9

9

STACEY

Chris keeps his hand low on the small of my back as he ushers me to the front entrance of an extravagant-looking building. It looks like it’s worth a billion pounds – even the front doors are gold. Chris’s friend is a rich dickhead whose family works in this place, and he got VIP passes for us.

Chris hasn’t told me which friend we’re meeting – he just smirks when he mentions how great the night will be. I’ve to behave, do as he says, and if one of them wants me to sit in their lap, I sit.

My eyes are cast down, but I glance up just before we walk through the entrance, and my gaze clashes with Barry’s for half a second. And just to make things a million times worse, while we stand, Chris talking away to someone I don’t recognise, I see someone else.

Through the crowd, among the chattering people and laughs and drunks waiting to get their seats in front of the dancing women, is Archie Sawyer. The sight of him has my heart dropping.

I tug at Chris’s sleeve, making him look at me mid-conversation. “What?”

“Can we leave?”

He frowns like I’ve just asked him to jump off a building. “No.” It’s a simple, straight-to-the-point response that has my bottom lip trembling.

Archie doesn’t see me – I’m too far away, and I can only just make him out through the shoulders of tall people. He’s smiling as he talks to a woman with wine-red hair, a younger, slimmer blonde woman beside her. I can barely see them, but I see enough to tell me the woman could be his wife.

The reason for Kade’s entrapment.

Someone shifts in front of me, revealing them fully, and my insides twist when I see who else is here – his hand on the older woman’s back, her hand on his chest as she smiles at Archie. In a black fitted suit and shirt to match his hair, his tattoo peeking out from his collar, Kade stands completely still – a statue – as his companions chatter.

The lady with red hair leans up and whispers in his ear then takes his earlobe between her teeth.

“Are you okay?” Chris asks me, his voice filled with concern even though he’s a fucking psychopath. “You’ve gone pale.”

“You threatened to sell me to your friends the entire drive,” I grit, dragging my eyes elsewhere. “Don’t expect me to be in a good mood.”

“Such a fucking brat,” he replies, shaking his head. He takes my hand and pulls me into the room on the left, away from Kade and Archie and who I assume is the wife. The younger one might be the daughter? Or maybe another poor soul trapped in their web?

However, all my thoughts stall when Chris leads me to where we’re sitting, a mini stage in the middle of a semi-circular leather booth. But that’s not my issue – my issue is that I recognise the faces of the men waiting for us.

I try to stop walking, but Chris crushes my hand and drags me. “If you thought what happened the other week was bad, you’re going to wish you were dead. Now fucking walk.”

The last time I saw them was when Chris drugged me, sold me and ultimately destroyed my entire life by having each of them beat and rape me while I was in a relationship with Kade.

Chris pulls me down on his lap, wraps his arms around me as he greets his friends then slips pills into my hand. “Take them,” he orders. “Unless you want to make a scene where I force them down your throat followed by my cock? No one will help you here.”

I gulp, folding my fingers over the little white pills before swallowing them. The dryness of my throat makes them catch, and Chris offers me a drink to wash them down.

I’m not sure how much time passes, but I’m hot, a layer of sweat on my skin, trying to stay conscious as Chris laughs with his friends, who keep asking me if I remember them.

They want me to dance. They want me to cry their names. They want me to show them between my legs again.

“How much for an hour?”

“Fuck off,” Chris replies, laughing and shaking his head. “She’s mine tonight.”

“She’s yours every night. Three grand? I can wire it across right now and we’ll be back with her in thirty minutes.”

Chris tightens his hold on my hip. “No.”

For some reason, Chris tells them to fuck off again and doesn’t laugh at their jokes or pay attention to anything they say. He’s stroking my side with his thumb, turning his head to whisper in my ear, “I changed my mind – consider your punishment done. We’re leaving.”

“Ten grand?”

Chris glares. “No. This was a mistake bringing her. I’m taking her home.”

