Page 25

The soft click of the latch catching as the door closes echoes through the room. For the first time, I’m alone with my future husband, and there’s not enough space between us. I take another step back, bumping a side table with my hip. I jerk to the left when Patrick’s glass sails past my head, shattering against the wall behind me.

“Not another step, Anna.” Patrick’s expression shifts. The cool, controlled mask he wears in public slips, exposing the true monster lying beneath the surface. “Did you think your little plan would work?”

“What are you talking about, Patrick? What plan?” I don’t want to challenge him, not when I can see his control slipping before my eyes, but I have no idea what he’s talking about. “I haven’t planned anything.”

How could I when Patrick and my father took all my choices away from me?

How could I when Patrick himself just staged an entire hospital lie to get me back in a room with him? He’d know all about orchestrating things, wouldn’t he?

“How much did this little stunt cost you?” He crosses the room, holding my gaze as if daring me to back away from him as he closes the distance between us. “How much, Anna? How much did your little disappearing act cost?”

“You think I orchestrated all of this? That I hired two men, armed with guns, to crash the wedding ceremony and kidnap me?” My voice rises, in decibel and pitch, not from anger but fear because it’s at this moment I realize how unhinged my fiancé is.

“You don’t have any money, so I know you didn’t pay in cash. Did you barter with them, Anna?” Patrick takes another step and another until the heat of his breath wafts against my face and spittle flies from his mouth, speckling my skin. “Barter your virginity, Anna? Offer up that pristine pussy? The pussy I bought and paid for?”

“What? No, Patrick. I had nothing to do with it.” Fear snakes its way through my chest, constricting my lungs and heart.

Patrick has never been physically violent with me before, but there’s a first time for everything.

“Don’t lie to me.” His hand is up, nails gouging my scalp as his fingers close around a fistful of hair, and he snaps my head back, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “I think they took you. In more ways than one, and I think you liked it, you filthy fucking whore.”

He jerks me back and releases his grip on my hair, putting an arm’s length between us, and for a moment, I think he’s done, that the outburst is over. The crack of his palm against my cheek slams me back into the reality of what my life with Patrick will be like. Heat flares along the left side of my face, and the intensity of the sting where his hand connected with my face tells me I’ll be wearing his mark for a while.

“Take off your clothes. I need to check for damaged goods. Surprise me, Anna, and I’ll keep my end of the deal and make you my wife. Disappoint me, and you’ll be working off your father’s debt another way. It’ll still be on your back, just not in my bed.” He rocks back on his heels, spinning the gaudy garnet ring he wears around. His patience is tissue paper thin, and when I fail to move, he plants his feet, hauls back, and hits me again with enough force that his ring splits my lip. “Take off your fucking clothes. Now.”

With shaky hands and tears streaming down my face, burning as they stream over the cut on my bottom lip, I grip the hem of my shirt, pull it over my head, and toss it on the floor. I fumble with the button of my jeans before pushing them down my legs and stepping out of them, taking my socks with them, all while Patrick shouts at me to hurry the fuck up.

“I didn’t say you could leave anything on.” He makes a circular motion with his hand, gesturing to my bra and panties, then points to the pile of clothes by my feet. “All of it.”

I’ve never been more uncomfortable in my skin. Naked, exposed, in every sense of the word. I stand before Patrick Calhoun, not as a person but as a possession. He owns me. And when he finds out what I’ve done, what I let Mark and Jax do to me, and how much I loved it, he’ll break me.

13

MARK

Richard Garrison. What a fucking dick. I never understood how that nickname came about, but since meeting Anna, I realize it’s because of men like her father. Who the fuck uses their daughter to pay off their debts? Dick Garrison, that’s who. He called Patrick, probably the second she hung up the phone and set her up.

I knew taking Anna to the hospital was a bad idea. Hell, so did Jax, but it’s not like we could say no. Her mother’s condition is worse, and Anna is convinced the only way she can save her mom is by going through with the wedding. We should have tried harder to convince her otherwise. Showed her our fucking bank statements, if that’s what it took for her to believe Jax and I can afford her mom’s cancer treatments. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell her no.

Neither could Jax.

And now we’re tailing a cliché as fuck black town car. Not that we need to follow them. We not only know where Calhoun lives. We have the blueprints. We’ve been casing him for years, waiting for the right opportunity to present itself. Jax and I could slip in and steal every single one of his hideous, overpriced knickknacks and clean him out while he slept if we wanted to. But we aren’t interested in a snatch and grab, in hocking his wares at some shithole pawnshop willing to deal in stolen goods. We wanted something you couldn’t put a price tag on.

Revenge.

We were well on our way to achieving that goal when we took Anna. Victory was in our grasp, brushing against our fingertips. But now, I don’t give a fuck about getting back at Patrick. The only thing I care about is getting Anna back.

The black car’s right blinker flashes in the distance, signaling the turn onto the private road leading up to Patrick’s estate. We can’t follow them through the gate and onto the property, and we sure as hell can’t ram our way through. Not with this piece of shit van.

“Take the next right.” Jax starts giving me directions as if I’ve never been here before.

“Dude, I know where I’m fucking going.” I grind out through clenched teeth, barely containing my frustration. I’m not pissed at Jax, and it won’t help our situation if I misdirect it at him.

“Sorry,” Jax mutters from the passenger seat. His stiff posture says he’s as pissed off as I am. “We shouldn’t have taken her. I fucking knew this was going to happen.”

“You couldn’t have told her no any more than I could.” With two clicks on the indicator-control stalk protruding from the steering column, I kill the headlights, then shift the van into neutral and let the van coast with the street’s downgraded slope until we reach the end of the dead-end road adjacent to Patrick’s property. Two other pompous assholes occupy this street, but their cookie-cutter mansions sit far enough back from their property lines that they won’t even know we’re here. Having planned and abandoned more than one home invasion at Patrick Calhoun’s place, we know that this corner is a blind spot in both neighbors’ security camera feeds. Fucking security companies should be ashamed of themselves. Not that I’m complaining. We need every advantage we can get because Patrick Calhoun did not climb his way to the top of a criminal enterprise by being a fucking idiot.

He knows we’re coming to rescue her.