Page 144 of Road to Redemption

“It was you who made that little house call?” He laughed, completely unfazed by the accusation. If anything, his expression twisted into something more sinister. Throwing the truth out in the open gave him the license to finally drop the mask he’d put up while we were dating. He was ready to bare himself in all of his gruesome glory.

“I’ll admit, I’m impressed. I didn’t think you were smart enough to manage it.” He stepped closer, towering over me with a baleful grin. “But if you missed me, you could have just called. I’ve been looking all over for you, Kiera.”

“Rot in hell,” I hissed. “Why am I here? Need me for some grand plan to impress Daddy Isaac?”

“No, I don’t need you anymore, Kiera. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have you just one last time.”

As he reached for his belt buckle, his plan dawned on me with horrifying clarity. I was just another one of his trophies. After years of pretending to care for me, he wanted one more chance to show me how worthless I was.

He’d fuck me, he’d kill me, and then he’d leave my body as carrion for his guards. But as he stood before me and unzipped his pants, he didn’t realize what a grave miscalculation he’d made.

I was done taking his abuse.

As soon as his gaze lifted from his pants, I stretched to the limit of my restraint, grabbing the back of his left knee and headbutting him as hard as I could. It was just enough to throw him off-balance, knocking him flat back onto the hard cement.

“You fucking bitch,” he hissed, rubbing the back of his head. “You’re going to regret that.”

While he tried to gather himself, I reached down and yanked on my thumb.

Come on, come on, come o— fuck!

The joint released with a painful pop, letting me slip my left hand out of its shackle.

No time to free the right.

As Gabe tried to scramble to his feet, I fed my chain’s newfound slack through the hard point, giving myself about five feet of length between my right hand and the ground.

That’ll have to be good enough.

And before he could stand, I flung the chain forward, looping it around his neck and pulling it as tight as I could.

“What are you—?” The rest of his sentence was choked out by the chain tightening around his throat, pulling his back flat against my chest. “K-Ki…. Kiera…”

“Do you ever shut the fuck up?” I hissed.

He had a lot of advantages over me — size, strength, the armed guards outside the door. But I had leverage and surprise on my side.

Serves him right for underestimating me.

Between the hardpoint, my cuff, and the way my left arm hooked around the chain, he’d have to knock me out before he had a chance of escaping.

And he certainly tried. As he choked, Gabe clawed backwards to grab me, threw his weight back to crush me, and scrambled to pry my hands away from the chain.

But if I was going to die in his hell, I was sending Gabe down to the real thing first.

He went more quickly than I’d anticipated. It only took about ten seconds of fighting to knock him out. At one point, he coughed up a mouthful of blood all over my forearm and hand, but I didn’t dare loosen the chain. I wasn’t risking him coming back.

As his arms went limp and his breathing slowed, I pressed my fingers to his neck, waiting until the pulse was gone. I couldn’t tell how long I’d held him there, but eventually, the sweet, hard-won silence was broken by shouting and gunshots in the hallway.

Did Isaac send his men to finish the job?

I had no choice but to let Gabe go. The odds that I survived what came next were slim. I was outnumbered and delirious. I’d used so much of my strength on killing Gabe. But there was no way that I was going out without a fight.

I let his body slump to the ground, his purple and red-flecked face thudding hard against the cement. With booted footsteps growing closer, there was no time to linger on the strangeness of his death, but I was surprised by the warmth that bloomed in my chest at the sight.

I searched his pockets for anything I could use to protect myself. He didn’t have a gun — I supposed he left most of the dirty work to his lackeys — but I did find a small pocket knife and a set of keys.

My cuffs!