I pull away, my brows furrowed as I stare back at him. “How is that any of your business?”
His hand shifts from my collar in a flash like lightning and wraps around my wrist. He yanks me into him and I barely keep upright with the momentum. “Did. You. Come?”
“Yes,” I spit, my other hand coming up and shoving him hard in the chest, fruitlessly attempting to put some space between us.
“Then consider yourself rewarded,” he tells me, his eyes flashing with a sinister darkness, and I realize that this is his version of a big ole ‘fuck you.’
My jaw clenches and I do everything I can not to huff and groan like some delinquent child, but damn it, it’s hard. “People are going to start looking for me soon,” I warn. “You’re not going to get away with this.”
Roman laughs, pushing me away from him until I’m standing in the center of the room, looking back at him, completely helpless. “No one is coming for you, Shayne,” he taunts, his tone low and full of venom as he begins stalking me again. “You think we just plucked you out of thin air? That absolutely no thought went into this? We’ve been planning this for months, watching you, learning your routine.”
I start backing up, his words like a knife being stabbed straight through my chest. “No. You’re wrong. Someone will come.”
“You’re kidding yourself,” he mutters, his eyes sharp like daggers. “The only person who’s visited your apartment in the past three months was your landlord and even he wants you gone. Your so-called friends at the club don’t notice you as it is. They’ll just be pissed that you didn’t show for your shift and were made to cover you. You’ve got no one, not even Daddy Dearest is coming for you. You’re as good as dead to them. Though, it probably doesn’t help that we had your death certificate signed and news of your untimely demise splashed across every news outlet in the country. It was a particularly nasty death. Believe me, no one is holding out hope that a fragile little thing such as yourself could have survived that.”
I shake my head as my back hits the far wall, that distant memory from when they invaded my apartment flooding back to me. Levi and Marcus laughed about the story that would be leaked to the news. It was horrendous. I would have been murdered and left in a shallow grave for a wild bear to come and tear my body apart. There would have been nothing but ribbons of flesh left. “You’re not going to get away with this.”
Roman steps into me, his big body flush with mine as his head tilts down. The tip of his nose skims across my cheek as his hand twines around my jaw, following the curve into the back of my head. “That’s just the thing, Empress,” he murmurs, his tone low and deadly as I feel his warm breath brushing against my skin. “We already have.”
10
Darkness sweeps over my room and once again, I’m left to endure the long, fearful lonely night. Only this time, I won’t be making such a stupid mistake like allowing myself to sleep.
Roman’s words have circled my head all night. We already have. But he’s right, they did get away with it. I’m screwed. Literally nobody is searching for me. Hell, this is the beginning of my third night and I bet not a damn person even realizes that I’m gone, though the news story that was put out about my death sure wouldn’t help. The world already thinks I’m dead, so why would they even attempt to look for me? There’s even a signed death certificate and everything.
I’ve already been forgotten.
It’s got to be well past midnight and I find myself staring up at the ceiling. The heavy chain still hangs from the roof, however Roman had taken the hook that dangled from the bottom of it, though I have no freaking idea why. It’s not like I could have done anything with it. He’d have been smarter to take the chain, but in reality, a chain that big would be too heavy for me to fuck around with anyway. So rather than spending my afternoon trying to figure out how to use it to my advantage, I spent my long, lonely hours using Marcus’ knife to shred his discarded shirt into a million tiny pieces.
The knife has stayed in the palm of my hand since the very second Roman stormed out of here, and all I’ve been able to do is think about how I’d like to give him a matching scar for the other eye. Though, thinking like that is only going to turn these bastards on.
Fucking hell.
I throw myself to my feet and start pacing the small room as waves of uncontrollable anger surge through me. I have to get out of here. I have to … fuck. I don’t even know. This is too much. That tiny slither of hope that burned brightly inside my chest has fizzled out and turned to ashes.