WE PULL UP to her parents’ house, not even bothering to hide. Gavin brings the car to a stop right at the front door and I jump out of the back. Looking over the driveway, the only car I see is her mother’s SUV.
“Sin!” Tyson shouts. “Wait.” He rushes in front of me, taking the stairs two at a time. “Let me go in first, at least.” His eyes drop to my shirt. “Christ, you’re bleeding.”
“I’m fine.” I shove the door open, gun raised. Tyson steps in behind me, followed by her father and then Gavin. We all stand in the grand foyer, listening for any kind of noise, but are met with nothing. “They’ve got to be here,” I say to no one in particular. Why else would they call me? They wanted me here. Whatever they have planned, they want an audience.
Nicholas steps to the left and out of sight, only to come back. He nods for us to follow him. Walking around the corner, we see a body lying on the floor at the foot of the stairs. Shattered glass everywhere and blood smeared along the floor. I see two different sets of boot prints that step through it and then track toward the formal family room. There are small handprints that I’m assuming are Elli’s and you can tell by the smeared blood that they dragged her away from here.
I bend down, grab the black mask, and yank it off the face.
“That’s … not what I expected.” Tyson is the one who speaks.
“Who the hell is that?” Nicholas asks.
I reach out to check for a pulse and there is none. Standing, I look down into the set of dead eyes and smile. My wife did that. “Amelia,” I finally answer.
“Who the fuck is she?” Nicholas goes on.
“She was who my father tried to get me to marry.”
“Why would the Spade brothers get her involved?” Tyson wonders out loud.
I shrug. “Who the hell knows. Come on. They’re in the house. Follow the blood trail.” A part of me knows that not all of that belongs to Amelia. There was a struggle by the obvious broken glass and turned over table. I just pray that she’s not bleeding out somewhere.
I raise my gun as the blood-stained boot prints start to fade. Stepping into the family room, I see Elli lying on one of the couches. I lower my gun and rush over to her. “Elli!” She lies on her back, arms underneath her and head tilted toward the cushions. “Elli.” I grab her chin and force her to look up at me. Her eyes are closed so I open them up to see they’re dilated. “Fuck,” I hiss.
Grabbing her shoulders, I pull her to a sitting position and her head falls forward into my chest. I hold her as Tyson comes up to the couch. He removes a knife from his pocket and cuts her bound wrists free.
“What’s wrong with her?” Nicholas asks.
“Drugs.” I look at Gavin. “Can you do anything about it?”
He sighs. “Depends on what they’ve given her.”
My eyes go to Tyson as I nod behind him. “There’s a bedroom at the end of that hallway. Check it. If it’s clear, I want her in there.” He nods and takes off in that direction.
I don’t know where the Spade brothers are or why they left her here alone. But I want her out of this room when they return, before the bullets start flying.
Lying her back down, I yank my shirt up and over my head and start to wipe off her bloody hands and arms. It’s on her neck and cheeks. I smear it anywhere I see it to make sure it’s not hers. But as I get to her thigh, I see she’s been cut. It’s not deep or life-threatening, but it looks to still be bleeding. I apply pressure to it with the shirt.
“Elli?” I cup her face. “Wake up for me. Look at me, Elli.”
Her dark lashes flutter open and her dazed ice-blue eyes meet mine, but I know she’s not seeing me. “That’s it. Elli, this is important, what did they give you?”
Looking away from me, her lashes flutter before her eyes fall closed and then open again but she doesn’t respond.
“Maybe a sedative?” Gavin offers.
Tyson re-enters the family room and nods his head. “It’s empty.”
I stand, pick her up off the couch, and follow after him. Entering one of the many the spare bedrooms, I place her on the bed and look at Gavin. “Stay in here with her. No matter what you hear out there, do not leave her in here alone.”
“I’ll stay with them,” Nicholas offers, lifting his gun. “I’ll protect them.”
Tyson follows me out and he closes the door behind him. It won’t stop the brothers from getting in, but it may give Nicholas one extra second to shoot their fucking heads off.
Making our way back down the hallway, I hear voices. We pause, pressing our backs into the wall, both nodding to one another in understanding.
“Dude, where the fuck did she go?” one barks out.
