Underground Secrets (The Underground #1) (17 page)

My vision starts to get blurry. This is it, he is going to squeeze my last breath out of me. But then as soon as I give up, he lets go and drops me. I scramble to my hands and knees gasping for air and try to get away as he moves towards the kitchen. But I knew it couldn’t be that easy. It never is with him. He comes back and grabs my hair and slams my body to the ground. I kick and try as hard as I can to get him off of me, but I am too weak from the death grip he had on my neck. He pins me down and brings a knife to my throat. Oh god!

“Fuck you? I’ll show you ‘Fuck you’!” he fumes at me. He moves the knife and starts cutting off my clothes while nicking my skin at the same time. Each cut burning into the next.

“NO!” I scream. I will fight. I will not let myself go down this way; this easy.

I get a blow to the face from struggling against him. He pulls down my pants and rips my underwear off. He’s distracted for only second as he works to free the buttons on his pants. I gather my strength and head-butt him, but it doesn’t faze him. It only makes him angrier.

What is he on?

“You. Fucking. Bitch. If you don’t stay still, I will make you stay still!” and then he brings the knife down to below my hip and stabs it into me, twisting it around to give it that extra effect.

It hurts so fucking much, it’s unbearable and I scream out in more pain than I have ever felt.

“Shut up, you think you’re special? Just because I have been fucking you the longest? No! That just means you were available long-term. I can replace you. I have whores lined up ready to do as I ask! Whores that I’ve been doing when you weren’t around. Now I am going to treat you like the rest of them!” He gets his pants down the rest of the way. I try to use what little strength I have to get away from him, but I can’t move. The knife in my upper thigh won’t let me.

“No! No! No!” I scream at him

“Marlie!”

My body is being shaken

“Marlie! Wake up!”

I fly up into a sitting position, grab my throat and start gasping for air. I am shaking and drenched in sweat. A hand touches my back and I flinch.

“Hey, it’s just me. You had a nightmare,” Gemma soothes.

I look over at her. Her eyes are filled with sorrow. I can’t take her look right now. I throw the blankets off and without a word I head for the shower. I need to wash the nightmare off. I get in and stand under the water for a good twenty minutes before I move to wash myself. I scrub and scrub and scrub, trying to rid myself of the ghost touch of Carter. I haven’t had a nightmare in over a year. Knowing he’s out, is what I am sure is what has caused them to reoccur. Which is pretty fucking wonderful. Let’s just add nightmares to the pile of shit I have to deal with.

I get out of the shower and notice the glass from the mirror is no longer on the floor.

“I cleaned it all up for you while you slept. I know how you hate messes,” Gemma says, leaning against the bathroom door frame with her arms crossed.

“Thanks,” is all I manage to say. She nods at me and follows my movement as I cross into my room.

“I am fine, Gemma. You don’t have to babysit me. I am good now.”

She rolls her eyes. “Really? Because I left you alone for five minutes and you completely trashed your room. I don’t think that qualifies as ‘
fine
’ Marlie.” She takes a deep breath and pinches the bridge of her nose with her fingers. “Look, I’m sorry. Watching you go through this is tearing me up inside. I feel completely helpless. The last time you went through this nothing I did or said seemed to help. I am scared for you, Marlie. I almost lost you last time.” Tears start to well in her eyes.

Looking away from her, I place my hands on the counter and drop my head. “Because there is nothing you can do. You just have to let me ride it out and figure out what to do. I promise not to leave you in the dark this time. Your being here is enough. Knowing that I have you around
does
help. I just need time to figure this shit out.”

“Okay, fair enough.” She walks up behind me and turns me around. She grabs me and hugs me and I hug her back. We stand there for the longest time in an embrace, saying nothing, but saying everything. Gemma is my rock, but even rocks can crack. I just hope it doesn’t get to that.

