Page 19 of Defending Van

Until her.

“Next time you kill me, promise me,” he demanded.

But she just trembled, her fingers uncurling from around the knife, sending it clattering to the floor at their feet.

Still, he wouldn't let her go. “Promise,” he repeated. “Next time, you do whatever it takes and don’t even think about the consequences.” When she still didn't give him the response he was after, his fingers tightened once again around her throat. “Promise.”

“I-I p-promise,” she stammered, and he released his hold on her neck, tracing over the spot where her pulse was still thrumming wildly.

“Good girl,” he praised, keeping his grip on her wrist as he bent to scoop up the knife and slipped it into his pocket. He’d return it to the guards’ room once he’d locked her away and changed the code. Couldn’t have a repeat of this even if his instincts had gone wild and he wanted to let her go.

“Wait,” she protested, digging in when he started tugging her down the hall.

“What?”

“That’s it?”

“Did you have something else in mind?” he asked, shooting her one of his empty smiles, which he knew everyone hated.

“You're not going to kill me? Not going to punish me? You're just going to put me back in that room and pretend I didn't hold a knife to your neck and threaten to kill you?”

“Yep.” That was exactly what he was going to do because it was clear he’d lost his mind when it came to this woman.

Chapter

Eight

August 27th

6:36 A.M.

Nothing about this was right.

It wasn’t at all what she expected when Van got control of her and threw her up against the wall.

“You're really just going to forget about this?” Makayla asked. That was stupid. These men were here because they enjoyed tormenting women. Why else would you work for a sex trafficking ring where you were allowed to torture women if you didn't enjoy it? Sure, maybe you liked the money more, but still, you had to enjoy it a bit because there were plenty of other ways to make money.

So it made no sense for Van to pass up this opportunity.

Okay, she could understand why he wouldn't kill her. He probably wasn't allowed to since she was considered Azure’s property. Besides, if he did, he’d have to explain why he’d done it, they’d know he had almost let her escape, and then he’d get in trouble. But if he just enacted some sort of punishment, no one would ever know about her failed escape attempt, because he could punish her whenever he wanted for any reason, and given she’d been disobedient as they put it, no one would think twice about it.

“You got a problem with that, Makayla?” he asked in that drawling voice of his. Under any other circumstances, she’d probably find it sexy.

Here? She did not.

At all.

Well, a teeny bit, but it was overridden by the fact that he was an evil monster.

Only … when she looked at the emptiness in his eyes, in his smile, she didn't sense evil beneath the veneer, and she was good at sensing evil in others. It had helped her survive as a child, and it helped her with her job now, because she usually knew which foster homes were safe and which parents should never get their kids back. Like little Doyle Smith. She had no idea if that boy was even still alive, but she did know that his parents had something to do with her ending up here.

“Hmm, Makayla?” Van asked, the fingers on her wrist beginning to stroke across her skin, and she hated that the sensation was nice, soothing even.

“I don’t have a problem with you not killing me, obviously. So far, your punishments have been exactly as unpleasant as you intended for them to be, so, no, I don’t have a problem with you putting me back in that room, but it still makes no sense to me. Something is off with you. I just don’t know what.”

And really it didn't matter. Because she still had options.

No one else had showed up, so Van really could be the only one here, so they still outnumbered him, and even if he pulled out the knife and killed her the others stood a chance at escaping.