Page 68 of Hunted Temptation
I’m awake but not running at full capacity yet. I couldn’t fight this guy right now. I’m still too weak. I don’t even have half my strength back. If I did, I could handle him, but I’m probably a quarter strength at best.
“Once I have her, this is all done. I walk away with what I paid for, and you live your life with your little company.”
“Why her?” I ask.
“Why her?”
“Yeah,” I grunt. “Why her? It’s not like she’s the only woman you could buy, could pay for, could abuse.”
“You would know all about that, wouldn’t you, Vaughn McCrae?”
He asks the questions with a laugh. He thinks this is funny. I’m guessing he runs around in circles where it wouldn’t have taken him long to look into me, to know who I am, to know who we are.
I’m not going to confirm or deny anything, not a damn thing. He doesn’t get that part of me. Nobody does, at least not unless I allow them, and this motherfucker is not the one. My brothers and Elodie—they are the only ones who get that from me.
“That’s not an answer,” I grind out. “You wanna talk about Pointe Industries?”
He laughs again, and if I were strong enough, I would kick him in the balls. But even if I made contact, he wouldn’t be down long enough for me to be able to get away. So, I decide I’m going to conserve my energy. I will fight this bastard.
“What do you want to know?” he asks.
I’m not surprised that he’s willing to talk about it, mainly because he clearly thinks I won’t survive this. Out of the two of us, I’m the only one who will be walking out of this.
“Who runs it?” I demand.
His lips twitch into a smirk. “You’ll never find the owners.”
“Because it’s not a single person?”
“It’s not a single person,” he confirms. “And it is linked to no one. You’d better just let it all go.”
The doorbell rings, and Lucius’s head whips up. “What the fuck?” he hisses.
I hear another noise in the house, but I don’t think he does. If I know anything, I know that these are my men. My best friends, my partners and my brothers, coming to get me. Lucius slips out of the room, giving me a wink before he goes.
I hear him move down the spiral staircase and try to get out of the confines of the rope that’s holding me to this stupid fucking chair. My fingers begin to move, but it’s too tight. I’ve almost given up completely when the door opens.
I turn my head to the side, and my lips part in surprise when I see the woman from earlier standing in the doorway. She doesn’t say a word and doesn’t dally. She rushes toward me, then disappears behind me. I feel her fiddling with the ropes, and then I’m free.
“Go,” she whispers.
Standing, I turn around to look at her. “Come with me,” I demand.
She shakes her head, her listless hair flying around her shoulders. Then she sucks in a breath and holds it for a moment before she lets it out slowly. “I can’t do that,” she whispers. “This is my life.”
“Fuck that,” I grind out. “This is no life.”
Her eyes are haunted, but she doesn’t say why. She doesn’t have to. I understand now. I know who she is, what she thinksshe is. And I know that she believes there’s nothing left in the world for her.
“I’ll help you,” I say.
She shakes her head a couple of times. “No, just go. Don’t let him get her, too.”
Moving past her, I make my way into the hallway, and that’s when I see Boden coming up the back way. He must have found a back entrance and staircase, thank fuck.
I hear shouting from the front of the house, Hale’s voice, but I don’t head in that direction. I don’t have a piece with me. Which is stupid as fuck. I should have had one on me. I should always have one on me.
“Come on,” Boden hisses.
