I heard the slither of leather sliding across the floor and then the whoosh in the air.
I tensed. Neck tight, eyes closed.
The whip came down hard again and I jerked, arching my back as it struck. My arms took the weight of my body as I hung limp from the chains … sobbing, chest heaving, tears running down my cheeks.
Silence.
I heaved in and out, my back raw and feeling like a blow torch had been brushed across it.
“You speak only when you’re told to or you’ll feel the cut of the whip. Understand?”
The whip came down hard on my back again, and I gasped, throwing my head back as my body swayed back and forth. “Yes. Yes, I understand.”
The sound of the guy laughing made my stomach churn, and the water threatened to come back up. I started breathing heavily through my mouth, desperate to keep the precious water in my stomach.
I heard the glide of leather on the tiles. “Please, no more.”
My plea was ignored as the whip crackled and slashed into the back of my legs. I shrieked and tried to get away, yanking on the chains and moving my body back and forth.
Again it came.
Then again.
And again.
I lost count of how many times he whipped me over and over again, my skin searing and throbbing from my shoulders down to my ankles. I swung back and forth on the chains limp and unable to fight anymore. My mind kept crying, but I was silent, afraid to scream, to cry, to do anything that might make them continue hitting me.
Then it stopped.
“We leave in two days. Take her to the transporter’s location. He will crate her and meet—”
“No,” Logan said. “That won’t be necessary.” Inside I was begging him to hold me, take me in his arms and tell me everything was going to be okay. That he was going to take me away from here.
“Do you think I trust you?” I heard the scrape of something heavy sliding over the floor.
“She dies in transport then you have nothing. And I have nothing. The girl stays with me.”
Silence.
“Very well, but Dave and Jacob will accompany you. Logan … no mistakes. Compendia?”
Suddenly I felt a body behind me, and I panicked as I smelled the gym-bag scent of Alfonzo. A hand slowly slid down my back over top the welts and then stopped on my stinging ass. He squeezed, and I winced as his fingers cut into the welts. I could feel his body against mine, his hard cock pressed into me.
I moaned and shook violently causing my body to sway on the chains. He laughed in my ear, his breath wafting across my cheek. His hand slid further down, hesitated, then cupped me hard between my legs.
I cried louder, pulling my bonds, blood dripping from my wrists. “Please don’t touch me. Help me …” I stopped myself from saying Logan’s name, afraid they’d whip me again.
“He won’t help you anymore. No one will,” Alfonzo whispered in my ear. He pushed aside my panties and slipped a finger inside me. A part of me died that moment. It was like all the crying, the thirst, the pain was nothing compared to the violation of my body while Logan stood behind me and did nothing.
“No. Please no. Why are you doing this?”
How could Logan do this? How could he watch another man hurt me? I sobbed quietly while his thick finger pressed in and out, his heavy breathing next to my ear. I heard his clothing rustling as if … I couldn’t think. My mind was in a haze with disbelief smothering out any hope that Logan was going to stop this.
I heard sharp angered voices behind me. I couldn’t make out what was being said, and really, I no longer cared. I was so hurt and humiliated, and all I wanted to do was curl up and die.
I felt cold. Alone. And unable to stop the predator from violating my body.
Alfonzo made a low groan, stiffened, and then his finger withdrew. He nipped the top of my ear so hard I cried out. “Going to be sweet fucking you for real while you beg for mercy.”
I swallowed the cry in my throat and bit my tongue so hard I could taste iron in my mouth.
He reached up and undid the manacles, and I fell hard to my knees.
It took me a few seconds before I could move past the pain and raise my head. Slowly I turned and looked over my shoulder for Logan.
When I saw him my heart stopped for a few seconds then started beating erratically. It was him, but nothing in his eyes was the man I knew. He was cold and expressionless as he stared down at me. Not a glimmer of sympathy in his eyes. I recognized nothing of the man I had fallen in love with.
Hope died as the realization hit me. He was part of this. He did this to me. I vomited all the water before everything went black.
Day 3
Devastation overpowered all my other emotions.
Hopelessness.
Agony of being torn from everything I thought was real.
Raw pain made me numb to everything.
I lay on the cement floor of the basement where they threw me and two bottles of water after facing Logan. He’d betrayed me. He’d looked at me as if I was nothing. Like a piece of mold as I lay degraded and beaten on the floor.
My mind fought what I’d witnessed, trying to make sense of something that didn’t make sense. How did I miss it? How did I not see that coldness I saw in him now? Was it possible I was so taken by him that I’d blocked out what I didn’t want to see?
No. Kat said she’d seen it. He was in love with me. But the man I saw here wasn’t a man in love. That was a monster. He’d looked right through me, his eyes void of emotion. He ignored my pleading while another man stuck his finger up inside me. He watched as I was whipped over and over again. That wasn’t human.