Page 19 of Dangerous Vengeance

By the time we’re back in my room I’m breathless and sore. Flynn drops me on the floor and nudges me with the toe of his boot. I roll away, scared he will kick me, and scurry to the bed where I curl into a ball and pull the covers up.

“Stay,” he orders, and I tremble to think what he’ll do if I don’t stay. He’s large, his biceps as big as my thighs. There is no doubt in my mind that he could crush me. I watch as he leaves again, and this time the lock clicks.

My resolve is gone, drained out through days of staring at the walls and thoughts of never leaving this place. Hopelessness has replaced it and now reigns chief in my thoughts. I’m never going to avenge Hal. I’m never going to see my parents again or fall in love and get married. I’ll never be a mother, pursue my career the way I hoped to. My life is over, and no one even knows it yet, except me.

I want to go to the door and pound on it, scream and beg for them to let me out, but it won’t work. Matty isn’t here. Flynn is a robot. He’s taken orders and is following them to a T. I’m not sure anyone else is even in this house. I’m alone and no one can hear if I cry for help. So I let depression come, weighing me into the mattress as I drift off to sleep.

A sudden noise rouses me—doors slamming and screaming. I hear a few voices, all of them raise to the top of their lungs. I climb out of bed shivering and press my ear to the wood of the door. Flynn isn’t here; he never came back, and I never ate dinner. My fault I suppose for trying to escape and him spilling the tray on the ground during my capture.

Matty’s voice is crystal clear, and someone is very angry about my source.

“Yeah, well Jeff is dead now too. First Dan and now Jeff, and after losing so many men already, this means war.” Whoever it is seems to command the conversation. “Whoever the source is, they're cutting us deep. She has to know.”

I swallow hard. I don’t know anything. It’s the truth. I never even heard their real voice. I got encrypted emails and texts from a burner phone. Every time we spoke it was with some sort of voice modulation software. I don’t even know if they’re male or female, but by now even my source has had to figure out I’ve been taken.

“You can’t prove it was her source.” Matty is enraged. His shouting vibrates in my chest. I want to run to him and tell him the truth, that my source is completely anonymous.

“You can’t prove it isn’t. And you can’t prove she doesn’t know who it is either.” A third male voice, this one deeper, makes my hair stand on end. “Let me at her. I’ll get her to talk.”

“Put your gun away!” Matty intervenes. I wish I could see his face, know what expression is on it. “I will get to the bottom of things, but it won’t be by torturing her and killing her.”

I back away from the door as fear curdles my blood. I knew they were looking for my research which is safely stored inside the highly secured building the newspaper calls home. And I know they want me dead, but hearing this firsthand makes it real all over again. Matty said he’s content to keep the arrangement the way it is. I assume that means me being his fuck toy and sleeping in my bed every now and then. Honestly that sounds better than death, though I’d rather really live.

This, however, sounds like he won’t get a choice. They’ll force him to kill me, or they’ll do it themselves. Given our interactions, I don’t think he’ll do it, but I know they will. Just the anger in those voices tells me this family isn’t playing around. I’m a threat to them because I know too much, and no matter how many times I swear I’ll keep their secret, it will never be enough.

“Shit…” I whisper before pressing my ear to the door again.

“If she’s told other people and we kill her, they’ll come forward. How many times do I have to say that?” Matty is defending me? Why? He really does want to keep me? He doesn’t even know me.

“And how many times have I told you to get the information we need? Do it tonight or find another way to get her laptop. For all we know they suspect her as being taken and have already gotten into her laptop. Any day now someone will report her missing.” The first angry man seems to temper his voice, and then I hear doors slam.

I scurry to bed, on the verge of sobbing. What horrible tortures am I in for tonight? Matty is definitely in this house now. I heard his voice. I know he’s here. And when he’s here he comes to me. Albeit the anger-induced sex is hot and I love every second of it, but sometimes he frightens me. Like now, as I listen to his boots stomping up the stairs as I cower beneath the flimsy blanket like it’s going to shield me from his anger.

I want him angry, need him angry. Because I need him to rouse the monster inside of me that thrusts me into battle and makes me feel alive. Because I need him to dominate me to the point I’m breaking and vulnerable with him. Because I want him.

But needing those things doesn’t stop the fear—which prickles my skin as I hear his keys jingling outside my door. I brace myself, clamping my eyes shut and clutching the bunched-up blanket to my chest. I could love it or I could hate it, but either way he’s coming in and I don’t know what to expect.

Oh god… why do I want this?

12

MATTY

Me killing Sheffield is probably the one thing that has saved Natalie thus far and she doesn’t even realize it. Her boss can’t report her missing if he isn’t alive. No one has reported her missing because her parents are too busy grieving Hal to call and check on her, but it’s only a matter of days now until they do. Then I’ll have no way to convince Dominic to keep her alive. She’ll be a liability. She is now, just not to the same extent as if they know she’s missing.

I jam my key into the lock, furious with the situation. We lost yet another man due to her source’s leak. It isn’t her fault that her source is fed up and now turning to other members of the press, so if I can convince Dominic that it’s the source we need to take out, not Natalie, maybe he will let me keep her. Until then, she needs to start working with me. I don’t care what she knows. She’ll keep quiet as long as I make her. But I need her source.

“Get up,” I snap, slamming the door shut. I put the key in my pocket and pace, pinching the bridge of my nose. Her light is on, but she lays under the blanket with it pulled all the way up over her head. She’s curled in a ball, probably heard the screaming downstairs. “I said get up!” I shout, pulling the corner of the blanket and uncovering her.

Natalie quivers, looking at me with fear in her eyes as she chews a fingernail. She doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. Like a deer in headlights, she remains stock-still.

“Are you deaf? I said get up.” I barge over to the bed and grab her wrist, yanking her out of bed. Her body hits the ground with a thump, and she scrambles to her feet trembling. A whimper escapes her lips, and she tugs on the hem of her t-shirt. She looks into my eyes and swallows hard. I swear I see tears forming. She has nothing to fear from me if she tells me what I need to know.

“Tell me who your source is.” I stalk toward her, and she backs away. We’ve done this enough times, I know that look. She’s terrified and aroused all at once. If she’s a good girl and gives me an honest answer, I’ll beat her little pussy until it squirts.

“I… I don’t know,” she mumbles, backing against the wall. It’s either the chill of the crisp fall night without a heater on, or she’s aroused. Her nipples press against the underside of the t-shirt making an appearance. I like that—that I have this power over her. That she can’t control her own body when I'm around.

I grab her neck hard, pinning her against the wall and her hands instantly grip my wrist. “I said, tell me who your source is. I need a name, a number, anything.” She claws at my hands, eyes wide. When I did this during sex last week, she loved it. This time I’m not joking around. I need an answer.

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