I HEAR VOICES off in the distance as I start to wake from my nap.
“How do you feel?” I recognize Gavin.
“Like you gave me too many drugs.” I hear Sin’s voice and I don’t know if I should cry or scream. I bring my hand up underneath the blanket and cover my mouth to keep myself from doing both.
“It was either immense pain or drug-induced bliss,” Tyson growls. “We chose for you.”
“Well, I’m awake now and I choose no more drugs,” Sin states. “Is there something that I can sign to make sure that doesn’t happen?”
I open my eyes and pull the covers down just enough to peek out into the room. I’m lying on my side, facing Sin’s hospital bed. He’s sitting up, legs dangling off the side with his back toward me. Gavin and Tyson both stand in front of him. My father off to the side.
“How do you feel?” Gavin asks him.
“Fine,” comes his clipped voice.
“You should…” Tyson trails off as his eyes meet mine.
I’ve been caught. Sitting up, I let the blanket fall to my waist.
“What?” Sin asks Tyson while turning to look at me over his shoulder.
“We’ll give you a two a minute alone,” Gavin states. He and my father walk over to the door, but Tyson doesn’t follow them out. Not sure if he’s staying for my benefit or Sin’s.
“Elli.” Sin turns on the bed and I watch the way his jaw sharpens at the pain he’s in. He’s not one hundred percent himself yet but he’s going to pretend as much as he can.
That also pisses me off. Now that I see him, I want to slap the shit out of him. Does that make me a bad person? Probably. Do I care? Absolutely not. “What in the fuck were you thinking?”
His eyes narrow on mine. “Elli—”
“Because your letter sounded like you were leaving me. Then once I saw you, I realized it was more of a suicide note.”
“I just went through this with your father,” he mumbles, and then speaks louder, “I was doing what was right.”
His words make my blood boil. How dare he decide what’s right for me. “You had divorce papers written up.”
“I didn’t sign them,” he says through gritted teeth. “They were shredded.”
I get to my feet. “You tricked me into marrying you, then you want to just throw me away. How fucking dare you, Easton.” Turning my back to him, I head to the door but stop and spin back to face him. “You don’t get to decide when we’re done!” I shout. “I get to decide that.” Storming over to him, I watch a smirk lift the corner of his lips. He thinks this is a game. That I’m joking. “Have me served with divorce papers, Sin, and see what I fucking do with them. I’ll shove them so far down your throat, you’ll fucking choke on them.” With that, I spin back around and run out of the room, making sure to slam the door shut behind me to further the point that I’m pissed at him in case he didn’t already get the hint.
I run out of the cathedral, thankful I don’t run into my father or Gavin, and to the parking lot to my mother’s Escalade. Tyson had given me the keys when he and my father were removing Sin from the back. I had stuffed them in my pocket.
Getting in and starting it up, I drive to my parents’ house. I’m so pissed at Sin that I need space to breathe right now. The fact that he left me after everything we went through makes me so angry with him. Why would he put me through more? Did he seriously think that I could lose him and be okay? Go on with my day-to-day life? Forget moving on and loving someone. I’d be miserable for the rest of my life.
Reaching over, I turn up the volume to drown out my own thoughts as “DARKSIDE” by Neoni fills the car while I watch the headlights illuminate the two-lane road as I speed down it.
Not much longer, I’m pulling up to my parents’. It’s weird being here knowing that my mother is gone. The thought hits me that she’s got the same brand that Sin has now. Well, the same one that he had before I watched Gavin cover it up with a new one. A part of me hopes it hurts her. That it feels like hell.
I thought my father and Sin were going to take care of her, make her pay for ruining our lives, but after what I saw at Carnage, she deserves whatever they have planned for her. And I hope she lives for years there. At least nine, anyway.
Entering the house, I look around and get a cold chill. It’s empty. Sin sent the staff home before we brought in Linc and Liam days ago. We haven’t discussed it, but I’m not sure what we’re going to do with this house.
I would say my father will move in but why would he want to? His twin brother was killed here. My mother has shared this home with two other men, even having one of the wedding receptions here. As far as I know, my father has to stay hidden from the Lords. They think he’s dead and I’m not sure it has to stay that way or not. I just know he can’t become a Lord again. That part of his life is over.
Making my way up to my bedroom, I grab a suitcase out of my closet. I’ve only got a few dresser drawers full of clothes at Sin’s and my house. I didn’t feel like going there just yet. I’d rather be here alone than there, knowing he’s at the cathedral. Who knows how long before he can come home. The way he was moving around, I’d say he’s going to push himself more than he should too soon.
