Page 54 of A Twist of Poison

Asshole was cutting our time short; I tapped my watch.Hurry up.He shrugged those big shoulders casually as if to say,and what? Clearly, he was in a playful mood tonight if he’d been stretching out their deaths.

“Fucking finally,” I muttered under my breath, to which he laughed quietly once he’d finished. We moved through the brightened hallways, clearing more rooms as we took care of more bodies. We made our way through the mansion, nothing glaringly suspicious… which was odd.What the hell was going on?

As we made our last sweep through our area, we met back with all the others in the foyer. I looked at Chris. “Orders, boss?”

He grunted, “You find nothing either?”

All of us here muttered an agreement. Nothing here, not a single person. But we knew they were here, somewhere.

“Back to your assigned areas. Sweep for hidden doors. Our intel wasn’t wrong, we know those who were purchased are someplace here. Let’s move,” he ordered.

Miles and I traipsed back to our section, looking over every minuscule detail, prodding walls, opening cupboards. On our hands and knees, we pressed into the mixture of tiled flooring and carpeted, depending on which room we were in.

I didn’t know how long we were at it before I heard a faint call. Making our way to the noise, we found one of the guys from the Omega team opening a cleverly hidden door.

“It’s practically invisible,” Ronnie stated. There were no seams around it, no handles. It blended in so fucking flawlessly.

“Yeah, asshole over there”—the first Omega guy huffed, pointing at another guy—“knocked into the fucking glass vase, but it took him a few minutes to realise it didn’t fall and shatter.” He rolled his eyes, and I laughed alongside the others. The other guy didn’t give a shit that he was being ripped into.

We made our way down a winding spiral staircase which seemed to lead to a basement. Only allowing the width of a single person at a time, we slowly filtered down one by one, and even that became a stretch with the span of some of us who were more heavily muscled and built.

“Woah,” Preston commented. “This is…”

“Yeah,” Chris grunted.

Paying attention to everything, we became lost for words. It was a whole other foyer area, as extravagant and the exact match of the one upstairs. Item for item.

“Spread out, same areas to sweep as before,” he advised. “I’m making an obvious assumption that it’s the same layout. Careful though, we may still need to deal with a few bodies while finding those who need us.”

I followed Miles this time, and we found no one else to take out, thankfully. But what we did find…

“Goddammit,” he cursed as I walked in behind him, my eyes widened. I took in the sight before me of the compact room. I mean, I was all for role play in a safe consensual environment. This wasn’t that.

This girl, who must have been in her late teens, was chained to each corner of the four-poster bed by her wrists and ankles. Her eyes were covered with material blinding her, forcing her to rely on her other senses. Thank god she was fully clothed.

Noticing the quickened rise and fall of her chest, I cursed aloud without thinking, making her jump. She was panicking. I shared a look with Miles as he desperately urged me with his eyes to calm her down.

“Hey,” I said gently, moving closer as she flinched hard from the sound of my voice. I tugged on the heavy chains that reminded me of an old-fashioned silver dog chain. She tried frantically to move, obviously couldn't. I got it. She didn’t know who I was. I could be the person wanting to take advantage of the precarious position we had discovered her in.

“My name is Hollis.” I carried on moving forward as I spoke in a soft tone. “I’m not here to hurt you, I promise. One of my team members is in this room with me. His name is Miles.” I looked at him with a pointed look, leading him to grunt a soft hello. It made her flinch once more. We both balled our hands in anger, not at her, but at the situation that had allowed her to become so terrified.

“We need the key,” Miles mouthed to me. I rifled through the keys I’d still got on me, hoping I had it, as I handed the relevant ones out to the others. I smirked as I found one that matched the locking mechanism.

Walking round the side of the bed to the top, I spoke, “I’ve got the key to unlock you. I’m gonna do both your wrists first, then move down to your ankles.” I paused suddenly with a quick thought. “No, let me push the material covering your vision away first. Okay?”

“Yes,” she replied quietly. Gently pushing up the material so she could watch, I ignored her harsh flinch as I brushed her skin. She observed me, full of justified suspicion and fear.

“Okay?” I questioned once again. She nodded as I got to work, slowly moving around unchaining each part, stepping back with Miles once I’d finished up. We flattened ourselves against the wall. We were big guys. It was hard not to appear intimidating. She’d shoved herself back against the headboard, knees to her chest. Defensive posture.

“What’s your name?” Miles asked curiously, keeping his tone soft.

“Heidi,” she answered, staring at him. Then flitting towards me. We needed to get a move on. Miles knew this, but we couldn’t rush her too much.

“Heidi, we need to move on to find the others. I’m assuming there’s others?” he questioned. She tipped her head down slightly in answer. “We’ve got a dozen or so men from our team getting the rest too, so follow us. We’re getting you outta here. You may be able to help calm the others down, too.” We walked out with slower movements, keeping her in our periphery as she followed at a safe distance from us.

Darting from one room to another, doing the same song and dance, we collected a bunch of people and gently urged them towards the foyer area where we met the others who’d also found a handful. There was a mixture of around thirty men and women, none who were underage, thank God. One of our tempers would have tipped over the edge if we’d found kids here.

To look at, they were all presented perfectly clean and seemingly healthy, dressed up in the finest designer clothing or underwear. Material that was worth hundreds, thousands of dollars. My head spun. It was bizarre, mystifying on the highest levels.

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