ELEVEN

Wes

T
HE SMELL OF BLOOD IS SOMETHING
I am used to by now. Right now, I am surrounded by it and covered in it. I have been sitting, tied up in this chair for three sunsets and two sunrises now. I can only tell the day because of the one small window in this fucking basement. My body is stiff from sitting in the same position for so long. Except, for when they kindly let me out to piss in the bucket over in the corner and eat two slices of bread, paired with a complimentary glass of brown water. Not to mention, they let me out for my daily session of torture. It doesn’t bother me, though. This, I am used to. No, what bothers me, is that I finally make a breakthrough with the only girl that has captured my sinful soul and I am stuck in this god damn basement with no way to get out.

Yet.

All I want to do is to talk to her; touch her, and protect her from whatever hell she has been put through. She tells me she has secrets. Well, I do too. And I am terrified that if I tell her, she’ll run.

I was walking to my car from my office and that’s when I was grabbed. I fought and fought really fucking hard, but the minute these guys realized I wasn’t someone to fuck with, another guy comes out of nowhere and sedates me. The next thing I know, I’m in some sort of dungeon getting whipped by chains and punched with fists once a day. It’s not the first time I have been caught off guard and taken, but usually they aren’t as prepared.
Fuckers
.

I have no idea where I am, who took me, or how many men are outside of this room. All I know is the men who take me out of here with a bag over my head once a day to beat the ever living shit out of me, know how to deliver some serious blows as I am hanging by my wrist on chains from the ceiling.

I will get out though. I always do. I haven’t quite figured out how yet, but I am sure it’ll involve this piece of the chair that I have managed to break off after hours and hours of picking at it, peeling the skin to my fingers down to the last layers; bleeding everywhere and completely feeling raw. Yeah, I just have to wait for the right opportunity to strike.

They don’t even ask me questions. I am assuming I pissed someone off. A lot. And this is payback for whoever I was paid to kill. The real question is… how did they find out? Not too many know about me and my specialties. I do run a very successful security business, though, this is what really gets me my kicks.

I go after slimy, dirty, no good, pricks that have it coming. I get paid to take out the bad guys. Sure, it’s most likely the rivalry of the scumbags that set up the hits and pay me to do it, but that isn’t any of my business. I do my research and make sure they are worthy enough to have a bullet put in the head by yours truly.

This is the secret that I keep from Marlie. I don’t fully understand her secrets. I know one of them involves her ex. That secret was written on her face the first time we spoke.

Man, just thinking about her gets me hard. Even in the state that I am in at the moment, my pal downstairs is rock hard for her. That woman was made for me. I can feel it. I want to be the man for her. I tried to stay away and failed miserably. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother. She would run if she knew the shit I do or have done. Just one look from her though and I don’t give a damn. I’ll take her for as long as I can have her. I will tell her about me when the time is right, but in order to do that, I have to figure out how the fuck I am going to get out of here.

Alone with my thoughts, the door opens. I am ready.
Come on motherfuckers, untie me
. All I have to do is grab this piece of chair I have shoved into the ass of my pants and stab them right into the neck.

“Miss me already, gentlemen?” I ask the two men that I have grown to know as dumb and dumber. Pretty sure whatever drugs they take to get them so big fried their brains. They tend to only know how to speak one word at a time.
Dumb motherfuckers
.

“Shut up,” Dumbass number one spits.

I pucker and smack my lips at him for that one. “Ah, come on, I thought you guys were starting to like me?” Yeah, my sarcasm might be what really pisses most people off. It’s that or when I kill people of importance to whomever; probably the latter.

They both glare at me as dumbass number one moves to untie me.
Perfect
. Dumbass number two points his Berretta at me with shaky hands. I think he might be new, which is good for me, since the chances of him shooting himself in the dick are a lot higher than him shooting and killing me. First try of course. Yeah, these Russian fuckers are going to die. I just hope my chances of getting out of here without running into too much trouble are decent.

Just as I am about to make my move, a loud bang echoes in the hall outside the room and in an instant, I am thrown to the ground and being held down firmly by my head with a dirty black boot. Fuck.

