Chapter 34 - Brooke

I started coming back around, still lying on the backseat of the car, but this time with a bag over my head. The scratchy, somewhat smelly fabric clung to my mouth and nose when I sucked in a breath of horror. Only the barest amount of hazy light filtered through, and when I tried to scrabble to get it off, I realized my hands were tied again, stiff and cramped behind my back.

Completely helpless, even to get a full breath, I forced myself to calm down. It was better not to start flailing around in panic and earn another hard punch to the face. The throbbing on the side of my head kept time with the terrified beating of my heart, but it meant I was still alive.

I refused to think about why I was still alive and what I was about to face, only praying this car ride would last long enough for Max to figure out what had happened.

Max. Did he even know I was gone? Even with my face covered, I could tell it was still daylight, and since I’d spent a portion of both legs of the journey unconscious, I had no idea how long we’d been on the road. It could have been four hours or forty minutes. If Max wasn’t back to the hotel from his business yet, I was truly on my own.

Stay positive.

The useless thought almost made me laugh. What was there to be positive about outside of still breathing? Instead of trying to stay on the bright side, since there wasn’t one, I concentrated on Max, letting myself believe he was looking for me already. He’d said he loved me on the plane. And how many times had he told me I was his? He’d never stand for this, not Max Fokin.

But what had I done when he laid his feelings bare? I got silent and stony, then was a brat to him the whole rest of the night. Had I ever once been as kind to him as he’d been to me? I thought back to that one month anniversary dinner he was so proud of setting up and I’d boldly proclaimed that I had wished it was something more exciting.

And he’d given me something exciting all right, trusting me enough to take me along when Dima needed backup, instead of ditching my ungrateful ass at the restaurant. He’d let me in on his secrets, patiently teaching me about his businesses as he let me tag along, playing at being his assistant because he knew I wanted to get out of the house. He’d offered to let me run his new diner, for goodness’ sake. Not just some little corner store or shell company that solely existed to launder money, but something he cared about deeply. When I shrugged it off like it was nothing, he’d still promised to keep helping me find what I was really interested in.

The entire time we were together, I wouldn’t let myself think of him as anything other than a jailer, clinging to my petty pride and insisting that he wasn’t much different from Luca.

But, oh, he was miles and miles different. All that time, I thought I was a prisoner; Max was trying his best to keep me from this fate. He’d trusted me, but I hadn’t let myself trust him. What if I hadn’t been so confused and acted so cold last night and this morning? Maybe he would have taken me with him and we would have found our way back to each other, like we always seemed to do, especially after a wicked fight.

How did he even put up with me at all?

What if he decided he was better off without me, and I was on my own from here on out?

No, that wasn’t Max. I had to believe it wasn’t. And not just because the thought of it was so devastating it almost made me forget my current circumstance, but because I needed him to save my life. Yet again.

After another interminable amount of time, the car rolled to a stop, and I was so lost in thought I didn’t notice the engine clicking off until one of them swung my door open and dragged me out by my newly bound legs. With the bag over my head, I couldn’t see anything but shifts in the light. First, there was the brightness and warm breeze of being outside, and I took as deep of a breath as I could manage through the cloth and wedged my stomach against one of the brute’s shoulders. Was that sea air I smelled?

Not much of a clue, since one entire side of California was coastal.

There was the crunch of gravel under their feet, and then the light dimmed and the air became markedly cooler as if wherever we were was running the air on full blast. I was still slightly clammy from sweating so profusely in the trunk and broke out into cold shivers. We went down some stairs, then along a thick carpet, down some more stairs, and then there was a slight pause as they muttered to each other in Italian while one clicked away at something.

The sound of a heavy door opening made me start to thrash and dig my fingernails into whatever bit of flesh I could find. I shook my head to get the bag off but only got my hair into my face, making it even harder to breathe. Seconds later, I was dropped onto a rug, with a hard, cold floor beneath my back, like it was nothing more than concrete. A basement? I didn’t like the thought of that one bit.

They kept laughing quietly to each other as one of them cut through my ties and stomped out, leaving the bag over my head. I heard the thump of the door shutting and then utter silence. The place must be soundproofed, just like Luca’s apartment.

For long moments, I waited, getting my breathing under control, but nothing else happened, and no one spoke or approached me. Was I alone in this new place? It seemed so, at least for the moment, so I slowly reached to pull the rough fabric over my head. Blowing the hair out of my eyes, I blinked in confusion at what faced me. I was in… some kind of a rec room?

This wasn’t so bad. I was lying next to a long, sectional couch, and I scowled about the added insult of being dumped on the floor. A nondescript coffee table was right in front of me, and I used it to leverage my stiff body and get up to a sitting position. The rug was thick but cold, and it still seeped up from the glossy, painted concrete floor under it. The light from the overhead fixture was dim, but as far as basements went, it was pretty well decked out.

Pulling myself up onto the couch, I stretched my aching shoulders. There was a massive television against the wall in front of me, with a wall of shelves full of DVDs on one side. I hobbled over to frown at the scrawled writing on the edges of all the DVD cases. They were all homemade, with nothing but names and dates. On the other side of the TV, another shelf held a bunch of camera equipment and… handcuffs?

I swung around to survey the rest of the room and gasped, the small bit of relief flying from me like startled birds. I wasn’t in any kind of rec room at all. Not even an ordinary basement. There was no other way to describe the place I’d been dragged to.

This was a sex dungeon.