Page 14 of Shattered King

I couldn’t answer.

Josh.

Pierce would find out about Josh.

There was no other way to describe what happened next. I just . . . freaked out. A switch flipped in my head, and I started to fight like a mad woman. I shot to my feet as best as I could, cuffed to a chair, and backed the heavy wood into the wall with all my strength. My body jarred painfully, but I kept at it, tugging at the cuffs around my wrists. “Let me go! Please, I have to get out of here.”

Strong arms came around me, holding me immobile. He went to work on the cuffs, releasing my raw throbbing wrists.

“Calm the fuck down.” Then he rasped against my ear, “You want to go, tell me what I want to know.”

His arms were locked around me, but the chair was gone, on its side on the floor.

“I don’t know anything!” I screamed in his face, all the fear and anger exploding from me. “I haven’t seen that asshole in three fucking years.”

Hunter shook me. “I don’t believe you.”

“Who do you think I’ve been hiding from? Why do you think I’ve lived in one dump after the next, only taking jobs that pay cash, moving all the time?” I wriggled and got some space, enough to shove at his chest. “Why?” Then I started punching and scratching, fighting as hard as I could.

I need to get to Josh before Pierce did. I needed to get to my son.

His hands came down on my waist. I was lifted off the ground then dumped on the couch. He came down on top of me, heavy legs tangling with mine, holding my hands immobile on either side of my head. “Lulu, calm the fuck down, now,” he barked in my face.

I couldn’t breathe, I was hyperventilating, his weight suffocating. “I need to call my aunt, please let me call my aunt Sara.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He’ll find out. He’ll come after him.” The words were tumbling from my mouth. I was in a full panic, fear making it impossible to think clearly, to measure my words.

“Who’re you talking about?”

“Josh.” As soon as my son’s name exploded past my lips, I froze. Limbs turning to stone.

“Who’s Josh?”

I winced. Hearing Hunter say my son’s name was like a sucker-punch to the stomach. I didn’t answer.

His face twisted. “What the fuck are you talking about, Lulu?”

He moved his hips against mine, and I sucked in a breath. Oh God, he was hard.

I held his wild gaze, ignoring the way he affected me, and forced myself to calm down. “Please, let me call my aunt. Let me tell her I’m okay. She’ll be worried sick. She’ll call the cops if she doesn’t hear from me soon. Please. I’ll tell her I ran into some old friends, anything you want, but please let me call her.”

His gaze searched mine. “Not a fucking chance. I don’t trust you. I don’t believe one word that comes out of your lying, deceitful mouth. You put on a good performance, I’ll give you that. But you don’t leave this cabin until you give me what I want.”

The fake calm evaporated and I screamed. Lifted my head, my face an inch from his, and screamed my head off.

He smiled. “Like I said, you can scream all you want.”

Hunter

Lulu screamed, her small, soft, round body shaking beneath me.

The woman was freaking out, but I had no idea what she was talking about. She also wasn’t going to fill me in, that much was clear, and I doubted I could force it out of her. I frowned down at her then shoved the unwelcome concern building inside me down deep and slammed the door. Lulu was a goddamn pathological liar and this was just another act, her trying to get me to let her go.

One thing I did know for sure, though, was that she couldn’t hide from me—she was scared for her life.

Yeah, I’d chained her up, kidnapped her, but the fact that she thought I was capable of physically hurting her, got to me a fuck of a lot more than it should have. Jesus, she’d never known me at all. Maybe it had been Pierce’s idea all along, us hooking up. Maybe he’d planned it from the beginning. Maybe Lulu had let me fuck her, pretended to love me, all at her stepfather’s say-so.