Before I can even think of my next move the guy holding me down, head explodes. Another shot and the second guy goes down as well. I move quickly getting up, grabbing the piece from my jeans and turn to attack the person who has attacked my attackers. I’m not about to be the third guy to get his head fucking blown off. I should be grateful that the men are dead, but in this world you can’t trust anyone to come in and save the day like that.

Just as I am about to spin around and make my move, I get the steel barrel of a gun stuck to the back of my head.

“Make a move and I’ll blow yours off next,” the voice behind the gun grits.

“Go ahead. Just remember I pay your bills asshole.”

I knew the voice before he even got the second word out. With a smile on my face, I step away and face the man with the gun.

“What the hell took you so long?”

“Oh, you know, just had a chat with a few men before I made my way down here.”

“Well, it’s good to see your ugly mug again.”

I give my cousin, Jesse, a side hug with a pat on the back. A very manly one.

Jesse is in both of the same businesses with me. Security and Hitman. He has always been right there with me. We are a team, a duo, and a force not to be fucked with.

He eyes me up and down, “You’re one to talk. You look like shit.”

“I feel it, man.”

With a sigh, I look myself over. Man, did they really do a number on me. I wish Jesse would have left Dumb and Dumber for me, since they are the dicks who have tortured me for the last two damn days.

Jesse has lived with me since he was three. I am two years older than him. He’s twenty-six and I am twenty-eight. His parents lost custody of him after a neighbor almost hit him with his car at three in the morning because he was out wandering the streets. The neighbor called the cops and when they showed up, his parents weren’t even home. They found his mom, my mother’s sister, in an area known for getting your fix. They found her damn near lifeless body strung out on heroin in an alley. His dad was picked up the night before for a domestic violence charge on his mother. Both of his parents were pieces of shit that didn’t even deserve him. My mother, better than my aunt, but not by much, took him in and we have been like brothers ever since. We don’t talk about his parents, or the fact that my mother didn’t want him. Hell, she didn’t even want me.

Maybe the way we grew up has had some sort of effect on the kind of life we live, but at the end of the day, we make our own choices. Yeah, we could probably quit the hitman side jobs and take the straight path and run our Security Company, but where’s the fun in that? The darkness in us craves the guns in our hands, the blood we shed, and the worthless lives we demolish. The way I see it, we do the world a favor. Police need warrants and prisons to get the scumbags off the street. That shit takes time, and sometimes doesn’t even work. What we do is one hundred percent effective. They die.

“Okay. I am pretty sure I got them all on the way down. But just in case, here.” He tosses me my Ruger MK III pistol with a 5 ½” bull barrel. I catch it with style. This is my prize possession. A lot of people, mostly men, have met the end of the barrel of this baby and for most, it was the last thing they ever saw.

I nod and we both make our way out. Exiting the room, we enter a long corridor lined with doors on each side every few feet. It’s all concrete and smells just as lovely as the room I was in. The few lights placed here and there are dim and flicker as we make our way. Stepping over a couple lifeless bodies, we make our way to a set of stairs. From there is a steel door leading to main level of a… house? Yep, a functional, normal looking house. As I move around to get a better look of the house that I have been held captive in, I notice a few pictures of an elderly couple on the mantle of the fireplace. I look out one of the windows and gather that we are in a suburban neighborhood. I have seen a lot of places like this lately. Normal house on the outside, with an almost normal appearance on the inside too. Until you find a trap door, hidden door, or a door like the one I just came through, that appears to lead to a basement, but is more of a torture chamber built for its victims. To the right is an upstairs which I am sure is just as normal looking as the main floor.

“You got the upstairs cleared?”

Jesse gives me a look of annoyance. “What do you think?”

I shrug as I hide my gun before we walk out the door. I take note of the address and lane that we are on. I’m not sure how much intel Jesse has on these guys, but I want to absorb as much as I can. “Where the hell are we?”

“Bennett.”

I nod and make my way to his classic 1968 Chevy Camaro Z/28. It’s fully restored with black exterior and black leather interior. He dedicates all of his free time to it. Well, that and screwing every female who so much as glances in his direction.