Quintessentially Q (Monsters in the Dark #2)(45)

No.

I wrenched my face out of his iron grip, glaring. “I’ll give you a million dollars to release me. Give me access to a phone and the money can be in your account tonight.”

And then Q will rip your intestines from your stomach and burn you alive, you bastard.

He stood, smoothing his black shirt and jeans. “You’re a fighter to the end. I respect that. But the next time I see you, if you speak back, you’ll regret it.”

I had every intention of fighting back. I would make them hurt me. I would never be responsible for another woman’s spiral into madness.

“You’re worth more than dollar signs now, girl. Better get used to taking orders.”

He pushed the plate of food toward me before striding toward the door. “Enjoy your last meal as a free woman. Tomorrow you belong to me, and you’ll have a full day’s work ahead of you.”

The door slammed behind him, resonating in my barren cell. The fever roared in my blood, making me weak and terrified.

I was no longer merchandise. I was an employee.





I can’t contain him, you set me free. This isn’t a role I play, the monster is me…



“Anything?” I demanded as Frederick hung up the phone.

“Nothing. He says he’s been banned from their operation for months, ever since he won a knife fight and killed one of the Wolverine’s guards.”

I stared at the ceiling, struggling with my anger. The rage bubbled in my blood, never granting peace. All I wanted to do was tear through the globe and kill anyone who stood in my way. I wanted goddamn answers. I wanted a victim I could string up and torture names from. But nothing.

Fucking nothing in two long days.

Two long f*cking days where I turned my entire book of contacts upside down, and nothing. I harassed, I cursed, I pleaded, I threatened. Every single trafficker, every single man I’d ever accepted a bribe from and not one of them knew a f*cking thing.

Tess had vanished. No one knew anything. No one would talk.

“Try harder, Roux. We’re running out of time.”

Frederick scowled, tapping the phone in his hand. “I know you won’t rest until you find her, man, but you’ve been awake for forty-eight hours. You barely survived a migraine that kicked your ass, and your blood pressure is through the roof.”

I stopped rifling through some old transaction files. I wanted to rip his f*cking head off for suggesting I sleep. As if that was an option when Tess could be God knows where, dealing with f*ck knows what. “I’m not wasting energy telling you to piss off, Roux.” I waved angrily. “Go and help Franco. Be useful or leave. I have shit to do.”

I didn’t have time for anything but searching. I ran purely on vengeance and the need to kill.

I’d never had people in this space before, but now I didn’t give a shit about having a private zone. All I cared about was finding Tess.

If it meant I had to demolish every building I owned to do so, then so be it.

Standing abruptly, I grabbed the stack of files from my desk and strode into the bedroom.

For two days I hadn’t left my office. The rooms were a mess with strewn paper and scribbled notes. I had a small army of people in the lounge, overseen by Franco. The moment we looked at the security footage and saw how two black-haired men bypassed the coding on the lift, we knew it had to be a trafficker with money. They’d had the password—only someone with a substantial bank balance and knowledge of how I worked could figure it out—or buy it.

They strolled in, bold as f*cking day, and took an unconscious Tess to the basement level where another accomplice had been waiting.

The only people who had security clearance on my private lift were head of cleaning and head of building security. Both were being interrogated right now. I didn’t f*cking go to all the trouble to keep my office out of bounds for the fail safes not to protect it.

And the bitch was, I knew who would’ve bribed or tortured to get the passkey, but I daren’t move until I had proof Tess was there. If I was wrong the entire company would come crashing down. The real kicker was I didn’t care about the company, but I did care about the women who hid in its protection.

“Fuck.”

I slapped my cheeks, trying to stay alert. It was hard fighting through the sludge. The residual brain-crushing pain of my migraine had stolen more from me than just coherent thought and vision.

It stole time.

For twelve hours, I was useless. Finding Tess’s hair ripped out on the bathroom floor with the syringe had been the final bullet, and I’d blacked out.

My body had reached its limit—turns out I wasn’t invincible after all—and if it hadn’t been for Frederick, I would’ve lost the plot entirely. I vibrated with loathing; I ached with the strength of a thousand beasts to cover my hands in blood.

I needed to make the cocksuckers pay; I’d never rest until I did. But the headache cursed me to be a useless invalid, hogtying me to a long-suffering sentence.

I physically hit a f*cking wall. And it gutted me.

Frederick organised the team to help search. He ordered Franco to arrange his top men to leave at a moment’s notice. He made a thousand calls, sent a hundred emails, all the while I lay dead in the dark.

My vision completely deserted me, and I was sensible enough to know I was a hindrance, not a help. But it still f*cking hurt to stay out of their way, concentrating on myself rather than Tess. It was wrong, and I cursed the weakness in my blood.