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PROLOGUE
WAS IT FINALLY over?
Could she dare to take a breath? To release some of the tension in her coiled, ready-for-battle yet exhausted muscles?
Not that any of her vigorous struggling, foul-mouthed screams, or hostile threats had made any impact. From the second the two flea-ridden thugs nabbed her in the parking lot of a Subway restaurant of all places, Chloe had been as helpless as a baby lamb. One needle full of God knew what and some duct tape ensured she hadn’t been able to do more than wiggle in vain.
The moment she’d woken, bound and stuck in the trunk of a car, she’d known she was in deep trouble. Before she even had time to assess just how screwed she was, an itch had sprouted up on the tip of her nose. With her arms secured behind her back, and unable to alleviate the problem, the annoyance had turned into a full-fledged drive-me-crazy itching. What she’d have given to have had that insignificant irritant be her biggest problem. She’d trade full-body intense itching over what she currently felt any day of the week.
A strangled laugh left her, causing her chest to lurch up and down in a painful spasm. “Uggh,” she groaned as the movement brought her back to the present and reminded her of the agony she’d endured in the hours since they dragged her from that car.
Fifteen minutes ago, the four men who’d made her last two days a living hell had exited the dingy motel room they’d delivered her to, and all had been quiet ever since. Well, if she discounted the incessant noise in her own head. One of the men, a vile piece of shit in a filthy wife beater with a red bandana tied around his head, seemed to be the ring leader. Wasn’t too hard of a deduction to make. Each time the action-movie wannabe opened his mouth, the other three, his minions, jumped to do his bidding.
They’d called him Lefty. The way they used his name freely should have been a clue that she was in seriously hot water. The first time she’d watched them scramble to complete his orders, she’d snickered. Bunch of no-balled weaklings unable to do anything more than follow a Rambo-look-a-like’s demands. Then the sadistic bastard gave her some insight into why they all rushed to do his bidding. That snicker had won her a first taste of true, all-consuming fear.
Sure, she’d been afraid when they stuffed her in the back of her trunk—damn her for being too lazy to cook dinner that night. But after she let that tiny laugh escape, the very second it had tumbled from her lips, she’d received her first nightmare come to life.
Lefty’s grimy hand had closed around her throat in a move so quick her brain didn’t catch up until her air supply disappeared. With her arms flailing about, her eyes bugged, and her mouth uselessly flapped open and closed. In what felt like only a second, blackness had encroached in her peripheral vision. The darkness had closed in until Lefty’s face was a pinpoint, and the room loop-de-looped. Just as her body began to fall limp, he’d slackened his hold. She’d sucked in air like it was water for a parched man in the desert.
For about forty-five seconds there, she’d been certain death was coming for her. But the torment hadn’t stopped there. The next forty-eight give-or-take hours had been full of enough trauma and terror to alter the entire course of her life.
They’d planned to sell her. Her! A twenty-seven-year-old redhead who was too tall, and too vanilla to be desirable by any man who’d be in the market for a plaything. None of that seemed to matter to Lefty or his crew. She knew because she’d tried every tactic she could drum up to get them to release her.
She’d told them she’d only slept with two men in her entire life.
She’d told them she was boring.
She’d told them she had six burly brothers, all SWAT cops who’d be hunting them within hours. A stretch, but what could it hurt to try? Besides her body, that is. Each time she’d tried to manipulate them, she’d been hit with fists, a belt, or sometimes a boot.
Despite her efforts, nothing had worked. Hell, she’d been so desperate, she’d told them she was HIV positive. All that tall tale got her was the men’s laughter and a particularly brutal kick to her ribs. Once, when one of the men had leaned in to whisper how they’d break her, how when this was all said and done, she’d be so used up she’d be good for nothing but sucking and fucking, she’d bit him.
His earlobe to be precise. It was the only thing she could reach being tied to a chair and all.
He hadn’t liked that one bit.
