Claimed by My Father's Rival

Sloane's POV

"Don't drag them into this." I pressed my hand over his, stilling it where it still moved beneath my shirt, and forced a breath into my lungs. "I thought you meant to keep your word."

"That depends on how well you behave." Killian didn't stop.

Two knocks broke the moment. I nearly sagged with relief.

"Come in." Killian withdrew his hand from beneath my shirt, lingering a moment longer at my waist, thumb and forefinger giving one last, deliberate pinch.

Only once his warmth had fully left my skin did I dare breathe again.

A woman in a dark uniform entered, head bowed, shoulders drawn in on themselves. "Don, the room's ready. I'll take Miss Sloane there now."

"Go." Killian walked back to the sofa and sat.

The maid knelt and unlocked the shackles at my ankles, then gestured toward the door.

I forced myself upright and reached to straighten my soaked shirt - the bra clasp was beyond repair, the fabric bunched uselessly against my chest, impossible to smooth into any kind of dignity. I made myself walk to the door anyway. I would not let him see anything more than what he'd already taken.

The moment I stepped through the doorway, I understood exactly where I was.

An alloy corridor stretched out ahead, no end in sight, sterile as an operating room. Along both sides ran a row of one-way glass cells. I glanced back once - Killian was still seated where I'd left him, glass in hand, lost in some thought of his own.

The maid led the way, her pace unhurried enough that I couldn't help but see everything on either side of me.

In the cell to my left, a man in port-worker's overalls hung suspended by chains, his toes barely grazing the floor, his face swollen a deep, bruised purple.

Across from him, another man - reduced to nothing but skin over bone - huddled in a corner, staring at the floor with hollow, unseeing eyes.

Further on, a cell that had just finished its work: blood sprayed across the inside of the glass, a body slumped over a steel stool, flayed raw. A guard hosed the floor down, rinsing the blood away in thin red streams.

Nearly every room staged its own horror.

"You're the first one to walk out of a 'Box' without a mark on you," the maid said, a quick glance flicking toward me before dropping away again.

"Box?" I repeated the word. "You call these - these chambers of hell - boxes?"

"Yes, miss." Her voice dropped even lower. "It's the Don's word for them."

I walked on in silence.

I'd seen how my father punished his enemies and his traitors - pure savagery, violence with no shape to it, nothing but rage looking for a place to land. This was different. The clean corridor, the deliberate order of it all - this felt less like punishment and more like specimens laid out behind glass. That kind of clean, methodical cruelty chilled me far more than anything my father had ever done.

My steps faltered.

"How could she-" My hand flew to my mouth before I even registered the thought.

Through the glass, I recognized the woman inside - a federal prosecutor I'd seen countless times on the evening news, always composed, always sharp, carrying an authority that brooked no argument.

Yet here she was inside the interrogation room, her tailored suit cast aside, wearing nothing but a torn white shirt with lace panties hanging from one ankle. Several naked men were gang-raping her. One forced her head down, thrusting himself fully into her mouth as her saliva spilled onto the floor. Another held her by the waist, sneering as he drove brutally into her lower body. The others crowded around her, hands roaming freely, relentlessly tearing through her sensitive spots.

Multiple cameras and studio lights were set up nearby, recording every angle of the nightmare in agonizing clarity.

What unsettled me most wasn't the violence itself. It was her eyes. There was no fight left in them - only a kind of hollowed-out compliance, as if whatever had made her her had already been methodically taken apart.

I'd watched her on television just two days ago, delivering a verdict with absolute conviction.

The maid saw me stop and offered a quiet explanation. "Anyone who crosses the Don - death is the mercy. The Don says stripping someone like her of her pride is worth a thousand times more than simply killing her."

"He's insane." My stomach lurched violently. "An absolute monster."

I didn't look toward either side again. I kept my head down and followed the maid until we reached a door at the top floor.

It was a cage - an obscenely beautiful one. A massive, antique four-poster bed dominated the center of the room. Electric flames flickered in a fireplace nearby. Deep crimson drapes hung from the canopy all the way to the carpet. Four narrow, Gothic-arched windows had been sealed shut with steel plating - no sunlight would ever reach this room. Not even a breath of wind.

I turned to the maid. "I'm nobody. Why would he need a cage this reinforced just to hold me? Not even special forces could get out of a room like this."

She hesitated, her gaze sweeping the dim, opulent room before finally landing on my soaked shirt. She didn't answer my question - only said, quietly, "Miss Sloane, the door won't be locked. But I wouldn't recommend stepping outside it. This place is dangerous."

There was something like pity in her eyes. It was the only warmth I'd felt since walking into this hell.

Instinct made the decision for me before I could think it through.

I dropped to my knees on the heavy carpet and seized her hand. "Please. Help me."

"My mother is sick. My sister has no one else. I can't die here." I clung to her, begging.

Fear and something like anguish crossed her face. She tried to pull away; I held on tighter.

"Please. I'm only twenty. I've never hurt anyone."

Her eyes darted around the room, as if the walls themselves might be watching. Then she leaned in close and murmured, so quietly I almost missed it: "Tonight, three a.m. Wait here."

The instant the words left her mouth, she shoved me away, her voice rising sharply: "You'd best behave and give up on that idea."

She turned and walked out. The heavy wooden door swung shut behind her.

I sank to the carpet, the strength that had held me upright all night finally giving out. The electric fire cast a trembling orange light across the drapes - flickering, flickering.

If I could get out of here, I would take my mother and Mia and run to the ends of the earth.

If I could just get out.