Page 39 of Merciless Angel

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Zane shouted. “You are such an ungrateful bitch.”

He rolled me over onto my back, raising a fist. It smashed into my face, making my vision blur. I brought my tied hands up in a sad effort to protect myself. Nothing stopped him from hitting me again.

I laid there dazed, certain he would kill me. Zane dragged me up by my hair, making me screech in pain. He didn’t seem concerned about the noise, which meant there was nobody close enough to hear it.

“Get your ass back inside.” He shoved me through the cabin door, slamming it shut. “If you know what’s good for you, you won’t try that again. I don’t want to hurt you, Clover, but I will.”

“All you’ve done lately is hurt me,” I cried, my voice rising to an ear piercing pitch. “That’s not love, Zane. You don’t love me. You want to control me. That will never make me love you.”

With my head reeling from his blows, I’d had enough. Letting myself go dead weight like a toddler throwing a tantrum, I did my best to make it difficult for him to drag me up the stairs. Zane was a horrible, despicable person. The Angels would know I was missing. It wouldn’t take long for Raina to piece it together either. Eventually, they would discover this cabin. I had to believe that.

Zane shoved me back onto the bed and got busy securing me to the frame. This time he tied both my hands and feet to the frame. My hands were stretched above my head. There was nothing I could do to fend him off when he got on the bed next to me.

Smoothing my hair back from my battered face, he gazed down at me with crazy eyes. “You do love me, Clover. We were just fine before those fucking Angels came along. They won’t be able to manipulate you anymore. You’ll remember what we had. We were so good together. Don’t you remember?”

He ran a hand down the side of my face, down my chest to my stomach. I felt sick. His touch became increasingly sexual. There was no way to stop him. That didn’t keep me from cringing and squirming.

Zane leaned in to kiss me, and I turned my face away. That made him freeze. I braced for more violence.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded. “You don’t want me anymore? Were the Angels that much better than me? What did you do with them?”

Hell yeah, they were better than him. They’d owned my body in ways that no man ever had. They were forceful and demanding, making me do things I’d never thought I’d do. Their brand of crazy was intimidating and challenging, but they’d never hurt me the way Zane had. He was the kind of guy they went after. They would kill him for this.

“I’m not telling you a damn thing,” I hissed. “Let me go, Zane. People will be looking for me. You’ll go to jail for this. Or worse.”

Zane painfully clutched my breast as he kissed the side of my neck. “Think your new lovers are going to kill me? Maybe Raina and her mobster husbands will take me out. None of those people will find us, Clover. Nobody knows about this cabin. By the time anyone can find it, we’ll be long gone. I’ll take you far away from here. They’ll never see you again.”

He continued to kiss my neck while roughly crushing my breast in his hand. My body stiffened as I stared at the ceiling. He was wrong. They would find me. They had to.

When a few minutes passed without me reacting to his sick touch, he angrily got off the bed and stormed for the door. He paused on his way out to say, “You’ll belong to me, Clover, or you’ll belong to no one.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

DAIRE

The moment Clover hit the alarm on her bracelet, all three of our phones went off with the alert. She hadn’t been gone from our place long. I was in bed half asleep. Admittedly, I was tempted to ignore it. It was four in the morning, and I was tired as hell.

Blaze slammed my bedroom door open, destroying any chance of sleep. “Get up, dick. We have to go. Clover needs us.”

When we arrived at her dorm room using an illegally obtained keycard for the main door, we found it empty. Her bracelet had been removed and tossed on the floor.

“Fuck me.” Blaze kicked the bracelet, shoving a hand through his hair. “I knew I should’ve walked her up. I had a strange feeling, and I didn’t listen. It had to be Zane.”

“Of course it was Zane,” I said, snatching the bracelet up from the floor. “He must have seen her use this to call us. I knew we should have just stuck a tracking chip on her somewhere.”

Cash surveyed the scene. He nodded to the purse hanging from the desk chair. “She didn’t take her purse or phone. He definitely grabbed her. He took her to another location which means we probably don’t have much time.”

“You think he’s going to kill her?” I was doubtful. Zane didn’t want Clover dead. He wanted her for himself.

Cash gave a slow shake of his head. “No. He’s going to do something worse than that. I would if I were him.”

“We have to find her. Let’s go to his place.” Blaze was out the door and down the hall in a flash.

Cash and I followed, trying to keep up with Blaze as he sprinted down the stairs to the main floor. I slid Cash a sidelong glance. “I knew he was getting in too deep with this chick. Have you ever seen him run like this for any woman?”

“Nope. I don’t blame him though. There’s something about Clover. She’s special. Different.” Cash cocked his head to one side, thinking about it. “She has this innocent quality that tells you deep down she’s a good person. Way too good for any of us.”

“Jesus Christ. Don’t tell me that you’re smitten with her too.” I rolled my eyes. “We barely know her. Sure, her pussy is divine. She has the sexiest little moan I’ve ever heard but keep your head on straight. She’s a toy. A possession. Don’t get too attached.”