Filed to story: The LORDS Series Free PDF by Shantel Tessier
I look at my cell and see that it’s almost dead. I haven’t charged it the last couple of days.
Rolling out of bed, I decide I need a shower to try to get out of this funk that I’ve fallen into. Maybe I’ll feel better if I clean myself up.
An hour later, I stand in my bathroom, drying my hair, when I hear a sound. I shut the blow dryer off and lay it on my counter. “Mom?” I call out. After a few seconds of silence, I exit my bathroom and enter my adjoining bedroom. Walking over to my closed door, I twist the knob. “Mom-?”
It’s shoved open, hitting me so hard that it knocks me on my ass. “What the…?”
“Hi, sweetheart,” a man says, entering my room.
I know him. Miles Hopper. He’s a sophomore this year at Barrington University. I’ve seen him at the house of Lords. He’s a couple of years younger than Saint. “Get the fuck out of my room.” They’re not friends, so I’m not sure why the hell he’d be here. Unless my brother sent him. But I don’t remember Adam being close with him.
He reaches around into his back pocket and removes a zip tie. The smile he gives me makes my stomach sink. “Come on, baby. You love it when Saint ties you up and plays with you.”
I scream, trying to get to my feet, but he’s faster. Grabbing my hair, he yanks me over to the side of my bed and pins me to it. I try to push myself up, but it’s useless. He grabs both of my arms, his fingers digging into my skin as he yanks them behind my back and secures my wrists together tightly with the zip tie. Then he wraps his arm around my upper arms and drags me out of my room, down the stairs and to the living room. Letting me go, he shoves me forward. I trip, falling to my knees.
A set of black boots steps in front of me, and the tip of a knife on my chin forces me to look up at him. “Where is your brother?” Tyson Crawford demands.
I knew this would happen. It’s better that you don’t know. Adam said that to me when he told me he was leaving. “I’ll never tell you,” I say through gritted teeth.
He sighs, crouching down in front of me. His elbows rest on his thighs. “You understand I have to hurt you if you choose to protect him, right?” He runs the blade over my heaving chest.
“Do what you have to do,” I spit out, refusing to give in. I won’t die for a Lord, but my brother? I have to give him time to find answers. I don’t know what’s going on, but he was physically shaken up. I’d never seen my brother like that before.
Standing, he shakes his head. “What a waste.”
“You’re the waste.” I pull my lips back with a growl. “Doing whatever the Lords tell you to do. You’re nothing but a fucking puppet.” The Lords think they have power, but they don’t. It’s a joke. They do as they’re told when they are told to do it. I never understood how much they control them until I became Saint’s chosen. He’s always being called to Carnage. Or ordered to do something that he can’t tell me. And what he did to that woman…
Tyson throws his head back, laughing. “What’s that make your brother?”
“He had the balls to stand up for himself,” I snap, not really knowing what else to say. But the longer I keep him talking, the more time I have that he won’t kill me. “To get away from them.”
He smiles. “Why didn’t he take you and your mother with him?”
“He’ll come back for us when the time is right.” I lift my chin. I believed Adam when he said he’d be back. I’m just not sure when that’ll be.
Tyson steps over to my mom, lying on her stomach with her hands tied behind her back. She screams into the duct tape over her mouth when he grips her bleach-blond hair and jerks her up. He stabs her in the chest and yanks it out.
“MOM!” I scream, jumping up and rushing over to her body that lies on the floor.
But he steps in front of me, wrapping a hand around my neck, lifting my feet up off the floor. Our faces almost touching, he says, “Still want me to do whatever I have to do?” He arches a brow.
I’m sobbing, my body shaking in his hand as I look at my mother lying dead on our floor. Tyson loosens the grip on my neck, and I choke out, “I … don’t know anything.” Why would he think that I do? I’m no one. Just a woman in a man’s world. A fucking chosen that a Lord gets to use.
Miles enters the room, and he holds up my cell phone. “Let’s see if we can get him to come to us.”
Tyson tightens his hand on my throat once more, and I thrash in his hold as he chokes me. I try to fight, but there’s no use. My body is shutting down, betraying me. My eyes start to roll into my head, and he lets go, taking a step back. I fall to my knees, coughing and spit flying from my mouth, sobbing once again.
He moves to stand behind me and grips my hair, yanking my head back as Miles stands in front of me and holds up my phone. “Smile for the camera,” he tells me as I try to breathe through the sobs.
