“Fuck you!”

“I told you that you were mine, and that hasn’t fucking changed,” he roared and spittle hit my face as the vein in his neck thundered with fury. “I’m going to make sure you never forget it again.”

I swallowed the lump of fear that made its way to my throat and awaited his next move. Jeremy’s malicious hands grabbed at my jeans, ripping them open and pushing them over my hips. The cool air swirled around the room and hit my bare stomach. The sound of buttons hitting the wall behind the bed sounded as Jeremy tore open my shirt and discarding it in one go.

I lay on the bed dressed only in my red lace panties and bra. With my hands bound I couldn’t even cover myself. His greedy eyes ran over my body. I froze as his hand ran up my thigh and lingered on my hip. Jeremy leaned over my body and his heavy breathing hit my core, the flimsy lace providing no barrier to his evil. He inhaled sharply, taking in my scent, and I cringed as his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

“I can’t wait to feast on you.” His hand slipped over the lace and he pressed down, rubbing his finger up and down my folds before his thumb pressed down on my covered clit. My eyes slammed shut in anger. “I wonder what your boyfriend would think of this.”

At the mere mention of Ky my eyes flung open in rage. I didn’t want Ky tarnished by Jeremy. I had to protect myself even if it meant getting hurt in the process. Distraction would be my best friend.

“You want to know what my boyfriend would think. He’d think that you are a fucking asshole who can’t get a chick unless you rape her. You are a pathetic piece of shit Jeremy Davis, and you will not get away with this again. Ky will be looking for me and when he finds me, I hope with everything I am he gives you exactly what you deserve.”

I felt the snap of my rib as soon as his elbow hit into my side at full force. I gasped in pain and my body convulsed under the pressure raising me from the mattress momentarily. My back hit the mattress as warm tears flooded my cheeks. Waves of intense pain rolled through me and finally crashed as my breath came back.

“Don’t fucking mention him again,” Jeremy hissed. He ripped my discarded shirt clean apart and shoved a piece of the material in my mouth, taking my ability to draw attention to myself and making my chance of rescue fade quickly away.

The pain, the lack of oxygen, and the fear taking over my body brought on a darkness that I craved; before I could struggle any longer I slipped into oblivion with Jeremy and Chris lingering devastatingly close.

 

The world around me felt like it was crushing every single bone in my body. My apartment was in a frenzy of chatter and anxious energy.  Desperation lingered in the air. Police officers, my parents, Eden’s parents, Ashlyn, and Josh paced the floor as time slipped away from us. I couldn’t even comprehend what was happening; my fists were clenched at my sides, and my head thumped with a tension headache; I swear I heard every single click of the clock on the wall. Every single fucked-up second that he had her.

“I need to get out of here. I need to find her.” I paced toward the door as I finally cracked.

“Ky wait!” my father’s tired voice sounded from the couch. We had been sitting around for hours waiting for something, anything to happen, and I was absolutely done. “What good is it going to do if you leave? Where do you think you will go?”

“That fucking asshole has my girl,” I roared in to the tension filled room.

“Son, he has my girl too,” Mike Rivers said in a low voice, his brow pinched as he looked back at me.

Mike and Anna Rivers had arrived alongside the police officers two hours ago. The first thing I noticed about Mike was how tall and broad he was. His face was covered in a dark beard, and he shared the same deep blue eyes as Eden. He was a threatening looking man, but the moment he shook my hand with a firm grip and looked me square in the eyes I saw that his world had also disappeared. Anna Rivers jumped into my arms as soon as her husband was pulled away Douglas. Anna’s arms circled my waist, and she didn’t say a word to me. She just cried into my chest, dampening my shirt with tears for her missing daughter. It shocked me at first, but I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and held her tightly against my chest offering all the support that I could find.

I had never met these people before. What a fucked up way of meeting them for the first time. They had arrived back in the United States the day before and didn’t get the opportunity to see their daughter and now she was missing.

“What the hell am I meant to do?” I groaned into the air. Anger seethed within me, and my hands rubbed furiously over my face as I stormed through my apartment toward my room. Our room.

The moment I stepped foot through the doors, I froze as the intense smell of her perfume smothered me, clouding me with the sweet citrus scent that drove me crazy.  My emotions bubbled within my tight chest and my eyes glistened as the reality of what happened stabbed at my barely beating heart. I collapsed on the edge of the bed and my face fell into my hands as a painful sob escaped from my chest.

Knowing that Jeremy had her and knowing what he was capable of was tearing me apart. Hearing her petrified voice when she called was replaying over and over in my head like a constant reminder that she wasn’t safe, that I had failed her again. I had promised I would always protect her.

All I wanted was a moment of peace, but how could I possibly find peace when a war was waging inside my head, my heart, and the world around me. Eden was my world, and my world was now being threatened in a way I didn’t even want to comprehend.

I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, huddled over, my emotions seeping out of every pore of my body. My mind sorted through memory after memory I had of her. We had overcome so much. Fuck, I had asked her to move in with me just last night. I had already given my heart to her, and now I was ready to give my home, my life, and my future. I was ready to sit in the palm of her hands for eternity. She was stronger now, more resilient. She was trusting, and she was finally mine. But now Jeremy motherfucking Davis had her. He had taken her away from my protection, away from the safety that I had been desperate to provide her. He was making me live my worst nightmare all over again. I couldn’t save her once, and now here I was, in the exact same position.

My head shot up from my hands as succession of soft knocks hit the closed bedroom door.

“Son, can I come in?” Mike’s worried voice cracked through the thick wood.

“Sure,” I replied.

He walked in, closing the door behind him. I had no clue what to say. I didn’t know what he knew about me. Fuck, I didn’t even know if Eden had mentioned me before. As far as I knew, I was just as much a stranger to him as he was to me.

He took a seat on the bed beside me, and we fell into a thick silence.

“You saved her.” He finally spoke so softly that I almost missed it.

I nearly choked on my own breath at his clearly delusional words.

“If I had saved her, she wouldn’t be missing,” I stated matter-of-fact.

“Do you know that she would call me and her mother every couple of days? Did you also know that she would text her mother every other day? It was all you Ky. Every single message we received, every single time we heard her sweet voice, we noticed a change, and it was all because of you. You made my daughter come alive again. I thought I had lost her four years ago, but now she has finally come back to us and it’s largely because of you.”

“Did she tell you who I was?” I shifted my gaze to him, my eyes narrowing. “That I was best friends with the asshole who has got her again. That I was the one who wanted her all those years ago but didn’t have the balls to do a damn thing about it and then he came in and tore her away from all of us? I am that guy.”