Page 16

Chapter

Fifteen

TARA

A fter Gabe ate me like I was his last meal, then kept true to his word of making love to me over and over again, I fell straight asleep in his arms. Hours later, my back shoots up off the bed with my heart pounding and tears stinging my eyes.

The only thing I can hear is my heartbeat.

The soft moonlight streaming through the window provides enough light for me to see everything.

Gabe is still sound asleep beside me, with the cover draping around his waist.

I slide my hand over my heart and then one over his chest until it rests over his heart.

I focus on the feel of his chest rising and falling along with the soft pulse of his heart beating.

Slowly, my own breathing matches his, and I’m calm.

I don’t remember what woke me up in such a panic.

My body is sticky and I hate the feeling of my sweat drying on my skin.

Carefully as to not wake Gabe I slip off the bed.

Slipping out of the bedroom, I head downstairs to check on Reaper and grab a glass of water.

The guilt of what happened earlier when Gabe wanted to try anal with me still eats at me.

I want to do that with him.

I’ve thought about it millions of times before that awful fucking night when one of those bastards took something I wasn’t giving to them.

They took something I was interested in experiencing with the one person I loved, making me scared of doing it.

My biggest worry is that the moment Gabe touched me back there, I would be thrust back to that night, and instead of Gabe doing it, it would be them.

I don’t want to experience that with Gabe.

I’m so sick and tired of them taking shit from me.

Maybe once Ned is gone, we can try again because, honestly, the thought of Gabe filling me through that hole makes me tingle in all the right ways.

When I enter the dining room, Reaper looks up from his spot in the living room.

“Venire,” I command Reaper to come and walk to the back door.

Flipping the lock, I slide open the door and let Reaper into the backyard.

He does what he typically does: sticks his nose to the ground and makes a small round, checking for danger before doing his business.

I leave the door open, knowing he will make his way inside when he is done.

I only move away from the door, maybe five steps, when I hear a small yelp from the open doorway.

Thinking that Reaper might have stepped on something, I didn’t think much about it.

I grab a glass from the dish drainer and fill it with water.

I drink the whole glass in one go and refill it once more.

Turning around, I notice that Reaper is still outside, but he should already be back inside by now.

Whenever we stay in a new place, Reaper doesn’t stay away from my side for long, even when he is outside.

Stepping out onto the deck, everything feels off.

Before I can step back into the house or even think about screaming in hopes of waking Gabe up, the sound of someone rushing me fills the night air, and something hits me hard on the side of my head.

The first thing I notice when I come to is that my head is pounding hard.

When I try to move my hands, I can’t.

My left shoulder is killing me, but I push through the pain.

It’s so dark around me that I can’t see where I am.

The room spins as I sit up, and I have just enough time to lean my head to the side before I empty the contents of my stomach.

The movement makes pain shoot through not only my head but my whole body.

I try to pull on whatever is binding my hands, but it’s useless.

Rubbing my wrists together, I listen intently, trying to figure out what the person used.

When the feel and sound of plastic move, I know it’s zip ties.

Before I have time to see if my feet are tied, the lights come on, and I slam my eyes shut.

The light causes pain to ricochet around my head, and I groan.

“Nice to see you awake. For a second there, I thought I might have hit you too hard.” A male voice cuts through the throbbing in my head.

Even though the light is going to do nothing but cause me more pain, I have to know who took me.

Slowly, I open my eyes and find not one but two people standing in front of me.

The urge to look around the space fights for attention, but I keep my eyes fixed on the couple.

First, I study the woman and instantly realize she isn’t here willingly.

Her head is dropped, her eyes cast to the floor.

From how she stands, I’m guessing her hands are also restrained behind her back.

The shirt she is wearing is beyond dirty.

Not only is there dirt and mud caked on her, but there is clearly blood staining in a couple of places where the shirt has been sliced through.

Her legs are covered in jeans that are just as dirty as the top and also has tears with blood staining around them.

Sliding my gaze to the woman’s left, I focus on the man.

I’ve never seen him before.

Is this the man who is helping hide Ned?

I size him up to see if I could take him in hand to hand combat.

I would say that he is about six foot tall.

How do I know? A six-foot-tall ladder is leading against said pole, and the man is as tall as it.

His brown hair is buzzed on the sides and a couple of inches longer on the top.

He has a medium build with clearly a bit of extra weight around his midsection.

I think I could take him.

I have not only training but rage on my side.

Finally my gaze lands on his eyes and they hold me captive because even from across the room I see hatred burning brightly in them.

Yep, this man hates me for reasons I don’t know.

Swallowing hurts, but I do it anyway to get my tongue unstuck from the roof of my mouth.

“Who are you?”

The man cocks his head to the right, staring at me like he is trying to make up his mind what to do with me.

I want to yell at him.

Demand that he let me go, but I don’t.

I keep my lessons with Vance and Elio at the front of my mind.

Stay calm.

Try to earn the trust of your kidnapper.

Look for a weapon.

Find an exit.

I won’t ask him again what his name is.

Instead, I wait, knowing that he took me for a reason and that soon he will tell me.

I will wait him out, and in the meantime, I have to save my strength to get not only myself but the other woman out of this fucking mess.

Finally, the man decides to give me something to work with.

“My name, you bitch, is Miles Grant.” I’m sure if I was standing close to him, spit would have landed on my face because of the way he snarled his answer at me.

Grant. Grant. Grant.

I say the name over and over in my mind.

It sounds so familiar, but the pounding is getting worse, and my thoughts are becoming more scattered by the second.

Even though I don’t want them to, my eyes drift closed for only a second as more black dots dance in my vision.

That is until the woman screams. I force my eyes back open and see Miles with the woman’s hair in his hands.

He is pulling her face up, causing her to look at me.

She has a bruise on her right cheek, dried blood under her nose, and her top lip is busted open.

“Heidi?” Recognition of the woman standing in front of me forces that tiny seed, saying, I know the name Grant, to grow.

It sprouts, and everything becomes clearer.

I’m not here because of what happened the night in the shed with Dean and Ned.

No, I’m here because of what I did to help women get their own justice.

“Houston Grant.”

Miles lets out a deep chuckle as he lets go of Heidi’s hair.

Her head drops back down as she quietly starts to sob.

I want to tell her that it will all be okay.

That I will get us out of here, but I’m not about to give a voice to my plan to fight.

“Now you finally get it,” Miles growls.

He rushes me within a second, wrapping his hands around my throat.

I fall back onto my wrist, and had I been able to breathe, I would have cried out in pain, but Miles is currently keeping me from getting any air.

“You killed him, you cunt. All because that stupid bitch lied about him. And now you’re going to meet the same fate as him, but not until I have a little fun with you,” Miles says, tightening his grip on me until, once again, blackness covers me, and I pass out.