Page 166 of Happily Never After

“What about the other one?” the other male asked.

“Hiding in a safe house with Special Agent Fuckface.”

Claire bit her lip even harder. A copper taste filled her mouth. They were talking about her. Theother one? That’s all she was to these idiots who had tried to kill her multiple times? Fury was building in the pit of her stomach.

Professor Taylor sighed. “It’s a pity the mountain lion didn’t work.”

Big Z grunted. “It was a foolproof plan. I don’t know how that bitch got out of being mauled. I’m gonna be having words with Dick.”

A zipper unzipped again. Was that the sound of pants dropping to the floor? Ugh.

“She’ll be gone soon after we take care of this one. It’ll be easier to finish this in Pennsylvania. We never should have sent O’Rourke to the ranch. He’s too inexperienced.”

There was a deep sigh. “She’s a wily bitch, I’ll give her that. We can’t just keep messing with her shitty fundraising events and calling in bomb threats.”

Claire inhaled sharply, then bit her tongue. Those fuckers. They had been behind the bomb threat. And the fundraising event? Did that mean they were the ones who let the dogs out of the cages? How did they have so much free time?

“It’s time to end this,” Big Z continued. “After this one’s done, I want our full sights set on her. She’s not going to escape again. It’s time to teach Agent Fuckface a lesson.”

“He’ll learn,” the professor said darkly. “I have to be honest, though. I don’t like this one, Z. It feels risky. She’s the highest-profile person we’ve ever taken.”

Claire wrinkled her nose. Listening to her middle-aged business professor call Zedediah Nipple by a nickname was just gross.

“They’ll never find her. You know how careful I am. They have no reason to link me to the outreach team.”

“What about the fire?” the professor asked.

“Probably just some feminist whore on a star tour. I’m not worried about it. Trent’s in the office. He’s going to keep watching the feeds to make sure nothing else happens. The hard part is done. And now it’s time for fun.” More clothing dropped to the floor.

Claire’s hand froze on the inside of the wardrobe. Rage flooded her veins. It didn’t matter that it would be fourteen against one. She would rip him limb from limb if it was the last thing she did.

“To restoring the balance,” Big Z said. Two glasses clinked together. A door opened, and the voices were gone.

She took a deep, steadying breath. The 9-1-1 call was still a necessity, but there was no way to do that in this basement. Her phone had definitely worked outside, so she needed to get upstairs without alerting whoever the hell Trent was. Every second that passed brought them closer to starting whatever horrible thing they were planning to do to Brianna.

She popped open the door of the wardrobe and poked her head out. Big Z, with a giant birthmark the shape of a cheeseburger on his blindingly white left butt cheek, approached the chair where Brianna sat.

Claire’s heart galloped in her chest. She needed to go, but what if they found a way to cover everything up? She pulled her phone out and quickly recorded a video, zooming in on each attendee’s face. Asshole after asshole panned across her screen. Unsurprisingly, the attendees were almost exclusively saggy, middle-aged white men. Triple-checking that the video had saved, she hustled across the small room and wrenched the door open.

She almost ran headlong into a burly, six-foot man eating a sandwich. They both stopped, utterly shocked to see each other. The sandwich fell to the floor. The man reached for something at his side.

Claire tugged up the hem of her dress and pulled out her Taser. She fired it at him before he could remove the gun from his holster. Prongs buried themselves deep in his barrel of a chest. His body dropped to the floor behind the wet bar, jerking and seizing. It rattled the cabinets under the bar.

Should she run? What if the Taser wasn’t enough and he ran into the sex dungeon while she was upstairs?

When the electricity wore off, Claire climbed on top of him and punched him forcefully in the nose. There was a crunching sound. Blood poured from his face. His eyes went shut, and his body relaxed. Using strength she didn’t even know she had, she rolled him onto his stomach. She pulled his hands behind his back and searched the room. There weren’t any curtains to pull down and turn into restraints. She was going to have to go back to the dildo wardrobe.

Heart hammering, she punched the code into the keypad again and hurried across the observation room to the wardrobe. Big Z stood next to Brianna, addressing the crowd.

“I’m honored today to have the twelve founding members of our illustrious organization here to celebrate. Over the past decade, you have focused your tireless efforts on our solemn mission to transform the world back into what it’s supposed to be. A man’s world, where men who shoulder the burden of providing for their families are given the opportunities they deserve, and women are relegated where they belong.”

What a slimy, conniving douchebag. In the few songs of his Mindy had forced her to listen to, she had never once heard him use a word with more than three syllables. He must have stolen this speech from the internet. Thank god he was long-winded. It would take him all night to kill her at this rate.

Among the confusing array of nipple clamps and restraints on the wall, a pair of handcuffs hung. She yanked them free and closed the cabinet doors before sprinting back out into thebasement. Luckily the man who must be Trent was still on the ground. She slapped the handcuffs on him and threaded them through a cabinet handle before sprinting up the steps, taking them two at a time. She kicked the doors at the top of the stairs open.

Charlie screamed.

“Claire, what the hell?” She jumped up from the table. The padded chair tipped over behind her and clattered onto the tile floor.

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