Page 62 of Their Domme

“I can help with that,” Ansel volunteered.

“There’s something else I want you to do instead,” I told him, brushing past him to go up the porch stairs and back into the house. Heading straight for the wall, I grabbed one of the pictures and smashed it against a table. Ignoring the glass shards, I slipped the picture out of the frame and held it out to the man that had followed me. “Find him and bring him to me. Alive. I have some questions for my dear olddad.”

Ansel’s gray eyes never left mine as he reached for my hand and tugged me close. “I’ll find him for you, die Liebling, but there’s a price.”

“What price?” I asked, not breaking the hold he had on me. Instead, I stepped closer into his personal space.

“We are going to have a conversation when I get back, Nicholette, about us not being friends anymore. You let two others mark you, and you’ll have mine to add to your body as well.”

I shivered, feeling the weight of the others around us, knowing they’d heard everything he’d said.Ido not have the fucking time or emotional capacity to deal with this right now. Why is it always so complicated?Vas grumbled something unintelligible under his breath as Sacha sighed. “Deal, but a conversation isn’t a promise,” I warned.

“When it comes to you, it is.” Ansel released me. “I’ll let Blake know what’s going on.” Then he was gone.

The house was so silent you could have heard a pin drop until Oli broke it. “I see we weren’t enough dick for you, so you officially added someone else.”

“I’m not adding anyone—”

“You’re the only person in denial about this, love,” Rhodes cut me off as Oli gave me an ‘are you kidding me’ look. “I told Alexei to take care of Wrenn. I figured he would be better than Maksim.”

“Good call,” Sacha said. “Let’s start with the room we found and wait for the others to get back here. Then we are spilling everything.Everything,Nic.”

“Yes, boss,” I replied, my detachment fading at the mention of my bedroom. What the hell had they found up there? Why had they sealed it off?

Sacha motioned for me to follow him, and I did, going up the stairs. The drywall had, indeed, been hollow. Stepping forward, I looked through the hole, and my stomach dropped. Bile surged in my gut, threatening to come up, and Sacha grabbed me, holding me tight as I began to shake.

What fresh hell is this?

Oliver

Tuesday

What the fuck just happened?

Nicholette showed back up, and life decided to go into hyper-drive. Everything was coming together, falling apart, and piecing itself back together so fast that I thought my mind was going to explode.

She’d killed Wrenn’s brother and probably Wrenn too… It was so jarring that the woman who had slowly opened up and became friends with her ex-girlfriend had shot her in cold blood. No,tortureher. I had recognized that evil glint in her eyes when she stared Wrenn down to get what she wanted.Is Nic spiraling out of control?I was all for some murder and mayhem, but there were boundaries that needed to be drawn amongst allies, and I was thinking that Nic might have just obliterated a few.

I could tell the others were taken aback by her actions as well, but even though I didn’t quite agree with them, I could understand what had driven her.

She’d come back to her hometown, a place she never wanted to come back to, and the trauma of her past and present were colliding.

Bodhi was a surprise though. He hadn’t flinched back from what she’d with Wrenn or their argument beforehand. No, Bodhi seemed calm, almost detached, like Nic, which was concerning. Heneverlost control or went off, but under his vulnerability, Bodhi hid a temper that would rival anyone’s. Honestly, it might even put Vas to shame, and the things that heated him up… Well, there was a reason he kept that part of himself in check so often. It seemed that it was slipping through the cracks now, and I just hoped everything would be okay after he lost it.

Nic’s gasp pulled me back to the moment, though I instantly wished it hadn’t. Vas, Sacha, and Rhodes had taken down the wall where Nic swore her room had been… and she was right. There was a space behind the drywall, but it no longer resembled whatever Nic’s bedroom had looked like.

Behind the walls, they had set up cages, using the space as a place to keep people hidden. There were no windows of any kind to bring in light, and the smell of human waste made my eyes water. Apparently, Joe and Miranda Graves liked to keep their playthings close by.

Sacha was holding Nicholette, her face paled, and I worried she would throw up. He must have had the same thought because he scooped Nic up and carried her back downstairs. I followed behind, not willing to look into the room. Memories were teasing the edge of my mind, and I wanted no encouragement to relive them. He sat on the couch with her in his lap, rubbing her back as she took slow, measured breaths. Cautiously, I grabbed a seat beside them. Bodhi settled on the other side of me, both of us watching our girl closely. The others joined us soon after, Vas and Rhodes talking about the contents of the room when Maksim and Alexei rejoined us.

“Took care of the officer and Alexei took care of Wrenn, though we might need to move her before we leave if she’s still alive. Better to cover our tracks,” Maksim said as he leaned against the far wall, his step-brother resting beside him. “But she’s good for now. Quite a show out there, killing an innocent man, a cop at that.”

“He was going to get in the way,” Nicholette replied as she shifted around to face the room. Her expression was calculating and challenging, lacking any remorse, and she looked over us all like she was expecting some kind of scolding for what she had done. “I took care of it. He isn’t the first innocent man I’ve killed, and he won’t be the last.”

“Yeah, but this one was Wrenn’sbrother.”

“Every man is someone’s father, brother, son, friend… Why should he get some kind of special treatment?” Nic shrugged dismissively. “Now, you wanted to talk, boss. Let’s talk.”

Sacha threaded a hand through Nicholette’s hair, but then he surprised me. He pulled her off his lap, forcing her down to her knees on the floor by his feet. His grip in her hair stayed steady as he leaned down toward her. “Now that you’re in a better frame of mind, little whore, it’s time to tell us everything. And if you try to get off your knees, I’ll get my belt and beat you black and blue. I don’t care that we’re at your childhood home or that you’re pregnant. You seem to have forgotten how this works here.”

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