Page 77 of Hunt

“I didn’t know it was there,” I cried out, sounding stupid. But what else could I say? I had nothing left.

Mikael yanked my arm, dragging me back to the club. “Check her locker,” he directed Ronan. “Bring me her things.”

“Done,” Ronan replied.

As I was being wrangled, I glanced back at Ronan, whose beautiful face was clouded in hopeless disappointment and shame. I let him down, and now he hates me. Every fragment of love he had for me was gone in that moment, and I didn’t know if he’d ever forgive me.

With his claws latched onto my arm, the devil hauled me into the club under the stairs, swung open a door that I hadn’t noticed before, and then led me down a narrow hallway. He turned right to an area of private, lavish lounge rooms I hadn’t known existed.

“You’re hurting me,” I cried out, fearful for where he was taking me.

He refused to loosen his grip, nor would he speak to me, flinging me about like a ragdoll. I glanced behind me, searching for someone to scream out to, but the club hadn’t opened yet, and the only staff working were in the kitchen, which felt like a million miles away.

His hand touched a book on the shelf, pulled it back, and the bookshelf slid open. Horror engulfed me as it occurred to me that he was about to imprison me in a hidden room somewhere.

The devil hauled me up the dark wooden stairs, and as my hand hunted for something to grab hold of, I was met with a flat wall covered in boudoir paper.

We came to another hallway, dimly lit and lined with empty rooms, as the scent of perfume and cleaning products infiltrated my senses. The floorboards shuddered under me with every angry footstep, a volcano about to erupt, a torpedo about to fire. He restrained his fury, yet I could feel simmering rage tremble into my flesh from his clenching grip.

“No,” I screamed in desperation, grasping onto the tiny string of hope that they might forgive me and let me go.

I needed to live. I wanted to live. I was too young to die. I had a future as a marine biologist. This couldn’t not be how my life ended.

We came to the last room that contained four post queen size bed, draped in deep red satin sheets, black straps attached to the bed and handcuffs screwed to the wall. It was a windowless room, deadly quiet and hidden away, an attic no one knew was here, embedded in mysteries and riddles.

In silence, his incredible strength tossed me onto the bed. Then he turned his back and walked out, slamming the door behind him. I raced to the door to try the handle just as the locks clicked, and my heart ached as his footsteps grew distant.

When I couldn’t hear him anymore, I tried the handle again, shaking the door with all my strength. When that didn’t work, I opened the closet door to find a small bathroom, a shower, and a toilet. There was no window, but there was an air conditioning duct, my only access to the outside.

I heard the locks click and stepped out to see who had arrived. Ronan’s pale eyes meet my gaze, quickly looking away. “Your bag,” he stated, throwing it onto the bed.

“Ronan, please,” I dropped to my knees and clung to his waist, begging for him to release me. “Please don’t do this to me. It’s not my fault, Ronan. Please. Ronan, please, let me go. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

It was difficult for him to walk away with me attached to him, so he gripped my wrists and peeled me off him, and when I tried to grab him again, he snatched my wrists and held them above my head, locking me into a submissive position.

“You did this,” his voice grave and frightening. “You did this to yourself.”

“No,” I begged, crying tears streaming down my cheeks. “Please, Ronan, please. It was them. They made me do this.”

He wasn’t in the mood to hear my argument and stalked away. Just before closing the door on me, he said, “I’ll bring you some clothes later.”

“Later?” I yelled after him as he shut the door on my pleas, slicing me in two. “How long are you going to keep me here?”

My bag lay on the bed and I grabbed it to search for my phone, unsurprised to find it gone. I tried to think optimistically and hoped that when they scrolled through my messages, they’d realize I was here by force.

I was screwed over too and I had no choice but be a spy for the Larsson Police dept. Then a terrible thought occurred to me. Did any of the messages between Bitchtective indicate that I was not Riley Laws, but someone else?

Did the detective refer to me by my birthname, the girl who was taken into the Kaiser’s home, only for her to betray them in the worst way possible? I shut my eyes, replaying every text message and every phone call with her, yet I couldn’t remember.

I hadn’t had the new phone for long after my previous phone was broken, so there weren’t many exchanges. However, if they opened the back of the phone, they’d discover the tracking device, and my heart sank again.

It was bad enough that the Kaisers discovered that I had bugged them under their noses, but it would be even worse if they discovered that I was the girl they had been searching for.

I am the girl who fabricated a lie that got Mikael arrested for a crime he didn’t commit. After the damage was done, I went into hiding under the Witness Protection Scheme and became someone else with a new name, a new face, and a new past.

Reality had finally caught up with me, and I always knew this would come. It was time to face my makers, tell them who I was, and endure whatever punishment they inflicted on me.

The Bitchtective laid out the coal and wood, but I lit the fire.

I am the girl who caused their pain as a tradeoff to relieve the pain of my kin.

I am Annika.

To be continued…