My blood turns cold as I watch Roman pull an old key from his pocket. “What the fuck is this?” I breathe as he pushes the key into the lock and turns it. The old locking mechanism jars and makes a loud banging noise that has my whole body flinching with fear.
Roman pockets the key and pushes against the iron gates just enough for us to slip in, and as we do, Marcus steps in beside me and places his hand on my lower back. I meet his stare and see a flicker of nervousness in his eyes which instantly puts me on edge. He’s the craziest of the bunch and for him to be nervous … that speaks volumes.
“Come on,” Roman mutters, his voice low as he leads the way. “I want to get this done as quickly as possible. I smell a fucking rat.”
We follow Roman as he walks through the tomb and my knees shake. I’ve never been inside a tomb in my life. It’s cold and creepy and definitely not a place I want to be. He moves through it with purpose and stops at a marble wall before sliding it right out of the way to reveal an old metal spiral staircase.
“What’s down there?” I question, trying to peer ahead only to see nothing but darkness.
Roman glances back at me with a wicked grin, showing me the true psychopath that lives within him. “Why don’t you come down and see?”
Asshole.
He doesn’t bother to wait for a response as he traipses down the stairs like he’s not about to walk straight into a shitshow.
Marcus follows him down into the deepest pits of hell, and not wanting to be last, I fall in behind him. My hand grips the railing, certain that I’m going to fall to my death on these old rusty stairs. I hear Levi on the steps behind me. “Remember, not a fucking word,” he murmurs, keeping his tone low, “and if you must speak—master.”
I don’t respond, but he knows that I hear him.
We walk down another twenty or so steps and the deeper into hell we get, the louder the music and voices become. My knees barely hold me up on the stairs and it’s like descending into darkness until we hit the final few steps and a red, foggy glow settles into the air.
We really are descending into hell.
I swallow hard, and as we turn the corner into the party, fear rocks right through me as my jaw hangs open. I couldn’t have been more wrong. This isn’t hell, it’s something far, far worse.
23
Satanic chanting sounds around me as I gape at the woman lying back on an old marble coffin, her arms and legs chained to the sides as men hover around her, watching on as a man who could only be described as the devil slices into her skin. She screams and wails in agony and my eyes instantly fill with burning hot tears.
“Don’t,” Roman mutters, reading my mind without even looking my way. “She consented to this. Racing in there all hot-headed is only going to ensure that you go next.”
Fuck.
I pull myself back and do what I can to hide behind the brothers as they make their way through the crowded party. When Levi told me these men were just as bad as they were, I thought he had to be exaggerating because no one could be that evil, but seeing the type of men in this room, I was wrong to doubt him.
There are women dressed just like me—scars and all. Some wear their collars with pride while others look as though they’re about to break, and those are the ones who make me want to throw down. Most of the men in the room sit on red suede couches looking like a bunch of creeps with their whiskey on the rocks as their sharp, venomous gazes travel over the women in the room, those who already belong to someone else.
Women are being grabbed left, right, and center. Women behind the bar. Women walking around like show ponies. Women being used as human cum pockets. It makes me sick. The whole fucking room is dressed with women, hung like fucking decorations. They stand around the room, chained to fucking pedestals so the sick bastards who ogle them can get off. I’ve been down here for less than a minute and already seen at least four men forcing themselves onto collarless women.
Hot, burning rage tears through me and I make a point to scan over every single face in the room, committing them all to memory. I don’t doubt that every fucker in here is on some kind of most wanted list and if I ever get the chance, I’ll be hand-delivering them right to their prison cells, maybe missing a few important body parts.