I stare across the room, keeping my mind on Emmie, on better times with her as I try to distract myself.
Gianna is right. I should probably be at the hospital and with a local anaesthetic for this, but fuck that. I’ll take the pain if it means I’m able to get back out there and find my girl.
“We’ll find her,” Alex says firmly, obviously reading my mind.
I stare at him, the same question running around my head like it has since I woke up in my car.
Who wants her so badly that they’d go to that effort to get her?
3
EMMIE
A violent shiver rips down my spine and brings me to.
My head spins and my stomach turns over as memories from the day before slam into me.
Punching that stupid skank and watching with joy as her nose damn near exploded. Mr. Davenport’s anger. My suspension. Letting Theo fuck me over the desk in one of the classrooms. But that image soon morphs to one with me and Dax on the sofa in the Wolves den.
The acid.
Fuck.
My eyes squeeze together tightly as I remember Theo standing in the doorway with a gun trained on me. The shot firing.
The pain.
“Shit,” I hiss, sitting bolt upright, my eyes flying open. But nothing happens. No light floods my eyes, and I can’t move my hands. “What the—”
“Ah, good. You’re back with us at last, Princess,” a deep voice rumbles from a distance.
My spine straightens and my skin prickles with goosebumps as I focus on the voice, desperately trying to place it.
“W-wha—” I swallow, trying to wet my dry mouth, but it does nothing. Sucking in a calming breath, I try again. “What do you want?” I snap, putting as much venom into my voice as possible.
A low, haunting chuckle comes from the guy who sounds a little closer now.
“Now there’s the million-dollar question right there, Emmie Cirillo.”
Hearing that name, acknowledging that whoever this fuck is knows about my life right now, sends a shock wave straight through me.
I shift, every muscle in my body aching, but I quickly discover that I’m not going anywhere. My hands are bound behind my back.
I wiggle my nose and blink my eyes in the hope of dislodging whatever is around my face, but it’s pointless.
“You’re a disappointment, Emmie. A fucking embarrassment, and a massive disappointment.”
“Fuck you,” I spit out, not giving a single fuck about who he is or his opinions about me.
He’s silent for a moment before a familiar scratch of him rubbing a rough jawline fills the room.
“Unlike your husband, I’m not really into school girls.”
My fingers curl, my nails digging into my palms behind my back, and my teeth grind in frustration as I try to bite back my words about Theo.
I don’t want to show this arsehole that I care.
Hell. I don’t care.
“What do you want?” I hiss, hoping that if I can keep him talking then I might be able to get a sense of who he is or what he wants.
I mean, I have some ideas. But quite frankly, I’m attached to more bad men than I can count.
This could be any of them.
I still as a thought of this being Theo hits me.
He wouldn’t, would he?
But then I remember his face when I walked away from that classroom, the fury in his features as he trained that gun on me in the Wolves den.
It could be.
He’s got enough minions who idolise the ground he walks on that he’d be more than able to organise this to punish me, to prove who’s really running this show.
My heart aches with the possibility, refusing to believe that he could have something to do with this.
But I was in his car. It would have been easy to…
No.
I slam that line of thought down. He would never have run his car off the road like that to have me abducted. He’d have just dragged me here and probably taken great delight in tying me up and staring me dead in the eyes as he did it. Twisted fuck.
I blow out a breath. Even with ruling him out—loosely—I’ve still got a list of possible culprits.
“What do you want?” I ask, my voice losing its heat from earlier. I’m not sure snapping at him will get me anywhere, so I’m not going to waste the energy.
His response is a laugh that I’m sure the devil himself would be proud of.
“Right now, Princess? Nothing. I sincerely hope you enjoy your stay.”
Heavy footsteps fill the room before a door slams closed, the loud bang reverberating through me.
“ARGH,” I scream, my voice echoing off the walls around me as I attempt to vent my frustrations.
I scream until I’ve got nothing left. My body slumps down on the cold, solid floor.
Silent tears slip from my eyes, soaking the blindfold that’s wrapped around my face and cutting off my sight before they finally slide down my cheeks, dripping onto the floor beneath me as my body begins to tremble with the cold.
My last thought before I slip into an uncomfortable and fitful sleep is of Dad.
Is he still waiting for me to come home like I promised?
If I actually manage to get out of this alive, he’s going to fucking kill me himself.
As I come to again, the familiar feeling that I’m being watched races down my spine.
Silently, I groan, not wanting to open my eyes only to find that they’re still covered and that my wrists are still bound.
Snap.
My eyes fly open the second the sound hits my ears. A moment later, my arms move to allow me to pull them from behind my back.
They hurt like fuck after being tethered for so long, and I wince as I wrap them around the front of my body.
Whoever just cut me free shuffles around the front of me and fingers brush my ear, making me jolt away from their touch.
“I can leave it on if you wish,” he mutters, his voice so deep it sends a violent bolt of fear shooting through me.
Lifting my own hand, I drag the fabric from my face and immediately search him out in the dark room.
When my eyes land on the balaclava he’s wearing, I’m barely able to hold in my frustrated laugh.
“Are you actually serious?” I hiss. “You’re so scared of me that you feel the need to hide your face?”
“I’m not scared of you, Princess,” he snaps, clearly unimpressed with my comment.
“That could be a mistake. But it also means that you’re either scared of my father or my husband. Or both, maybe.”
He comes to a stop in front of the open doorway, the light from whatever is outside this room pouring in behind him as he shakes his head, lifting his hand and rubbing at the back of his neck. The move causes his shirt to lift, and I get a very quick glance at the inked patch of skin it reveals.
“I’m scared of no one, Princess.”
“Right. Of course not,” I mutter. “That’s why you feel the need to abduct me and hide me here.”
He drops down on his haunches in front of me and reaches out, taking a handful of my hair before I get the chance to move. Ripping my head back and sending a shooting pain down my already sore neck, he stares right into my eyes.
“Watch your mouth, brat. It’s going to get you in even more trouble than you’re already in.”