Page 1 of Capture (Primal #3)

I had no concept of time without a phone or a watch, but it felt like I had been locked in this room for two hours, maybe more, before I heard footsteps and voices, a sign of life.

Fresh air streamed in from the air conditioning, keeping the temperature low, and I drank water from the faucet in the bathroom.

Still, if I stayed in here for much longer, claustrophobia would claim me, triggering a panic attack.

I sat cross-legged on my bed, expecting the voices and footsteps to come closer and my door to unlock, but instead, the voices became muffled, and I assumed they had stepped into another room.

I lay back on the bed, feeling desperate as I replayed the last few months in my mind.

What could I have done differently? Was I so blind that I couldn’t see what Bitchtective was plotting?

If it weren’t for her, I would’ve quit my job at the club as soon as I found out who I was working for.

If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here in the first place.

If it weren’t for her, I’d be living an everyday life as a college student, making friends, dating…

oh, but wait, it was never normal , but at least I could pretend.

Flirtatious laughter rang out in the room next door, and I left the bed and walked into the bathroom between our rooms to listen in. Apprehension stirred in my stomach when I heard a deep male voice, and I wondered if it was Gunner or Ronan. In a room. With a girl.

A bitter taste in my mouth urged me to switch the faucet on and slurp several mouthfuls of water. I had no right to claim their affection and loyalty when betraying them. But this was a jagged pill to swallow—listening to that, basically shoving their exploit in my face.

More flirtatious laughter from the woman, followed by groaning from the man. I couldn’t hear the words spoken, but the tone told me everything I needed to know. Then sex noises. Sighing. Groaning. Grunting, Gasping.

Tears burned my eyes as it hit me hard how much I liked Gunner and Ronan—maybe even loved them—if I knew what it felt like to be in love. I missed Gunner when he wasn’t around, but enjoyed his presence from afar when he’d watch me from behind a mask. Those days were over.

A noise from the flirting couple pulled me out of my morose thoughts, urging me to press my ear to the wall for clarity—repetitive grunting, heavy breathing, short, sharp, exasperated sighing. The couple was having sex.

I screwed my face up and stepped away from the wall, horrified.

Of all places to have sex, Gunner or Ronan or whoever it was chose the room next to me, to rub it into my face.

In hurt and disgust, I stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind me.

Just as the door to my room opened, Gunner was holding a black plastic trash bag.

His narrowed, suspicious eyes flicked to the door I just slammed, assessing the scene, before focusing back on me.

“You’re there,” I stated stupidly, pointing my finger at his scarred face that I adored and always will.

Ignoring my comment, he walked in and placed that bag on the bed as I looked past him at the open door, wondering if it was a good move to run for it, but Ronan emerged in the hallway, arms folded across his chest, not a hair out of place.

“I emptied your drawers,” Gunner told me coldly. “We’ll bring you dinner in about twenty minutes.”

“Wait. How long will you keep me here?” A sharp sound like furniture scraping across the wooden floor reminded me that people were there. “What’s going on next door?”

Ronan frowned, annoyed, glancing down the hall. “We specifically told them not to use that room,” he mumbled scornfully.

“For what?” I brushed that question aside because it wasn’t important. “How long are you going to keep me here?”

“For as long as it takes,” Ronan replied, sternly.

Gunner pulled something out from the back of his jeans, and I lurched backwards at the sight of the handgun, holding my hands in the air in fear. “What plans did you have for this?” he asked accusingly.

Oh, it was my gun. The gun I had forgotten was in my chest of drawers, which I had bought for protection in moments like this. “Protection,” I replied honestly.

“From who?” he insisted.

“You. Them,” I pointed my thumb behind me, indicating Bitchtective.

He gripped the barrel of the gun in his hand as his head tilted to the side to look at me from a different angle. “The cops? Was it the cops who asked you to plant a bug in Mr. Kaiser’s office?”

I was about to nod a yes when I realized he was a hypocrite. “You planted a bug in my room, didn’t you?” I hit confidently. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was him or Bitchtective, but there was only one way to find out. “So, you’re just as bad.” I stomped my foot angrily.

He didn’t deny it, which told me everything I needed to know. I wasn’t surprised, since he’d been stalking me, among other things, and in a way, I didn’t care. Not now anyway.

“I’m not the cops,” he argued smoothly as his eyes turned black. “What was the prize?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, closely watching his hand clutching my gun. “That gun is loaded.”

“Not anymore,” he asserted. “And we want to know what prize was dangled in front of your face for you to come into this club and be a mole for the fucking cops.”

I swallowed over a lump in my throat as more furniture screeched across the wooden floor in the room next door. Jeez, haven’t they finished yet? “What was your prize for planting a hidden camera in my room?”

I refused to answer him because I didn’t want to travel down that road and expose my family.

After all, it would only reveal who I was.

I wasn’t sure if they had yet figured out I was Annika.

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell them because this burden had grown too heavy for me to bear, but I held back.

Gunner bit his bottom lip as he raked his eyes over me, as the couple in the room next kept moaning, grunting, her sighing becoming higher in pitch.

She had to be faking it. No woman was ever that loud when it’s a natural orgasm.

Surely. Gosh, was I that loud when the boys had sex with me?

My cheeks burned with secondhand embarrassment as I tried to compose myself under the serenading erotic noises.

