Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 189782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 949(@200wpm)___ 759(@250wpm)___ 633(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 189782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 949(@200wpm)___ 759(@250wpm)___ 633(@300wpm)
65
Monty
—
I should be the one protecting them, protecting Frankie. Yet here we are, helpless and cornered by a madman.
My fingers tighten around the syringe. I flex my forearm, exposing the veins that lie beneath the skin.
My heart hammers in my chest, each beat echoing in my ears.
I’ve been through a lot of shit in my life, seen things that would make most men crumble. But this? This is fucked up.
This isn’t a fight I can win with brute strength or cunning. This is surrender, pure and simple.
With a deep breath, I bring the needle to my arm, the sharp point hovering over my flesh. I hesitate, my mind screaming to fight back, to do anything but this.
I look at Leo and Kody.
They nod, holding their syringes.
Fuck.
Together, we push the needles into our veins.
The sharp sting barely registers as the drug enters my bloodstream.
A cold, creeping numbness that spreads from the injection site, flowing through my veins like ice water. It’s slow at first, almost gentle.
Then it hits like a freight train slamming into my chest.
My muscles start to fail, one by one. My fingers go limp, dropping the syringe to the floor with a dull clatter.
Beside me, their needles drop, too.
My legs buckle, and I slouch against the rope, the only thing keeping me upright.
The loss of control is immediate, terrifying, and absolute.
I feel everything. The panic rising in my chest. The frustration boiling over in my mind. But I can’t move. I’m locked inside a shell of flesh and bone that no longer feels like mine.
This is what Frankie felt.
How many times did he rape her while she was unable to fight back?
My breaths come in shallow, labored gasps, each a struggle as my lungs refuse to cooperate. My vision blurs, and I try to focus on her, on the way her lips moved earlier, trying to make sense of it, trying to hold on to anything that might give me hope.
Leo and Kody crumple at the edge of my vision, silent and helpless.
I’ve always been in control. Always. But now I’m nothing but dead weight, slumped in the rope that binds me, ineffectual and vulnerable.
I can’t even lift my head to look Kody or Leo in the eyes. All I can do is sit here, feeling the icy grip of paralysis tighten around me.
“Very good.” With a relieved smile, Rhett leans down to Frankie, his eyes gleaming with sick pleasure as he kisses her brow. “Now we test them.”
I roar, but there’s no sound. There’s nothing. No escape. No way to help her. Just the cold reality that we’re at Rhett’s mercy.
I’ve never felt so powerless in my entire life.
But even as the paralysis sinks in, even as I lose the last remnants of control, I cling to one thing.
Frankie’s face. The determination I saw in her eyes when we arrived. The way her lips moved when they shouldn’t have.
She’s still fighting.
And so am I.
“Fifteen minutes.” Rhett circles the table, passing behind us, sending a shudder through me. “During that time, you need to make a choice.”
He pauses at Frankie’s feet and sets the gun beside her leg.
Now would be a good time to use that fucking knife.
Except none of us can move.
He grips her ankles and slides his hands up her calves.
My heart collapses, and my insides shrivel.
No.
Fuck no.
“I’m going to make love to our girl while you watch.” He parts her legs, and his hands inch higher. “When the drug wears off, you’ll have two options. One, you accept this, accept me, and we make love to her together. Or two…” His gaze sharpens, and he pats the gun on the table. “You lose your shit, and I put a bullet in Frankie’s head. Then I’ll put one in each of you. I’ll burn this cabin to the ground and return to my life in Sitka without you.” He reaches for the sash on her robe. “What will it be? Are you all in, or are you all dead? You have fifteen minutes to make your decision.”
Fury like I’ve never known rages through me. Muscles frozen, limbs heavy as lead, I’m a goddamn inferno.
My heart slams against my ribcage, each beat a bellow of rage ricocheting in my skull.
I can’t move, can’t twitch a finger, but inside, I rip myself apart, thrashing, bucking, and shredding my organs with a ferocity so intense it threatens to obliterate me from within.
Every molecule in my body is ablaze with it, this wrath that builds and builds with nowhere to go. It’s a nuclear bomb scorching the walls of my mind, melting, destroying, burning me alive. I choke on it but can’t release it. Can’t let it out.
I want to grab Rhett by the throat, crush his windpipe until he’s gasping for breath. Until his eyes pop out and his face turns blue. I want to slam my fists into his skull until there’s nothing left but bone and blood. Until I’ve pounded every trace of his sick, twisted smile out of existence.