Page 2 of Don’t Hate Me (Secrets of Ravens Hollow #2)

Orlando closes the gap between us and drops down to my feet, considering me for a second before he unties the rope holding my legs in place. Then he binds them to each other tightly. My wrists are next.

Seeing what he’s doing, I fight him, pulling away, but he holds on tight, making it a difficult struggle.

As he fights against me, the chair I’m sitting on crashes to the ground.

The air knocked from my lungs, leaving me gasping for breath.

A searing pain shoots through my frozen muscles, and I cry out, a pained sound choked with agony and fear.

“Stop fighting me.” He pins me beneath his large frame, his weight pressing down, and binds my wrists together tightly with his strong hands.

“Never,” I seethe. Fuck him for thinking I will go easily.

He keeps wrestling with me, and when he’s satisfied I’m securely contained, he grunts with effort as he scoops me up and throws me over his shoulder like I’m a sack of potatoes.

Impeccably dressed in dark suits, two men stand at the side of the boat with guns visible in their holsters.

They give him a tight nod of acknowledgment, and one of them says a subtle “Boss” as Orlando strides past him with me over his shoulder like this is normal.

They don’t even blink twice at me. I’m just the thing he’s brought home.

That thought is even more scary because how many girls just like me has he done this to.

“Do you know who I am? When my brothers find out you have helped him, you’re as good as dead,” I hiss at the guards.

I hear one of them chuckle, and I try to reach for him as I’m carried past.

“Fiery.” He smirks at me, knowing there is nothing I can do when I’m restrained. But he better watch it because I’ll get out of these bindings, and then it’s on. Every damn fucker who wronged me will pay.

“Why must you try and fight everyone,” Orlando huffs as we pass them, his stride confident as he carries me across the swaying gangway and onto the sturdy jetty.

The salt air whips against my wet body as waves lap at the wood beneath his feet, the bitter cold stinging my frozen skin and making me shiver uncontrollably.

He doesn’t stop when we touch foot on land, leading us up a steep, rocky path of stone stairs, to a structure that resembles a modern lighthouse of sorts, with what looks like a home attached. It’s like it’s no effort at all for him to carry me.

From my position over his shoulder, I try my best to take in every damn detail of the place that we are fast approaching.

It’s perched on the side of a cliff, all glass windows and steel.

Luxurious-looking and stylish. This place isn’t like anything I have ever seen before and the last thing I expected.

His home . “I’m not going inside that place with you. ”

“If you don’t, you will freeze to death out here,” he mutters back.

When he gets to the stoop, he fiddles with a security system, pressing a thumb to the pad, and I know he wasn’t ever going to give me the choice anyway.

The front door clicks open, and he steps inside.

The air temperature immediately whooshes over me with warmth that cocoons me and takes away the bitter chill.

A small amount of relief fills me knowing he’s right.

I’m already frozen to the core; I wouldn’t have survived much longer out there.

With a deafening slam that echoes in my ears, the front door closes behind him, trapping us inside together.

I think he will put me down, but he keeps moving, taking me further into the place.

He walks up a set of stairs and through a massive living room, then up another set of stairs.

He uses his thumb pressed into a keypad again to let us into a room.

He dumps me in the center of a king-sized bed before moving back over to the door to lock us both inside, like he thinks I’m going to be able to make a run for it with these bindings on.

For a moment he just stares at me, sucking in ragged breaths, his nostrils flaring like a raging bull.

The hammering of my heart is the only thing keeping me going, its constant thump against my ribcage edging me to keep fighting.

While he watches me, I keep working on the bindings, my fingertips digging into the rough fibers, trying desperately to get them off and my hands free.

My wrists sting under the friction, and I feel the trickle of blood running down to my palms from where they are so scratched up.

I don’t know what the fuck he has planned for me; all I know is I’m going to fight him until the very end, no matter the damage it causes.

Then as if he’s had enough of watching me struggle, he stalks back toward me, each step deliberate. I try to scramble away from him as my pulse quickens, but with my legs and arms bound together, it’s almost impossible. He pins me beneath his large frame, his arm pressing into my chest.

“Get off me, fucker,” I scream at him, trying to shove him off me.

His eyes lock with mine, a seriousness sweeping over him. “You really want to die tonight? Stop fighting me, treasure. I’m not going to hurt you. You need to get out of these wet clothes and into a warm shower before you get hypothermia.”

So shocked by the care in his words, I stop moving, staring back at him in disbelief. Is this a trick? My head screams at me, it is. But my body is frozen, confused by his tone, by the kindness I see in his features. Right now he reminds me of his brother that first night we had together.

Satisfied he has me under control, he undoes my ankle binding first, then his hands are on mine quickly undoing the wrist ones.

“Look at the damage you have done to yourself.” He shakes his head, inspecting my wrists.

“You need to start trusting me before you get seriously injured.” With his hands held out in front of him, he distances himself from me, walking backwards as if I’m a rabid beast about to bite.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” His eyes plead with me to believe him.

I blink back at him. How the fuck can I? He abducted me, threw me in the trunk of his car, and tied me up. If all signs point to danger, I would be stupid to believe his empty words.

