Page 23 of Rescuing Our Bride

Would have, could have, should have.

It’s too late for any of that now. I’m being stuffed in a car’s trunk and taken to who knows where. A sense of dread settles like a weight in my stomach because truth be told, I have an inkling of where my abductors are taking me.

Back to Patrick.

Another round of should haves runs through my mind. At the top of the list is that I should have known better. I should have known this happiness wouldn’t last. That this perfect life Mark and Jax created for me was too good to be true. But the most glaring and painfully obvious is that we should have killed Patrick Calhoun when we had the chance.

Because deep down, I knew he would come after us.

The drugs and the rocking motion of the car calm my fears and lull me into blissful oblivion. I don’t think about my mom. I don’t think about Mark and Jax riding to my rescue. I just slip into the nothingness and just sleep.

“Anna.” A man coos. “Wake up, sleeping beauty. Your audience awaits.”

Everything is blurry and muffled, like being underwater with your eyes open in an over-chlorinated pool. My brain is sluggish, and my memory is fuzzy, but one thing keeps running through my mind. Danger. I am in danger.

“Anna.” The man’s voice cracks like a whip in the air.

Oh, fuck. Patrick. Everything comes rushing back. The prick of the needle, being taken by two men and shoved into a moving vehicle. The irony of my former fiancé’s plan is not lost on me.

“There she is. Just in time for your performance. I wouldn’t want to start without the star of our show ready for her close-up.” Patrick’s face comes into view, hovering just above mine. His bourbon and cigar-laced breath washes over me.

The smell of alcohol and stale tobacco, combined with the nauseating side effects of whatever drug I was injected with, is enough to make me retch. I try to roll over to my side so I can throw up, but I can’t move. Oh, god, I’m tied up.

“I think I’m going to puke,” I warn him as my stomach clenches again as I take in my surroundings.

I’m tied spread eagle on a bed, with a naked Patrick kneeling between my legs. There’s a camera fastened to a tripod set up behind him. The red light blinks a signal that it’s ready and waiting to record.

“Puke all over yourself. I don’t give a shit. I’m here to fuck you. Not make love to you. Besides, do you think I want to kiss that filthy mouth of yours? I know where it’s been, whore.” Patrick leans over me and grabs a condom from the box lying on the mattress beside me. He tears the foil wrapper with his teeth, removes the condom, and barks out a bitter laugh as he sheaths himself.

“Better safe than sorry, right? Well, at least I won’t be. You, on the other hand? You’ll not only be the sorriest little whore when I’m through with you, you’ll be the sorest. And your boyfriends get to watch. This is live streaming to that flat-screen TV mounted on your living room wall. Oh, and their laptops. And cell phones. Don’t worry, slut, they won’t miss a single depraved thing I do to you. They’ll hear every scream and see every tear, in real-time.”

“You’re fucking sick.” My stomach threatens to upend itself, but I choke it back, along with the tears threatening to spill over my lashes. I won’t give this bastard the satisfaction.

“I’m sick? That’s fucking rich coming from you. You and your boy toys inspired this little show we’re about to put on, just like the one you put on for me. You remember that, don’t you, Anna? Me being tied to a chair, choking on your panties, being forced to watch while they fucked you. And you loved every minute of it because you’re a filthy, disgusting whore.”

Patrick never raises his voice. Not once. It stays even—ice cold, and that’s more terrifying than if he was screaming at the top of his lungs in a full-blown rage.

“You won’t like it this time.” Patrick’s lip curls back in a sneer as he leans over me again and pulls out a knife from the folds of the comforter.

I slam my eyes shut and try to block Patrick and whatever he’s going to do to me out of my mind. Praying for an out-of-body experience, a way to slip into the furthest corner of my mind and pretend this isn’t happening, I feel the mattress shift under his weight and the cold press of steel against my skin.

“Look at me,” Patrick commands, pressing the knife against my skin until the warm bloom of my blood welling up replaces the cool sting of the blade. “I said look at me. I want you to fucking watch me.”

He switches the direction of the blade and slices up through my bra then moves to my panties, slicing through the thin bikini straps on both hips. My gaze is fixed on Patrick like he demanded. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep my cries and desperate pleas from escaping my mouth, denying him what he wants, but I can’t hide the tremors that rack my body.

“Perfect.” He knows I’m afraid, and he’s enjoying it. “You like it rough, don’t you, whore?”

A percussive boom and the sound of shattering glass stops Patrick from penetrating me.

“Oh, good. Looks like your boyfriends decided to join the party. A little sooner than I’d hoped. Unlike some people, I don’t like to share. Guess our fun will have to wait until after I kill them.” He gets off the mattress, grabs a gun off the nightstand beside the bed, and without bothering to put on any clothes, storms out of the bedroom.

Gunfire.

I unleash every scream pent up inside me since I woke up tied to Patrick’s bed with the first crack of a gun. With each bullet that’s fired, I twist, turn, and pull against my restraints. The ropes tighten.

I’m still screaming, thrashing my body against the bed when I hear heavy stomps up the stairs. “No, no, no.” I squeeze my eyes closed and shake my head violently, refusing to look at my tormentor as he comes back to claim his victory.

“Anna.”

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