“Let me go!” she shrieked, kicking and bucking, thrashing about like a fish out of water. But he kept walking, marching back toward the garage with the rest of us following. The dogs stayed right at his heels as they tried to get a sniff of Jessica’s face. “Let me down! Goddamn it!” She swatted at his ass in a last-ditch effort to escape, but Manson only laughed.

As much as Jessica made me feel like I was losing my damn mind, I also understood her a lot better than she thought I did. She was too much like me, in the worst of ways. Impulsive. Proud. So goddamn stubborn. But because I understood those parts of her, I also understood what she needed.

Attention. Good, focused, four-on-one attention. And she was going to get it now.

15

Jessica

Manson carried me back to the garage, thrown over his shoulder. My head bobbed up and down, giving me glimpses of the other men’s faces. Lucas’s expression was fierce, so tense I wouldn’t have been surprised if sparks started shooting out of his eyeballs. Jason’s was tight and controlled, like he was about to attend the funeral of someone he hated. Vincent was smiling, the eerie expression punctuated by occasional shakes of his head.

“Let’s see what you got up to, Jessica,” Manson grunted, shifting me slightly as we reached the front of the garage.

“No, no, let’s not,” I said quickly. All the blood was rushing to my head, and I groaned, my stomach churning with dread. How could I have been so abysmally foolish? When they saw what was inside that garage, my ass was dead.

Vincent squatted down beside us, using a small key to unlock the rolling metal door. He grasped the handle and pulled, and every creak of the metal sounded like another nail being hammered into my coffin.

The collective gasps of shock as the garage was opened made me wish I’d let the dogs eat me out there in the trees.

“Lucas, go put the dogs in the house,” Manson said, his voice hollow. “They’ll cut their paws in here.”

Shattered glass covered the floor, sparkling in the fluorescent light. It crunched under Manson’s boots as he carried me inside. The cars were dented, the windows busted, tires slashed. Tools had been ripped off the walls and thrown to the floor, drawers had been flung open and their contents scattered.

“Holy shit,” Vincent said. “Holy fucking shit.”

Manson set me back on my fight, and for a brief moment, I wasn’t captive. Manson stood beside me, surveying the destruction with a slack expression as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. For nearly a minute, they stared, expressions of stunned disbelief frozen on their faces.

Suddenly arms gripped me from behind, pulling me back against a hard, broad chest.

“We’re going to have a nice long chat about this, Miss Martin.” Lucas had returned, and his voice was so cold that I shivered. Manson and Vincent walked among the ruins, Manson rubbing a hand through his hair as he shook his head. Jason was rapidly typing on his phone, glancing up only occasionally as if taking notes on the damages.