“This will be your room while you’re staying with me, treasure. Take a warm shower. You should find all the hair and body products you need in the bathroom, I’m sure it will make you feel better.”

I don’t move. I can’t, I’m frozen to the spot. I just keep staring back at him from where he dumped me on the luxurious bed in the center of the room. What the hell is he going on about. My room? Everything I need?

He moves to the door and presses his thumb on the little keypad. It slides open like something from a spaceship. He stands in the open space, watching me. “You’re safe here with me, Ava,” he mutters before closing the door, with him on the other side of the glass panel.

A surge of energy courses through me, and I launch myself across the room, slamming my fists against the glass door, pounding at it as I slide down to the plush carpeted floor. Tears stream down my cheeks as I scream for him to let me out.

If he can hear me, he makes no indication, his figure slowly receding into the shadows, leaving only silence and the pounding of my erratic heart in his wake.

Shivering violently, my voice is raw and broken, my screams fading into nothing even though I can’t stop.

I can’t stay here with him. My forehead hits the door.

My muscles ache, I’m so frozen to the core, my body weak and tired from trying to fight him off that I can hardly drag my sorry body off the plush carpeted floor.

Like this, I’m useless and know I have no hope of escaping this monster.

Slowly, muscles protesting with each movement, I pull myself upright and shuffle to the window, desperately searching for an escape.

The glass panel that looks out over the ocean is completely enclosed, no way of opening it, and all I can see is the waves crashing into the rocky coastline of the small island we seem to be on.

It’s still dark, and I can only assume based on how long I have been with him, it’s about three or four in the morning.

Frantically searching the room for a weapon or escape route before his return, I realize it’s hopeless; there’s nowhere to hide, nothing to fight back with.

It’s like he’s removed every hard or even slightly dangerous object.

The layout of the room itself is minimal, with just a large bed with a soft navy-blue fabric headboard in the center of the room with two attached side tables, one with a dozen red roses sitting in a crystal vase.

The sight of it sends a shiver down my spine.

Was he the one sending me red roses every birthday for the last nine years or is this just a crazy coincidence? My gut tells me it’s not.

I move past a bathroom off to one side of the room and into a walk-in closet that’s filled with women’s clothes, runners, boots, heels.

Everything I could need like he just said.

It’s so well thought out that I know him taking me tonight was not a spur-of-the-moment abduction.

He’s planned this, probably for months or even years.

I hug my arms closer to my body, trying to warm up as I return to the modern bathroom.

It’s all tiled in white, a large tub takes pride of place in the center of the room, and off to the far side is a shower.

In a separate room I find the toilet. The drawers are stocked with hair and face products, and a hairdryer is attached to the wall with a switch beside it, but even that I couldn’t remove and whack him over the head with.

He’s thought of everything. Everything I could possibly need, and at the same time, he’s made sure this place is safe as well.

No weapons of any kind, and the only way out is the door that appears to be security locked with Orlando’s fingerprint.

I’m not getting out of here unless he lets me.

That thought sends a fresh cold shiver right through me.

He has all the control, and I’m at his mercy.

The reflection I find staring back at me in the mirror is a sight right out of a horror movie; my pale skin has a blue tinge to it, my hair drenched, heavy and clinging to my skin, my eyes hollow and dead.

My teeth are still chattering behind my chapped blue lips.

Orlando might be a psycho, but he’s not wrong.

I’m so damn cold I feel sick to the stomach.

I need to warm up before I die from hypothermia.

I reach over and turn the shower handle to hot.

The room fills with steam, and I step under the spray still fully clothed.

The warm water feels like it’s filled with little needles as it hits my bare skin, the heat more painful than comforting now when my body is so damn cold.

The heels of my feet are the most painful; they feel intensely numb, a searing, agonizing pain that makes it hard to stand.

The spot where my bindings rubbed all the skin off burns like crazy, and as I look down at my ankles, I see the trickle of blood leaking down the drain.

I sway on my feet as I try to blink away the tears blurring my vision.

I need to be strong, that’s what Onyx would tell me.

Onyx . I cry heavier. I should never have left his side.

I was a fucking idiot to think I could protect myself against a monster like Orlando.

Every move he made was calculated, practiced.

He was ready for me in a way I never could have anticipated, and I fell right into his trap.

For the first time in nine years, I let myself properly fall apart. Sobs wrack my body as I slide down the tile wall in a heap. Pulling my knees up into my chest, I hug them tightly, my entire body convulsing with sobs.

Eventually the warmth of the water seeps into my frozen body, comforting me and taking away the burning pain.

My head lolls, heavy and unsteady, and I cup it with my hands.

My heart is dragging, thudding against my chest slowly as a fresh wave of nausea consumes me.

I lie down on the tile floor, closing my eyes to block it all out.

Gasping for air, my chest constricts painfully, each breath a struggle. My eyes open and shut as my head still spins, even though I’m lying down. The subway tiles in front of my face blur from white to black, and I give in to the overwhelming fear that’s consuming me.

I’m trapped with this psycho. The boys can’t help me now. And I can’t help myself.