Her Striker by Charlene Raquel
Chapter Twenty-three
Agonizing, debilitating, terrifying pain lingered in Drew’s still trembling limbs. He tried to stop the quaking, but he didn’t have any control over his movements.
Drew’s last memory before waking, consisted of excruciating agony that radiated from the center of the scorpion sting, up his forearm and throughout his convulsing body. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious. It had to have been enough time for him to be moved by the members of the Scorpio Society.
It seems as if he had chosen correctly, although with how awful he was feeling, it could have been only a half dose or something equally insignificant.
He had been foolish to think that he could investigate the secret society, play along with their insane initiation rituals, and try to find his brother, Landon’s killers. Drew had no idea they were as cruel and maniacal as they turned out to be. He was lucky to be alive.
His arms had been tied to a heavy wooden chair in the middle of a medieval-looking dungeon before everything had gone dark. From what he could tell, he was outside on the ground. He could hear crickets and other nocturnal creatures making their presence known.
Cracking his eyelids open, he was thankful that he was surrounded by darkness. His head was pounding and the pressure behind his eyes was building. Hours had to have passed because nighttime had fallen and the only illumination he could see through the trees overhead was a sliver of a moon. They had dumped his prone and poisoned body into the woods.
His limbs felt as if they were weighed down, making even the slightest movement difficult. The scorpion sting had not only caused pain, tremors and a skull-crushing headache, it had also made each breath he attempted to inhale almost impossible. Drew tried not to panic, reminding himself to assess his situation. Freaking out would not help.
Why did they dump him in the woods? Did they think he had died from the scorpion sting? Did his heart stop and they needed to get rid of his body? He felt like shit, so anything was possible. Drew wondered if this was the same location the freshman girl who had died a couple of years ago had been found. The medical examiner’s original report had indicated that she had died from scorpion poison.
Pushing up on his elbows, he scanned the area. He was on some sort of trail, hopefully the one that Gwen and he jogged on each day. That was close to the university and his apartment.
Gwen. His heart constricted when his mind pictured his girlfriend. Girlfriend. The term made his heart ache. After years apart, he had just gotten her back; he couldn’t tolerate the thought of not seeing her beautiful smile again. She was probably so worried about him. Dean was most likely freaking out too. Were they looking for him?
Drew needed to figure out where he was and get back to his apartment. He just needed to gather the strength to move.
~*~*~
Gwen’s malicious, tyrannical father was glaring at her from across the elegant living room of a huge mansion that was surrounded by a stone wall and iron gates. The grounds she glimpsed through the windows were immaculately manicured and landscaped. It was the type of estate that even the area’s wealthy would envy.
She was completely alone and at her father’s mercy. Gwen had presumed she was free, but apparently, that was all an illusion. Nothing with her father was what it had seemed to be.
He had regrouped quicker than she had thought he would. It had only been a week since Drew and Dean had run him off after her father had attempted to hit her. Gwen was sure that Richard Mason had assumed withdrawing his financial support would make her crawl back to him begging him to continue to pay for her college education, but Dean had taken care of that for her.
He must have found out that his plan didn’t work. It was the only thing she could think of for why he would try to kidnap her. Richard was a control freak who would lash out whenever his tight grip on everyone around him was shaken, but to pull off a kidnapping was a bold move for even him. Something else must have happened.
Her father usually had long-range plans that he executed with meticulous accuracy. A spur of the moment kidnaping from the parking lot of her university was not his style. Someone else must be involved.
Now, staring at her father, she realized that there was no hope for a future reconciliation or even tolerating each other. He was a stranger and she had no idea what he had in store for her.
The man who had pulled her into the van had immediately tied a gag around her head and secured her hands behind her back. He had thrown her on the dirty floor of the vehicle to tie her ankles together, causing her to slide around as the van took turns at top speed. There hadn’t been any windows in the back, so she couldn’t tell where they had been going.
Gwen hadn’t seen anything they passed on the way and had no idea where she was. They had parked the van inside a huge, detached garage at the back of the mansion and two men roughly pulled her from the floor. The man who had kidnapped her had leaned down and thrown her over his shoulder, while the driver laughed. The pressure on her stomach nearly caused her to throw up all over his back and she had to concentrate on breathing through her nose with each jarring step he took. The driver of the van followed them, leering.
No amount of thrashing or useless screaming into the gag helped. She stopped when the man below her smacked her on the ass hard and told her that he enjoyed it when women struggled. Bile rose and tears brimmed her eyes. She was going to die at their hands or worse.
Moments later, they had passed through a kitchen that could have been featured in a magazine, down a short hall and into a formal entertaining room.
She had been dumped face down on a hard settee and thankfully left alone. As she attempted to flip herself over, she heard someone enter the room.
“Get up, you stupid girl.”
Gwen closed her eyes and stayed where she was. Her father’s booming voice gave her the chills. She should have known he was behind the kidnapping, but the little girl in her had not wanted to believe he was that evil.
Gwen glared at him, wondering if he would try to punch her in the face again. This time Drew wouldn’t be there to stop him. If the hatred in his eyes was any indication, he was probably planning to do something way worse than that.
She should have been more careful. Before her father had left, he had demanded that she give herself to one of his friends. He had warned her that he would get what he wanted. Apparently, he was attempting to do just that.
Mr. Mason stomped over to the settee, grabbed her arm and pulled her upright.
“Untie her, Lou.” Richard demanded.
The man who had gagged her glared at Richard. It was clear to Gwen that he had wanted to untie her, and have the opportunity to put his hands on her again.
Gwen shrunk back on the hard sofa as the driver of the van, Lou, came near her. She could hear her father laugh as Lou’s rough hands grazed areas of her body that were not anywhere near the ropes that were digging into her skin.
Once she was free, she took the gag away from her mouth. “What have you done? You kidnapped me! That’s illegal. You can go to jail for this!”
Richard Mason took two steps toward his daughter, pulled back his hand and smacked her across the face. “Do not speak to me that way! I demand respect.”
Gwen had landed on her side on the settee, the wind knocked out of her. She couldn’t keep arguing with him. He was so much bigger and stronger, and he could injure her so badly she would never be able to escape. She needed to be smart and figure out how to save herself.
Sitting up straight, she brushed her long blond hair from her face. Sometime during her captivity, she lost her hair tie, tennis bag and purse.
“Richard, I understand your need to teach your daughter a lesson, but I do not want her injured. I will not tolerate that.”
Gwen’s brown eyes found the man who had just spoken. He was leaning an elbow on the fireplace mantle and was watching her intently. He had not been the one who had grabbed her. She had not noticed the one standing by the hearth until his deep voice filled the room.
Richard glared, but settled his features. “My apologies, Dominic. She’s always been a disobedient, willful child.”
Her father turned to her. “You can scream as loud as you want. No one will hear you. The nearest neighbor is miles away and the staff here are paid an exorbitant amount of money to stay silent and ignore anything that happens within these walls.”