“Seeing you,” he replied with a glimmer in his eye. “Watching you.”

“Naked. Changing. At my most vulnerable, doing things that a girl only does when alone?” I challenged him to see how he’d react.

“Whatever beats your drum,” he answered indifferently, shrugging those impressive shoulders that had greatly supported me in a time of weakness, but I won’t tell him that.

“So, you admit you did it then. Great. I’m glad we’re on the same page.

So you have no right to accuse me of doing something that you did yourself,” I fumed as Ronan’s nostrils flared, and a tight smirk appeared on his beautiful face, only for him to turn away from me as soon as I noticed his smile.

Gunner had lost his patience and yelled, “For the last fucking time, Riley, were you asked by cops to plant that camera?”

“Yes,” I answered, then immediately regretted it.

Ronan’s hand rested on Gunner’s shoulder to calm him down, then he stepped before him to take the lead. “Who are they? What interest do they have in us?”

I swallowed over the lump in my throat as the blood seemed to drain from my hot, burning cheek, turning me cold. I hugged my body and glanced at the black plastic trash bag holding everything I owned, except, “Where’s my laptop?”

“I have it,” Gunner answered. “And answer the fucking question.”

“I want my laptop,” I argued. “It has all my assignments, and one is due next week…” I studied their faces, wondering if they’d ever let me go, and my dreams dissipated before my eyes.

“I’m checking it,” Gunner told me. “For evidence.”

“There’s only assignments on there,” my voice broke under the strain. “Please don’t delete my assignments.”

“I won’t touch your assignments,” he promised me. “I have no interest in your assignments. I’ll be looking at your emails and any files that might reveal who you really are and who you work for.”

“Who I am?” The couple next door fell quiet. Their erotic high plunged into nothingness, the moroseness that claims the mind after the physical stimulation. “I am Riley, Riley Laws.”

My reply only made Gunner even more pent up and annoyed because he doesn’t believe me. “You keep avoiding answering the question,” his voice was sullen. “So, I’m going to assume the answer is yes. That you’re working for the Larsson police and they asked you to plant that camera in Mikky’s office.”

“Mikky?” A shiver ran down my spine. I hadn’t heard that name uttered in three years, and memories flicked about in my mind of phone calls and meetings where my father fondly referred to Mikael as Mikky.

These memories triggered something in me, and I had to compose myself to keep my emotions in check.

“Mikael, your boss,” Ronan clarified.

A dull ache formed behind my eyes, and my stomach was both empty and crying out for food, but also nauseous as if I might vomit if food were provided. “I’m feeling unwell,” I patted my forehead with the back of my hand. “I need some food and hydration.”

“Sure,” Ronan exhaled, tapping Gunner on the shoulder to retreat. “We’ll come back later.”

“Wait. What?” Gunner protested. “Don’t you see what she’s doing? She’s creating a diversion, stretching it out, giving the police time to figure out what happened to her.”

“I see exactly what she’s doing,” Ronan snarled at him, “but she needs to eat, so I’m going to the kitchen to grab a plate, okay?” Ronan stood back in the hallway. “Let’s go,” he ordered Gunner, who reluctantly broke his glare and pulled away from me.

As the distance between us lengthened, I exhaled, realizing I’d been holding my breath.

Then, as the door was shut and locked behind them, I crumbled onto the bed.

I was coming to the end of my tether with the way the police were pressuring me, and I doubted I could keep up the charade for much longer.

I hunted through my bag for a warm sweater as footsteps pounded the wooden floorboards, coming nearer as my breath hitched again. I expected my door to fling open again, but I heard voices that seemed right outside my door.

When it became apparent that neither voice was any of the Kaisers, I started banging on the door and screamed for help. The voices fell quiet, and I couldn’t tell where they went, but I continued to bang my fist against the wood, grasping the doorknob, and shaking hard, hoping the wood would break.

My feet stumbled backward at the sound of heavy, angry footsteps coming closer, and I retreated to the bed, pretending that I hadn’t moved in the first place.

The door unlocked and flew open, and I was greeted with Ronan’s face, fuming, nostrils flaring.

I always wondered if Ronan had a switch to activate his temper, given that he was so levelheaded and calm, with a smooth expression on his face that rarely creased into irritation or sadness.

He shut the door behind him and stormed up to me, so our faces were only an inch apart.

Heat was peeling off him, and his eyes were empty and soulless.

Yet his stare penetrated my skull as the muscles in his jaw pulsated.

This was a different side to Ronan, a cruelty I had only ever seen in the forest pool when he seduced me.

“Don’t fucken mess with me,” he snarled in a low voice that was more frightening than being yelled at. “Do that again, and I will punish you. Do. You. Understand?”

My mouth was suddenly desert dry, and my heart pounded violently against my ribcage. I parted my lips to speak, but my words were trapped in my throat, so I nodded instead.

He pulled his penetrating gaze away and stormed to the door. “There is always someone watching you, Riley,” he hissed at me before slamming the door, then locking it.

As I listened to his footsteps grow distant, I scanned the surfaces, searching for a hidden camera. Since I knew exactly what they looked like, I dropped to my knees to look for them under the bed .

I couldn’t find anything, but as the minutes rolled by, his warning words, "There is always someone watching you , Riley ," kept circling in my mind, keeping me broken and forcing me to be obedient.