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Now I think I need to get the fuck out of here.
I’m about to get out of my truck to find Aurora when my phone vibrates again. Instead of a text message, it’s a picture that sends ice barreling through my veins. The image is a bit blurry, but I can make out the duct tape wrapped around the girl’s head and the zip ties binding her wrists together in the leather-clad backseat of a sedan.
The Nameless have Aurora.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Aurora
I never even made it into the truck stop. Just as I reached the door, a man approached me, stuck a gun into my side, and guided me toward a dark car. After taping my head and securing my wrists, we pulled out of the parking lot. The last I saw of Kane, he was exiting his truck. I only hope he’ll realize I’ve gone missing and that I didn’t leave of my own free will.
The sun set hours ago, but the car continues down the interstate on a nightmare trip that seems never ending. We crossed into Texas a while back, putting more distance between me and any hope of rescue. I’ve loosened the duct tape around my mouth by licking the adhesive. I can’t do shit about the zip ties biting into my wrists.
Using my tongue and chin, I lower the duct tape and clear my throat. “Can someone please tell me why I’m being kidnapped...again?”
The man in the passenger seat turns to face me. “We are simply taking possession of what belongs to us.”
A hint of an accent colors each word in a diluted hue of Russian, but that isn’t what my brain latches onto. “What belongs to you? I don’t belong to anyone.”
I expect a retort, a snide comment or an angry brush off, but he simply laughs and faces the front again. I pull back my leg and kick his seat.
That gets his attention.
He turns to face me again, and the anger in his eyes does more to satisfy than scare me. “You little bitch. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll remember that your legs are meant for spreading, not kicking.”
I’ve never been one to know what’s good for me, so I kick his seat again. “Tell me what the fuck is going on!”
He says something in Russian, and the driver pulls the car to the side of the road. Something silver glints in his hand, and then the barrel of a gun levels on my head. “You will shut the fuck up or I will shut you up. Someone paid a very high price for what you have between your legs, and I would hate to lose that money because I had to kill you. If you have a complaint, take it up with Kane. He made the deal.” He laughs again as he faces the front. “Not that you will ever see him again.”
I do shut up, but not because of the gun in his hand or the threat he made. Not even because he said I’ll never see Kane again. I shut up because I can’t breathe.
Kane...sold me?
He isn’t exactly a candidate for an upstanding citizen award, but I never imagined he would do something so horrible. Choke me half to death and stick me in a freezer? Sure. Force me to dig a grave for a woman he murdered? Understandable. But this? It’s more than I can take.
I stare out the window as the sedan lurches onto the road again. Trying to catch the attention of passing cars isn’t an option. The windows are tinted to hell and back. For the first time in my life, I don’t see a way out. I’ve always been good at running, but now there’s nowhere to run. Kane sold me to these men, and they’ve turned around and sold me to someone else.
“How much?” I ask.
The man turns toward me and raises an eyebrow.
“How much did you pay him?” I clarify.
“For you?” A hellish smile eases onto his face. “He sold you for a partial repayment of his debt to us. The amount is not important.”
A sign slides by on the side of the road, and I realize we’re nearing Houston. My brain flicks back to the inspection when Jax took control. Didn’t he say they had to pick up a load in Texas? Does that mean all three of them were in on this?
My stomach sinks, and if it drops any lower, it will probably fall out of my asshole. If they were all privy to this plan, that means I was used by all of them. Deceived by all of them. The men I’ve been falling for have planned to get rid of me all along, and my heart and vagina were too blinded by need to see it.
I close my eyes and rest my head against the leather. The car turns onto a side road, but I don’t look to see where we are or where we’re going. What’s the point? I have no control. I can’t change the ever downward-trending trajectory of my life.
After a few more turns and bumping along a road that’s more pothole than asphalt, we pull up at a large house in a small neighborhood. Or what might have been a neighborhood at one time. Now there is only one house on the street. The others have been reduced to weed-ridden foundations.
The men exit the car and come to my door. As they haul me away from the leather interior, I’m surprised by how gentle they are. Their fingers don’t dig into my arms. They don’t push or hit me. Like guiding a dumbfounded sheep to the slaughter pen, they just move me along with the threat of a gun.
Once we’re inside the house, they remove the duct tape from my head and the zip ties from my wrists before looking me over like two pickers examining a grandfather clock at an antique mall. They study my flaws, pointing at the red marks on my wrists and the bruises on my throat as they mutter to each other in a language I can’t understand. Then, in clear English, the shorter one tells me to strip.
“Absolutely not,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