“If you do that, I’ll leak the videos you sent us of her. I’ll even add in the other girls you’ve abused. How many is he at now, Phil? Twelve girls? Thirteen?”

“Fifteen victims, I believe,” Phil – I assume – replies, sniggering. “One click and poof, all of those incriminating videos out in the world.”

My stepbrother freezes. “You wouldn’t. You all took part.”

“We can easily blur our faces.” The first one smirks, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He’s older, bald, a groomed ginger beard covering most of his pale face, his eyes beady and haunting. I remember the feeling of him on top of me when I was a teenager, him asking if the blood smearing his cock was virginal. Little did he know that I’d lost my daughter a month prior. “Twenty grand. Thirty minutes. That’s all we’re asking for. You sold her to us before – what’s the problem now?”

“We’re leaving.” Chris holds my waist, and I slip my arm around his shoulders for balance, since the room is starting to spin.

I hate him, but he’s currently saying no to them. He’s never said no to them sharing me.

“Come on, Fieldsy,” the ginger one says, glancing at his friend beside him. “Fine. We’ll all chip in and raise it to a hundred grand. Surely you can’t pass up that kind of money? It’s not like we haven’t fucked her before. You’re being a spoilsport.”

“Chris,” I whisper, seeing the change in his expression. “Please take me home.”

He closes his eyes. “You send the money now, delete everything you have on me and you can have two hours.”

My insides freeze. No.

The ginger one grins. “You have a deal.”

I won’t let them touch me. I’ll fight. I’ll fight until they have no choice but to kill me.

Phil leans on his elbows and points to the pole. “You can dance. Keep us entertained until I book us a room.”

I look at the pole – it reaches all the way to the high ceiling. I don’t feel like I’m in any position to refuse. If they can manipulate someone like Chris – scare him into selling me – then they’d do worse to me.

They’re violent. I was barely lucid when they attacked me before, but I remember the way they brutalised me until I was barely conscious. There were six of them then, and it’s a little warped that I think myself lucky only the three are here tonight.

“What song would you like on?”

I glance around the room, and my breath hitches when I see the bar, and I quickly need to look away before I make it obvious. Kade is sitting beside Barry – they’re talking.

I haven’t seen him since he forced me onto the jet. Did they hurt him? Did they punish him for rushing me out of the country?

Do they know I’m here? Can they see me? Is Barry here trying to save me? What if Archie Sawyer sees me?

My heart is beating so hard in my chest, I’m shocked none of them can hear it.

“‘Spiracle’,” I say, gulping through my nerves. “By Flower Face.”

Chris points to the pole. “Are you in any state to dance on that?”

I ignore him. I’m not – I already feel whatever he gave me in my system.

When I get to my feet, I nearly lose my balance.

The metal of the pole feels so cold against my clammy, sweating hand. The world blurs together for a few minutes, and I silently beg my heart to stop beating – for my lungs to give up and let me die. If I fall and hit my head, I could pass out – maybe even make myself brain dead from the force of the fall.

Kade is watching me – I can feel the heat of his gaze on me. Chris is too in his own head to realise he’s so close to us. He’s mad that his friends have fucked him over, and he keeps asking the ginger one if he’ll call off the deal.

“Okay, I’m hard and bored,” Phil says, slapping his thighs. “You can stop.”

I get down, rubbing my arm and staggering to the side a little.

“She isn’t consenting to any of this,” Chris says, which I find ironic. His eyes are on me as he keeps talking. “You only fuck her, and you’ll all wear protection. Don’t hit her, and don’t kiss her.”

“Ah, right. I forgot you said you wanted to get her pregnant.” The ginger one is smiling at my widening eyes as all three of them stand, way taller and bigger than me. “I wonder if she’ll cry this time – or at least stay awake. I loved her tears before.”

The three of them approach me, and Chris takes my hand delicately. “I’m sorry,” he mutters under his breath as he kisses my cheek, sliding something sharp into my palm.