Page 48 of Unveiled

“You’re like a cockroach,” he comments with a dramatic sigh. “You just won’t die. I sell you to the most brutal man I know of, and here you are, looking happier than ever while he’s in an unmarked grave somewhere.”

The air in the car gets thinner as his voice settles into my bones, reminding me of memories I didn’t even know were still haunting me. Except, unlike earlier when I was with Cain, I don’t have the freedom to panic.

He’s playing a game he doesn’t think I can win, but I’m going to prove him wrong. In the time that I’ve been in this life, I’ve faced men much crueler than him. Even Cain had moments recently where he was more cruel than this man.

Men like him don’t want to get their own hands dirty; they’d rather have others do the work for them. All he ever did was kidnap me, neglect me, then sell me to the devil. Compared to my time with Carlos, my week with him was almost a vacation.

“What am I supposed to do with you?” he muses.

“You could just disappear,” I suggest. “Though, I’ve tried that, and Cain still dragged me back. And his grudge against you is much worse.”

He laughs humorlessly, assuming I was making a bad joke. If only this whole situation was nothing more than a sad attempt at a prank.

“You see, I can’t do that,” he announces. Every nerve in my body fires, ready to spring into action, but I force myself to calm down. Even if he never personally caused me harm, he’s still much larger than me and has lived a life full of violence. I don’t stand a chance against him.

“My son needs to learn a lesson. I could take you again, but I have a feeling that wouldn’t have the desired effect.”

He’s talking to himself, not caring if I acknowledge him at all. While he’s distracted by his own thoughts, my hand inches closer to the door handle, ready to disobey Cain and make a run for it. I’m sure he’d understand why I couldn’t follow his rule this time.

“Actually, you fell into my trap perfectly. I didn’t expect him to bring you here, but I expected him to leave you alone. My plan was to lure him here, then escape and come to you at his house. I didn’t really get past that, but I guess that’s okay since the plan changed a bit, anyway.”

Should I run for the building, or the woods surrounding the area? If I run to the building, I might get to Cain, but I might also put him in danger. If I run to the woods, I could get lost and Cain wouldn’t know if I’m hurt or not.

Clearly, he doesn’t know about Jonah. If Cain had left me home alone, Jonah would have been there, watching over me and making sure no one hurt me, including Cain’s father.

“But the question remains, what do I do with you?”

That’s my cue.

My hand closes the distance to the door handle and pushes, ripping the door away from the car. I’m ready to swing my body out of the seat, but a hand wraps in my hair and pulls, stopping my movement.

“CAIN!” The scream rips through my throat, made up of pain and desperation. There’s no way of telling if he can hear me inside the building, but it’s the best I can do.

“Even if I took you, he would just work tirelessly until he finds you again. I’d be better off making an example of you, don’t you agree?”

My teeth slam against each other, refusing to let him hear a single sound of pain or fear. If I do, he wins.

Whatever he does, you’ve had worse, I tell myself. I faced beatings for almost a month straight. There’s nothing he could do to me in this car that would be worse than that.

“Whether or not you agree, that’s what I’m going to do. When your precious Cain finds you, tell him that this is going to keep happening if he doesn’t leave you alone. I’m going to keep finding ways to torment you, hurt you, maybe even sell you again if he doesn’t send you away. It’s the only way he can protect you from me.”

Before I can fully process his words, he uses his grip on my hair to push my head forward, slamming my face into the dashboard. Pain explodes across my forehead, and then everything goes dark.

“Ainsley? Christ, Ainsley!”

The voice wraps around me like a comforting blanket, promising to keep me safe and happy from anything that wants to hurt me. My body is jerked back into the seat as my eyes struggle to open, but once they do, I find Cain hovering over me through the open car door.

“Ainsley? Can you hear me?”

A grumble is the only response I can manage, but it’s enough to ease the tension between his eyebrows just the slightest bit.

“What happened?” His eyes roam over my face, assessing the damage caused. By the throbbing in my forehead, I can already tell it won’t be pretty. He swipes his thumb against my temple gently, but when he pulls it away, it’s covered in blood. My blood.

“Your father,” I answer. Do I tell him everything? He wouldn’t push me away. No matter what that man thought would happen, Cain has worked too hard to push me away now. Even if he did, I wouldn’t let him. “He wanted to send a message.”

“What did he say?”

“That if you didn’t get me out of your life, he would keep finding new ways to hurt me. It was all really dramatic, and a bit over the top,” I tell him, trying to lighten his mood even just a little.

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