Page 56 of Seducing Selena

My right leg failed, and I fell onto the board, pain splitting me open. I screamed, and sudden fury and fear tore through me. With how tight it was, I shouldn’t have been able to shove the gag out of my mouth, but I did it.

“They’re going to kill my sister.”

Tears flowed down my face, and I leaned into the pain, not bothering to right myself. Because if I was giving in, I deserved the pain. This could be the thing that killed her.

All three Alphas were looking at me now, and they came back. “Please.” My voice shook. I sniffed, trying to get control, and I couldn’t. “If I tell you, they’re going to kill my sister.”

Derek stepped close to me, fire in his eyes. “Who? Who is going to kill your sister?”

I pressed my lips together. They hadn’t said they would do anything, and the Syndicate said they were always watching. Was this a trap?

He cupped my face with a hand, voice low. “I promise, Selena. I will not let anything happen to your sister. I swear it, no matter what happens, we will keep her safe.”

I wilted in the chains, fully resting on the board. One more sob, and I finally let it go. “The Syndicate. The Underground Omega Syndicate. I can prove it. I swear. Please, Masters.” It wasn’t even a conscious decision to call them that.

The weights disappeared, and Nick took Derek’s place, keeping my face close to his, lips at my ear. “Breathe with me, sweetheart. It’s going to hurt.”

“It can’t hurt anymore,” I murmured. “It already hurts too much.”

He swore under his breath. “Get her the fuck down.”

The board beneath me disappeared and I could stand on my own again. The sharp pains in my nipples and clit barely phased me. My knees gave way, and one of them caught me before I sprained my shoulders falling into the chains.

Sobs still fell out of me, and I recognized the scent of sweet mountain air in the chest I was pressed against. A blanket wrapped around my shoulders. “Talk to me,gattina.”

Kitten.

I pressed my face harder into his chest. “The theatre. The room with the cages. I promise. I can prove it.”

Something rumbled beneath my ear, and I went still. He was purring. None of them had purred for me since my heat, and it made everything come to the surface.

“Hold on, Selena,” Derek whispered. “We’re going to fix it. I promise.”

We were moving, but my face was still so buried in his chest I didn’t know where. Even if it hadn’t been, the tears that wouldn’t stop wouldn’t let me see anything.

“We’re here, Selena,” Sebastian said, voice uncharacteristically gentle. “Show us where.”

Derek helped me as I lifted my head, wiping my face with the blanket. I was a fucking mess. “Back there,” I pointed. “Behind that curtain.”

Not much had changed since I woke up in this room. There hadn’t been any more auctions. We walked over to the cage, and I started to get down. “No, you don’t,” Derek said, tightening his hold. “Just tell us. I can’t put you down right now.”

I cleared my throat, my voice raw. Quiet tears still spilled over, saved up from all this time. “There’s a loose floorboard. Underneath it is the phone that was with me when I woke up in there.”

Derek’s body went entirely still.

Nick was the one who opened the door and felt along the boards. “Holy shit,” he said, finding the board and the phone right where I left them. “Is there anything else here?”

I shook my head.

“Good,” Seb said. “We shouldn’t do the rest of this here.”

The others didn’t say anything, but they agreed. We were suddenly moving quickly, until we were inside the elevator that took us to their private floors.

They took me straight into the living room, and Nick pulled out the big, comfy pillow Sebastian had put me on the first day. Derek set me gently on it, and they sat on the couch in front of me. “Okay, Selena. Tell us.”

My body ached, my head ached, my heart ached. Everything ached. “I told you the truth the first day,” I said quietly. “Or the simple version of it. I went to sleep in my bed, ready to be on vacation for my heat. I woke up to someone in my house. They drugged me, and I woke up in the cage, hearing Derek tell all those women to serve and keep their eyes on the floor. That,” I pointed to the phone in Nick’s hand. “That was all that was with me, except the nightgown. I don’t even know who changed me.”

I still didn’t like to think about that.

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