Fear wasn’t something I was accustomed to. I’d made sure all my life that I had nothing to lose.
But now I did.
And the fear I felt about that was like being rolled up in a suffocating wet blanket.
Because Aiden James was unhinged. And he wouldn’t hesitate to kill Macayla.
Macayla
I gaped at Callum’s brother, my eyes hitting the jagged scar running from the corner of his left eye, and across his cheek and his mouth. His lower lip was crinkled on the left from the scar, the skin white.
There were very few, if any, similarities to Callum. Maybe the strong nose with the notch on the bridge, as if it had been broken a few times. Strong, square jaw, high cheekbones. He was handsome and ugly at the same time.
He grinned. “Aiden James,” he offered. “I’d tell you the name I’ve been using recently, but then I’d have to kill you.” He gasped with a laugh. “Never mind. That’ll happen anyway. Not sure when, though. That’ll be up to nature if they don’t find you soon enough.” He folded the ski mask neatly on his lap. “I changed it to Ivan a few years ago, but I was thinking I’d like something better. Stronger. You know? Maybe Zack or Damien…. No. No. Edward. Yes, Edward. I like that name. It’s kingly. What do you think?”
This was a game to him. This had nothing to do with me.
I met his eyes, refusing to cower under his gaze. “Vic will kill you.”
He raised his arms half-mast and waved his hands like they were trembling. “Ohhh, I’m scared.” He chuckled. “I mean, really. No. He’ll run around, freakin’ out that you’re gone. Vic Gate freakin’ out. God, that will be fun to watch. He’ll of course call Saint and the others, and then all of them will be searching for you. Oh, oh, and your brother. I’m guessing, and this is just a guess, he’ll kill Vic when they find your ravaged body down here. I wonder what Jaeg will do. Whose side will he be on? My little brother, of course, will side with your brother…. Isn’t that sweet. Our brothers on the same side. Oh, then there is Gabriel St. Clair. The big chief. Gosh, all of the Horsemen back together again in the underground. I wonder if they’ll kill each other before I have the chance to.” He inhaled a deep breath like he was smelling a dozen roses. “Ah, the final battle. God, isn’t it exhilarating?”
My heart lodged in my throat, and fear slid its greedy hands further into my insides to twist in my belly. He hated them all. This wasn’t just about Vic.
He sucked on the caramel, making a slurping noise, then moved it around in his mouth before it bulged in the right side of his cheek. “I can’t wait until he finds you. Are you going to scream? I think you should. Not too much, though. I want to hear him when he sees you. I guess that’s if you’re still alive by then. What do you think? Should I put a red bow around your neck like you’re a Christmas present?” He shook his head. “No. No.” His eyes widened. “That would be too much red.”
The greedy hands inside me tightened, and bile lodged in my throat. Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up.
He stood up and pulled the chair back to the center of the ring. He stepped back, examining it and then readjusting it again. “Do you know it was all of them? The Horsemen planned it. Oh, maybe it was Vic who did the dirty work. Tortured me for weeks until I spilled the beans. But they were all in on it.
“My brother let me go. I know. I know. I should be grateful. But I know he only did it because of her….”
Her? Who was her?
He looked at the chair. “No, no. That’s not right.” He adjusted it again, then grinned as if satisfied, and turned to look at me. “Okay. Okay. I’m getting way too ahead of myself. It’s just so exciting.” His voice fluctuated up and down like an off-key piano.
He turned and stepped toward the gate, and my heart jumped. It was obvious he was insane, but if I had any chance of escape, it would be through trying to talk him out of this.
I tried to keep my voice steady as I asked, “Why did they torture you?”
He tsked, turning back around and approaching me again. “Aren’t you such a treasure for asking. Well, you could say they didn’t approve of my extracurricular activities. Like the pillaging of girls and sending them overseas. But to be fair, here, I only picked the ones who were lonely or sad. One girl even had a teardrop tattooed on her face.”
Oh my God. Oh my God, no. Avalon. Addie said she was gone. It was Aiden who had taken her.
He was insane. A sociopath. Psychopath. All of the above.
He clapped his hands together. “This really has been so much fun. Watching and waiting. But they are all finally together again, and so the game must end.”
I was the bait. Then it hit me. “It was you. You texted Ethan. You told him about the rape. You made it seem like it was Vic who assaulted me so he’d come here.”
He inhaled a long, deep breath. “I like you. So clever as well as resilient. Yes. That was me.”
I glared at him. “You’re insane. He’s going to kill you.”
Something snapped in his eyes like a shutter closing. He stormed over to me. The blow across my cheek was hard and fast, like being slapped with a wet towel, and my head jerked to the side.
He punched me in the jaw, and I fell to my side on the floor. I raised my arms to cover my face as he continued to hit me. Then he kicked me in the stomach with his steel-toe boot and knocked the wind out of me. I tried to crawl away, but the chains wouldn’t let me get far.
I didn’t know how long it was before he finally stopped punching and hitting me. I felt as if I’d been tossed around in a tornado, and every breath was agony.