Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
A man between her legs.
Hurting her the way Denver hurt me.
Thrusting.
Thrusting.
Thrusting.
The video, the room, everything smears into a hot, violent, blood-red blur.
It hurts.
It hurts in ways I’ve never hurt before.
Rage crashes in from every direction, molten and blinding. It feels like I’m swallowing glass and dying a thousand fiery deaths.
Anguish stabs behind my eyes, the unbearable pressure splitting my skull. Breathing becomes a conscious act, each inhale and exhale ripping me apart as I fight to keep the sounds from leaking out.
I don’t blink or react. My posture stays loose. But the effort costs me. I clamp my teeth too hard, and the razor bites back.
Pain spikes inside my cheek. Copper washes across my tongue, and a warm trickle runs down my chin.
I relax my jaw, but it’s already done.
“You’re bleeding.” Crowe stares at my mouth.
“Smile, Wolf,” Oliver says in my ear. “Give them your worst, most crazed smile. Make them look away.”
How? How can I smile with a fucking sob stuffed in my throat? Everything inside me is shaking violently, unraveling, coming apart at the seams.
My seams.
She’s my seams. She’s my fairy tale, my queen, my happily ever after and after and after…
And they’re hurting her.
Raping her.
Every unsound, no-return, cliff-diving part of me wants to swipe my thumb and blow these ass pelicans into shits and bits.
But I won’t.
I won’t give up on Jag. I won’t quit until Dove is free.
This isn’t the end.
Make them look away.
I drag the corners of my mouth up by force alone, blood in my teeth, muscles screaming, and cheeks stretching where they don’t want to go. I make it wide. Too wide. I make it wrong.
It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
The room recoils from it, eyes sliding away and discomfort rippling with a shudder.
I hold the grin, jaw burning, blood slick and metallic.
New plan.
No retreat. No restraint. Tonight is the reckoning.
My fingers clinch around Adrian Crowe’s arm, a casual grip that pretends we’re just two men watching doom-scroll bait.
I angle the necklace cam at the screen while maintaining the charisma of a nutjob.
Meanwhile, it feels like a rusted blade is sawing back and forth across my soul.
Doesn’t matter if the video is live or recorded. The intent is the same. This is what they’re forcing Jag to watch. For how long? Why are they trying to break him? Have they succeeded?
“What’s the point?” I tilt my head, studying the screen like a critic. “You need the hacker. Why scramble his mind like this?”
“I require his cooperation.” Crowe watches the video with a bored, proprietary calm that makes my teeth itch. “He’s being stubborn, and the woman provides context.”
“Wolf.” In my ear, Mikhail cuts in. “I am analyzing the room she’s in, and something is off. The shadows don’t line up. Camera angle is lying.”
Keeping my breath even and the necklace aimed where it needs to be, I turn my head to meet Jag’s eyes for the first time.
They’re red-rimmed and ruined, held open by the metal prongs that prevent him from blinking. His gaze bounces between me and the screen like a trapped animal, frantic, overworked, but still alive. No gag. No sound. Not a single plea.
I can’t tell if that means he’s broken or strong as fuck.
Ten days of this would shatter anyone. Ten days of being forced to watch the woman he loves being raped over and over? That would poison the inside of his skull. Yet he doesn’t speak. Doesn’t beg. Doesn’t give Crowe the satisfaction.
Maybe he already cracked.
Or maybe he knows something he won’t say in front of Crowe.
“If his brain is sludge, he’s no use to me.” I gesture at the guards. “Take that off his head.”
No one moves.
“What? Do you need written instructions?” I lift my hand and wave the bomb switch. “Or do you need incentive?”
One of the guards steps forward and unfastens the contraption. Metal scrapes. Straps release. The device clatters to the floor, freeing Jag’s eyes.
He blinks but doesn’t look away from the screen.
My chest clenches, and I follow his gaze back to the feed.
It’s fucking unbearable. Blistering pressure scorches through my skull and blooms behind my eyes. I ride it, breathe through it, and focus past the agony, the same way I focused past Denver’s horrors.
The camera angles from above, looking down on the bed. The abuser between her legs repositions, shifting back enough to open the view and expose her naked body.
I scan without staring and catalog without reacting, looking for life-threatening damage.
Tangled blue hair, facial and nipple piercings, old scars on her shoulders. Nothing imperfect there. No visible signs of starvation, broken bones, or bleeding wounds. Her eyes squeeze shut, her lips stretched and cracked around the gag.
Unable to watch another second, I start to turn away until something catches my eye. Or doesn’t catch it. Something’s missing.
Her collarbone is bare.