Total pages in book: 170
Estimated words: 160166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 801(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 534(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 801(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 534(@300wpm)
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t tell me what you didn’t do. Tell me what happened,” he corrects me.
Thump, thump.
“I don’t know … they kept asking me about computer files for your finances …” I remember the voice, deep and rough without a shred of empathy. I remember the man telling me to just give up a name. I don’t have a name. “I don’t know.” The wretched words slip from me in a whisper as the cage is lowered in my mind and agony betrays any semblance of control I might have.
“Tax evasion and tax fraud …” he says, coaxing me, climbing on the bed and making his way to me closer and closer, my skin heating with a fire that burns every inch of my skin.
My head shakes on its own as I whisper, “I don’t know any of it.” The fear climbing by the second, I don’t know what to tell him. “I don’t—”
“Don’t lie to me,” he warns and my pulse stutters. I couldn’t speak in this moment if I wanted to. Trapped by this man in his room, his rules the only certainty, I’ve never felt so hopeless and utterly alone.
“Did you ever take the laptop out of the office?”
“No,” I answer quickly. I was asked that same thing before in that room. The man asked me that. Flashes crash through my memory. The ice.
“When I found you snooping, I should have cut you off then.” His brutal tone cuts through me like a knife. “Instead I thought, I’ll prove she’s isn’t out to hurt me,” he tells me and his voice cracks ever so slightly. Peeking up into his gaze is painful. Regret and hate stare back at me. “Then you go and fall right into my trap,” he continues.
“Stop—Declan, stop please—I didn’t—”
“You did,” he insists and my entire body goes cold. It feels like being back in that cage. My blunt nails dig into my skin in a desperate attempt to hold on to anything at all.
“I didn’t,” I plead with him as tears slip down my cheeks. He doesn’t believe me. How could he not believe me? “I didn’t,” I try to speak, but I don’t know if the words even come out. So much fear consumes me at this moment that I’m light-headed.
Help me.
He creeps closer, the bed dipping as he does. “Just tell me the truth and I will figure it all out, Braelynn,” he nearly whispers.
I don’t know what to say, or if I’m even capable of speaking as the events of yesterday play back, faster and faster. Declan says something, but I can’t make it out. There’s only the iron cage, the freezing water. I can’t hear anything as it all whirls by. So quickly all I can hear is the memory of my own screams.
“Tell me,” he nearly yells as I see Nate murder Scarlet.
My hand whips out in front of me. I don’t mean it to. He’s just so close and I’m so scared. My palm burns as the slap rings out and breaks the visions, bringing me right back to the here and now. Shock overwhelms me.
My eyes widen as I realize the fear I felt before is nothing compared to this new terror. Slowly, ever so slowly, Declan turns his head to face me, the red handprint on his cheek evidence of what I’ve done.
DECLAN
I let her scramble to get off the bed. I let her fall to the floor as she pleads with me for mercy. I let her scurry under the bed, hiding there as I remain perfectly still where I am. I don’t allow a muscle to move.
The anger simmers and a sense of failure seeps into me. Failing her, failing us. Everything crumbles when I lose control and I obviously lost it before, but I will not again.
For the sake of her life, I don’t allow myself to even breathe as she cries out for me to forgive her, her voice muffled from beneath the bed frame.
My poor little pet.
Every jagged piece of my brokenness feels for her. I remind myself of my conviction, of the only way she makes it out of this alive: If she gives herself to me, she will be fine. She needs to be mine and then everything will be all right.
There’s not a sound in the dark room apart from her heavy breathing and the pounding of my racing heart. The ability to keep calm and levelheaded has never been more difficult.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she murmurs in a strangled way.
With every ounce of self-control I possess, I carefully remove myself from the bed. I’m sure to step toward the opposite side of where she is so shifting my weight doesn’t harm her, and to give her some distance between us. With slow, deliberate movements, I walk to the other side of the room, press my back against the wall and carefully lower myself to the floor.