The woman glanced at an old cuckoo-clock that was hanging on the back wall.

  “I s’pose I can work a miracle.”

  “I knew I could count on you.” Knox released his iron-clad grip on my arm and stepped forward. He placed a kiss on the old woman’s cheek and then turned back to me.

  “You try anything, you even look at her wrong, and that pretty lil friend of yours will get a bullet to the head.”

  “Got it.”

  “Good girl.”

  He turned to leave and then suddenly stopped. Before I could shove him away, he grabbed hold of my face and gave me a sloppy kiss, dragging his tobacco scented tongue across my clamped lips.

  I recoiled, shoving him away from me and jerking backward as my stomach pitched to my toes. “Keep your fucking hands off me!” I wiped my mouth with my forearm, swallowing repeatedly to suppress the overwhelming urge to gag.

  “I knew I was right about you.” He walked out the room, laughing to himself.

  The moment he was gone, I looked over at his mother, finding that her suspicious expression was gone and in its place was a creepily warm smile.

  “Won’t you come sit down? I promise I don’t bite.” She moved aside and patted the red velvet stool in front of the vanity.

  I stared at her for a minute, wondering what I should do. Even in my current condition, I was confident I could take out an elderly woman. The problem was what I would do after. I’d need to find Poet, get the padlock keys to free Takara, and then find a way to get us off the property. I wasn’t confident that I could manage all three, and I wasn’t picking and choosing between my friends.

  I slowly made my way over to the vanity and sat down gingerly. I was so sore that even this hurt. My body’s condition was partially my fault. I should have never gotten lax or too comfortable when it came to making sure I remained at the top of my game.

  The older woman stepped up behind me and placed her hands on my shoulders, meeting my gaze in the oval shaped mirror.

  “You have lovely hair and very pretty skin.”

  Were we looking at the same reflection right now? I resembled something that had been sucked into a hurricane and then spat back out.

  “Yes,” she continued, speaking to herself. “I’ve got the perfect look for you. Wait right here.”

  I watched in the mirror as she moved across the room to retrieve a doll from one of the upper shelves. She returned to my side carrying a pink, cherub-faced replica of me. The creepy mini-me was propped against a portion of the mirror, and then she got to work.

  For the hundredth time in less than twenty-four hours, I deeply regretted this hairbrained escape plan.

  Kneeling by the edge of the bed, I tried once again to test Hannah’s lucidity. She’d been in this balled up position for well over two hours. I didn’t understand where she was hurt, or how badly.

  Tammy, the older woman responsible for raising the three assholes that kidnapped us, had cleaned Hannah too. When she removed the torn slip someone had made her wear, I was able to see the black bruising and dried blood between her legs and on her ass. I’m sure some of her issues right now were entirely psychological.

  I sighed and turned to rest with my back against the mattress. I was too exhausted and sore to keep pacing and too on edge to dare sleep. Up until an hour or so ago, I’d had torturous hunger pains.

  After Tammy did a shitty job scrubbing my body and dressing me like a doll, complete with blush and low pigtails, I was left locked in the room. I couldn’t tell what was happening outside, because the old house seemed to amplify every little noise.

  I wondered where Samael was, and what he was doing right then. Some part of me expected him to show up and save us from this nightmare. But did I really deserve for him to do that? This was all my fault to begin with. I felt rather pathetic to be trapped like this. I’d tried the only window in this room, and the door was locked from the other side.

  Tired of sitting still, I stood just as the door swung open. Knox appeared, wearing a pair of navy suspenders complete with a bowtie, his hair damp and swept backward.

  “You clean up nice, little lady.”

  Yeah right. I looked like a clown.

  The thin dress I’d been given to wear matched this room’s gaudy wallpaper.

  I never would have put it on if not for needing to avoid his mother seeing my Savage insignia. My hair had childish bows wrapped around the ends. Bows. I looked more like a little girl than a woman.

  I eyed Knox, not bothering to hide my disgust.

  He laughed it off and held out his hand. “Remember your friends.”

  So that’s how this was going to go? Takara and Poet were leverage. If he had them, he could get me to do almost anything. Everything about this man repulsed me. I didn’t know what his end game was, but right now there weren’t many other options presenting themselves.

  I placed my hand in his and let him lead me. We passed by Tyson and went through the kitchen, which now smelled of bread and something else, and entered a dining room.

  When Tyson swept by for a second time, he had Hannah draped over one shoulder. He sat her in a seat near the end of the dining table, positioning her like one would a marionet. Her head lolled to the side, her swollen and discolored lips slightly parted with a drizzle of drool sliding down them.

  Had I missed something?

  She looked as if she’d been drugged.

  “You’ll look like that by the end of the night,” Knox whispered in my ear.

  I jerked away from him and sat down in a random chair, taking note of the shotgun in the corner of the room. Surveying the table, I noted that they’d provided me with actual silverware. There was also a large pan of meat and beans, bread, and a pitcher of water.

  Although the kind of meat these people would have access to was questionable.

  It didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen before. I hadn’t eaten in nearly forty-eight hours, but I would starve before putting whatever that was in my mouth.

