“Faster! It’s gonna blow!”
The front door swung open and closed as the house undulated, a gaping escape that looked farther away than it should have. He lunged toward it, dragging Lily as the floorboards dropped away in chunks behind them.
Almost there. Almost there.
The floor heaved. The house jerked to the side like something had punched its foundation. Lily’s fingers slipped from his.
“Matt!” Lily screamed.
He lunged for her, but she was gone.
Audrey turned onto the long gravel road as the factory loomed in the distance. She smiled.
Her factory. Her prison.
When she’d bought this property last year, it had been the farmhouse she was most interested in. It had a cage in the basement! That’s when her plan for Emily Masters Rowe soon-to-be Henderson fully gelled. She’d break Emily. It would be easy.
The factory just came with the land, practically giving it away, and she hadn’t even gone inside.
Until Emily and her pathetic, crying husband escaped.
Garrett had to go back to work. No choice. If he disappeared now, the questions would start—too many questions. The police were already sniffing around the resort, asking about the Hendersons. But Garrett wasn’t nervous. They had planned this down to the smallest detail. No direct connection. A clean alibi. By the time the newlyweds vanished, Garrett was already halfway through his shift. Six hours later, when no one was looking, they drove through the night to the farmhouse in Georgia with two unconscious bodies in the back of the van.
They pushed them through the cellar doors like sacks of meat and the bodies rolled down the stairs. Splashed into the water in the basement.
Maybe they could just let them drown, Audrey had thought. But that wasn’t fun. And when they heard Josh and Emily moving and groaning from below, they knew they had to restrain them.
They went around to the front of the house, down the basement stairs, and dragged the two half-conscious people into the iron cage, the prison that had been built in the corner. Garrett had thought it was odd and disturbing that someone had a jail cell in their basement, but Audrey thought it was exciting. Her own prison!
For bad, bad girls who looked down on her. For bad, bad girls who took things from her. Her man. Her job.
Garrett had to go back to work. Audrey stayed behind.
When Emily and Josh stirred—groggy, confused, scared—Audrey’s hands trembled. This was new. She’d never had prisoners before. But fear melted fast. Curiosity took over. Then glee. She turned it into a game.
And it was delicious.
She put Emily on trial. Dragged her into the center of the cellar like some medieval court, tied her to a chair, and listed every petty, poisonous thing Emily had done to Audrey. Stolen Charlie. Stolen her idea. Stolen her promotion. She presented the “evidence” with theatrical flair—the acting coach who kicked her out of his classes clearly didn’t recognize talent—grinning while Emily sobbed and shook her head. Denial, denial, denial.
Until the hunger set in.
After a day and a half without food or water, Emily cracked. She confessed everything through tears and cracked lips. Josh, her new husband who sat crying in the cage, told her he loved her.
Pathetic.
And then Emily thought Audrey would let her go. Begged her.
“Please. Please let us go. I won’t tell anyone.”
Right. Did she think that Audrey was stupid? That she’d fall for that?
Yet... Garrett wasn’t due back until tomorrow. Audrey still had time. So she invented another game.
A dangerous one.
She left the basement to set up the traps, and an hour later returned, unlatched the cage, and whispered, “Run.”
She assumed they’d take the road—the obvious way out—straight into her row of bear traps, perfectly hidden beneath leaves and dirt. But they didn’t. They bolted through the fields instead, toward the old abandoned factory.
