Let Me Go (4 page)

Mason patted the wall beside the door. “All
the walls here are soundproof, so you can cry for help until
tomorrow and no one will hear you.”

He walked out the door and she followed him
into a large living room with two couches, a coffee table, and a
television hanging on the wall. It was sparse but tasteful.

“You will not be bound by handcuffs anymore
unless absolutely necessary. So by all means, make yourself at
home. Get used to the layout because this will be your home for the
foreseeable future.”

“Dining area to your left.” He motioned as
they walked by a small breakfast table adjacent to the kitchen.

He saw her eyes travel toward the window
overlooking the outside. “Don’t bother. The windows are soundproof
and bulletproof. You can’t see in from the outside, oh, and they
are bolted shut. You can’t break them, and they won’t ever open.
That goes for all the windows. There’s the office and my room.” He
gestured toward the two doors next to her room.

“You are staying here too?” she gasped.

“Of course. I’m going to be keeping an eye
on you,” he smirked. “There aren’t very many sharp objects around
the house, so don’t get any ideas. But even if you could find
something to harm me with, keep in mind you actually need me to get
out of here.” He turned to face her. She narrowed her eyes, but
didn’t ask.

“The only way out is through the door.” He
walked over to keypad next to it. “And you need a code to unlock
the door as well as my thumbprint. If you manage to somehow render
me unconscious and drag me across the room, you would still have to
lift me up so that my thumb reaches the scan. Which is not likely,”
he mumbled. “But you will still need the code which I obviously
won’t be giving to you. So don’t bother getting any ideas in your
head. I spent five years in prison figuring out every detail and
then a year putting everything in place. Oh,” he said almost as an
afterthought, “besides the fact that there are quite a number of
hidden security cameras running on real time and recording to
monitor you, I will be here most of the time. And when I’m not
available, I have a few friends that will be checking up on you for
me.”

His friends, ha
, he mused to himself.
Benny was not the kind of guy he would have been friends with six
years ago. He had been in prison for three years and was being
attacked by three guys who liked to taunt him with, “How does it
feel to be on the receiving end, pretty boy?” He never stopped
fighting, although it never worked. Not when it was always so many
against just one. He still managed to cause some damage and turn a
few guys away sometimes. But most of the time, he succumbed to the
violation of his body and mind, knowing there was nothing he could
do. But on that day, he heard someone call out to him after he took
a particularly hard punch to the face. “Hey Doc, is that you?”

He looked behind the guy who had just
clocked him and saw a man who would normally have made him nervous.
Before prison that is. Now no one made him nervous. This guy was
tall, well over six feet, and was so ripped he looked like he would
be part of a muscle man challenge. His head was shaved so it almost
looked like he was bald and his eyes were so dark, they were
practically black. Tattoos peeked out from under his shirt and one
crawled up the side of his neck. He couldn’t make out the design as
his eye was starting to swell shut, but he stared back at the guy’s
questioning eyes.

“Get out of here man, not your day,” the man
in front of Mason sneered.

“Touch him again and you’ll be answering to
me,” muscle man shot back.

“I think someone is itching for some
trouble,” one of the guys attacking him spat back.

“Yeah.” And suddenly three more men appeared
beside the muscle man. “And that guy,” he pointed toward Mason, “is
off limits from now on. Get me?”

Mason should have been scared. He felt like
he was someone’s turf and big, bad, and ugly were about to fight
over him with bigger, badder, and uglier. For some reason, the
tattoos on the muscle man intrigued him, almost like he had seen
them somewhere before. He watched the guys have a half-hearted
fight where muscle man and his guys won within moments.

“Hey, Doc. I’m Benny. This is John, Marco,
and Chain.” He pointed to the guys around him. “I couldn’t believe
it was you in here. A high, upstanding guy like yourself. What’d
you do, anyways?”

“I was accused of rape,” Mason stated
flatly.

“You? Nah. Don’t matter though. You saved my
life. Came into the ER a couple years back with three shots in me,
and I came out a few days later like nothing happened. You had my
back, so now I got yours.”

Mason’s mind had flashed back. The tattoos,
the muscled body. Benny was loosely related to a gang. He had been
shot multiple times by a rival gang member one night, and Mason
happened to be on ER duty that day. Funny how all the important
things in his life seemed to revolve around that damned ER. He
remembered him now.

