Her hazel eyes widened. I doubted she understood, but at least I'd said what I needed to. It would haunt me that I wasn't able to save her.
Turns out, I couldn't even save myself. Playing along with Lynx's games should've been easy-if it wasn't for the sins in my soul just waiting to strike me down. I couldn't afford to enter the darkness. I couldn't afford to slip-regardless if it meant life or death.
I wouldn't save my life by doing the one thing that would destroy it. Not when I'd planned on getting married tomorrow. Not when I'd had some small chance at getting into heaven.
Shoving the two idiots away from me, I stood. Facing Dante, I ignored the pain in my thigh, thankful at least that soon I wouldn't have to suffer the slick heat from the wound. "Enough. Let's get this over with."
Lynx clenched his jaw, his eyes tight with rage. "Fine, you fucking pussy. Let's move this conversation downstairs."
Four hours fifty-nine minutes.
My time had officially run out.
My eyes refused to open.
Every sense honed in on one particular pain. An excruciating agony in the back of my skull. Pounding, clanging, throbbing.
I groaned, needing to investigate the wound, needing to touch it-to try and alleviate the pain.
But I couldn't move.
Nothing obeyed.
Panic opened my eyes.
My vision was hazy, unfocused, especially in my right pupil. What the fuck happened?
"Ah, you've finally decided to stop sleeping away your final minutes, Mercer." Lynx appeared, but all I saw were his crimson shoes.
I frowned, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Blinking hard, I forced my eyesight to make sense of something that made no sense at all.
I'm upside down.
Clenching my stomach muscles, I arched upright, taking note of my bound and very naked body. Black ropes wrapped around my ankles, tethering me to the ceiling. The gunshot in my thigh looked awful and bloody. My arms were lassoed to my sides, coiled tightly with twine.
Hot lacing terror filled my heart. "Wh-what?" My swollen tongue couldn't form syllables. It felt as if I'd bitten it again. "Tell-"
Lynx laughed. "If you're trying to figure out how you came to be hanging in the same dungeon you were invited to enjoy an orgy in, then I can clarify." His hand struck out, stroking my chin almost tenderly. "I pushed you down the stairs. You hit your head pretty hard at the bottom. Smashed a tile." He tutted as if I'd ruined his entire decor. "However, passing out you gave us the great advantage of preparing you like this with no other issues or complications." He patted my cheek. "Thanks for that."
My chest rose and fell as adrenaline turned me from rational to drunk on the need to run or fight or both. I never took my eyes off Dante as he snapped his fingers, silently ordering two men to place a small table beside my head. On it rested a small towel and a row of buckets of water.
I gulped-not that it worked hanging upside down. The pressure of vertigo made the ache in my neck and residue unconsciousness scream for mercy.
In the distance hung a sex swing with ropes, pulleys, and a wall groaning with sexual torture equipment. The cold black tiles of the floor and the chains looping from the ceiling made it seem as if I'd stepped back in time. I'd woken in a nineteenth century torture chamber.
"You came for me, Q. You saved me from them."
My eyes snapped closed at the memory of finding Tess in Rio. Those conditions had been worse. If she survived that I could survive this.
"I offered a civilized way out of this, Mercer. You're an idiot for not taking it." Lynx came closer, running a fingertip down my chest, swirling around the upside down sparrows.
I stiffened. I wanted to tear his body to pieces. My blood was cold and ready for his death.
He held out his hand. One of his guards placed a baseball bat into his open grip.
Oh, fuck.
My stomach muscles clenched in preparation; my entire body locking down to protect vulnerable organs.
"I think we'll begin with a warm up-don't you?" The thwack of the bat wrenched a groan from my lips, echoing around the chamber.
I jerked in the chains, dangling like a punching bag. I tried to double over, but my weight kept me hanging, completely at his mercy.
"Tenderize you a bit. Be a good way to relieve tension." Lynx laughed. He hit me again on my lower belly, scarily close to my cock.
A cock that'd been sucked by a woman who wasn't Tess. It deserved to be punished.
Lynx twisted the handle, securing a better grip. He swung hard and fast, walloping me as if I were a homerun.
I cried out, groaning as something crunched inside. A rib. The sharp shooting pain compounded to all the rest-consuming my thoughts with agony. My ragged breathing turned short and shallow, working through the wash of darkness.