Merciless Hunter (Dark Syndicate 4)

20

Olivia

My degree is in English literature and Creative writing.

For a long time, I wanted to be a writer and if I ever make it back to the person I used to be then I’d still like to do that. I love classic literature and poetry, and more than anything I adore reading.

I probably loved reading so much it took up all the time I had and by the time I was supposed to put pen to paper and write the thriller I had my heart set on; my life changed.

The massive nightmare of change reminded me of the poem that made me want to write in the first place.

Dante’s Inferno.

His nine levels of hell resonated with me. The way he described the ninth circle stuck in my mind when I first read the poem. I am reminded of it tonight as I accept my doom.

Dante’s ninth circle is treachery and he spoke of a frozen lake at the base of Hell where sinners are trapped in the ice. Trapped as a punishment for treachery.

I am guilty of the same, but it’s not against anyone. It’s against myself.

Right now, I feel like I’ve fallen through all nine levels and now I’m right at the bottom. At doom.

As if I’ve accepted my fate, I’ve taken to sitting on the floor by the sliding glass doors.

My view is a section of the garden and boats in a distance rocking gently on the seashore.

When Jude locked me away, I did the same thing, except there were no windows to look through from the cage he kept me in. Just the gray walls of the room enclosing the cage.

I mostly stayed on the cold floor because I wanted to feel something different to what I felt inside.

Something different to the disgust I had for myself and what he made me do.

In that room Jude kept me I’d get lost for hours by looking at the walls and I’d only know it was night when the lights went out and he’d come to me. Sometimes he’d come alone, at other times he’d bring friends.

My need to take to the floor feels like that time all over again.

This time it’s stopping me from feeling that freaked out as fuck feeling that ravaged through me this morning when Aiden declared me his and confirmed my status; kidnapped.

I never escaped that hell until Jude was ready to let me out.

I can’t live like that again, under a volatile man who wants to hold me captive and treat me like a thing.

So, the reason I’m looking outside is to plan my escape route, even if what I see won’t help me now.

I don’t know how I’ll get outside or even as far as the boats I can see, but I have to find a way.

I have to put every ounce of everything I have in me to get out of here.

I don’t know what I’d do if I lost my mother. Every time I think about her I can’t breathe, and I try to tell myself Jude won’t kill her because I’ve been kidnapped.

I didn’t escape, and he still needs me.

I still played by the rules. I’m just worried as hell he’ll find out Amy helped me and put me on this path.

The lock on the door rattles. When it opens I go rigid preparing myself for Aiden, but it’s not him who comes through the door.

It’s an elderly dark-haired Russian woman with a tray of sandwiches and a pitcher of what looks like lemonade.

This must be the maid Aiden was talking about. What a shock she would have gotten if she’d seen me chained to the bed.