Page 23 of Vicious Savage

“If you die, it will be at my hands, and my hands alone.I. OWN. YOU.”

* * *

Nothingabout the house has changed. The halls are still cold and dark and I know that ghosts rest within each crevice. Just like they did when I was younger. I may have been gone for years, but the ghosts still live here. I can feel them in the very marrow of my bones.

“Why have you brought me here?” I ask, when what I really want to know is what his intentions are. What does he plan to do to me? Any delusions I have that the tracker will work and that TJ and Attila will make the trek to Mexico to rescue me from my own father are quickly dashed as he directs me down the long hallways and down the steps that lead into the dungeons. I couldn’t bring myself to even play here when I was a child. The chill alone, which carried with it the scent of dead, tortured bodies was enough to keep me away.

My father leads me into a cell and pushes me in when I linger a little too long at the door. He tells me to make myself comfortable then locks the door and walks away without another look back. I push away from the bars and fall onto the wooden plank that serves as a bench, folding my hands between my knees.

I’d had three years of freedom, living away from his tyrannical hold over me. Granted, I’d always had to look over my shoulder, but they were three wondrous years, nonetheless. I’d been a normal girl, studying and working and basically just living without the constraints of a father who only sought to control me. And the added bonus, I wasn’t being pimped off to a man much older than myself who had struck a financial deal with my father.

I allow my mind to cast back a few days to when I met Attila and TJ. Something is niggling at the back of my mind. No one stalks a woman, rescues her at the most opportune time, then puts their life on the line with guns and bullets trying to protect her.Thengives the woman a tracker so they can rescue here yet again. Unless… what did they actually want? And why had they come into my life? If they wanted to hurt me, surely they would have done so when they had the chance? No, this was something more, and I had to find out what it was.

I continued to let my mind think up wild theories. I didn’t have anything they wanted, or they would’ve taken it. But obviously, they wanted to know where I was because I could lead them to something or someone. My mind thought up all sorts of exaggerated theories, not least of which was that they’d needed me to lead them to Nadia. But that didn’t make any sense, because they would’ve seen her at the club that night, and they would’ve acted on that scenario then. It had to be something else.

“Think, Luna,think,” I urge myself.

What were the chances that they would track me here? And if they did, what would they find? Would the thing they wanted be found wherever I was? What would they find if they came here to Tulum? Me. My father. A host…

I stop thinking. I clear my mind and retrace my steps.

My father.

Of course.

That was it.

But why?

Granted, he had more enemies than the President, but how did they even know him? What were their ties, if any, to him? And where the fuck were my brothers?

24

ATTILA

The tracker is in Tulum, Mexico.

“Any known residences there?” Dante asks. “It would be handy to get blueprints for the location before we arrive.”

The Jekyll looks up from his laptop and regards us carefully. “The tracker has been static for the past couple of hours.” His eyes focus on me and I realize there’s something he doesn’t want to articulate.

“What is it?” I’m guarded, weary, and I don’t miss his hesitance before he speaks.

“No movement. And her location is the edge of a cliff overlooking the Caribbean Ocean.”

The words slice through me, right down the middle, until there are two parts to a whole and I am destroyed. Shattered. I wasn’t made to give a damn. About anything. But now I find myself caring what happens to her and I suddenly understand why I’ve always kept my emotions securely locked away behind a thin, unscalable wall. This fucking hurts. Caring hurts. And it’s not a feeling I want to become accustomed to.

“That could mean anything,” Dante says, looking at me. The way his eyes penetrate my soul tells me he knows the demons I’m fighting. I hate that I’ve become so transparent. I slept with the girl one fucking time and it’s like I’ve grown a conscience.

“It could also mean she’s at the bottom of those rocks about to be washed away by the sea,” I snipe back. “Not that it matters either way.” The tremor in my voice betrays my words. The Jekyll rears back, regards me with disgusted eyes, then scoffs and turns away. He’s really taken a liking to the girl. Fucking bleeding heart.

“You don’t mean that,” Dante says, his way of telling me to stop talking and get a grip on myself. “Regardless of who she is, she’s a human and she’s a woman. You know what the rules are.”

Yes, I know what the rules are. But rules are meant to be broken. They’re broken every day. But I can’t allow myself to give a fuck. Doing so could be my ruination.

I straighten my body as I rise from the bench, turning my face away from the flickering light on the tracking device. I wonder how The Jekyll has access to such equipment; it’s my understanding that his background is in construction, not security.

“You’re being a little hard on him, don’t you think?” Dante says, coming to sit beside me. He chucks his chin in The Jekyll’s direction. I follow his eyes to the man I’ve spent the past two weeks with and watch as he jokes with some of the soldiers in the back of the plane. If I had to admit it, even if only to myself, The Jekyll is anything but what his name States. He is one of the most humane people I’ve ever come across. He’s intelligent and he’s a warrior. But we’re just not on the same page.

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