Page 70 of Ruthless

“Since when has that stopped us?” I tease.

“When Connor walked into a wall and cut his forehead.” She laughs at the memory, and some of the tension leaves her.

“Yeah, he was pretty pissed about that. I’m surprised he didn’t rat us out.” It would have served us right since we set up a type of maze in the basement and cut the power to the house.

“Me too.” She slumps farther back against the wall. Our conversation drifts off, but I refuse to just sit here.

“Stand up.” I tug on her arm and pull her to her feet.

“Now what?” she asks.

“Now we see if we can find a light.” I glance around the darkness, hoping for a miracle.

With one hand in hers, I keep my other one out in front of me, and we make our way forward to the light that’s coming from under the door. The coldness of the concrete chills me to the bone, but we keep moving. There has to be a lock or something we can pick.

We make it halfway there when the sound of footsteps has us holding our breath. My heart pounds against my chest as we wait to see if they keep going, but we’re not that lucky. They stop right in front of the door.

“Shit. Get back,” I whisper over my shoulder and shove her back the way we came until we feel the familiar coldness at our backs.

Keys jangle, and a lock turns. Light floods the room, blinding us as the door opens, revealing a blurry figure. All I can make out is that it’s a man. He enters the room, and my pulse pounds in my throat as I await our fate. It doesn’t escape my attention that he left the door open.

He keeps moving forward until he’s standing right in front of us. I can’t make out much of his face, but I can tell he has dark hair and tanned skin. The only other feature I can make out is the image of a wolf on his left middle finger. His head tilts to the side, studying us. The silence stretches for what seems like an eternity as he stares like we’re cattle he’s appraising.

“Stand up,” he orders.

Fiona squeezes my hand as we both do as ordered and stand to our feet. My legs tremble, but I brace my back against the wall for support. The last thing I want to do is fall flat on my face and show any sign of weakness.

He crosses his arms over his chest and continues to watch us. “Take off your clothes.”

I cringe at his request, but instead of cowering down and giving in, I press my shoulders back and stare at his blurry face. “No.”

He smirks. “Stubborn. I can see why he married you.” My back goes ramrod straight at the mention of Zane, but he doesn’t give me long to come to terms with that before he’s repeating his demand. “Do it now. Or I’ll do it for you.”

“No.” I’m not doing a damn thing this asshole asks of me. It might be stupid, but it’ll give me the chance I need for Fiona to escape and get help. I twirl the diamond of my wedding ring around until it’s facing my palm and wait. I only have one shot at this.

“Fine.” He drops his arms and steps close enough into my space that I can reach him.

With an open palm, I slap him across the face, slicing my diamond into the flesh of his cheek in an upward motion. “Run, Fi!”

She doesn’t look back as she runs out the open door with me following right behind her to what I hope is our one shot at freedom. I make it two steps out the door when I’m pulled back by my hair. Pain explodes along my scalp, where they hit me earlier, and I’m slammed back against a rock-hard chest.

Fiona cries out as two blurry figures drag her back into the room, kicking and screaming.

“That was fucking stupid.” The one with the wolf tattoo jerks me around by my hair to face him and slaps me across the face with a closed fist. Heat rushes to my cheek, but I’m too hopped up on adrenaline to feel it. “And you’re going to pay for that.”

“Go to hell, you son of a bitch.” I spit in his face and lift my leg to kick out his foot, but he’s ready for me and grabs me by the throat.

“You have no idea what hell is, but I’ll give you a taste.” He lets out a hollow laugh and shoves me backward. “Put her up over in the corner.”

“No. Let me go!” Hands grab me from behind and drag me across the room. I kick out and try to twist out of their hold, but their grip is too tight. I’m not going anywhere.

He keeps dragging me until I’m in an area of the room that I didn’t pay much attention to before. He grabs both of my wrists and places them into a set of metal shackles hanging from the ceiling. My heart pounds against my chest, but I suck in a breath and do my best to remain calm as the metal clanks closed. The tops of my toes barely touch the ground, and the angle stretches my arms up over my head to the point of breaking.

Fiona screams and fights with her attacker, but he strikes her so hard that she gets knocked to the ground and goes limp.

“Not the fucking face.”

“Sorry, Lobo.” He stops where he’s standing. I can’t make out his face from this far away without my glasses, but his body language tenses up. Whoever this Lobo is must be running things.

---