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It’s then I realize it wasn’t my heart that woke me up. My body slams into a hard metal wall, and a yelp escapes my throat before I can swallow it. The hum of an engine and another sharp corner are all it takes for me to figure out I’m in the back of a van.
“She’s awake,” a man says, his voice devoid of emotion.
The man on the street. The one who shoved a needle in my throat and carried my barely conscious body toward a vehicle I never got the chance to identify before I passed out.
Before I have the chance to pry my eyes open, a hand grabs ahold of my hair and tugs me against a hard body. Pain radiatesthrough my scalp until I’m sure I’m going to throw up from the mix of agony and whatever the hell they drugged me with.
“Don’t rough her up too bad,” another man pipes up, and for one blissful second, I think maybe they’re not going to hurt me. Maybe they’re just going to take me to Spade and it’ll buy me a bit of time. “Boss wants her pristine for what he has planned tonight.”
Tonight?
No.
Bryant assured me whatever Spade wanted me for would take longer to execute. That he wouldn’t just kill me and have it over and done with. Because men like him like to taunt their prey. They like to tease and torment until they lose their sanity long before their life ends.
“She’s a pretty little thing.” One of them touches the inside of my thigh, and suddenly I realize I’m no longer wearing the dress I slipped on at the club. The cool air moves over my heated skin, and the only fabric I can feel against me is my bra and panties.
They stripped me.
Another wave of nausea rolls over me and I pinch my eyes closed to stop myself from crying. These assholes will not see me cry, even if everything feels more hopeless than it ever has before.
“If we had a bit more time, we could have had our own fun with her.”
“But we don’t have the time, and I’m sure you don’t feel like having your hands cut off by the boss for touching what doesn’t belong to you,” another man snaps from farther away. The front seat maybe? “Get her ready to get out and put some fucking clothes on her. She’s not much use to the boss if she has hyperthermia.”
I can’t fault his logic there, and being mostly naked will definitely make escaping more difficult. And at least if I have clothes on, I won’t feel quite as vulnerable as I do right now.
A thought washes over me, and dread pools in my belly. The tracker. The tracker was in the dress. If they stripped me, no one knows where I am, which means no one is coming for me.
If they’ve taken me anywhere other than Spade’s estate, no one is going to be able to find me.
My breath catches in my throat as panic grips me, stealing the air right from my lungs.
Was all this for nothing?
Marrying Doc? Falling in love with him? Trying to save my dad and Bree?
Am I about to die the same horrific death my aunt did after all we did to avoid it?
That’s the last thought that goes through my mind before another needle slides into my neck, and I don’t bother fighting whatever they’ve injected me with.
What would be the point?
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
DOC
Ifly out of the car the second it comes to a stop, gathering Bryant by the collar and slamming him against the closest car.
“You’re fucking dead,” I force through clenched teeth. “This is all your fucking fault.”
He shoves at me, trying to free himself from my grip, but I have half a foot on the guy and while he is well built, he’s got nothing on my size. Most people don’t. “If you hadn’t made it impossible to reach Isla, we never would have come to Chicago,” he spits.
“What difference would that have made?” I snap.
“Then we wouldn’t have had to come get her without your knowledge.”
I glare at him and shove myself away from him, knowing if I allow myself the chance, I will strangle the fucker to death for what he’s done.
