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“Of course, Mr. Holt,” he said automatically and flinched away from me when I stalked past him on my way to my office.
He didn’t look toward the stairs or notice the way each step away from where I’d left my heart was destroying another piece of my soul. He was too focused on not pissing me off. I knew I needed to keep it that way.
Because this was for the best.
As soon as I was seated at my desk, I took out my phone and pulled up the number that had been sent to me over Facebook an hour before. My thumb remained hovering over it as I stood on a cliff that my entire being was trying to recoil from—thrashing and writhing in an attempt to get back to that girl who held my heart.
I pressed down and lifted the phone to my ear.
One ring.
Two.
“Hello?”
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
With a ragged breath out, I hurled myself over the edge, shattering the last part of my soul. “Kyle . . .”
Chapter 45
Breathe
Briar
Years of planning wouldn’t have been enough to prepare me for what we’d walked in on late that afternoon. And I’d only had months.
I’d known how many men were in this world that I’d been sold into—this world that my devil had been taking part in for years in order to take it down. Lucas and David had said the number so often that it continued to bounce through my mind even when I tried to sleep.
Thirty-three. There were thirty-three men, including Lucas.
The number had only shocked me for half of a second before I realized that I’d already known. My shopper had said dozens on more than one occasion, and I had a feeling I’d known from that very first day.
I had stared down what had looked like dozens of one-way mirrors while dozens of lights flashed on and off as the men hiding behind them had bid on me.
No, that number didn’t shock me, but maybe it was because I couldn’t grasp what it really meant.
Standing in the enormous hall where every one of those thirty-three men were gathered for their annual celebration, I was beginning to understand just how terrible the number thirty-three was.
Because each of those thirty-three men had anywhere from one to fifteen women standing close by their side—most had the latter. One to fifteen women who had been stolen from their homes and sold in an auction like I had.
All of those stolen girls . . .
And they hadn’t had a Lucas.
What was worse, nearly all of the women looked deliriously happy with their men—just as William’s did.
Lucas had told me that, at some point, nearly every woman had a chance to leave and go back to whatever life she’d had before she’d been kidnapped, and none ever did. From the stories that William’s women had told me of their previous lives, and from the little I’d heard from Lucas, I was sure I knew why . . .
The women only came from the worst of lives—lives that the women would be thankful to get away from.
Like Jenna would’ve, I’d thought numbly when I realized why they’d targeted her in the first place.
It was a way for these men to feel like they were saving their women from awful lives, and in turn, it was why most of the women thought they were in love with this life. Because even if the beginning was terrifying, it nearly always turned out better than what they’d had.
