OWN HER: A Dark Mafia Romance(126)

Sasha was certain to test him. That was a woman after my own heart, and that was probably what I liked about her so much.





Chapter 5




Sasha



Just like that, he was gone. The brief time I spent with Cole left me wanting more, but he’d left me in the care of his men. They quietly rotated watch over me in shifts. No one really said anything. They just came, sat for a while, and went. I was given water and food. I was allowed to use the bathroom by gunpoint with my wrists and ankles tied.



All the while, I wondered what Cole was cooking up in that deranged head of his. I kept waiting for him to come back in with the conviction that I wasn’t worth saving or protecting any longer. I expected him at all hours of the day. I wasn’t exactly disappointed that I wasn’t being treated the way so many others had been before more. I was more confused than anything. What had changed his mind about me, I wondered.



Days passed before I saw him again. I kept time the best way I could by the shift changes. There was no outside light. There were no windows in the basement. They didn’t have a clock on the wall. My guards would check their phones occasionally. A couple of them stayed on their phones the whole time, playing games and checking social media.



All of my guards looked pretty much the same, as if they had walked through the same mold to become members of Hell’s Overlords. They were all muscular with tattoos. They had different lengths of hair, ranging from shaved heads to shoulder length locks. They all wore plain t-shirts under their black leather vests. All wore blue jeans and boots. Their membership seemed to be as much a fashion statement as it was anything else. Any one of them would have gladly roughed me up, too, if Cole ordered it.



I counted four different men coming to see me. They each came by three or four times. I lost count. I figured this was going to be my new normal for the foreseeable future, so I settled in. I slept little, keeping an eye on the guys who visited me in Cole’s place. I knew I couldn’t trust anyone under his power. I didn’t try to initiate conversations with any of them. I knew where their loyalties had been placed, and I wasn’t about to try to undermine those.



Then, the door opened suddenly, and I expected another unceremonious changing of the guard. Instead of just another member of the Overlords, however, it was Cole, returning for me. I looked at him and couldn’t help the sly little smile spreading across my face.



“Have you finally decided how you want to handle me?” I taunted him.



“I have,” he said. He waved my guard away and closed the door behind him.



“So, what’s it going to be?” I continued. “Are you going to smack me around? Break my fingers one by one until I talk? Are you going to finish stripping me?”



“Nope.” He produced a knife from behind him, possibly from the waist of his jeans or his back pocket. I felt my body tingle with anticipation.



“You’re going to cut me? Make it quick. I don’t want to take up any more of your time,” I teased him.



“You won’t,” he said. He knelt down in front of me and put the knife to my ropes.



“What are you doing?” I asked him.



“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m setting you free,” he answered.



“Why in the world would you want to do that?” He was supposed to be torturing me and trying to get information out of me. He wasn’t supposed to be letting me go. This didn’t make any sense.



He didn’t say anything. He cut the ropes on my ankles. Then, he cut the ropes around my wrists and forearms. Then, he stepped around behind me and cut the ropes around the back of the chair. I lifted my arms and sat forward. I was free!



He grabbed my arm and guided me out of my chair as he walked back around in front of me.



“Tell me, did my men take care of you?” he asked.



“Within reason,” I told him. “I didn’t receive any special treatment, if that’s what you mean.”



“Did they hurt you? Did they say anything to you?” he asked, concerned. He almost sounded like he didn’t trust his men to do what he told them to. I thought about telling him they did, just to see what he would have done if he thought I’d been mistreated in anyway.



“No, they left me alone. They brought me food and water and even helped me to the bathroom,” I told him, not wanting to distress him anymore than he already seemed to be.



“Okay. I told them to leave you alone. We want to send you back to your boss unharmed,” he said.



“You’re letting me go?” I narrowed my eyes. I should have been happy to be getting set free, but I suspected he had something up his sleeve. Either he was going to have someone follow me back to Fang or he was sure Fang knew I’d been caught by now, so setting me loose would be like sending me into a trap.