Page 35 of The Breeding Cave
Oh, sorry, Mr. Bates, but I’m carrying another man’s baby—but I’m just a surrogate, and the man is actually a monster. No, really, he’s a monster, monster.
The elevator doors opened. I blew my bangs off my forehead and stepped out, looking from side to side so the beast couldn’t surprise fuck me here again today. I couldn’t let that happen again. Luciano was onto me.
After examining the foyer, I headed toward one of the exits. My stomach growled, and I desperately needed to shove something into my mouth. I had run out of the bedroom before I had time to eat this morning.
Once I decided to grab some ramen, I pulled my purse to my chest and smiled to myself.
Was Luciano really flirting with me? Maybe, but?—
Suddenly, someone snapped their hand around my shoulder from behind, dragged me into an alleyway, then slammed me against the side of a brick building.
“Where were you last night?!” the man hissed into my ear.
I glanced to my right to see a black SUV with tinted windows at the corner.
The Dragon Clan.
“I-I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I … I was out.”
“We need our fucking money,” he said, grabbing my arm as tightly as he could and shoving me out of the alleyway and toward the nearest ATM. “And you’re going to fucking get it for us.”
Heart pounding, I did as I had been told because I felt something hot poke me in my lower back, and I really didn’t want to die today. I pushed my tears away and scrambled to get my card out of my wallet. When I did, I slipped it into the ATM.
What I didn’t understand was why they hadn’t taken my card. They could steal it and use it every day to get as much money out of the ATM as they wanted. Why hadn’t they … done that? Why did they have to harass me for it?
Was it a tormenting thing? Torture thing?
“We don’t have all fucking day,” the man growled. “Get it now.”
The ATM spit my card out of the machine, and then hundred-dollar bills flooded out behind it. I grabbed them all in a shaky hand and counted them three times to make sure it was enough.
But it wasn’t.
So, I pushed the card into it again and hoped that it’d let me withdraw more this time. The Dragon Clan wanted more money than they had last week, and I hadn’t been convincing enough for the beast.
He didn’t understand that he wasn’t the only person with enemies. I had them too.
“Hurry up,” the man growled, shoving something warm against my lower back.
I wasn’t sure what it was, but it stung. Badly.
“I-I’m sorry,” I whispered, keeping my head down so nobody would see me here with them. Not many people knew who the Dragon Clan was, but everyone in my family did, and they had stopped talking to me after Alvin betrayed them. “I-it’s not letting me take out much at a time.”
I could only imagine how much my family would talk if they saw me out here with them.
After typing in the most amount of money that it would let me take out, I waited for the machine to spit out my card and the cash like it had moments ago. But the loading circle on the screen continued to spin and spin and spin.
And all I wanted to do was cry harder.
“Come on,” I whispered. “Please.”
Why do I have terrible luck with technology every time I use it?!
A moment later, a message popped up on the screen.
Request denied. Daily withdrawal limit met.
Eyes wide with trembling tears, I hit all the buttons on the screen, hoping it would try again. The loading circle spun once more, and the same message popped up on the screen, followed by the machine spitting out my card.
