Page 91 of Blood and Ruin: The Complete Series

I continue, ignoring their animosity, knowing it’s not directed towards me. “If she tries to leave the city borders, she’s as good as dead.”

They needed to know the implication of their actions should they try to leave now. Luna’s life was on the line, after all.

“Fuck!”

“How do you know this?” Axel demands, still ever suspicious of my motives.

I shrug like it’s an everyday thing to know, but the guys don’t live in the Cardinal Three. They don’t know how King rules with fear and the threat of torture, should you defy him.

“Everyone in the city has one.”

“That has to be illegal?” Luka asks.

Jax shakes his head. “It’s fucked up, is what it is.”

I shrug. He’s gotten away with so much worse. “It’s his city. King likes to keep an eye on who comes and goes.”

Kai steps forward, his lips taut with a look of fury in his eyes. “You mean including you? Is this similar to how you’re tied to the building and why you can’t leave?”

“Tied to the what?” Luka asks, looking baffled.

Jax’s head whips from Kai to me. “What do you mean you can’t leave?”

Rion’s eyes turn sad, his shoulders dropping as if realizing something.

“She’s tagged as well, aren’t you? But instead of just the city, you can’t leave the hotel. You’re trapped here.”

I open my mouth to reply, but no words come out. Hearing someone else tell me my caged status hits me hard.

“How long have you had the tag?” Jax asks, a frantic look in his eyes, but I don’t know what to tell him. The truth would only hurt more.

“Jax—”

“No…” Luka steps back, his eyes wide in horror that quickly turns to devastation.

Their shared anguish rips through me. I never blamed them. It was never their fault King took me and trapped me here. I was just glad they were safely away from him.

“It doesn’t matter, none of this matters.” Hashing up things from the past wasn’t going to help anyone. We still needed to get Luna out and Alan—

“HOW LONG?” Jax’s roar vibrates around me, making me wince at the pain in his voice. He stares at me with so much rage, I can see the flames alight in his eyes. His breaths ragged, his eyes wide.

“How long?” he asks again, softly this time, but it’s deceiving, the rage in his eyes still full of promised chaos and destruction.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I give him his answer. “Since I came here… six years ago… right after I… left.”

Well, after I was kidnapped, but considering their reaction, adding that little titbit wouldn’t go down too well.

A bomb could go off and I didn’t think the guys would notice. I open my eyes finding each of them wearing a variety of shock and despair so heavy, I could feel it in the air around us.

Luka moves over to the dusty grey sofa, plopping down. His head falls into his hands as he grips his hair tight.

Jax’s rage builds and builds until he looks more beast than man, his face shifting and contorting, threatening to let his wolf take over.

Kai and Rion share a look of sadness so swift, it looks like someone had sucker punched them.

And Axel. Axel’s expression shocks me most of all.

His face is drawn, his eyes holding years of torment in a single glance.

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