The sad part is, I can’t even hate him right now. As much as I want to, this plan gets Valentina out of here. That’s all I want. If I can get her to safety and keep her there, then I can come back for him later. With the five at my back, we are invincible. No one in society will stand up to us at our full strength.
“Kai,” I whisper. “Are you sure about this?”
The guards are already releasing my zip ties and hauling Valentina out of her chair. Kai is stripped from the waist up and then resecured to the loop in the floor they used for me.
I jerk my arm from the guard’s grip and stare down at my second in command, the man who always has my back. “Are you sure about this, Kai? If I can’t get you back out of here before…”
“They won’t execute me until they finish the trail. Thanks to my camera, every single one of these dicks will be on their best behavior from now on. You’ll have a little time.”
I nod and kneel, despite my bruises, and cup his face in my hands. He presses his bloody forehead to mine and nods. “If I don’t make it out of here, though, you have to promise me one thing, Boss.”
I nod, my throat too thick to speak now. “Anything.”
“She’s in the green safe house. She’ll need to be moved since I don’t know how much interrogation I’m in for. I can’t risk her. I promised I’d keep her safe, and I have, but you need to go get her so she isn’t taken by these assholes.”
It takes everything in me not to glance to see if Valentina had been listening to what he said. Instead, I nod once and pat his swelling face gently. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. I’ll take Rose home, where she belongs.”
62
KAI
It’s quiet in the dark. Fuck, I haven’t had this much silence in my life for years. It almost makes my ears ring. Every heartbeat seems to pulse in that noise until I take a long deep breath and let it out slowly. This isn’t the first time I’ve been cornered, and it won’t be the last.
My cell is concrete. The solid, thick kind that there’s no getting out of unless released. So I wait. Adrian and Valentina won’t let me rot in here. For all the things I’ve done, I trust them both with my life.
There’s blood crusting my face, but I don’t waste the very little water they’ve given me by washing it off. My knuckles are bruised from fighting the bastards, but there’s not much I could do while being held down with someone’s knee in my back as they batter me black and blue for answers.
My mouth twists into a smile. Answers there is no way in hell they’ll be able to drag out of me. That’s something they don’t understand. I scrub at the dried blood, now itchy, with the heel of my hand. Pretty much the only part of my body not bruised.
When I took their place on the chopping block, they promised mercy, and I suppose not putting a bullet in my head immediately after my confession is their form of leniency. These people don’t know the meaning of mercy.
And when I get out of this cell, I won’t be the one to teach it to them.
It’s been a week, by my estimation, hazy though it is. The only time I’m actually alert is during the short window in which they drag me out of the cell, hose me down, feed me a Viagra, and strap me to the councilwoman’s bed. She’s even more disgusting than I gave her credit for. Worse, she assumes everyone wants her. So even though I’m drugged and tied down, she thinks it’s a seduction and not a rape.
When I get out of here, I’m going to make her pay for this and for what she orchestrated against Andrea. Her attack could only have been sanctioned by Henrietta, as she asked me to call her while she rode my dick without my fucking permission.
I close my eyes and squeeze them shut so at least I can tell myself the darkness is my choice. This is how I get through anything. Grab some part of it and make it mine. I’ll get out of here and do the same.
Rose pops into my head, as she always does, and I feel myself calming, breathing deeper. It’s a trick I learned when I first took her to my apartment outside the penthouse. If I stay calm, she stays calm. If she stays calm, things don’t get broken, and I don’t have to cradle a crying, screaming girl for way longer than I should.
Adrian warned me not to touch her, and I’ve mostly kept that promise. Any times I put my hands on her were for medical care or comfort. Nothing more. Even if I’ve thought about it.