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  “You bastard,” she answered, her voice suddenly filled with conviction even while her body still trembled with terror.

  “I’m the bastard?” he asked, slightly appalled. “Nothing that I am planning will come close to you understanding what kind of pain, loss, and humiliation I have felt because of you. And you think I’m the bastard? If I can make you feel at least a fraction of what I’ve had to deal with, we might be even. Right now we’re not even close. So, if you think for one moment I’m going to renege on this, don’t bother. Change, now.” The way he trailed off on the last word made sure she understood there were promises better left unsaid if she didn’t follow.

  She hesitated for a moment, but began to change, managing somehow to put on the outfit underneath her clothes. Impressive, he thought to himself, and then she opened her mouth and the fury came back.

  “I don’t understand. What could I have possibly done to you that was so horrible that I don’t even remember but would cause you to want to do this to me?” She didn’t remember it? She didn’t remember it? He could feel the rage building underneath his cool exterior. That bitch put him behind bars and she didn’t even remember it. Apparently she was so high or doped up that she went through all the motions like it was a dream or something. No! She was a good actress; that was it. Clearly, she had to have been, or he would have never been in jail in the first place. No, he wouldn’t buy her sweet little performance. He would break her down.

  “Enough. Save your act for someone else. Up,” he commanded. She stood, hesitantly. “I know that you are probably trying to conjure up an escape plan. I know you are probably going to walk around this place and try to find a way to harm me so that you can escape. I am going to show you just how thoroughly I planned everything out. Follow me.”

  “Someone will come looking for me. What will you do then?” she retorted, lifting her chin in defiance.

  He laughed, a bitter sound coming from his throat. “Who? You think I don’t know you have no one? I planned this, Kat. You have no one in your life, and you were about to be evicted. I took care of that too. All your things have been boxed up and donated.”

  “My IDs? My credit cards? What little money I had?” she stated more than questioned.

  Mason shrugged. It didn’t matter to him and it shouldn’t have mattered to her anymore. “Gone.” He paused just long enough to let it all sink in. Kat no longer existed to the world, only to him. “Now, follow me,” he ground out. She did so without a word, but he saw the moment of disappointment that flashed in her eyes before she covered it up with a blank expression. She visibly straightened her back, either trying to prove to him or to herself that she would not be completely at his mercy. He admired that false bravado, but it didn’t mean he was going to tolerate it. It didn’t matter though, there was nothing she could do about her situation, and they both knew it.

  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 the
y 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 h
e 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!

  She wasn’t going to stand for this though. She needed to get out. And her gut told her that if she had any chance of leaving, she had to figure out how they were linked and what his past held in store for her. She went back to cleaning, terror forcing her to keep doing what he demanded, and then to bed for the night. But tomorrow she would have to put on her brave face and figure out a way to get Mr. Green-eyed Asshole to open up.

  Chapter 6

  Kat had thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep with everything that had happened, but surprisingly, her spent body won out over her racing thoughts. The next thing she knew, she woke up to a screeching sound that turned out to be an alarm clock. She hadn’t even remembered setting it before going to sleep. And Mr. Nameless hadn’t come home before she passed out. She remembered thinking she should just sleep through her time here and maybe he’d give up and let her go, seeing she was useless. Another part of her brain told her she didn’t want to see what would happen if she didn’t follow his rules. The logical part of her said she needed to get on the asshole’s good side to get him to reveal his secrets and use that against him to get the hell out. And that meant following his obnoxious rules.