Page 165 of To Catch a Sub

“Do you want to add something? Before I close them?” Tonsure was hunting through the spilled contents of his box even as the other man cleaned up. Tonsure pulled out several small bags and boxes, offering them to Damien.

“Ah yes, I like this.” Damien smiled in delight, taking something from a box. He brought it over to her, raising it so she could see. “Do you know what this is?”

She studied the small charm through watery eyes. “It’s an eight-pointed star.”

Damien started to frown.

“Depending on its form and placement, it can mean many different things,” she hurried to add. “I believe in Russia it’s known as the thieves star.”

Damien grinned, then tugged down his shirt, showing her the eight-pointed star tattooed on his chest. Had she seen him shirtless in the beginning, back when she first arrived at his house to assess the collection, that tattoo would have made her run.

Tonsure offered Damien a few more options, and he took his time selecting items from the charms and pendants Tonsure had.

Then Tonsure moved his welding tool closer, that excited smile still curving his lips.

“The rings I’ve used aren’t just gold,” he told Damien. “They’re stainless steel, coated in gold. Gold by itself is too malleable.”

“Good, good.”

“It will take a bit more work to close these. The thickness, you see.”

“But they will be permanent?” Damien asked.

“Very. Yes. Once I’m done it will take a metal saw to remove them.”

Colette swallowed fresh tears, closing her eyes as Tonsure threaded charms onto the ring through her right nipple, and started welding it closed.

* * *

“Where did you get explosives?” Andrei asked, sounding jealous.

Rolf didn’t reply, busy fiddling with a neon blue remote-control car.

Landon hadn’t noticed the bags Rolf and Andrei were carrying when they left the club, but his friends—and after this they were definitely friends—had come prepared.

He was glad they were here, and not just because they’d come well equipped.

Ten minutes ago, during their three-sixty recon of the small two-story hotel, Landon had almost lost it.

“That’s at least eight men,” Rolf breathed as they snuck along the convenient hedge that bordered what had probably once been a pretty garden on the west side of the small hotel.

“We’ll do something that brings in local law enforcement,” Andrei said. “To even up the numbers.”

“Too dangerous. For them,” Landon countered.

They rounded the corner of the building, all three freezing when they saw light pouring from a second-story window.

It took Landon a minute to realize what he was seeing in that lighted window.

The outline of a feminine body was clear, even with the sheer curtains. Her arms were stretched up over her head and bound in place, her head hanging forward.

Colette.

A shadow fell over her, obscuring the outline of her body. Then that shadow sharpened into the outline of a second figure as they walked up to her.

The shadow-man’s hands reached for Colette.

Her head came up and she turned her face against her arm as the man touched her.