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PROLOGUE

WAS IT FINALLY over?

Could she dare to take a breath? To release some of the tension in her coiled, ready-for-battle yet exhausted muscles?

Not that any of her vigorous struggling, foul-mouthed screams, or hostile threats had s nabbed her in the parking lot of a Subway restaurant of all places, Chloe had been as helpless as a baby lamb One needle full of God knehat and sole in vain

The moment she’d woken, bound and stuck in the trunk of a car, she’d known she was in deep trouble Before she even had time to assess just how screwed she was, an itch had sprouted up on the tip of her nose With her arms secured behind her back, and unable to alleviate the probleed drive-nificant irritant be her biggest proble over what she currently felt any day of the week

A strangled laugh left her, causing her chest to lurch up and down in a painful spasht her back to the present and reony she’d endured in the hours since they dragged her from that car

Fifteen o, the fourhell had exited the dingy motel room they’d delivered her to, and all had been quiet ever since Well, if she discounted the incessant noise in her own head One of the men, a vile piece of shit in a filthy wife beater with a red bandana tied around his head, see leader Wasn’t too hard of a deduction to make Each time the action-movie wannabe opened his

They’d called him Lefty The way they used his name freely should have been a clue that she was in seriously hot water The first time she’d watched them scramble to complete his orders, she’d snickered Bunch of no-balled weaklings unable to do anything more than follow a Raave her so That snicker had won her a first taste of true, all-consu fear

Sure, she’d been afraid when they stuffed her in the back of her trunk—daht But after she let that tiny laugh escape, the very second it had tuhtmare come to life

Lefty’s grimy hand had closed around her throat in a move so quick her brain didn’t catch up until her air supply disappeared With her ared, and her mouth uselessly flapped open and closed In what felt like only a second, blackness had encroached in her peripheral vision The darkness had closed in until Lefty’s face was a pinpoint, and the rooan to fall limp, he’d slackened his hold She’d sucked in air like it ater for a parched man in the desert

For about forty-five seconds there, she’d been certain death was co for her But the torive-or-take hours had been full of enough trauma and terror to alter the entire course of her life

They’d planned to sell her Her! A twenty-seven-year-old redhead as too tall, and too vanilla to be desirable by anyNone of that seemed to matter to Lefty or his crew She knew because she’d tried every tactic she could druet them to release her

She’d told them she’d only slept with two men in her entire life

She’d told the

She’d told the them within hours A stretch, but what could it hurt to try? Besides her body, that is Each time she’d tried to manipulate them, she’d been hit with fists, a belt, or sometimes a boot

Despite her efforts, nothing had worked Hell, she’d been so desperate, she’d told theot her was the hter and a particularly brutal kick to her ribs Once, when one of the men had leaned in to whisper how they’d break her, hohen this was all said and done, she’d be so used up she’d be good for nothing but sucking and fucking, she’d bit him

His earlobe to be precise It was the only thing she could reach being tied to a chair and all

He hadn’t liked that one bit