“If have to come get you, bitch, you won’t like it.”
I knew he meant it. It was like he enjoyed seeing me in pain. I slowly crawled to the door, and Alfonzo grabbed my arm and yanked. I didn’t have time to gain my feet, and I landed hard on my knees on loose gravel.
I looked up, flinging my hair out of my eyes and came face to face with … Oh God, Logan. It took me a second to register his face as he stood looking down at me. Steady. Composed. Almost as if five days ago he hadn’t made love to me. As if he didn’t even know me.
All the contained anger shot from my feet up to my skull and exploded.
“You fucking bastard,” I screamed and went flying for him. My fist managed to connect with his face before I was caught from behind and dragged back by the hair. I thrashed against Alfonzo’s hold, losing my footing and falling on my ass all the while Logan merely stood and watched.
“You done?” he asked when I stopped fighting and lay on the ground heaving in air while Alfonzo kept hold of my hair.
“She’s one feisty bitch. I’m going to fuck her raw when you’re done with her.”
Logan moved fast, knocking his hand off my hair and grabbing him by the shirt and slamming him against the van. “She’s mine. You get that. You don’t get to touch her—ever.”
The guy’s face went beet red, and his lips pursed together as he spit out, “She’s not yours. Raul owns her, and I train all his girls before he sells them.”
The aluminum crinkled as Logan slammed him into the van again. “She’ll be sold when I’m ready to sell her. You touch her again like you did at the farmhouse … I’ll cut off your cock and shove it down your throat.”
Alfonzo’s eyes glared at me lying on the ground, but finally he put his hands up, and Logan let him go.
“Get up.” Logan stood in front of me, his feet inches from my hands that pressed into the gravel. He stiffened, and his eyes narrowed. “Now.”
“Fuck you,” I said and threw a handful of gravel at his face.
He was on me before my next breath, taking my arm and without hesitation dragging me toward another car. I pushed backward with my feet, trying to gain my balance, but he was walking too fast, and I couldn’t do anything except feel the stones digging into my hips as he pulled me across the driveway.
“Transport her with the rest of them,” Alfonzo yelled. “Bitch needs a fucking lesson. She arrives after that, she won’t be putting up much of a fight.”
As soon as Logan let me go, I leapt to my feet and was about to run when his hand trapped me by the throat. “Don’t do it, Emily. You run and I have to chase you, it won’t be pretty.”
I was wheezing past the pressure he had on my neck, my hands on top of his trying to peel back his fingers.
A wave of memory—Logan’s hand on the back of my neck—came plowing into me, and my breath hitched. No, don’t let me remember. Don’t. Please. I swear I heard him whisper my name, but it had to be my imagination. My mind was trying to find some sort of hope to grasp onto when there was nothing, and I wondered if maybe I was going crazy.
“Tell Raul I’ll contact him once we cross the border.” Logan opened the passenger door to the Lexus and put his hand on my head like the police do when they’re putting criminals in the back of a cruiser.
I got in and noticed two guys sitting in the back seat. I recognized them, but I didn’t know from where until it suddenly hit me as Logan walked around the front of the car. The fight—the bodyguards. The night Kat and I went to Sculpt’s fight and I asked him to teach me self-defense. These men had been in the back of the warehouse watching Logan.
But that was months ago.
Oh God. Had they been watching me for weeks? Had every day with Logan been a lie? Was he, what, testing me for this? I started hyperventilating as I thought of all the times I’d been with Logan. How he cradled me in his arms as we sat watching the horses. How he was so protective of me. Why would he have protected me if he was going to let me be beaten?
Confusion weaved so much anxiety over me that I was having trouble breathing. Logan knew these guys. He’d known them months ago. The truth was … Logan did this to me.
The door slammed as Logan got in. He started the car and sped off. I noticed him glance briefly in the rearview mirror at the two men and frown like he was pissed off. At them? I thought he frowned at least, but I was thirsty and delirious and couldn’t be sure if what I was seeing was real or what I wanted to see.
“They were at your fight.”
Logan stiffened, looked in the rearview mirror again, and his hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“Why? Why did you even bother being nice to me?”
“Emily. Quiet.”
“Why didn’t you just take me weeks ago? What was the point being nice to me at all? Why did you—”
“Emily.” His sharp tone was enough to stop me. “We’ll go through this once. Once, Emily.” He stared straight ahead, his voice calm and laced with cold, like an ice pick banging out each word. “Never speak unless asked a question. Do exactly as you’re told without hesitation. The outburst you had … That is reason enough to have you killed, and that’s if you’re lucky. Worse is giving you for the night to a group of workers. Then you’ll wish you were dead.”
I was finding it difficult to swallow, my mind sick with memories of letting this guy kiss me, hold me. Oh God, he made love to me. I couldn’t believe this was the Logan who loved ice cream, who tenderly kissed me, held me in his arms, sang to me. Lies. Acid-dunked lies.