I’m shoving clothes into my suitcase and grabbing things from underneath my sink when I hear something. “Hello?” I ask, stepping into my bedroom from the adjoining bathroom. Nothing but silence follows.
I walk over to my Bluetooth speaker on my desk and connect it to my cell, pulling up “Pray” by Xana, before blasting it.
Walking into my closet, I grab my belts, carrying them back into my room to where my suitcase is open and on the floor. I come to a stop when I see a man standing in my bedroom, over by the door, blocking it.
He wears black jeans, a matching hoodie, and a mask over his face. It’s a simple black mask with mesh over the eyes and white stitching where the lips should be. I place my hands on my hips, pushing one out. “Shouldn’t you be resting?” I shout over the music. He must have run out right after me. I’m guessing Tyson brought him here.
He just stands there, not moving or saying anything that I can hear. “I’m not doing this, Sin,” I shout once more and spin around. Going back into the closet, I start grabbing some scarves this time. Exiting, he’s still there. I drop them into my suitcase. “Knock it off. I’m not in the mood.” The song is interrupted when my phone begins to ring.
Rolling my eyes, I walk over to my desk and look down at my screen. Sin lights up on it and I spin around quickly to look at the guy standing in the doorway to my room. There’s no phone in his hand.
My father had it on him after he got the text. As far as I know, he gave it to Sin at the cathedral. So it’s him calling me. “How are you doing that?” I ask, taking a nervous step back. Maybe he hit call and then shoved it in his pocket. Sin is always thinking of ways to trick me. “Knock it off,” I repeat, my pulse racing.
He steps inside my room as my phone stops ringing and the song begins to play again. “I don’t want to play your stupid game right now, Sin. I mean it.” The music stops almost immediately, and the ringing fills the room. Blood rushes in my ears when I realize both of his hands are by his sides. It’s not Sin.
Spinning around, I go to exit the French double doors to the balcony, but they burst open. So hard, they hit the interior wall and one shatters. I try to scream but nothing comes out when I see another guy dressed the exact same.
Turning back, I see the one by the door has stepped farther into my room and all I can think of are the guys from Carnage. How many of them were there? Two? No, there were three. That means there’s one more here. They’ve followed us. Want to make me pay for helping free him. How would they have found me? My mom. She’s thrown me to the wolves before. This wouldn’t be any different. Especially if she gave me up in exchange for her freedom. That’s what she’d do.
The guy by the open bedroom door steps to the side and I take advantage of the situation and run out of my room. I don’t look back, my heart hammering in my chest. I take the stairs, running down them, trying not to trip while telling myself to breathe. It’s not working.
I’m halfway down when I see a figure jump in front of the bottom of the stairs—the third brother? All I see is black clothes and another mask. I jump the last three, throwing my shoulder into the body as hard as I can.
I knew it was them. The brothers. They want to drag Sin back and torture him. I won’t let them take him. I won’t let him turn himself over because of me. Or anyone else. If they plan on using me for bait, it’s not going to work. I’ll make them kill me first.
I hit the body so hard that I shove them into the opposite wall where there’s a rectangular table with a crystal vase and mirror above it. We fall to the floor, and I curl up into the fetal position to protect my face when I feel the shattered glass fall down on top of us. The table making a loud crashing sound as it hits the floor as well.
Rolling onto my back, I whimper at the burn in my side. My shaky hands reach down, and I feel blood. I cut myself on something but thankfully there’s no glass sticking out of my body.
Rolling back over to my stomach, I come face-to-face with the person I hit and it’s that same mask as the other two in my bedroom.
A moan escapes their mask-covered face, and they move faster than I expected for being thrown around like a rag doll because my body is slow as fuck right now.
Moving, they jump on top of me, straddling my hips. I reach up, trying to shove them off, but their leather-covered hands manage to wrap around my throat. I arch my back and thrust my hips, shoving theirs farther up my body but not knocking them off completely. I raise my hand above my head and bring my elbow down hard, managing to knock their right hand free and I suck in a deep breath as I roll over just enough to reach a piece of glass lying on the floor next to me. Grabbing a hold of it, I feel it dig into my palm. Before they can choke me again, I stab it into the bottom of their mask, right at the neck.
I yank it out and blood squirts everywhere, splattering on my face, neck, and arms.
I grab a hold of it in both of my hands, lift them above my head, and scream as I shove it into the black hoodie, over and over, making more blood splatter until the body falls off of me and onto the floor.
