“Help.” My voice is muffled. Oh god no. I’m gagged. Somehow, someone has taken me. I’ve been kidnapped. Camden? Where is he? What have they done with him? He was in the shower. And Lola, where is she? The vomit comes up, spewing out of the corners of my mouth. I’m going to drown in it, dying in this place.

I have to get out of here. I try to move my hands and legs, but they won’t budge. Tears fall freely from my eyes. I tug against the restraints that have my arms lifted above my head. The clinking of chains rattle. I will not give up. I won’t. I have to fight. It’s so dark. I’m unable to see a thing.

And oh god, my legs. I can barely feel them. The only thing I can sense is how I feel like I’m being split in two. Slowly being ripped in half starting from the pain radiating from my core.

My cries are muffled through the gag in my mouth. No one can hear me. I’m being strung up and torn apart. God, please help me. It’s so cold. My body is numb. Even though I cannot see my breath, I know the air expiring from my lungs trundles through the frosty air in small little puffs.

Will I perish to my death from these cold temps and not the other torture? The blasting of freezing cold air whispers across my bare flesh. I’m naked. I can tell as the air hits me. Every part of me is strung up tightly. Freezing right down to my bones, I’m scared. I don’t want to die. Not like this. I have to believe with everything in me; the love, the history that Heath and Camden share that my man is still alive, searching with everything he has to find me. I know Heath has me. I feel him near.

I hear the click of a lock being turned, followed by the creak of a door opening before a blinding light in my eyes stings and alerts me all at once. My head snaps to the sound of shoes tapping across the floor.

“You’re awake I see.” Heath appears before me, his eyes viciously iced over. My eyes bug out of my head, watching him stand there in front of me. I try to talk, my words incomprehensible. “What was that?” He pulls the gag out of my mouth, before placing his hand up against his ear. Vomit drips down my face. I’m dry heaving from the smell of my own puke combined with the intense smell of the room.

I don’t speak, instead I look around and scream when I notice I’m being held in a freezer. Dead chickens are everywhere, hanging from the ceiling. Their beady little eyes watching me. Their little necks broken, hanging on hooks. Hundreds of them staring, gaping in shocked horror.

“What?” He hold his hands out wide. “You loved my chicken the night I fucked you on my table. Or was that a lie? Like every other word that came out of that pretty mouth of yours?” He grips me by my chin, forcing me to look at him. “You answer me when I ask you a question. It’s the polite thing to do, Lucia.”

I shake my head and spit in his face. “My name is Luca, you bastard.”

That remark gets me a back hand across my face.

“No. You’re Lucia. Take a look at yourself. Isn’t this the kind of games you like to play?”

Again, I don’t speak. I look down to the pain ripping my body in half, blood dripping on the floor. I really am being spilt in half. My legs are spread wide in a sex swing. I’m strung out so tight it’s slashing me apart.

“That’s right,” he says maliciously. “Your slowly going to bleed to death right from the part of your body that has used so many men, taunting us all with how wet and tight your pussy is, before leaving us wanting and begging for more. You’re nothing but a selfish whore. You think by taking jewels and gowns that doesn’t make a whore? News flash, sweetheart, it makes you worse than a whore. It makes you a heartless cunt. A bitch so into herself. There’s one more thing you need to know before I leave you here to die.” He walks to the other side of the room. Slipping off his shoes, he unbuckles his belt, before the loud sound of his zipper coming down has me crying. Is he going to rape me? Oh god no.

Heath turns, holding his heavy cock in his hands. Stroking it rapidly. The sound of his hand slamming away as he sucks in a deep breath is the only thing I can hear. His devil like eyes bore holes into mine.

He lifts a hand and pushes a button on the wall. My body starts to descend inch by excruciating inch, my legs spreading wider. I scream from the pain, as bones snap from where my legs connect to my pelvis.

“What are you doing?” I yell out in agony. Tears are streaming down my face, but I refuse to take my eyes off of him, until he moves to stand behind me and I can no longer see him.

“I’m going to fuck you in your ass, Lucia. Raw and hard.” His fingers dig into my sides.

“You’ve become the queen of manipulation, deceit, and disgust. You’ve dug your claws into my best friend, my brother. And you will not take him away from me. He deserves better than you. He had it before. He had the sweet love of a beautiful woman until some drunk fucker took her away from him. And now he’s obsessed with a god damned whoring slut, who spreads her legs for gold and silver, making them want more, before disappearing back to her sweet little home in Chicago. Her life of a bitch in heels. Luca is the fake women, not Lucia. No, Lucia is very much real. She’s the woman you were meant to be. You’re filth. Tainted. And I’m the man who is going to drain every bit of that dirty, soiled filth out of you. I’ll watch you bleed to death, your heart slowly disintegrating, working hard to keep the blood in your body. You’re going to die today, Lucia.

“Why are you doing this, Heath? What have you done to Camden and Lola? Where are they?” I’m shaking in fear, anger, and from the cold. “Answer me, god damn it. Where are they?” I don’t give a shit what he does to me anymore. I am a whore. I’m everything he says I am, but one thing I’m not is heartless. I love people. I love Camden, Mitch, Leo, and Annie. I love my dear friend, Colin. My best friend, Lola. My parents. I love them all!

“Answer me. Are Camden and Lola alive?” I feel my body giving up, becoming weaker by the second. I feel every rip, every tear. My legs feel like they are being torn from my body.

“They’re fucking dead.” He brings one of the hooks used for hanging chickens around my neck, blood drips off the tip.

I scream just as I feel that dreaded hook scrape across the base of my throat.

“Jesus Christ, Luca wake up.”

I lash out, hitting something hard. Sweat drips down my face.

Camden looks down at me and sighs, his hands clasped together behind his neck. His face is etched with worry.

“Camden,” I whisper, sitting up in bed.

“God baby, you scared the fucking hell out of me when I heard you screaming. I walked out here and you were thrashing around in the bed. All you kept saying was my name.” The bed dips when he sits next to me, pulling me onto his lap, into his arms. His warm, still alive arms.

“It was horrible. The worst nightmare. I all felt so real.” Squeezing my eyes shut, I can’t seem to get the look of Heath’s tormented face out of my head. The sight of all those dead chickens. Sadistic and twisted.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, reassurance enunciating from his lips.

“No. God no. I just want you to make it go away. Make this all go away,” I cry out.

“I’m trying, sweetheart. God, I’m trying so fucking hard. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but you were dreaming about him, weren’t you?”

He caresses my back and massages my neck, and reins kisses all across the top of my head trying to calm me. I feel myself relaxing in the safety of his arms, but the memory is still there.

“He was hurting me,” is all I can manage to say. The thought of reliving my nightmare has me turning cold. He must feel me shiver, because the next thing I know, he has me wrapped up in the comforting warmth and the delicious smell that only he is capable of providing.