Convict
Fury guided my actions. I shouldn’t be here. Arran was due home in days, and when he found out what I’d done, my home with the skeleton crew would be destroyed. I should’ve stayed on the other side of the locked doors, watching the outcome on the many cameras like every other envious asshole.
Then I’d seen the tears.
Mila had remained stony-faced in the dressing room, and I’d stared in shock, desperation, and with a thousand other emotions battering me. Whatever she was playing at, I couldn’t work it out. Days ago, she’d been trying to get into an auction, only to vanish then resurface in our basement, a contestant in my game. Frying pan, fire.
At her sudden hit of emotion, I’d lost it. Every shred of my self-control splintered. This wasn’t her choice. She was scared, and I couldn’t stand by and let it happen.
Ignoring my team, I repeated the crime I’d once been sentenced for and entered the game. And as I prowled after Mila, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
She scampered away, heating my blood all the more.
To my right, a man fucked into a blonde woman on the concrete. She screamed in pleasure, and he hauled her upright so everyone could see his dick thrust into her pussy, spreading her wide around him.
“Mine,” he roared.
Groans of disappointment followed, along with the grunts of some whack job beating his dick to the side of them, his game over as he probably wouldn’t get it up again.
My dick? Not interested.
I was a heat-seeking missile for one reckless woman only.
Ahead, Mila reached the second of the cages we kept the men in. She hesitated at the open doorway then stepped inside.
I jogged to catch up with her, throwing a look around to make sure no one else had noticed yet. Lucky for us, most were caught on the spectacle of the first couple’s claim or lost in the hunt for the other women.
When I reached the bars, Mila stood over an unconscious man. She bent to remove his mask then stepped back in shock, her hands covering her mouth.
“You absolute bastard. You didn’t even make it out of the cage? Wake up.”
She kicked him in the ribs. I could’ve laughed, but other emotions had me in their grip. I braced myself in the doorway, fisting the metal bars.
She was attacking Rhys Jacobs. What the fuck was her interest in that guy? Some kind of business deal? Was he meant to protect her in here? I’d had that flash of suspicion about the man but dismissed it. Perhaps my instincts had been right.
Mila shoved Jacobs again, harder so his head lolled to one side. “You have to wake, you scheming con artist. What did you do, bribe, threaten, manipulate? Open your eyes or this is all over.”
I tilted my head. “What’s all over, Mila?”
Mila lifted her focus to me. Our gazes locked, and she took a shaky breath, fear and panic right there in her eyes. As well as something far more compelling. The recognition I craved.
Men would move mountains for love. Or for the chance of it. I knew that for certain because at her distress, I was ready to face anything.
Whatever she had to say was lost to the fist that smacked into my head from the side and the rush of men into the cage.
Chapter 12
Mila
Two men burst past Convict into the cell. I screamed and backed up, half falling in my haste. One snatched at me, snagging my dress in his creepily long fingers. He wrenched it, and the cheap material of the skirt ripped down the centre, exposing my naked lower body.
The second man snarled in lust and swung for him.
They landed on Jacobs’s prone body.
I didn’t waste the chance. Finding my feet, I skirted them and dove out of the gate. But I pulled up short. On the floor, Convict groaned and clutched his head at the site of his scar. He’d been badly hurt recently. He’d mentioned a head injury then had taken a hell of a hit.
Kneeling beside him, I took his hand. “Let me see.”