My arms fall to my side while I try to catch my breath and my eyes fall shut, needing to take a second, but a hand grips my hair, yanking me to my feet and making me cry out. My fall and fight gave the other two upstairs in my room the chance to catch up with me. I’m kicking and screaming as he drags me to the family room where I’m shoved to my knees.
A knee is shoved into my back, holding me facedown into the floor, and I scream at the top of my lungs as my arms are yanked behind my back. I feel the familiar rough material of a zip tie wrap around them before I hear the zipper being pulled tight, pinching my skin. I’m picked up and thrown onto the couch, lying on top of my now tied arms. I breathe heavily, staring up at the two men through my watery lashes.
“Sin is going to kill you both,” I shout angrily, knowing he will do whatever it takes to save me. After all, the devil thrives in hell.
The one that dragged me in here by my hair slaps me across the face. So hard it knocks me onto my side. The glove making my cheek sting and my ears ring. Grabbing my shoulders, he rolls me onto my back and jumps on top of me, pinning me down and making it hard to breathe with his heavy weight.
He grips my cheeks, and my eyes begin to water at how rough he is. “Sin can’t save you, baby.” His voice is a low growl, making me shiver. “He’s dead.”
“No.” I manage to mumble through my squished cheeks. They killed him? Why would they let him go only to kill him? Did they follow me here from the cathedral? What about my father and Tyson?
The mask nods once before lowering his face to my ear and whispering, “He’s gone, Elli. You’re ours now. Forever.” Pulling back, he squeezes my cheeks, forcing my mouth wide open while shoving my head back, making me arch my neck. I look up to see the other one standing at the end of the couch.
He drops something into my open mouth and before I can spit it out, the one straddling me lets go of my cheeks to place his gloved-covered hand over my mouth. My body convulses as I choke on whatever it is. The taste of chalk makes me gag.
“Swallow them.” The one standing by the couch orders and tears fall from the corners of my eyes. Them? What did they give me? How many are there?
He kneels down, reaches around the guy that’s still straddling my waist, and slides his hand through the collar of my shirt, stretching it out. His hand dips inside of my bra and pinches my pierced nipple, making me scream into the other guy’s glove that’s still covering my mouth.
The fresh tears blur my vision when I feel the pills finally slip down the back of my throat, and I can’t fight the sob that shakes my shoulders “That’s a good girl,” the one playing with my breast praises me. He removes his hand from my shirt and speaks, “Now we wait. You’ll be begging to swallow our cocks in no time.”
SIN
I THROW MY phone down and begin to pace. “She’s ignoring me.”
“You need to take it easy,” Tyson urges.
I snort. “We’ve been branded before.”
Gavin scoffs. “That’s more than a brand. Hell, it looked like you slit your wrists in a suicide attempt.”
Picking up my cell, I grit my teeth to not give them the satisfaction of being right. It rings in my hand, and I immediately answer it. “Elli—”
“Hello, Sin.”
A cold chill runs up my spine at the voice I recognize. I hoped to never hear it again. Pulling the phone from my ear, I see UNKNOWN written on it and place it on speaker. I turn toward Tyson so he can hear. “What the fuck do you want?”
A dark chuckle carries through the room. “That’s no way to talk to a man who gave you freedom.”
“You didn’t give me anything. A soul for a soul,” I grind out.
“How’s your girl?”
I stiffen and I hear Nick curse under his breath as he begins to pace. “What the fuck did you just say?” I grip the phone tighter.
“Ellington. It would be a shame for something to happen to your wife,” he says, sounding bored as fuck. Like he’s sitting in a chair, feet propped up on a desk while staring at a drink in his hand.
“You son of a bitch!” I shout, and Tyson pries the cell from my grip. “Let me speak to her,” I demand.
Tyson raises his hand to me, putting the phone to his mouth. “Where is she?” he asks, sounding much calmer than me. He doesn’t care what happens to her. He doesn’t love her.
The guy laughs again. “Since when did you become the father of the younger Lords, Ty?” he asks. “You gave up your title to babysit. Sounds beneath you, if you ask me. You had so much potential”
Tyson’s jaw flexes but he refuses to acknowledge that. “You have no use for her.”
“Oh, I could think of a lot of ways to make her useful…”
“I’ll fucking kill you!” I rush Tyson to grab the phone, but Nick pulls me back while Tyson moves out of the way at the same time. My teeth grind at the pain I feel in my chest while Nick’s hands pull my skin, taking my breath away for a split second.
“Does the kid not track his pet?” He makes a tsking sound. “Ty, man, you’re disappointing us. You need to teach these younger Lords how to handle their whores.”
