Page 90 of Captive Ruin

“Listen, you skank,” the tall man with the gold tooth says. His hand releases my throat, grabbing a handful of my hair instead, using it to shake me. Pain rips through my scalp, and I can’t help my cry. “You were warned to obey, weren’t you?”

I don’t know what he means. “Obey what?” I gasp out. “Obey who?”

“You were told what would happen if you didn’t turn up with your sister.”

Shit. Serranto.

The gallery—this—it’s all because I fought back. Because I didn’t give him what he wanted.

Both of us, on our knees before him.

“You’re going to get your sister, and you’re both going to be obedient little sluts, aren’t you?”

I can’t find my voice. I don’t know what I’d say anyway. This is it. Live or die. I’d rather meet a horrible, torturous end than subject Lucy to any of these horrors. I will fight tooth and nail. I will—

The front door of my apartment bursts open and slams into the wall. I flinch so hard it hurts, twisting to look behind me. There’s another man, standing in the gloom, tall and filling the doorway.

Three of them?

“Who the fuck are you?” growls the man with the gold tooth.

The third man walks in, and as soon as the light from the bedroom spills onto him, I recognize him.

It’s Van Wyk. My monster.

Relief hits me so hard that my body trembles and tears blur my vision, but it’s mingled with fear that he’s outnumbered.

“They have knives!” I scream.

“Shut up, bitch.” Gold-Tooth leans down and backhands me across the face. I’m knocked to the ground, the sting of it making me cry out. My whole cheek is on fire, my eye feels like it’s going to explode.

There’s a scuffle behind me, brief and violent. Someone gurgles, the metallic scent of blood filling the air, then a body hits the remains of my coffee table, glass and wood smashing. It happens so fast I can barely register it. I push myself up, glancing back.

Van Wyk is on his feet with his karambit hooked over his fingers, dark along the edge. The short man is sprawled across the wreckage. He’s not moving, not breathing.

“You fuck!” shouts Gold-Tooth. He leaps over me, knife raised.

I can’t see what happens, even though I’m watching. It’s too dark, too fast. What reaches me is sound. A scuff, a wrenching grunt, a wet pop. Then Gold-Tooth’s on his knees right in front of me, his arm hauled up behind him at an angle an arm shouldn’t reach. Van Wyk twists until the joint gives, then drives a knee into the elbow, and the arm breaks with a crunch. Gold-Tooth cries out, back arching in pain.

I scrabble away, splinters of broken plaster under my hands. The ceiling light is above me, the cable dangling down, and I shrink beneath it in reflex. Is it live?

There’s too much going on. I’m too scared. I can’t think, or process, or breathe. I just want to curl into myself and disappear.

“Who sent you?” Van Wyk asks again, snapping my attention back to him. His voice is cold and flat, completely devoid of any emotion, and Gold-Tooth’s chin is tipped up on the edge of the karambit.

“Fuck… you…” he grunts, cradling his broken arm to his chest.

Van Wyk sinks his blade into the man’s shoulder and twists. The man screams. “Last chance. Who sent you?”

“Serranto!” he chokes out.

I could’ve told him that.

“Bullshit,” Van Wyk says. “Serranto’s dead.” He does something with his knife, and Gold-Tooth jerks with a whimper. “Try again.”

His response stuns me. Serranto’s dead?

Then why the hell are these men here?