Page 66 of Gunnar

He pulls me closer, his fingers tangling in my hair, gripping tight enough to hurt. He breathes me in, his nose pressed against my neck, inhaling deeply, his chest rising and falling against me. I tense, bracing myself for what I can only imagine is coming next.

He shoves me away, and I fall back toward the bed, my tailbone hitting the frame hard enough to send pain radiating up my spine. I stare at him, confused and terrified. His features twist with disgust as revulsion fills his eyes. “You fucking smell like him,” he snarls. “Like that animal. Like that… that man you let soil you.”

Gunnar… He smells Gunnar on me. The thought sends a strange, desperate hope through me.

Jake’s hand lashes out to grab my wrist, his fingers wrapping around painfully tight. He pulls me from the floor, dragging me across the room. I stumble after him, the chain rattling, and my ankle burning where the cuff bites into my skin. “Jake, please—” I start, but he cuts me off with a look that silences me.

He drags me into a tiny adjoining bathroom with concrete walls. It’s utilitarian, functional. The space holds nothing but a toilet, a sink, and a small shower with a clear curtain. He turns on the water before turning to me and commanding, “Strip.”

I stare at him, wrapping my arms around myself instinctively. “Jake, please, don’t⁠—”

“Strip!” he roars, and the sound is deafening in the tiny room, his face contorting with rage as the water begins to run hot, steam filling the small space. “Wash off his smell. Scrub off his touch. I won’t have you wearing him like a whore wears her perfume.”

I’ve been naked on set in front of dozens of crew members. I’ve done sex scenes with actors, intimate moments captured by cameras and lighting technicians. I’ve stripped down for costume fittings, medical exams, and a handful of sexual partners. I can do this. It’s just skin. Flesh. It’s just survival. My pep talk is unsuccessful. Baring yourself is different when the eyes on you are hungry, and you know the hands that might touch you are violent.

With shaking hands, I reach for the hem of my shirt. I’m still wearing what I had on in the kitchen, leggings and Gunnar’s oversized shirt. Ironically, I stole it from his drawer because it smelled like him, and it made me feel safe. I pull the fabric over my head, my arms crossing over my chest instinctively. The air is cold against my skin, raising goosebumps. I feel exposed and vulnerable, more naked than I’ve ever been, despite the bra and leggings still covering me.

“Keep going,” Jake demands, his eyes roaming over me with a possessiveness that makes me want to vomit.

I push my pants down my legs, the fabric catching on the cuff and tangling around the chain. Jake makes an impatient sound, pulling a box cutter from his pocket. I freeze, terror paralyzing me as he uses it to slice through the fabric, cutting my leggings away with efficient, brutal strokes. He pulls at the thin strings of my panties, dragging the knife through them until they’re nothing but tattered fabric lying beside my ruined leggings. I remove my bra, and Jake forcefully pushes me toward the shower, propelling me under the spray. “Scrub him from you,” he orders, his voice tight with barely controlled rage. “Every inch. I want him gone.”

The water is scalding, almost too hot, but I step under it anyway. I lift the bar of soap from the tray, but my fingers are shaking so badly I can barely hold it. I scour my skin, washing what little connection I hold to Gunnar.

“Again,” Jake instructs from where he stands just outside the curtain, watching. “I don’t want a hint of him left on you.”

He makes me repeat it—soap, scrub, rinse, repeat—until I’m crying silently, my tears mixing with the shower spray. I wash again, and again, my skin turning pink, then red. At his command, I lather and rinse my hair until my scalp aches. I wash until my fingers are wrinkled.

When he’s finally content, Jake reaches in and turns off the water before holding out a towel. I take it with trembling hands, wrapping it around myself and clutching it to my chest. I’m thankful for the modesty, for the thin barrier between my body and his gaze, even when I know it’s temporary, and he can take it from me whenever he pleases.

He ushers me into the bedroom with his hand wrapped tightly around my arm. I’m terrified of where this might be going. The bed is there, waiting, and I know what happens to women chained to beds. I try to mentally brace myself for the inevitable, for the violation I know is coming. A sigh of relief blows over my lips when he leads me past the bed. After bringing us to a stop at a set of bifold doors, he opens them. Inside are dresses—hangers upon hangers of them—and I realize that he’s been planning for this. He’s been collecting and scheming for who knows how long.

He flips through the clothes with the care of a man selecting something precious, something earned. His fingers pause on a simple, yet elegant, blue dress before pulling it free. “Arms up,” he instructs.

I hesitate, and he clears his throat as he steps closer. When I lift my arms, he pulls the dress over my head, the towel falling away as the fabric slides down my body. I grit my teeth, expecting to feel his hands on my skin, but he doesn’t touch me. At least, not inappropriately. His hands find the fabric, adjusting the shoulders and smoothing down the skirt, without lingering. It’s almost worse, somehow, this illusion of care, as if he’s dressing a doll rather than a prisoner.

He steps back, his eyes roaming over me with satisfaction. “Beautiful,” he murmurs as his fingers trace my jaw, tilting my face toward the light. “You look beautiful, my love. Let’s finish getting you ready.”

Ready? For what?

The question screams in my mind, but I don’t speak it into existence. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear what he has waiting. I don’t want to know what beautiful plans he’s been dreaming of in the destiny he thinks awaits us.

He leads me toward a vanity with mirrors and lights that remind me of my dressing rooms on set. “Sit,” he commands, gesturing to the chair.

I obey, my movements mechanical as my mind races. He stands behind me, meeting my eyes in the mirror. Dragging a brush through my hair to untangle the knots, he smiles at our reflection. A captive and her captor, dressed up like this is normal, like this is love.

“Makeup.” He places a bag on the vanity. “I want you to look perfect for me.”

I unzip the bag and stare at the brushes and palettes inside. With dawning horror, I realize this is part of his fantasy. He doesn’t just want to possess me. He wants to recreate me. He wants to play house with a version of me that exists only in his mind, and I’m trapped here, helpless.

Please find me, Gunnar. Before it’s too late. Before I become who and what Jake wants me to be.

Sitting in the den before the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the ocean, this room suddenly feels like a cage. Every minute that ticks past is another that Devyn is in his hands, another minute closer to the horrors I’ve worked so hard trying to keep from her.

Hawk sits at a laptop, his hulking frame hunched over the keyboard with a focus that would be impressive if it weren’t born of desperation. His fingers move with surprising gentleness for their size, pulling up property records, cross-referencing addresses, and searching for any thread or detail that might lead us to where Jake has taken her. Jagger paces the perimeter of the room, his phone pressed to his ear, going through details with Mattis as they try to put together the missing pieces of Jake’s life.

Damon sits beside me, still pale from the drugs Jake used to incapacitate him, guilt radiating off him in waves I don’t have the energy to deal with. He keeps trying to catch my eye, but I can’t look at him. If I meet his pained gaze, I’ll see my own failure reflected back. He was supposed to protect her. I was supposed to protect her. And we both failed.

I work to keep from unraveling, to keep the thoughts of what Devyn might be enduring at bay. My fingers fly across the keyboard of my own laptop, pulling up the website that Mattis found, the shrine to Devyn’s destruction. The black background loads, the white text stark and clinical, and my stomach lurches as the header image appears—Devyn walking down a street in a sundress, laughing at something just out of frame, completely unaware she’s being hunted.