Page 5 of Betrothed in Fury
Knife Guy, still on the floor, grabs his stun gun, so I step on his arm and slip it out of his grasp before bashing his head against the doorframe. Then I rush Hair, give him a good kick in the crotch that has him hollering.
Show them to fuck with a Wilde.
No sooner have I secured the stun gun than I feel something against my side. The pain radiates through me, and my legs give out, sending me tumbling to the floor. Apparently, there was more than one stun gun. That was my shot, and I fucking blew it.
Despite being down, I’m still one determined fuck, and I start to get up when someone grabs me by the wrist and pulls it behind my back, pinning me to the ground as he puts the weight of his knee against the small of my back.
“Dammit,” I grunt as I feel the metal of the stun gun against my neck.
“Come on, sexy. Time to give it up, don’t you think?”
That voice, deep and resonant, sounds so familiar. It also annoys the fuck out of me for a reason I can’t explain. How do I know this guy? Try as I may, I can’t place the voice.
I start to turn to get a look at my captor when he yanks on my arm again to the point where I scream.
“Be a good boy,” he says. “Stop resisting.”
“Over my dead body.” That’s where this is gonna lead anyway, so I struggle until another jolt incapacitates me. By thetime I come back to my senses, I’m back in restraints, hood over my head.Just got out of that damn thing. I’m a dead man, for sure.
Two guys have me by the arms. Not sure who they are—Knife Guy, Hair, or the man whose voice I recognize—but they take me into the room I resisted entering. When I hear theclickof the lock, I know it’s probably too late for me.
They haul me through the room before strapping me to something, pulling my arms to either side, restraining my wrists and then my ankles so I’m stretched out, spread-eagle. What fucked-up contraption is this? I think about the shit Dad used for torturing guys in our basement, and I can’t help wondering what they’ll take first—an ear, a finger—to send to my family. Something so they’ll know how serious these guys are. If that’s what this is, then there’s a chance they can be bargained with.
“Is it money you want?” I ask, struggling in vain against the cuffs. My dick slaps against my legs as I thrash about. “There are more polite ways to handle this without pissing the Wildes off. And in case you don’t know, I also have the Lordes on my side, and youdo notwant to fuck with those guys. They’re psychotic.” I don’t love that they’re family allies, but it’s the only card I have to play right now. And they will annihilate whatever family does this to me. Of that I’m certain.
The laughter that ensues assures me that what I felt was a trump card doesn’t go as far as I might’ve hoped. Besides, anyone foolish enough to have abducted me likely already knows that the Lordes have our back.
“Jaime, get Krychek treated,” the man whose voice I recognize says.
Why can’t I place it?
In any case, sounds like Krychek is Knife Guy, and he got what he deserved by pulling that blade on a Wilde.
The door opens again—Jaime and Krychek leaving?—and I’m wondering if the guy who stunned me is alone with me, or if he’s got other guards here with him.
“I should apologize for the way you were handled.”
He’s drawing closer, and he sounds so fucking familiar.
My captor, now standing behind me, removes my hood, and I see the room first, a dimly lit space that looks like a large office or study. Black walls, antler chandeliers, and candelabra sconces suggesting a Gothic design, seemingly intended to give the feel of a dungeon. I recognize the space and realize who my captor is even before he faces me. Killian fucking Lorde. Heir to his father’s enterprise and one crazy motherfucker—he’s the son of Old Terror, after all, and if that name doesn’t tell you all you need to know, I don’t know what will.
Old Terror and my dad had their heyday, powerhouses in the underworld. The stories about our fathers have become legends as the two of them, together, played out a battle worthy of the gods against the most perverse and sadistic men and women of Fury as business mixed with jealousy, sadism, and revenge. Old Terror’s advantage was his psychopathy, and he committed heinous acts in the name of his family and mine.
Despite our families’ blood-stained past, Killian is known as a much less brutal crime boss. Or perhaps we’ve simply been in a relatively tame period in Fury’s history.
While I’m exposed and a mess, Killian’s dressed to the nines in a suit and bow tie, his slick, jet-black hair gelled almost to points in his bangs, sharp enough maybe that if it swiped past me, it could draw blood. A mischievous grin overtakes his smooth face, something sinister lurking in those dark eyes, matching the mood of this dungeonesque study in his family estate of Rothguard.
Killian is masculine beauty personified. I’m only attracted to women, yet even I can acknowledge he’s the sort of sexy that setsoff all the alarms. No beauty like this can come without a price, and though his vision of a face alerts moths to the danger of the fire they move toward, I’m sure few mind the burn if it can bring them closer to it. Tonight, there’s something more menacing to it than I’ve seen before, his lips parting slightly as if to say,Eve, would you care to try the fruit of this tree?It’s throwing me off since we aren’t enemies, which is likely why I didn’t connect the voice to my captor, despite having heard it plenty of times through the years.
“It’s been too long, Log. How are you doing, you sly fuck?” He folds his arms as he approaches, clearly keeping his motives close to his chest.
“The devil never shares his plans until it’s too late,”Dad used to say.
I eye him skeptically. I can’t imagine all this to-do was for any good reason. “Very confused right now.”
He winces. “Confused?”
“About why your guys took me from the good fuck I was having, carried me off into the night, and brought me here.”
