Page 45 of Tricked By Jack

She grinds her teeth together. “Oh, yeah? What would you know about people struggling, Jack? Your family has everything. You’ve never gone hungry a day in your life.”

“Neither have you,” I reply. “But for your information, I’m actually a pretty nice guy. I even volunteer once a month.” I don’t tell her I only began after my short death. There’s nothing like having your heart stop to make you see the world in a different light.

“A nice guy wouldn’t keep a woman locked in a fucking cage,” she seethes.

I lift the bottle and drink deep, watching her shoulders heave and her face turn redder by the second. “I didn’t say I would be nice toyou,” I correct. “But if you think this isn’t nice, I can always move the cage outside. The fact you’re sheltered, given food and water, is the extent of my niceness to you.”

Eve begins kicking the bars systematically, each impact creating a dull metallic thud that reverberates through the room. The noise is repetitive, deliberate—designed to provoke a response. To force me to acknowledge her, to engage with her fury.

I let her continue until the urge to drink myself into oblivion overtakes me, and I get a bottle from the kitchen. Sitting my ass back in the chair, I continue to watch her as I light a cigarette, taking a long drag.

Half the bottle’s gone and my throat’s raw from chain-smoking when I rasp her name. But she doesn’t acknowledge me or stop.

“Eve.” My voice cuts through her noise like a blade. “That’s enough.”

She kicks harder, glaring up at me with defiance burning in her eyes. “Fuck you. Fuck your cage. Fuck your—”

“Keep that up, and I’ll gag and hogtie you,” I warn.

Her foot freezes mid-kick.

“I’ll bind your limbs to the cage itself. You won’t be able to move. To scratch. To kick. Just lie there, completely immobilized until I decide to free you.” I pause, letting the image sink in. “Is that what you want?”

The silence that follows is absolute. Even her breathing seems to still.

“I didn’t think so.” I straighten, moving to the light switch by the door. The room plunges into darkness as I flick the switch.

Returning to the chair, I settle into the leather. The silence that follows her hours-long tantrum is the kind that makes you believe in higher powers. Almost.

I light another cigarette, washing the smoke down with another pull from the bottle.

“One day, I’ll kill you for this.” Her voice drifts through the darkness, barely above a whisper. “I’ve survived bigger monsters than you, Jack. And when I get out of here, I’ll kill you.”

I smile into the dark, not bothering to open my eyes. “I know you’ll try.”

The silence stretches between us, thick with unspoken threats and promises. I hope she keeps trying. Hope she never shuts the fuck up or goes still, because the day she stops threatening to kill me is the day I know I’ve broken her for good.

“And if we’re both lucky, you might succeed,” I rasp, keeping my eyes on her silhouette. The longer I sit here, the better I can see her. Well, her outline and movements.

“You know this won’t last, right?” She throws her hair over her shoulder, naked and unafraid. “People will come. They’ll find me. They’ll—”

“Disappear too,” I finish. “Anyone who comes for you will wish they hadn’t.”

Chapter 15

The Bride

Hunger claws at my insides like a living thing, scraping against my ribs from within. My stomach no longer growls—it’s moved beyond that to a silent, hollow ache that pulses with each heartbeat.

The metal bars pressed against my back have gone from cold to warm to cold again as night became day became night. Three days. Seventy-two hours of captivity marked by bathroom breaks, daily showers, and the slow-building certainty that I will not die here.

Not in this cage. Not at his hands.

I shift on the thin blanket he gave me yesterday, the only barrier between my naked body and the carpeted floor. The fabric has absorbed my sweat, my tears, and probably part of my soul.

The stench of confinement clings to my skin like mildew—like something inside me has begun to rot in this cage, and I’m still breathing through it.

Every inhale tastes faintly of stale air and metal, and it coats my tongue until I can’t remember what clean air feels like. A body is just a vessel. Mine is becoming a mausoleum.