Page 155 of Mess With Me

CHAPTER43

Sasha

Someone’s screaming in my ear.

I turn my head left and right, then cry out. It’s not screaming; it’s a ringing in my ears. My head throbs. So does my shoulder. And my wrists and ankles.

God, that ringing.

I blink my eyes open. It’s dark, but I can make out some shapes in front of me. A window, with a curtain drawn. Cheap wood paneling. A couch with a tuft of filling spilling out from a tear in its arm. There’s a rank smell filling my nostrils, too. Rot and mold. Dampness.

I lift my arms to cover my mouth—or at least I try to. Pain screams from my wrist. My arms don’t move.

I’m stuck.

I look down. I’m sitting on a chair. My ankles are strapped to the legs.

Panic shoots through me.

“Help!” I scream, before realizing that’s a stupid thing to do. It makes my head throb, too.

“Sasha!” a voice whispers.

I look up, searching for whoever that was.

But my attention’s drawn to a tromping sound outside. A moment later, a door I didn’t know was there bangs open. A hulking figure fills the doorframe. “You’re awake,” the voice says. It’s low and rumbly, but so far from the way Griffin’s low and rumbly voice sounds. It makes me want to vomit. “Fucking finally,” he tacks on, spitting a glob of saliva onto the filthy linoleum floor.

A light flicks on. I’m momentarily blinded. I squint, ducking my head.

Boots sound around me. When I blink and look up, my stomach drops.

There, in a chair across from me, sits Sam. He’s bound like I am. His face is half covered with blood, his hair hanging over his eyes, one of which is swollen shut and purple.

My heart pounds heavily in my chest as the man tromps across the floor toward me.

“No!” Sam cries from behind him. I can hear the scrape and thud of his chair.

“Stay still!” the man shouts. “I already told you what would happen if you moved again.”

Sam’s chair doesn’t move. “Don’t fucking touch her.”

The man ignores Sam. He takes another step toward me until he’s right in my face.

The shock of recognition hits me then. “It’s you,” I croak.

Creelman’s goon from the restaurant. He smiles at me. It’s grotesque. His beady eyes pin themselves to mine. “Only I don’t see your little fireman anywhere, sweetheart.”

My stomach roils. “Don’t you dare fucking call me that.”

The beast’s eyebrows rise up. “I see why Vince liked you so much.”

I glare at him, my whole body shaking. “I don’t know what you want from me, but I’ve got nothing for you. I don’t know anything about…” I was going to say my brother’s business, but I still can’t throw Sam under the bus, even when my life is clearly at risk. “I don’t have anything you want.”

“Oh, I know that. But our friend over here does. And you’re going to be his persuasion.”

“I’m surprised someone like you knows a word so big,” I spit out.

I’m being beyond foolish. But he’s going to kill me no matter what. I know that now. And going down on my knees is not going to happen. Like Chester said, this might be my last chance to tell the truth. And the truth is, I’m done with being scared.

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