AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I fire back. “Ye’re not listening. I’m starting to understand why Persephone ran away from yer family so damn fast. Why it is she fell in with the first man that showed her the slightest hint of interest. This is fucked up. Yer all fucked up.”
Marcia throws her hands up in the air. “Ben, you said that he would accept a number. Are you just going to let him talk to you like this?”
Ben sighs and crosses his arms. “It hardly matters. Persephone is downstairs right now, meeting new potential matches and she is going to pick one of them. You watch.”
I take aim at Ben, offering him a final chance. “Tell me where she is. Let us pass and I will spare ye.”
He stares me down. “I don’t think you will hurt us.”
Adjusting my aim just a hair, I fire a shot straight through his thigh. He makes a squawk and blood spurts out, spraying Marcia. She screams and he clamps his hands down over the bullet hole, going pale.
“I tried to warn ye,” I say. “Now where is Penny?”
Ares is already checking out the house, hunting for a staircase. Marcia seems to be in shock, but he calls out. “Over here. I think this door leads downstairs.”
I look at the security guard, jerking my head toward Marcia. “Stay up here and keep watch over her. We don’t want her to get any ideas.”
“Bastards!” Ben cries. “You won’t get away with this.”
But I am already slipping out of the room, my weapon at the ready as Ares yanks the basement door open.
Chapter27
Persephone
Standing at the foot of the stairs of the dark basement, I balk at entering through the doorway. I can’t see inside but I can hear the murmur of voices. Constantine dressed me like a hooker Barbie in two tiny strips of pearly white latex and a towering pair of heels. But he vanished soon after, leaving me to be dragged down here by a stranger dressed in black tactical gear and carrying a big black gun on a shoulder sling.
The guard stands behind me now, pushing me inside the doorway with a growl. I swallow, looking around at the black leather-decorated room. My brain glosses over the low black velvet couches pushed near the walls. All I can see are the strange older men who turn to look at me.
The man closest to me wears a neat dark suit and is completely bald. He steps closer to me, a tumbler of whiskey in his grasp, his free hand stretching out toward me. I can see the malicious gleam in his watery eyes and the tiny smirk that curves his thin, papery mouth.
My heart drops to my feet as I realize that I don’t know a single one of these men. Constantine has truly found the most hellish experience for me. I clench my fists, feeling a ringing ache in my right hand.
“Constantine said you were beautiful,” the man closest to me rasps. He touches my arm, making me jump backward half a step.
I glare at him, willing my voice not to tremble. “Don’t touch me.”
“Feisty.” He grins, turning around and grinning at the other men in the room. “I thought he was trying to sell me. But now I see that he described you perfectly. You truly are a beauty… but when we are all done taking turns with you, you will be utterly broken.” He steps forward and grips my forearm, his fingers digging into my flesh painfully. His eyes shine with a dark glee. “I can’t wait to ruin you, you pretty little thing.”
I yank my arm and back up another step. The guard behind me sticks the ice-cold muzzle of his gun between two vertebrae of my spine which makes my entire body go rigid.
Acid swirls in the pit of my stomach. A fine sheen of sweat breaks out on my forehead and the nape of my neck.
“Where is Constantine?” I ask. The question barrels out of my mouth as a questioning yelp.
The man in front of me gives a careful smile. “I don’t think we need him.” He looks behind him at the other men, arching a brow. “We can take care of her, can’t we?”
No.
There is no way I’m going to just passively let this happen to me. I wish for the first time in my entire life that I had access to a knife or a gun, anything that could be used to hurt these men before they hurt me. Two of them stand up, salacious looks on both of their faces.
God, think! Don’t let fear rule you.
Not like the last time Constantine meted out punishment to you…
The guard at my back presses his gun into my flesh. But I don’t shrink away. No, I think as rationally as I can with blood pounding through my head.
What are the chances that the guard has been given orders to shoot me? Very, very unlikely.