After capturing a picture, he types out a message while Tyson tugs me to my feet and drags me over to the couch, forcing me to sit. He sits down across from me on the coffee table and grips my chin. “You better hope he’s as loyal to you as you are to him.”
My cell rings, and my heart leaps in my chest. It’s going to die soon. “Blocked number,” Miles announces.
“That’s not a good start,” Tyson states, and my shoulders shake as I begin to rock back and forth.
Miles hits answer and places it on speakerphone. I hold my breath. “What the fuck?” Adam’s voice demands.
“Help me!” I cry, jumping to my feet.
Tyson leaps forward, shoving me onto my back on the couch, straddling my chest, and places a hand over my mouth. I scream into it as he pins my tied arms underneath me.
“Who the fuck is this?” Adam shouts. “What the fuck do you want?”
“You,” Tyson answers, but his eyes are on mine as tears run down the sides of my face. I arch my neck and back the best I can, trying to fight him off.
My brother goes silent as my muffled cries get louder.
“The Lords sent us to collect you,” Miles says. “Either you’re here in an hour or your sister is dead like your mother.” He hangs up the phone and turns it off, tossing it into the vase filled with red roses on the end table by the couch. I close my eyes, sobbing, knowing that they just destroyed any chance I had of surviving this. Now I can’t even try to call Saint to save me. I’m going to die here.
Tyson gets up off me and goes back to sitting on the coffee table. I slowly get up and try to stretch my tied arms behind my back.
“Don’t worry,” Miles begins, walking behind the couch. The sound of him cocking a gun makes me tremble. “If he doesn’t come to your rescue, we’ll show you mercy and make it quick.” He grips my hair, pulling my head back, and pushes the end of the barrel into my temple.
I’m gasping for breath. “Please … I didn’t do anything.” I swallow. I feel like the woman I watched at Carnage beg for her life in front of a group of men who did nothing to save her. But I have a feeling they won’t keep me alive like she probably is. I’ll be dead in a puddle of my own blood like my mother very soon.
Tyson gets up, and I try to do the same and run, but Miles has me by my hair, holding me in place. Tyson opens up a bag that they must have brought and then walks back toward me. He falls down onto the couch, straddling my legs, and I scream at the top of my lungs.
“Please…” I sob, trying to throw him off me, but Miles still has my hair, my arms are tied behind my back, and Tyson has my legs pinned down. I have no chance.
Tyson shoves a cloth into my mouth, silencing my cries for help and then rips off a piece of duct tape with his teeth and shoves it over my lips. My watery eyes meet his blue ones, trying to plead with him to let me go.
Saint can protect you. My brother lied. Saint can’t do anything to help me right now. But when he finds out I’ve been killed, he’ll do something alright. He’ll make sure these two pay for my death. At least that much I know.
Tyson gets up off me, and I try to calm my heavy breathing. I have to think this through. Try to figure out how the fuck to survive this.
Miles lets go of my hair, and I watch him out of the corner of my eye pull his cell out of his pocket. Tyson’s back faces us as he stands at the fireplace. It’s the only shot I have.
I jump up to my feet and make a run for it. Fucking bastards didn’t tie my ankles.
“Fuck!” Miles hisses, and my heart races as I head toward the hallway. “Goddammit,” he growls throwing me face down onto the floor next to my dead mother. “Fucking bitch.” He straddles my back, fists my hair, and yanks my head up off the marble floor.
My eyes find Tyson as I suck in a breath through my nose.
“I was going to make it quick,” Miles announces. I feel something cold against my neck, then a sting follows as he cuts me with the pocketknife. I close my eyes tightly as the warm blood runs down my skin. “Now I’m going to take my time. Split this little body of yours open one slice at a time. You’ll be begging for us to kill you soon.”
“Look at me,” Tyson commands.
I open my watery eyes, and he’s crouching down in front of me with his phone out, and I know he’s taking a picture. Probably to prove to whoever ordered the hit on my brother that I’m about to die because Adam is a coward. I’ve never hated him more than I do right now.
“Just a little something for us to jack off to later.” Miles laughs, and he reaches around with his free hand and pinches my nose.
I buck wildly as panic sets in that I can no longer breathe, and his laughter fills my ears.
SAINT
I’m shaking. My hands have a death grip on my cell while I look at the picture. It’s a close-up of a brunette.