Page 6 of Manacled Hearts

The curly-haired blonde one promised.

“Take them all to the assessment room!” a man shouts over the voices of crying children as we’re herded out of the truck and into what looks like an abandoned factory.

I stumble but catch myself just as the same man who was watching me before, turns to look at me. He was the one shouting. He leans in toward the guy beside him and whispers something into his ear, his eyes never leaving mine.

I don’t feel good about this. At all.

Driven by instinct, I swallow the tracker pill I was holding in my mouth.

“Evie?” Maya’s voice startles me. “Evie, what’s happ—”

“Not you.” A hand wraps painfully around my bicep, hauling me away with enough force that I lose my feet.

“No! Let me go!” I shout, thrashing to break free as another guy grabs Maya from behind.

All the kids turn, and at the sight, a cacophony of fear fills the space. They cry and yell, some of them shout in pain when the men who watch them hit them to silence, and tears of frustration and fear blur my vision.

I fight the one who holds me, kicking and punching in a whirl of untrained moves that don’t take me anywhere. But I do it anyway, aiming for low spots, for his belly and groin, anything that could make him lose his grip.

With the loudest of thuds, my ear rings. It takes a second to register the pain that comes with it.

“Shut the fuck up!” someone shouts, but the threat sounds muffled.

“Let me go! I need to be there with them! With—”

“No. You’re coming with me. I need to find out what you’re worth.”

I turn my gaze to the man who spoke those heavy words. It’s him… the one who seems to run things. The one who watched me.

“Although,” he continues, “I might keep you all to myself, regardless.”

My lungs heave with quickening breaths, and the visceral scream that breaks out of me is followed by furious thrashes in an attempt to escape once more. But he grabs me by the hair, my messy ponytail so tight in his hand, my skull burns.

It takes but two seconds more, then pain shoots on the right side of my skull, and my world falls into darkness.

CHAPTER 1

FINNIGAN

The flowers weigh strangely heavy in my hand. As heavy as the uncertainty weighing me down.

What the hell am I doing coming here with flowers?

I already knocked, damn it. Footsteps approach behind the door—it’s too late to throw them away.

The lock clicks and Katya greets me, but she’s not alone. A little figure squeezes between her and the edge of the door, looking at me with green doe eyes.

The sister.

“Hennessey. Come on in,” Katya greets, dressed much more casually than her usual pantsuits. “Maya, go on, let him in.”

“Who are you?” she asks before she dares to move.

“I’m Finnigan.”

The little girl narrows her eyes on me, scrutinizing my presence, though it comes across as more cute than menacing.

Her eyes seem to sparkle when they notice the flowers. She’s around seven years old, if I remember correctly, yet she seems untouched by the events that almost took her on an unthinkable path.

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