Page 60 of Steal Me (Rebel Hearts Heists 1)
Chapter 21
Reckoning
Sloane
I groan before opening my eyes and it takes me a few attempts to get my eyelids to cooperate and stay up. It’s as if I have this huge weight on me and I feel like I might puke with any movement of my head.
All this work for nothing!I think when my eyes are finally open, because fuck me if I can see anything, my vision is all blurry and I have to squeeze my eyes shut several times to finally see anything. And you know when they say ‘be careful what you wish for?’ That's so damn right, because everything I see around me makes me wish that I could pass out again. The lighting is dim and eerie, it has that greenish yellow eco-light hue, like in some underground parking lots. The type of parking lot that always features in every horror movie, when the victim is caught alone by the ax murderer.
But I’m not in a parking lot: I’m inside a wooden building, even the floor under my bare feet is made of wooden planks and I smell seawater around me but it’s not the same fresh, salty smell the breeze carried on the beach, it’s strong and stagnant like day old seafood. I remember seeing a boathouse a few feet away while I was walking on the beach with River, could I be in there?
I gasp remembering how River collapsed at my feet and I try to call out to him but my voice comes out as a raspy wheeze, my throat throbbing and burning as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper. I try again and I attempt to turn my head to the side and almost pass the fuck out. I realize that my hands are tied behind my back, around the back of a chair and whoever tied them, did it very tightly because my restraints are digging painfully into my flesh. I finally spot River: he’s tied to another rickety wooden chair about two feet away to my right and even in the dim lighting, I notice some blood on his temple.
I call out to him again, “River …”
“Kitten …”
“Shut up asshole! And you too, little bitch! No one is to speak unless spoken to. Understood?” That voice! A voice I hoped to never hear again. Pierce steps out from a dark corner and stops in front of me. He has a triumphant smile on his face but the smile doesn’t reach his cold, brown eyes. Eyes that are hard, dark and almost lifeless when they find my own gaze.
“Pierce … what do you want?”
He snickers, taking one step in my direction and I recoil against my chair, almost capsizing it on the wooden floor in a futile attempt to put distance between me and my worst nightmare. “What do I want? What do I want? Seriously, Sloane? If you have to ask me that, maybe you aren’t as smart as I thought you were. There are a lot of things I want from you, little bitch. But first we need to solve this unpleasant situation and get rid of these low life criminals who took you away from me. Who contaminated you with their dirty hands. And then we’ll deal with our relationship. I’ll teach you who owns you and how you treat your master. It’ll be fun, you’ll see.”
He caresses my cheek with the back of his hand, and when I shudder in disgust, trying to move my head away from his touch, he grabs my chin, squeezing so painfully that I whimper and one single tear slides out of the corner of one of my eyes.
River reacts with a menacing growl, “Don’t you dare touch her, scummy bastard! If you hurt her—” Pierce turns around so fast that I barely register his movement but I hear the sickening sound the stock of his gun makes when it comes into contact with River’s jaw.
He coughs and sputters a mixture of saliva and blood, making Pierce take one step away from him his face contorted with a disgusted expression. “Let me repeat the rules one last time, just in case I wasn’t clear earlier: you speak when spoken to. I’m in control of this game and the end for you sadly is death. A slow, and painful death. I’d rather end it quickly with a bullet but I need to teach my Sloane a lesson. I need to show her what happens when she disobeys and what happens when she lets another man touch her. What will happen to you, is what I’ll do to her sister and her parents if she doesn’t come back home with me and marry me like she promised she would. Broken promises can kill, that’s today's teachable moment.” His tone is cold, even, almost expressionless like it always was before Pierce became violent.
I feel dread creeping up my spine, my heartbeat accelerating making it hard to think. I can’t afford a panic attack right now, I have to stay sharp and coherent, if we have a chance to get out of this boathouse alive. Because I don’t care if Pierce kills me, in a way that would be the end of it, I’d be free from him once and for all. But I can’t be the reason River dies. I try to appease him, swallowing back the disgust that burns my throat.
“You’re right darling. I’ve been a bad fiancée. Look, I’ll come with you. Willingly. Just let River go, he isn’t worth the trouble of having to get rid of a body, right? Let him go and I’ll follow you back home.”
“Over my dead body, Sloane! I’ll die before I let you touch her!” River screams shaking his bindings, trying to break free.
“Shut the fuck up! You’re confusing me! I need to think!” Pierce turns again and hits him square in the face, causing a spurt of bright red blood to erupt from River’s nose. I cry out, feeling the hit in every fiber of my being, ready to do anything to make this stop.
“Pierce, listen, this is between us, right? You’re here for me. Let him go and we can be alone.” Pierce’s attention is back on me, he looks like he’s conflicted about what to do.
“Do you think I’m an idiot? I saw you. I saw you before on the beach! You were kissing him, he had his dirty hands all over you! Did you let him fuck you? Did you let all of them fuck you?” His face is so close to mine. I wish he was yelling at me or hitting me but this new low, almost calm tone scares me even more. Pierce has always given his worst when he didn’t lose his cool.
I do the only thing I can think of to try and turn this around, to cling to the hope that he’ll let River live. “It didn’t mean anything, Pierce. I only did it to stay alive. They kidnapped me, I was scared for my life …”
It almost works. Almost. Pierce’s expression turns calculating and for a second, I think that he’ll say yes and let River go. But at the last minute he smirks at me.
“You must be crazy to think that your manipulations will work on me again. You went with them, I had my hands on you in that vault and you walked into their grip. You could have come with me when I found you in those woods with this same asshole here. Did you forget how you stuck your stiletto in my ear? I was in the hospital for a whole week because of it. I have permanent damage.”
“Pierce, I was confused, and scared. But now I see how I was wrong. Please—”
“Shut up, bitch! I can’t think with your constant blabbering in my ear!” He hits me hard, so hard that my head swerves to the side and then right back. But I barely feel any pain, my body is flooded with adrenaline, my fight or flight instinct on high alert, even if I’m tied up and he’s armed, I’m frantically thinking of a way out of this. At least for River. I search for a flaw in Pierce’s plan, and I realize that there’s one: he tied our arms but not our feet. River must be thinking the same thing, because he stands up and charges Pierce while still tied to the chair.
“If you touch her again, I swear —”
But my ex must have heard him move, or he must’ve seen the terror in my eyes because he turns abruptly and pushes River down, catching him off balance and making him land on the wooden floor of the dock. Before River has a chance to stand up again, Pierce is on him and lands two hard punches on River’s face.
He punches so hard that I hear the sickening sound of River’s head hitting the floorboards. Pierce takes another plastic cable tie from the pocket of the dark trench coat he’s wearing and ties River’s feet to the chair. He then lifts him back upright by his hair, making him regain consciousness with a pained scream. Hot, burning tears start streaming down my face when I realize that this might be it. That we might not get out of here alive.
I’m absolutely certain of it, when Pierce steps in front of me again.
