Page 17 of KAI Tortured

They’re scaring me. “What? What’s happening?” I run to my closet and seize a fresh pair of panties, a pair of jeans, and a black shirt.

“Put your clothes on, Maisy, quick!”

“I am!” I insist, but speed up when I hear commotion downstairs.

There is a sudden eruption of gunfire inside the house, and it sounds like it’s getting closer by the second. Shouts and curses intermix with the relentless staccato of gunfire.

Orion and Logan are fully dressed in an instant, Orion with his gun in his hand and Logan, his blades. As for me, I’m being hauled behind them, all of us waiting for whoever’s causing this chaos to come running into my room.

After a good five or six minutes, the shooting stops. I try to make out any signs of life from downstairs, and as I do, the door opens slowly. A shadowy figure creeps into my darkened bedroom, likely not realizing we are fully aware of the impending danger.

A man dressed in black, like a ninja, enters with lethal grace, a gun clutched in each of his hands. As he advances, a floorboard creaks under his weight, and somehow, either he realizes he’s not alone or he doesn’t want to be caught out first, so he shoots into the dark.

With a roar of defiance, but also from being hit, Orion falls to the floor.

“Orion! Orion, are you okay?!” I shriek. I kneel down beside him. The sight of the blood pooling underneath him makes my stomach churn.

“You good, bro?” Logan doesn’t wait for an answer. He wields his blades and swings at the stranger, although, because of the dark, he misses.

“Yeah… fucking asshole.” Orion is angry most of the time, but injured Orion is exceptionally enraged. “I’m gonna… tear you apart when I get my hands on you… filthy cocksucker!” Despite his fury, it sounds like he’s struggling to talk.

Logan stoops down to Orion, and when he sees the blood amassing around his torso, his nostrils flare and his eyes blaze with rage. He picks up Orion’s gun.

I sense from both Orion and Logan a fierce determination to protect me at all costs.

But whoever this man is, he’s not taken aback by their resistance. He doesn’t hesitate for a moment, and his guns both point at Logan. He nods at me. “Let me have her, and I’ll let you live.”

“You lay one finger… on her… and you’re a dead man.” Orion sucks in a breath between each word.

“Don’t talk, Orion, please,” I beg. “You’re hurt.” He’s been hit in the stomach. Or chest. I can’t tell where, there’s too much blood.

The room has become the scene of a tense standoff, the air thick with the promise of violence. Orion lies on the floor, incapacitated, and Logan stands unyielding, ready to lay down his life to ensure my safety.

The man reaches out to me. “Come on, sweetie, come here.”

“Touch her and you die,” Logan growls.

“Logan, tell me you didn’t change your mind already?”

The intruder knows Logan. I’m confused. “Change your mind about what?” I ask. “What’s he talking about, Logan?”

“He didn’t tell you, sweetie?” the ninja taunts. “Logan here ordered a hit on your pretty head.” His sneering voice makes his words all the more disgusting. “Little did he know that your dear sister paid me a million to bring you to her alive. You have your sister to thank that you’re not dead yet.”

“You fucking traitor!” Logan hisses through his teeth. “I will personally crucify every living relative of yours before I finish with you.”

I gradually rise to my feet and begin to edge away from both Logan and Orion. “L-Logan? You did this? So… So us, tonight, was just… was just…” My voice wavers and I run out of words.

The intruder nods. “Probably one last fuck, sweetie.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Orion can barely talk, but still he cuts him off. “Maisy, don’t listen to him.”

Tears roll down my cheeks as I search for the truth in Logan’s eyes, and even though it’s dark, it’s enough for me to see. “You used me.” He’s right. It was one last fuck.

The darkness in Logan’s expression looks like it’s consuming him. “We didn’t use you.”

“At least be honest. Have the decency to tell me,” I whisper, though I’m afraid to hear the bare truth. I tremble as he looks at me. The guilt in his gaze is unmistakable – there’s a silent confession right there. My jaw clenches with the bitter taste of betrayal. I see his words on the verge of falling from his lips, each one to cause a heavy blow to my existence. And I wait, expectant, for him to try to somehow bridge the chasm that’s deepening between us.

But it never happens. A shot is fired, and Logan drops with a thud.

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