“She was right here,” another states.
“She couldn’t have gone far. She was tied up, for Christ’s sake.” The first one laughs.
“You only secured her wrists. I told you we should have hog-tied her. There’s no chance of movement in that position.”
“Come on,” the first guy growls, growing irritated. “She’s around here somewhere.”
I readjust my grip on the gun and hold it down in front of me, listening to the sound of their boots growing closer and closer. I hold in my breath so they won’t notice us as they pass by the end of the hallway. Once the second one passes, Tyson nods to me and we both step out. I slam the butt of the gun down on the back of his neck. He drops like a rock instantly.
The second guy turns around, hearing the commotion. “What the—?”
Tyson hits him across his mask-covered face with his gun and he too drops. Bending down, I yank off the guy’s mask just as Tyson does the other. We both stand and look at each other.
“What the actual fuck is going on?” he asks me, sounding as confused as I feel.
“No fucking clue,” is the only answer I can think to give him. “But let’s find out.”
ELLINGTON
“NOW WE WAIT. You’ll be begging to swallow our cocks in no time.”
My heart sinks at his words and I pray to God it’s not true. “What did you give me?” My voice shakes. But I need to know. Am I going to die? Or just wish I was dead?
“Ecstasy,” the one who dropped the pills in my mouth answers.
The other guy shoves him back a step.
“What?” he asks, placing his hands out wide. “Not like she can fight it. She’ll be fucked up soon.”
The guy gets up off my chest and I’m finally able to take in a deep breath. I roll onto my side, to relieve the pressure of my arms underneath me, but it doesn’t help. They’ve gone numb. And soon my mind will do the same.
The one that had placed his hand down my shirt and gave me the pills, kneels down beside the couch, getting eye level with me but I still don’t know which brother he is. The mesh part of the mask that covers the eyes keeps you from seeing them. “You’ve been such a dirty whore, Elli.”
I whimper.
“It’s amazing how much you’ll believe. How much you allowed him to manipulate you.”
I frown. How long have the brothers been part of our lives? I know my father’s been there for nine years. Have they been watching us for that long? I never pretended to not be stupid for Sin. That man made me an idiot. But I kept crawling back, asking for more.
“FUCK.”
The other one shouts from the bottom of the stairs.
“She dead?” the one next to me asks.
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he kicks the body a few times.
“She?” My wide eyes go to the masked guy in front of me. “Who … who is she?”
He gives a dark chuckle, pulling out his cell phone from his hoodie pocket. He then holds it up to my face. “Remember this video that Amelia showed you?”
I see Sin sitting on his bed at the house of Lords. Closing my eyes tightly, I turn my face away from him, but he grips my cheeks, forcing me to face him. “Watch the fucking video!” he shouts, making me flinch.
Opening my eyes, I notice the way my body starts to tingle as it relaxes into the couch. “I’ve seen it,” I whisper.
“Just watch. All of it.” He goes on, holding it right in front of my face. The light on the screen making me squint it’s so bright.
Amelia walks in, gets naked. She lies on the bed, and he ties her arms above her head. Then he turns to open the nightstand. This is where I slapped it out of her hand. He opens the top drawer, grabs a blindfold and then slips it over her eyes.
Spreading her legs wide open, she arches her back while lifting her hips. “Sin—” He shoves something into her mouth, and she starts mumbling around it before he places tape over her lips so she can’t spit it out.
Then he walks over to his bathroom door, opens it up, and out steps Chance. My eyes blink as I watch him undress then crawl onto the bed and begin to fuck her while Sin leans up against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest and watches them.
I want to be mad. To get angry at myself. But I can’t. My mind won’t let me. It’s foggy, my eyes growing heavy.
He laughs, putting his cell back in his pocket. “Let it swallow you under, Elli.” Running his hand down my face, I try to pull away, but I can’t. It dips inside of my shirt once again and he roughly grabs at my breasts, the material pinching my neck as he stretches it out. “Once you’re good and ready, we’ll get this party started.” Removing his hand, he stands and walks out of the room with the other guy, leaving me alone.
The last thing on my mind is what Sin said to me when I brought up the tape with Amelia to him. “I can explain that…”
Now, I wish I would have at least let him try.
