Page 54

Rafferty

T ime is up.

The clock that has been slowly ticking above her head has come to a stop and today, Scarlett Forster, formerly Scarlett Heath, is now worth a fortune. She’s worth more than her weight in gold.

I shut my eyes, yanking on those damned chains they locked me back into after they all had their fun. My bones protest, my body strains against the metal and I snarl and growl like I’m some demented beast.

I don’t care what they did to my body. I don’t care how Sydney and the others abused me. It doesn’t matter now. None of it does.

If I can get free, then I can stop this.

If I can get free, then I can save her.

I scream her name. I bellow it over and over, and it echoes around the cold, desolate space like a taunt.

The darkness is absolute, thick as tar except for the occasional flicker of movement in the corner of my vision. I blink hard.

It’s nothing.

It’s not there.

It’s not fucking there.

My breath rattles in my chest. Breathe, I tell myself. But it’s not that easy when the walls themselves start to feel alive, feel like they’re shifting, snarling even.

I swear I can hear Scarlett’s voice floating through the void, soft at first, like a lullaby, then growing louder and sharper until it’s a scream.

A plea.

My name, torn raw from her throat. “Rafe. Rafe!”

I choke down the bile rising in my throat. It’s not real . It’s just another trick of the dark, the kind of shit that crawls into your brain when you’ve been left to rot for days with nothing but your own thoughts to keep you company.

Chains rattle as I shift, testing my wrists for what must be the thousandth time. The cold steel bites back at me with a vicious kind of glee, as if reminding me that I’m not getting out of here.

But I have to get free. I have to.

I need to save Scarlett. I have to save her.

The faint creak of a hinge stops my thoughts cold.

My body tenses as instinct takes over. Is Alexander back, is it all over already? Is he going to kill me now?

The sound is almost surreal after what feels like hours of silence, so faint that I almost convince myself I’ve imagined it.

But then I see it. Light. Harsh and so damned blinding after all that darkness.

It floods in from the open door at the top of the stairs.

I squint against it, my heart hammering in my chest. My eyes take a moment to adjust, and when they do, a figure stands silhouetted in the doorway, staring down at me with an obvious sneer on his face.