“Benny.” He stood up. “Thanks.”

Nothing more needed to be said. And after
that, Benny and his guys watched over him. They became close over
the next two years. He ended up telling Benny everything that had
happened and his plans for revenge. Benny helped him work through
things, and when they both got out, they planned everything
together. Benny and his guys were now his friends. And he knew he
could count on them. They had a bond that Mason and his other
friends didn’t have. The minute Mason was in hot water, his old
friends bailed. Some stood by him for a while, saying they believed
he was innocent. But it was hard to stay friends with a guy that
was in jail for that many years. He kept in touch with only a few,
but Benny was his guy. He helped him put his plans into place and
get all the equipment he needed. He could count on him.

He shook his head to clear his memories from
his thoughts. “So Kat, you are stuck here and you are going to be
here for a while. You might as well get that through your head and
accept the situation. Go ahead and get your tears out now. I’ll be
nice and give you two minutes, and then you start work.”

She lifted her head in defiance and her eyes
bored into him. She wasn’t going to cry.
Interesting.

“Well then, I guess you can start.”

“Start what?” she asked.

“You are going to clean this place and I’m
going to watch.” He smiled a sinister smile.

“Clean? In this?” She stared wide-eyed at
him. “But everything is practically hanging out for you to
see.”

“That’s the point. I had no privacy for
years. I could be much crueler. You could be naked. Be glad this is
all I’m asking of you for now.”

“I practically am,” she muttered as she
reached for the supplies he had been pointing at when he told her
to start cleaning.

He got a view of her barely covered ass as
she bent down.
Hmm
. He decided this could actually be pretty
fun.
Who knew revenge could be so sweet.
Besides, he
figured, she probably had done unspeakable things for drugs before.
This was nothing. Why she flushed with embarrassment was beyond
him. It didn’t matter though. The other times were her choosing,
drug induced or not. Now, she was clean and appeared to have
changed, so this should do the trick…for now.

Chapter 5

Kat knew she
needed to figure out a way to get out, but how, she had no clue. It
seemed like her captor had everything planned
. But why?
She
couldn’t fathom what she had done that was so horrible to cause him
to go to such lengths. She had never met him before; she had never
worked with him. Besides, she was pretty damn sure she had never
intentionally hurt a fly, so she didn’t understand what was going
on. Now, much to her shock and embarrassment, she was parading
around in this tiny little getup, cleaning his damn house. On top
of that, she was pretty sure he was ogling her. She was completely
thrown off-guard. She should be scared he was going to molest or
rape her, but oddly she wasn’t afraid of that. That didn’t mean he
didn’t scare the crap out of her, but she figured if he really
wanted her in that way, he already had plenty of opportunity. But
if that bastard so much as looked at her in a leering way, she was
going to…going to…she didn’t know exactly what she was going to do.
If he really wanted her, there was no way she would be able to
overpower him. She had to get out of here.

She turned around after cleaning a shelf in
the living room to catch a glimpse of her captor. He was watching
the television and her at the same time. This was all so bizarre.
Her mind and body were still reeling from the shock of it that she
hadn’t completely processed what was going on. She couldn’t help
but think this was some kind of practical joke. Any minute now,
she’d wake up and realize this was all a nightmare. She wanted to
rage at him, tell him off, but her survival instincts told her it
was better to follow the rules than to tempt him. The fact that he
was watching her every movement also didn’t help alleviate the
fears and worries building inside her. She had to think; she had to
push every bad thought away and assess the situation.
What did
she know?
Other than his obvious distaste for her, his horrible
attitude, and the fact that she feared him, he hadn’t technically
done anything atrocious to her. Maybe he was a good guy underneath.
Yeah right, not likely.
Anyone who planned this sort of
revenge kidnapping was definitely not a good guy, but her confused
mind was determined to believe he wasn’t horrible. And if he was
decent somewhere under the tough exterior, maybe appealing to him
would persuade him to let her go.

“What is your name?” she asked in her
softest tone, trying desperately to seem sweet and innocent. Not
that she wasn’t naturally, but right now, frustration and fear were
clouding her cheery disposition.

