AllFreeNovel
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Ven leaves everything on read, as per usual.
You two are the most boring assholes I know.
Can’t a guy at least get a reply around here?
Then I see the newest message that came in just before. The topic that I knew would eventually come up.
You know, if she’s just a blood debt we’re owed…
Inside the shirt I probably need to burn rather than wash, my shoulders stiffen immediately. Quick fingers tap out a reply.
Ven. Please fuck the brat out of him so we can get some peace around here.
Some of us have work to do.
Ven reads the message and once again doesn’t bother to respond. I’m surprised he even opened it, to be honest.
Dots are bouncing fast and loose as Ky types. I start the ignition and am just about to pull away from the warehouse when his reply comes through.
You realize we have a pretty and willing little slut under our roof, don’t you?
Or are you too blind to notice anything these days, old man?
No.
No…
As in, you don’t realize?
Or, as in, you’re not blind, and you HAVE noticed?
He follows that with all sorts of dumb fucking emojis like eyeballs and devil faces and eggplants.
Christ. There is no end to how far he tries to push me some days.
Don’t fucking touch her.
Simple as that, Ky.
My teeth clamp together, and my knuckles grip the steering wheel until white ridges form. As I hit the accelerator and steer the car out into the deserted streets, there’s another text that comes in.
Being the pain in the ass he is, Ky can’t help but have the final word. His message pops up on my phone screen sitting on the passenger seat.
All I’m curious about is why we’re bothering to keep her…especially if we’re not going to play with her.
19
“Thought I might find you up here.”
A deep voice drags my attention away from the book I’m barely concentrating on. Of course, it’s Ky who comes into view, wandering up the stairs. He’s the only one who actively seeks me out in this place, and while I’m enjoying the freedom to do as I like these days, I’m hiding up here sulking.
A pang of missing my art and my life has become a record playing on loop.
There’s not much point in setting up my tattoo equipment when I have no one to create a piece for. And there’s only so many times I can tattoo my own thigh. All the boxes containing my possessions have been stored in the empty room next to mine. I really should spend a day unpacking, or at least sorting through my belongings, but it feels too raw to touch the shattered remnants of my world from before these three men came along and flipped everything unceremoniously on its head.
The concept of opening any of those boxed up items feels a lot like admitting defeat somehow. If they are emptied and the flotsam and jetsam of my life is re-homed somewhere inside my space, it feels like I rolled over for them and exposed my belly; conceding that my entire life is going to be spent locked away here in confinement.
However, if I leave those boxes untouched—sealed and with all the contents neatly packed inside—it’s a strange sense of hope that bubbles up, one that makes it seem remotely possible that I might leave here with breath still filling my lungs.
