[ZARA]I’m cuffed, drugged and blindfolded.Can this get any worse? If that’s the question—the answer is yes. It can. It is.Waking up in an empty cabin and being unable to do anything to get the hell out of there sounds like a beautiful dream compared to what I’m waking up to now.I don’t know where I am. Or how I got here. I’m not alone either. It could have brought some ease to my trembling nerves—don’t they say we’re stronger together? —but it doesn’t. Every time I drift out of the dazed darkness, someone screams and cries, begging for help.To stop.The gruesome pain.Every cell in my body howls to reach out. Every bone in my body wants to put up a fight and make it stop whatever is hurting them. But I can’t. I can’t see. I can’t speak. I can’t even move.I’m helpless. And it fucking sucks.The last time I heard anything from Brandon was back in the car outside that cabin. There is no way to tell how many hours had passed since then. There is no way to tell if nothing bad had alr
[MADDOX]“Come on, Maddox, just hear me out!” Jade blocks my path the second I’m out of the office building. “Just once. Please.”“I don’t have time for this shit, Jade. Get the hell out of my way!” I’m so mad, I’m barely holding back from breaking her face. God swear if she tried to make this harder than it already fucking is, I’m going to shoot her right in the middle of her eyes and won’t regret shit.To avoid that from happening, I try to walk past her, but she grabs my forearm and moves back to obstruct my path.Every second ticks by like a bomb while the chill of the night seems nothing compared to the claws of cold dread sinking into me.Zara and Armonica’s lives are in danger. There is simply no time to waste. Yet Jade doesn’t know how to give her priorities a break. When I didn’t answer her single call, she thought it was best to show up and beg for a chance that I’m not inclined to give.It’s because of her stupid impulse Zara misread the whole situation. It’s because of her
[ZARA]“I’m sure you have questions.” A familiar voice rang into my ear.It didn’t take a lot to recognize the voice from the morning when I woke up in the car. Despite still being blindfolded and held down by metallic belts around my legs, abdomen, and chest, I was trying my best to not lose my shit.It’s hard. I swear.It’s like standing on the edge of a cliff, not knowing which one step would send me tumbling down the rocky slope.After that unknown man left me with a dreadful warning, a few minutes later someone pushed at the gurney—the wheels churning and squeaking underneath—and brought me to another room that smells like something died in there.No one talked. No one said a word.Well, until I heard a door open to my right and footsteps echoed throughout the room.“You lied!” It might be because of the drugs or that I’m famished or that I’m scared shitless, but when the two words left my mouth, they broke and sounded pathetic.The man chuckled from somewhere in the room. “I gue
He huffed out a soft laugh, and I wondered if it was my sense of humor or if he was high on something, too. “You’re funny, Zara. I have to admit, it’s after a very long time I have met someone so vibrant in the face of their potential death. It almost makes me want to spare you.”“I’m guessing you won’t.”“More like I can’t. If I let you go right now, Maddox might mistake it for my weakness. He’ll think I don’t have the balls anymore. And I hate it with passion when someone underestimates my competence.”If it wasn’t for animosity or their gender preferences (I didn't know Richard though), these two would be a match made in heaven. “Why does it matter what he thinks?”“It doesn’t. I’ve just grown to like the fact that every day a powerful man like him wakes up with a dread of losing someone he loves.”Something in my chest unfurled at his words, like a brush of soft feathers across my heart. I turned my head away from him. “He doesn’t.”“Doesn’t love you?” He asserted, and I felt a sh
[MADDOX]“Are you sure this is the right place?” Glancing at the lone red-bricked house, far from the main city, I cannot help but ask.Turns out, I have a thing for bad decisions and pissing people off. Even though the latter one comes off as no surprise, it bothers me to think I’m willing to take such a colossal risk by putting my faith in Jade. She doesn’t deserve it as far as I know. But something tells me if I didn’t give her this chance, I wouldn’t get another either. And I have too many regrets to add more to the stack. So, here I am. At the exact location, she got it from one of her guys, waiting for a sign that this isn’t the worst fuckup of my life.Nathan was absolutely against revising the plan at the last minute. But I asked him to trust me. He said he couldn’t. And, yes, that was pretty much the end of the conversation before he waited for me to get out of the car and left to follow our original course of the plan.He expects me to fail. But I hope that’s only because he
[FLASHBACK]“Boss!” A man doubled over, panting like a dog. “We’ve got a situation.”Richard stared at the man for a long second, face contorting into one of confusion. “What happened?”“You’ll have to see it for yourself.” The panicked minion sputtered out and stepped to the side. “Before it spirals out of control. Please.”Richard looked a second close to kicking the man out of the room, but he schooled his expression quickly enough and sighed heavily in his chest. Turning to face the woman lying on the gurney, he shot her a small, apologetic smile. “I’ll be right back. Till then, enjoy the show.”It was then Zara noticed another stretcher across the room. Just like her, a woman strapped on it. The only difference—she was still blindfolded with a black cloth and had a metallic mask clasped around her jaw.Richard removed her mask and moved a shower sort of device over her face.The woman begged him to stop whatever he was doing. “Please, let me go. Please, please, please. I won’t te
[ZARA]I woke up in a dark room.For a second, I thought I was back in that hellhole.I sat up with a jolt, so fast my head swayed and the entire room spun. A dark figure loomed near the foot of the bed and fear hijacked my mind.I whimpered, feeling something hard against my back, stuck in the middle of a shadow of the man and something that barred me from crawling backwards. Panic prickled the back of my neck, chewing at the little sanity I still had intact. But it was only when the shadow moved and took a step closer, I screamed like hell.“Zara!” Someone called. It came from the dark figure. “Calm down. It’s me.” He said and took another, cautious step in my direction. The shaft of light sneaking from the cracks between the curtains struck his face. My shoulders dropped, and panic melted when it hit me who he was.“Brandon?” It really was him. But…“Shit! I didn’t know you could screech like that.” He said and I could tell he was trying to act all cool while from the inside he was
“It’s not true.” He retorted, but when I gave him a pointed look, he shut his mouth and let me finish.“That what you think, what you say and what you do is best for everyone. That you have the right to decide for everyone because, in your head, no one is more capable than you are. You’re so controlling that you don’t even care how suffocating that could be for someone. In fact, not just me, for anyone at all. You make the rules and expect everyone to follow them without question. You are so deep in your head that you’ve become delusional. No one can reason with you because you don’t listen and neither do you trust. You know of whom you remind me?”There was a beat of silence before he spoke, the crease across his forehead tightening. “I am NOT like Richard.”“No. You aren’t. But you’re no different either. You are just as tyrannical, if not less.”He peered down at his hands and shook his head. “I…I don’t know how that happened.” A look of surprise crossed his face, water glistening