He seemed to contemplate for a moment before
he shot up and approached her with a menacing tone.

“You damn well should know my name,” he
said, inches from her face, anger in his eyes.

“I…I’m sorry, I don’t,” she practically
stuttered as the fear she had pushed down previously had suddenly
surfaced.
Well, that hadn’t gone how she planned at all.
And
now, she had awakened the beast.

He took a step back, but the anger was still
in his eyes. “I have been easy on you today because I thought you
should get acquainted with your surroundings,” he started.
This
was easy? Ah hell, she wasn’t getting out.

“You will know my name either when you
remember it or I deem fit for you to know,” he answered her
previous question. “It appears I may have given you the impression
that we are friends and you can step out of line whenever you want
just because I have been nice to you today.”
Nice, yeah,
kidnapping, forced labor, yep, definitely nice.
She wished she
had the courage to throw that in his face, but instead she just
cowered as he continued.

“I think right now would be a good time to
set some ground rules. I’ve already told you that this is payback.
I should and could do a lot worse to you than what I’m doing,
considering the hell you put me through. But contrary to what you
believe, I’m not that cruel and vindictive. And damn, if I’m not
going to make you feel the shame I’ve had to feel, at least you
have earned it. As you can already tell, I like my place spotless,
and I mean spotless. You are going to clean my house every day. Top
to bottom, so get used to it. I also expect home cooked meals for
breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I am sure you know how to cook, but
if you don’t, learn. There are plenty of cookbooks in the office.
Starting tomorrow, you will have breakfast ready at six o’clock
sharp every morning. Unless I say so, you will eat only after I’m
done eating. You will do the laundry, make the beds, and ensure
this place stays in order. You can be assured that I will have
other tasks for you along the way. But this is a good start. Oh,”
he said almost as an afterthought, “and you will have the pleasure
of doing all this, every day, dressed as you are. You will wear
this outfit from the time you wake up until you go to sleep. And
you won’t be going to sleep until all the chores are done. If you
slip up, talk back, or decide to try something funny, be assured
that one, you won’t even get that far, and two, I will remove your
bedroom door. And if you slip up again after that, I will remove
the bathroom door. I hope you like your privacy enough to stay in
line. Finish cleaning and then you are dismissed for today. I’m
going out, but if the house isn’t clean when I get back, your
bedroom door will be coming down.” He slipped on his jacket while
she stood there, staring at him in shock.

He reached the door, turned, and a small
wicked smile was on his lips before he said, “Welcome to your
prison, Kat. Be thankful that it’s better than mine was.” And then
he punched some numbers and walked out the door, leaving her alone
in her own version of hell.

She blinked to fight the tears that were
threatening to fall down her cheeks. She promised she wouldn’t let
him see her cry and even though he wasn’t here, she didn’t know if
or when he’d return. In just twenty-four hours, she went from broke
and alone to being a fucking prisoner. She’d pick broke and alone
any day. She was going to be this man’s slave. She felt a shudder
run through her body before she allowed herself to go to the couch
to try and process all this.
What was wrong with this man? Who
had messed him up?
And she still didn’t know why in the world
he thought it had anything to do with her.

The only words communicated between them
were commands from him, but she couldn’t help but feel like he was
a walking contradiction. He kidnapped her and promised revenge and
humiliation. However, even when he made her shiver with fear, he
hadn’t threatened her with violence; he only promised her more
humiliation. She could swear she saw glimpses of compassion in his
eyes when she looked at him. But what the hell did she know, she
had known him for less than a day. And the sad part was how
gorgeous he was.
What a waste of beauty on such an ass.
If
she wasn’t so freaking afraid, she could have stared into those
deep green eyes all day, studied his chiseled jaw, and admired that
body that would put a Greek god to shame. She wanted to be
physically repulsed by him, but alas, that wasn’t going to happen.
It didn’t change her hatred of him.
Oh, God, how she hated
him.
He turned her into a freaking puppet he would control.
Even Seth wasn’t this bad – he was at least sneaky when he wanted
to control her. But this man, he oozed power and confidence. Kat
bet he could get anyone to do anything for him if he simply looked
at them with those steely green eyes so full of rage.
Goddamn
it, if only she wasn’t such a coward and could stand up to
him!