a fresh blow.

My fingers twitched against the twin biting into my wrists. I fought to remain calm. I couldn’t look at Cherish for too long. I knew her eyes would be full of fire and terror, and they’d catch that. I feared they’d notice and weaponize it. They were too calm, composed, and controlled, the way predators always were when they knew they were at the top of the food chain.

Their sense of brotherhood was as twisted and deranged as they were. They acted like they were trying to include me as if I somehow belonged to them and they truly had my best interests in mind. I chanced a glance across the room and nearly growled like a damn animal. Ryan kept glancing at me, his eyes darting from the men to me and back again.

I wanted to scream at him to quit being so damn obvious, for fucks sake. He was trying to read me. It was only making things worse.

Atlas’ masked face shifted my way the slightest bit, the motion of someone who noticed far too much.

My pulse spiked, and I dropped my gaze to the floor, feigning interest in the wood beneath my feet.

"Interesting," he rasped.

Wilder finally stepped forward, his towering frame blocking out the rest of the room as he crouched in front of me. His gloved hand tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze—or at least the cold, unfeeling gaze of his mask. The polished black surface reflected nothing back at me, as blank and unreadable as the man behind it.

He tugged the gag free, his voice almost gentle as he asked, "Any questions?"

I opened my mouth, but no words came. I snapped it shut again, swallowing back every plea, every sob, and every bitter burst of rage. They wouldn't care.

These monsters weren’t moved by emotion. If I wanted to survive and get my sister out of this, I had to play it smart. Everything else, the others, even my sanity could wait.

“You have my dog?” It was the first thought that pierced through the mess in my head.

Someone laughed.

“I have our dog. He’s coming home with us.” He paused, letting his words sink in before asking, “You want to go home, don’t you?”

I swallowed hard, my mind spinning. Was this a trick question? There was no way to tell, not with his mask concealing his every expression. He chuckled softly, able to read me without issue. “It’s a yes or no, Mint.”

I nodded once, forcing the words out. “I want to go home.”

As soon as I said it, I swear I felt him grin behind that mask.

His gloved fingers brushed my jaw tenderly.

“Good,” he murmured. “Let’s wrap this up then.”

Wilder straightened, his towering form casting an even darker shadow as he stepped back. He turned his head slightly, his tone shifting to one of calm “KJ.”

KJ. The name from their group chat? Why had I not tied that together until right then? She stepped forward, her mask eerily doll-like, her movements unnervingly graceful as if she were enjoying every second of this. She made her way to Liza, who was still tied to a chair, her face streaked with tears.

“No!” I yelled, my voice breaking as I saw what she was about to do. “No—don’t.”

KJ grabbed a fistful of Liza’s hair, yanking her head back with a vicious jerk. The chair rocked with the force of it.

Liza’s broken plea ended in a choked gurgle, KJ’s blade slashing a clean line across her throat.

Blood sprayed in rivulets, streaking across the mahogany table. Liza’s body jerked once, twice, before going limp and her head lolled forward. Muffled screams came from the others, their cries stifled by their gags. My mind screamed at me to do something, anything, unable to even process what I’d just witnessed.

Wilder’s voice broke through to me low and steady. “Lesson one, Mint, no one disrespects you and gets away with it. Not even your friends.”