th Richard. My plan had holes in it, and I convinced myself that fate was leading me here for a reason, but I was wrong. Fate had tricked me. My plan wasn’t concise, and I knew better. I knew better than to jump into action and feed the stupid impulses without a solid freaking plan, and here I was. Caught.
I’m going to end up in that fucking basement again.
No. No, I wasn’t.
I leveled my chin and tried to yank my arm out from his grip. “I stole his car.”
He snorted, clearly not believing me. I watched as his tongue ran over his white teeth. The man was tall, taller than Richard and slimmer too. He wore a nice black suit that screamed prestige, and his black hair was gelled back to perfection. On the outside, he looked like he could have been a nice businessman in a fancy office somewhere in the city, but I knew better than most that looks could be deceiving. It was the handsome ones that were the sickest. They thought they were untouchable, and that made them unpredictably dangerous.
“You stole his car?”
I nodded, ignoring the throb behind my eyes.
“So then that means you know him?”
I said nothing, and his eyes flared. He pushed me up against the door again, and I whimpered as my head hit it once more. Shit. What did he want from me? It was obvious he thought Bain had been here. Did he see his car? Had he been following me? “So you say Bain isn’t here?” He chuckled, and my stomach convulsed. He was amused, and I had no idea why. “So he didn’t bring along his little piece of ass with him on a run? To show her how manly he was? How rich he could get off a few gun sales? In my fucking territory!” I jumped as his voice bellowed around me. “Tell me…” He creeped in closer, and I felt his hot, angry breath over my face. My entire body began to shake as the familiar feeling of panic crept over my skin like a slithering snake. “Does he fuck you while he holds those precious guns too? To show you how dangerous he can be?” He threw his head back and laughed loudly. It was the only noise I could hear. The forest sounds were gone. Even the buzzing of the light above our heads had vanished. “I’ll show him how dangerous I can be. This is my area. Not theirs.”
Suddenly, I was jerked to my knees as his hand pushed on my head, gripping my hair in his tight fist. The concrete scraped my skin even through my jeans, and I bit my lip to keep from crying. This was not happening. This was not Richard. I didn’t have chains around my wrists. I could run.
“I’m going to fuck your pretty little mouth and film the entire fucking thing. Then, I’ll fuck you until you bleed, and you can take it back to Bain and show him what I’m capable of. He touches my things? Well, I touch his.”
My eyes grew wide, and just as I was about to scream from the panic clawing right out of my chest, a voice boomed from behind.
“Dad.”
I froze. My heart stopped beating.
The grip on my hair tightened, and I pushed my head up to meet his hand to ease the pain. “Isaiah. How nice of you to show up.”
Isaiah. Isaiah was here. And the man who had a tight grip on me, threatening to do horrific things to me just like Richard, was his father. Holy shit.
A small amount of relief seeped in through the fear and panic. It was fine. Isaiah was here. He’d tell his father that I wasn’t Bain’s girlfriend or whatever he thought I was to Bain. He’d tell him that Bain would be glad that he was doing this to me. That it wouldn’t even affect Bain at all, and then he’d let me go.
When Isaiah’s dad flung me up to my feet by pulling my hair, I fought a yelp and locked onto Isaiah. He spared me a fleeting glance and then looked back at his father with nothing but boredom across his features. Wait. I sliced my gaze to Cade and Brantley who were a few feet away, and neither one of them would look at me.
What the hell was going on? Why wouldn’t they look at me? Surely they weren’t that upset that I had left the school. It was a mistake, but… Never trust, Gemma. Tobias’ voice cut through, and it made me angry. It was okay to trust the right people, and I trusted Isaiah. He would get me out of his father’s grip, and it would be fine.
I swallowed past the emotional lump that was sitting nice and still in the back of my throat and leveled my chin, even if it did make my scalp hurt.
Isaiah crossed his arms over his chest, still sporting his lacrosse jersey that had grass stains and mud all over it. “What are you doing here? Isn’t this my job?”
His father chuckled, but it was full of cynicism. “You can’t do your job right. I got the alert from the tracker. I thought you said you had tonight handled.”
Isaiah raised his arms. “I’m here, aren’t I? And where is Bain?” Isaiah looked around sarcastically, the moonlight hitting right over the arches of his cheek. “Nowhere to be seen, yeah? That’s because he’s back at the fucking school.” He took a step forward, still unable to look me in the eye. “You say I can’t do my job right? Let me ask you this? Where’s Jack? Hopefully not all alone with your shell of a wife, like Monday.”
Isaiah’s words struck a nerve with his father. My hair was pulled, and I was standing on my tiptoes now, trying to ease the pain. “Then who is this? She was driving Bain’s car. Are you sure he’s back at St. Mary’s?” his father asked, full of sarcasm. “I bet he’s out here right now, watching me touch something that’s his.”
I paused. My body seemed to stop functioning. Blood didn’t rush. My heart didn’t pound. I just stood…and waited. I waited for Isaiah to jump in and make his father let me go.
Isaiah moved his dark gaze over to me so slowly that I almost screamed out his name. I waited for that connection, that small dip in his exterior to show me that he had everything handled and that he’d protect me and take care of me like he’d promised, even if I hadn’t responded to his admission earlier. But then he moved his attention back to his father and shrugged.
“Just another piece of fresh ass, I suppose.”
The pain. The betrayal. The complete and utter shock from what had left his mouth had my feet touching back down to the concrete even with the pulling of my hair. I blinked once. And then twice. I stared at him, begging myself to scream and kick and demand he give me back what I’d given him. But I couldn’t. I just stood there in shock.
Another piece of fresh ass?
“Oh yeah?” his father said, looking over at me. I couldn’t even meet his sick gaze. Instead, I stared at Isaiah. Dumbfounded. I trusted him. Had he been playing me this entire time? Confusion swept me off my feet so quickly I hardly heard his father ask, “And how was she? I’m sure she was yours first. Otherwise, Bain wouldn’t have wanted her.”