Tyson looks at me, arching a brow, and I nod quickly. Shrugging my shoulders, Nick lets go of me and I raise my hands, letting him know I’m not about to tackle Tyson to the floor. I need to know where she is first.
Stepping over to Tyson, he hands me the phone and I don’t hang up, but back out of the call to go to the app that I track her phone on. “It’s turned off,” I growl. She must have shut it off after I called her.
“I suggest if you get her back, that you place a tracker inside of her,” he goes on. “Phones can be manipulated.”
“Where the fuck is she?” I’m screaming so loud, my throat hurts. My entire body is shaking. Or that could be the adrenaline. I feel like I’m back at Carnage in the room, tied up, and needing to fight but unable to.
The thought of getting her back with 666 branded into her skin makes me want to vomit. I’ll have Gavin knock her out while I remove it… My head snaps up to Tyson as a thought hits me and I stiffen.
“What?” he mouths.
All I can do is stare at him. I branded her. The Lords’ crest on her thigh. They’ll remove it. Cut her open like a fish while she hangs there in the cold room. I can’t let that happen to her. Swallowing what little pride I have left, I say, “What do you want?” They wouldn’t have called me. Otherwise, they would have just taken her.
Click.
“MOTHERFUCKER!”
“Let’s go.” Tyson snaps into action and all I can think is that I did this to her. It’s my fault. “Easton?” he barks my name, hand on my shoulder. “Do you have trackers on anything else?”
“No…” I trail off, trying to think. “But I’ve got cameras in our house.” I pull them up, only to find no activity on them.
“Her parents’ house. Don’t you have cameras on it?” he goes on.
I pull up the camera in her bedroom. It’s the only place in the house that I have them. “Nothing,” I growl, my hands shaking while holding my cell. I go to exit out of it but pause. Squinting, I look down and see her phone sitting on her desk. “Wait.” I open up a new angle and see the French doors open, glass on the floor. “She was there,” I call out.
Rewinding the recording, I turn up the volume for everyone in the room to hear what I’m seeing.
“How many?” Tyson asks when she runs out and they chase after her, causing the sound to go silent again.
“Two.” Her father is the one who answers next to me, watching it over my shoulder.
I don’t wait for any of them, I turn and rush to the door, up the stairs, and out into the cold night.
“I’ll drive,” Gavin offers, and I look behind me to see he brought a bag with him. That after he heard what I saw, he thinks she’s going to need him for medical help. Looking around, I notice that his car is the only one in the parking lot so I’m not sure how we got here. Or what she left in.
“Sin, I’m going to need you to stay back. You can’t be tearing stiches open,” Gavin says once we’re all loaded in his car.
“I’m fine.”
“You have limits right now.” It’s Nick who sits beside me in the back that speaks.
“I can recover after we find her,” I growl, watching the live feed on my phone. She’s nowhere to be seen. Neither are the two masked men. I stare at it, heart pounding waiting to see the worst—them drag her back into her room kicking and screaming where they’ll rape her, beat her, kill her.
At least at her parents’ house, I have some sort of advantage against them. If they get her to Carnage, she’s as good as dead. I can’t bring her back from there, but I will make sure they kill me. I’ll walk right through their fucking front doors, guns raised and ready. It’ll be a suicide mission, but I won’t live without her. Not anymore.
“Anyone have guns on them?” Tyson changes the subject. “Not like we were prepared. And we don’t have time to stop by Blackout.”
I barely have clothes on. Nicholas was able to find me a T-shirt and sweatpants after she left. He grabbed them from a closet in an office at the cathedral. Pretty sure they once belonged to a dead guy that was killed during Confession. That’s when a Lord brings in someone they want to make an example of in front of the congregation.
“I’ve got two in the glove box.” Gavin nods to it. “Another in the center console. You guys take them. I’ll tend to her.”
I flinch at his words. My mind going through a million different scenarios. One being the fact that I might find her hanging from the second-story balcony where her father’s murder was staged. They’d be sick enough to display her like that just to prove a point.
Tyson opens the glove box, releases the magazine, checking to see if there are any rounds, and then hands it to me over his shoulder. “The safety isn’t on,” he warns.
I take the gun and rest it on my thigh, bouncing my knees. My entire body is vibrating right now with anger, pain, regret. If I don’t die tonight, I’m going to need a week of rest after this. They were right, my body will shut down eventually. It just has to hold on until I know she’s safe in my arms and every one of those motherfuckers is dead.
