His Debt of Five Hundred Million

Tessa's scream was ear-splitting. Blood gushed from between her fingers, staining her white dress.

"Bitch! You dare hit me?" she shrieked, her hair a tangled mess. "Get them! Kill these two nobodies!"

I raised the letter opener to strike again, but one of the thugs kicked me hard, sending me crashing into a clothing rack. The impact tore at my wound, and the pain nearly made me black out.

Wyatt threw himself over me protectively as another thug's rod came down, slicing a deep gash into his arm. Blood sprayed out, soaking his shirt.

"Wyatt!" I screamed.

Tessa pointed at us, screaming, "Shut them up! Break their bones! My husband is Julian Monroe! I can handle anything!"

The thugs closed in, their metal rods glinting. Wyatt stood firm, his voice trembling with rage. "The Monroe family, is it? Now it's war!"

Another rod struck, slashing open his back. He grunted, and his blood, hot and metallic, splattered onto me. A thug swung a chair, crashing it against the back of his head.

Wyatt collapsed on top of me, a dead weight. His blood blurred my vision, and my cries mixed with the shouts of the thugs.

"Wyatt! Wake up!" I sobbed.

A thug kicked me in the back, and I fell beside Wyatt, his blood smearing across my face.

When I came to, I was trapped in an abandoned cabin in the Catskill Mountains. My hands and feet were bound with coarse rope, and my mouth was sealed shut with duct tape, stifling my cries.

The cabin's musty air and chilling cold bit at my skin, which was crusted over with dried sweat and blood.

"Awake?" Tessa loomed over me, a triumphant smirk on her face. "Back in the day, a slut like you would've been stoned to death. It's a shame I couldn't finish you off myself."

I made a muffled sound, the tape over my mouth soaked with blood. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Wyatt lying nearby, his blood a dark stain on the floor.

"Wyatt!" I tried to scream, the tears freezing on my face as they fell.

"Don't cry," Tessa said with a laugh. "Julian called me. He's on his way to clean house."

She crouched down, looking at me like I was garbage. "What do you think he'll do when he finds out you hurt me? I bet he'll kill you just to make me happy."

She gestured to the thugs, who dragged in several cans of gasoline. "Let me warm you two up, so you don't turn into cold corpses."

Gasoline was splashed around us, the acrid smell and thick fumes choking me. I gagged on my own blood, the tape forcing the metallic tang back down my raw throat. I struggled desperately, but the ropes only tightened, the blood from the cuts on my wrists already growing tacky.

Just then, my phone rang. The screen lit up with Julian's name.

I glared at the phone, twisting my body to reach it. With my hands bound, I used my cheek to slide the screen, finally managing to answer the call.

"What's all the drama now?" he said, annoyed. "I told you I'd handle the wedding plans."

I wanted to scream at him, to tell him I was done, to save me now so we could be finished for good. But the tape reduced my words to muffled noises.

Tessa noticed, her face contorting. "Who are you talking to?"

She lunged for the phone, but I pressed it tightly to my chest, refusing to let go. The cold of the gasoline and the impending flames sent a shiver through me, and my eyelids grew heavy.

Fueled only by rage, I made garbled sounds into the phone, screaming in my mind, Julian, you'd better pray Wyatt and I make it out of this alive, or you're going to hell with Tessa!