  Knox sat to my immediate left and offered me his hand again. I didn’t understand what he wanted until Tyson did the same thing on my right. Jacob sat on the opposite side of the table with his mother and mimicked his brothers. All closed their eyes and bowed their heads, joining hands.

  What the hell is happening?

  Tammy stared at me with a stormy expression when I made no effort to take the initiative.

  “In this house, we give thanks to the Lord.”

  I laughed; I couldn’t help it. This was one of the most absurd things I’d ever seen. And people had the nerve to talk about my family? I begrudgingly took each hand that was offered.

  That’s as far as I was going with this charade. The devil himself would walk through the front door before I fixed my lips to worship something other than what lurked below.

  “Heavenly Father bless us and this bountiful feast we have received from thy goodness, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”

  A small chorus echoed the end of her short sermon, excluding me and Hannah. With their bullshit grace out of the way, the dishes were passed around.

  The sound of the front door colliding with a wall brought them all to a brief pause. Jacob jumped up, looking right at the gun. At the same time, I grabbed the steak knife they’d stupidly placed beside my plate. Knox tried to stop me, but he was too slow. I was already on my feet, pressing the jagged blade against Tyson’s throat with one hand fisting his shaggy hair.

  “Sit back down,” I commanded Jacob before he could get could to the gun.

  Multiple footsteps carried from the front hall, growing closer. I remained where I was. I wouldn’t have time to get to the other side of the room, and right now I had leverage.

  Jacob wavered, obviously unsure what risk to take. I had no way of knowing who had just walked in, but I should have predicted it would be him.

  It wasn’t the devil who showed up.

  It was someone worse.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Timing is everything.

  One look at Lilith and I knew I’d come later than I should have. We’d found this place the night before. It had looked just as deserted then as it was now, but you could never be too sure. We couldn’t rush in on some heroic bullshit until we knew what we’d be dealing with.

  Amo popped the lock on the front doors and got us inside in less than five minutes.

  That these dumb fucks didn’t have security was beyond my level of comprehension. Did they not know how despised they were? Most considered them bottom feeders who’d gotten lucky. Today was when that luck would run out.

  “What the fuck is this?” a man with swept back hair sputtered.

  “You don’t like the surprise?” Amo questioned jokingly.

  His eyes went to the person who’d come in with us, and he clenched his fist, remaining silent.

  Ah. I got it now.

  Rumors could be surprisingly powerful.

  We’d purposely spread enough around that our faction was more mysterious than most. No one knew my face yet. It’d just come out that Amo was doing my bidding on two different fronts.

  There was also the Creed persona crafted for his own personal reasons, but it had still benefited me in the end.

  With Jin sporting head gear tonight, these people probably thought he was me. This worked out better than I expected.

  “Did we get here too late?” Amo continued to goad.

  “I think we got here just in time,” I replied in the same tone.

  Aside from the rough looking blonde, they all stared at us with varying expressions. The only one I cared to focus on was Lilith. She was standing behind one of the inbred with a dinner knife to his throat.

  Despite wanting to wrap both my hands around her slender fucking neck, it was refreshing to see her again.

  “What are you wearing?” I circled around the table so I was standing beside her.

  Lilith would look gorgeous in a trash bag if she wanted to wear one. This style of clothing wasn’t her at all, though. The pigtails and blush made her look younger than she already did—like a little kid. Seeing as the men at this table were visibly much older than either of us, I think someone had a fetish.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Was she fucking serious?

  “You don’t sound very happy to see me, Lils.” I grabbed her wrist and applied more pressure than necessary. “Drop the knife. He isn’t going anywhere.”

  She winced, ultimately doing as I said with gritted teeth. I pulled her closer, leaving the knife to fall to the floor. When she looked up at me with her big, green eyes, it reminded me of when we were kids and she knew she’d pissed me off.

  Little to nothing about this girl had changed.

  She was still my same Lilith—just older and without anyone to save her from me now. I gently touched the discoloration on her cheek. There were a few more bruises marring her arms and dried blood beneath her usually spotless nails.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. We didn’t come alone,” Amo directed at the dumbass with long braids.

  I hadn’t overlooked the shotgun leaning against the wall in a corner. I wanted to see if any of them had the balls to go for it right in front of us.

  The old lady was the second to speak. “What are you boys doing here? If it’s about that girl, just take er and go. We don’t want any trouble.”

  “You brought trouble to your door the second you touched what was mine.”

  “How could we know she was yours?”

  “So, you didn’t see her mark?” Amo questioned lazily.

  There was one clear-cut answer to that question. You couldn’t miss the insignia on the underside of her wrist.

  That’s precisely why I put it there. It was a companion to the Savage one, which they clearly hadn’t found or else they’d have known exactly who she was. There were only two people who walked around with both. She was one and I was the other.

  “Let’s cut them some slack, Amo. Three of ours fell into their hands because of someone’s reckless naivety. They were so excited thinking they’d hit the jackpot that they forgot common sense.”

  The man Lilith had yoked up began to nod in agreement.

  “You sure it’s not from being a product of Mommy’s brother plowing her pussy? Or was he the grandfather?” Amo queried.

