get this message, okay? I love you,” I say again before I end the call, because I don’t want him to doubt that for a second.
Taking another deep breath, I put my phone away in my purse and turn on my heels to start back to the club, intending to spend the rest of the night with the girls and not a sexy, dirty-talking biker, the perfect man from my darkest fantasies.
I take about three steps before a white van advertising a flooring business slows to a stop next to me. The passenger, a young, dark-haired man with lots of ink on his arm that’s resting in the open window, says, “Hey, girl. Sorry to bother you, but could you tell us where the weird Ripley’s place is?”
“Ah, sure,” I reply. “I think you need to get going toward North Ocean Boulevard. This is South,” I explain.
“North, you say?”
“Yeah, it’s quicker if you turn here and get back on Highway 17 instead of waiting behind the cruising crowd and pedestrians,” I say, pointing the easiest way to get where they need to be. I’ve been vacationing here in Myrtle Beach almost every year in the summer and know my way around pretty well. “Then you’ll just make a right turn on Fifth or Seventh Avenue.”
“You hear that? We need to get on 17 and find Fifth or Seventh Avenue,” the man says to the driver right when the sliding door suddenly opens, and another passenger jumps out along with the man I was talking to. Before I can even blink, there are arms grabbing me from behind, picking me up off my feet and carrying me to the van.
“Stop! What the hell are you doing? Put me down!” I scream as I kick my feet and try to free my arms that are pinned to my sides by the ones holding me. Whoever has me dives headfirst into the back of the van without letting me go. The side of my face lands on the hard floor with all of his weight on top of me.
“We’re in! Go!” someone in the back says as the sliding door slams shut, and the driver takes off.
“Isn’t she a pretty thing,” the man I recognize as the passenger says when he crawls over on his knees and grabs my chin and turns it toward him. “Fuck, I really do love redheads.”
“I-I don’t understand,” I whisper to him.
“I’m going first,” the man on top of me says as he starts unzipping the back of my dress, making my eyes fill with tears. I let out a shriek when he tears it the rest of the way so that it loudly rips in two and the cool air hits my back.
“You know exactly what we’re going to do to you,” another man says with a toothy grin when he approaches, taking my phone out of my purse. “Don’t forget to wrap it up, man,” he says to his friend. “We don’t know where this bitch has been, and we can’t leave any DNA in case someone finds her body before Donnie takes care of it.”
My body? As in my dead body?
These men, they’re going to kill me! But not yet.
I shake my head no, trying to figure out what to do, how to get out of here, as my panties are jerked down my thighs.
It’s too late.
That’s the only thought repeating in my head over and over again. It’s too late for me.
I’ve been kidnapped by at least four men who are planning to rape me before they kill me. The van is racing down the road in the middle of the night. One of them took my phone I couldn’t use anyway with so many hands holding me down. No one will hear me screaming. All that’s left is to try and fight, to get to the sliding door and jump out. So that’s what I try to do.
I get to my knees and lunge back toward the door but only end up getting my head slammed into the side of the van before everything goes dark.
Chapter One
Two months later…
* * *
Verek
* * *
Sunday morning I’m the first one to sit my ass down at the Savage Kings table, waiting for everyone else to slowly file in, my knee unable to keep still as I wait. That’s why as soon as I see Winston, I grill him since Roman banned me from the boathouse where we’re keeping our captive – one of the four