Not yet.
Survive. You have to survive, or you won’t enjoy his death.
He grabs my arms and pulls me to my feet, turning me to face the bed before shoving me down, half my naked body on the mattress, my backside in the air. And then he has my arms, and I know that this is it. I have only moments to decide how this ends. In thirty seconds I could snap his neck. But then what? I can’t get to the money I stashed tonight. I can’t get to the necklace tonight. He binds my hands, thinking he’s forced me, having no clue that I let him. And then his hand is on my lower back, and he shifts. I steel myself for what I know is coming, fearing it and him, not because I couldn’t kill him. Because I can’t yet, which means I am this man’s property.
And then it happens, the expected, and yet it’s still a shock. The flogger smacks my backside with vicious force. He lets that first hard smack sting, lets the promise of another linger in the air, and then he’s punishing me. Hitting me again. Once, twice, twenty brutal times, and then it’s his hand on my flesh instead of the flogger. Over and over and over again. In some part of my mind, I know that pain is his way of telling me that to survive, I must surrender. And I hate that it’s true. But he’s going to really hate the moment he finds out that my surrender is my control—not his.
“Ella. Ella.”
Sasha’s voice permeates the flashback, bringing me back to the present, and I become aware of my elbows on the desk, my chin to my chest and my hair draped around my face. I inhale, willing myself to regain my composure, and suddenly my mind goes to earlier today with Kayden. To us naked on the couch, with my hands taped and him promising to spank me.
“Why aren’t you afraid, Ella?” he’d asked.
“Because you’re not him,” I’d said.
/> I have never appreciated Kayden as much as I do in this moment, and how easily he could have made me feel like a prisoner but never did.
“Ella,” Sasha repeats softly.
“Yes,” I say, shoving my fingers through my hair. For the briefest of moments, I realize I was a redhead in my flashback and yet now, with brown hair, I am so much more myself than I ever was with Garner Neuville. “I’m sorry,” I add. “The flashbacks come fast and hard, and if I don’t let them happen, I lose the memory. Unfortunately, it wasn’t useful.”
“Sweetie,” she says softly. “I know who you were with in that flashback. I saw how you trembled. But that’s between us.”
I swallow against my suddenly dry throat. “Thank you, Sasha.”
“I hate that you have to relive Neuville to find that necklace.”
“I’m not sorry,” I say. “I have to do this. My surrender is my control.”
She arches a brow. “What?”
“He can’t have my fear. I’m angry that my mind keeps sheltering me—but not for long. I’m going to remember it all. I’m close. Very close.”
“Any luck?”
At the sound of Matteo’s voice, I twist around to find him in the doorway. “I’m armed with potential triggers,” I say, holding up the papers we’ve printed. “But the memories come as they please, not as I will. It’s no miracle fix. What about you?”
“Chris Merit and Blake Walker check out,” he says. “I can find absolutely nothing to suggest otherwise.”
“What about Chris running in the same circles as Neuville?”
“There’s nothing there that looks like a problem to me,” he says. “And I dug deeply. I’ve sent a detailed file you can review to Kayden’s email.”
The buzzer at the front door goes off and we all frown. Matteo pulls his phone from his pocket and eyes the screen. “It’s a man with a trench coat and a hood on.” He walks around the desk. “I need to see the larger view.” He reaches over Sasha and types, then clicks.
“What the—” Sasha starts. “That’s Gallo. He couldn’t have followed me. That’s not possible.” She grimaces. “I should have put a man on him.”
Matteo hits the volume, and we hear Gallo shouting through the rain in Italian, but I catch the word Kayden several times. “He’s obviously not here for Sasha,” Matteo says. “But we need to know what’s wrong. I’ll go talk to him.” He eyes Sasha. “Get someone on him now.”
“Let me go talk to him,” I say, standing up. “I’m still an outsider like him, someone he wants to save. I have the best chance of finding out what’s wrong with him.”
“I’m not letting you open that door,” Matteo says. “Kayden trusts me to protect you. We do this together or not at all.”
“He trusts us to be a team,” Sasha says. “And I know Gallo. He’s not dangerous.”
“And yet he’s going to join The Jackals?” Matteo counters.
“Which will end with him dead—not someone else,” Sasha says.