  The woman slammed her hand down on the table. “You dare come into my house and disrespect me?”

  “Your house?” I tilted my head and regarded her questioningly. “This is our house now, sweetheart. So why don’t shut the fuck up so we can get settled in?”

  Unsurprisingly, none of her sons spoke up on her behalf. What a bunch of pussies. I looked down at Lilith, perusing her from head to toe again.

  “How did this happen to you?” I asked her directly.

  “She—” the man beside us began to reply.

  “She has a voice,” I interjected.

  “He made me fight.”

  Made her fight. I combed over what Amo and Brody had told me, combining it with what I’d already known about the Roboys. They took men and women and made them fight in an arena. People put money on who would win, buying these individuals off like livestock once the fights concluded.

  “What else did he do?” I stared the man down, watching for even the slightest hint of movement.

  “He put his hands on Takara after he cut her shirt off and…”

  “And?” I prodded.

  “He kissed me.” She looked at the floor to avoid my stare.

  This confession was too fucking déjà vu-esque for my liking.

  “Oh, that’s going to earn you instant disqualification, Knox,” Amo chided.

  I inhaled, expelling a deep breath quietly as rage twisted and distorted inside my chest.

  One.

  That’s the number of times someone other than myself had ever gotten close enough to touch her. Even when Amo, under the guise of Creed a few years ago, made it seem as if he was fucking her, I wanted to tear him apart. And that had been my own idea.

  Any form of disrespect against her was highly offensive to me. I didn’t fucking tolerate it. If someone were going to degrade my girl or put their hands somewhere they shouldn’t be, it would be me—when I had my dick shoved down her throat or buried inside her pussy.

  I ran a soft touch down her arms to calm myself and reassure her. Taking hold of her shoulders, I positioned her slightly behind me. Jin moved so he could cover her back in case things went sideways.

  “Knox? That’s your name?” I asked the man.

  “I’m not telling you shit,” he spat.

  “It’s Knox. The guy dressed like he just came from a western is Jacob. The feminine one is Tyson. That old witch is Tammy—also mother dearest,” Amo more than happily clarified.

  I grinned down at Knox, seeing his expression go through three different stages.

  “You like to put on shows, right? I’ve heard your family is renowned for being entertaining. You should feel honored, because now you’re going to put one on for me and my friends.”

  I grabbed the shotgun from the corner and passed it off to Amo.

  “You four, get up and stand against that wall.”

  I thought they’d at least protest, but they all rose and moved to the back side of the room like obedient hostages. Maybe they did have an ounce of common sense. I rounded the table and grabbed hold of the chair the blonde was sitting in so it wasn’t in the way.

  I dragged it backward, unintentionally causing her to fall out. She tumbled sideways and hit the floor with a thud. Other than a groan, she barely reacted. I wasn’t sure what they’d done to her, and I didn’t care. Seeing Lilith seconds away from coming to her aide, I stepped in front of the girl’s body and forced her to look at me instead.

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  She barely managed to hide her scowl, sinking her teeth into her lower lip. I was beginning to think she was purposely trying to provoke me.

  Still needing more space, I grabbed one end of the dining table and lifted, flipping it onto its side. Their dinner hit the dull wood floor alongside broken dishes and silverware. I’d pieced together the gist of what was going on and their intentions for Lilith—more than likely Takara, too.

  “You and you.” I pointed to Knox and his mom. “Stand face to face in the center of the room.”

  He came forward with all the wariness of a cornered rabbit, holding his mother’s hand.

  “What do you want from us?”

  “We want a show,” Amo answered.

  “A face-off,” I reiterated.

  Knox looked at me, his jaw clenched. He must have felt exceptionally powerless right now.

  I couldn’t relate.

  He turned towards his mother, still holding her trembling hand. That was cute. But it was much too soon to be so afraid; we hadn’t even gotten started yet.

  “Everything you did to her, you’re going to do to your mother.”

  I went over to Lilith was and settled against the wall.

  “W-what did you just say?” Jacob stammered, straightening to his full height.

  “Was it not clear enough? Everything he did to my girl, he’s now going to do to your mother.”

  “I’m not going to hurt Ma,” Knox objected.

  “Amo.”

  Hearing that, he immediately lost his bored expression and perked right up.

  “Finally.”

  He sidled by our showrunners and approached Jacob and Tyson. He lifted the shotgun and checked the ammo, a wide grin spreading across his face.

  “What a beautiful sight. 00 buckshot.” He welded a cheek to stock position, securing the butt.

  “Who’s it going to be?” he asked.

  I looked at Knox with a slightly raised brow. “You sure you don’t want to reconsider?”

  “I’m sure,” he affirmed.

  Jacob glared at the back of his brother’s head. “What the hell do you think you’re—”

  “So, you then?” Amo swung the barrel and pulled the trigger.

  It was shock that delayed Jacob’s response. That and the fact that he didn’t seem to realize what had just happened until the bone jutting out cleanly snapped from his body weight. He dropped to the hardwood cursing and screaming, grabbing at what remained of his severed limb.