Chapter 552

Nathan

The rough burlap sack was yanked off my head, and I blinked furiously against the sudden harsh glare of morning sunlight. My burning eyes took a moment to adjust after being plunged into darkness for so long.

Once the blur cleared from my eyes and I was finally able to make out my surroundings, I could see that we were outside now, in what looked like an abandoned quarry or maybe a construction site.

The air held a metallic tang of rust and earth as I turned in a slow circle, trying to get my bearings. Maybe I could pick out a landmark from here, some goal to keep in my sights when I made a run for it…

But there was nothing.

All around me stretched a vast, empty expanse of hard-packed dirt and gravel worn smooth by years of wind and weather. The only landmark was the looming tree line in the distance, effectively blocking us off from civilization.

In the movies, it always felt as if people were buried by criminals in the woods, or maybe out in the middle of the desert. But this… this was different.

No one would bother looking here, in an abandoned quarry that hadn’t been touched in decades. They wouldn’t think to look for my grave in an open expanse of land. Later, when they were sending drones and hounds out in search of me—if they even did as much as that—they’d search the forests, beneath trees, in the reeking water of bogs.

But not here. Never here. I would rot and decay right beneath their noses, and by the time they found my bones, the men who killed me would be long gone.

“Alright, enough gawking,” a gruff voice barked from behind me. “Get digging.”

I whirled around at the sound, my hands balling into fists as I caught sight of the two goons who had been assigned as my ‘escorts’. Both men leered at me with identical sadistic smirks from where they leaned against the van, taking obvious pleasure in my confusion and growing unease.

One of them—a towering, barrel-chested brute of a man—jabbed the barrel of his rifle towards a brand new shovel sticking out of the ground nearby. “You heard me, pretty boy. Pick that up and start putting in some real work for once.”

His cohort, a weaselly little man with beady dark eyes and a shaved head, snickered at the remark. I felt a white-hot surge of rage grip me. They were treating this like another day at the park, like watching a man dig his own grave was nothing more than free entertainment.

“Like hell,” I spat out, spitting on the ground at their feet. “You can kill me before I dig my own grave. I won’t do it—”

The larger man cut me off with a harsh bark of laughter, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “Sorry pal, but you’re fresh outta choices here.”

Before I could so much as blink, he'd closed the distance between us in two long strides. His beefy arm shot out, the butt of his rifle coming up to hit me directly in the gut.

I doubled over and fell to my knees with a strangled gasp, the sudden impact reminding me of the torture I had endured last night. I had to have had at least three cracked ribs, maybe more, and certainly some internal bleeding from the brutal beatings.

“The way I see it,” he growled, gripping a fistful of my hair in his meaty hand and forcing me to look up at him, “you’ve got two options. Start digging that hole like a good dog, and then we’ll put you down nice and easy. Or…”

He nodded his head toward the other man, who was still leaning against the van. “My buddy Ernie here can really make you suffer. He’ll make it nice and slow. Have you begging for the sweet release of death by the end of it.”

To punctuate his point, the other man shot me a cruel jeer and waved, even going so far as to bow mockingly.

For one wild, delirious moment, the thought of trying to make a run for it crossed my mind. My eyes flickered past them, toward the narrow gravel path that had led us here.

But I’d never make it. The expanse of land was too wide and open with nowhere to hide, no cover to avoid their bullets. And with my body battered and broken, too broken to even shift into my wolf form, I was useless.

“Fuck you,” was all I managed to hiss.

The man simply chuckled, shrugged, and took a half-step back, nodding his head toward his cohort. “Have it your way,” he said. “But trust me, you’re gonna wish you’d taken my generous offer.”

Ernie sneered, taking a step toward me. He cracked his knuckles, slipping a knife out of his pocket. “Last chance, boy-o.”

I knew, then, that it wasn’t worth it. These brutes certainly would make my last moments a living hell, and at this point, a bullet to the back of the head felt preferable to my pride. I struggled to my feet with a groan, ignoring the men’s jeers as I hobbled over to the shovel and began to dig.

As I began to work, I kept one name on my mind: Olivia. I hoped she was safe, that she hadn’t been harmed. Not that I had any way of knowing, of course. But part of me hoped that maybe, just maybe, that Ancient Wolf blood of hers gave her some insight on this whole ordeal and that she would have made a run for it.

That she would have gone home. To our children.

Within minutes, sweat drenched my brow and my ragged shirt clung to my back. My arms ached and trembled with the exertion as I fought against the unyielding soil inch by torturous inch. But still I kept at it, stoically ignoring the sadistic taunts and jeers coming from the men who watched me.

I don’t know how long I worked at the hard soil; eventually, I stopped counting time altogether and started counting pebbles. Each one moved was like another marker of my impending death, and still, I didn’t stop thinking of Olivia.

I thought about her beautiful round face, her hazel eyes, her golden hair. I thought about her skin, turned caramel in the summer when she couldn’t seem to get enough sunlight. I thought about her slender fingers turning the pages of a book. I thought about her soft lips pressed against mine.

Minutes faded into hours as the grave I was digging deepened, the walls going from knee to waist to chest height, and still I didn’t stop thinking of her or the twins. It was only when the sound of an approaching car caught my attention did I finally jerk my head up, my heart pounding in my chest.

Off in the distance, plumes of dust billowed up from the rutted dirt road leading to the worksite. Even the two men turned, rifles cocked, clearly not expecting visitors. Soon, another unmarked van emerged from the cloud, pulling up alongside the van that had carried me here.

I felt my heart sink as I watched. No saviors. Just more lackeys, maybe coming to watch the show.

My captors exchanged wry grins and headed over to greet the new arrivals, leaving me momentarily unattended. I hardly dared to breathe as the rear doors of the van creaked open and—to my horror—the limp form of a barefoot woman wearing a black evening gown was hauled roughly out and flung to the dirt.

I recognized her immediately despite the burlap sack covering her head.

It was Olivia.

A moment later, the passenger and driver’s side doors of the van opened and out stepped two more familiar figures: Dan and Montgomery.

“Still digging, eh?” Dan asked, his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his trousers; he had changed out of his formal attire. He had likely had a good night’s sleep, too, the bastard.

My guards nodded. “Good,” Montgomery said, not even deigning to look in my direction. “She can join him.”

I watched, helpless, as Dan gave Olivia’s still body a disdainful nudge with the toe of his boot. “Wake up, bitch.”

Olivia stirred feebly. A wave of overwhelming relief and joy crashed over me, but it was quickly dampened as Dan stooped to snatch her by the arm and haul her upright. He then hauled her over to the edge of the grave, her bare feet dragging and slicing on the gravelly ground, before he unceremoniously ripped the sack off of her head to reveal her wild hair and terrified eyes.

“Wakey wakey, little mouse.”

Before Olivia could even collect her bearings, Dan sent her into the half-dug grave with a swift kick to the backs of her knees. She yelped and came tumbling down, and I only just barely managed to catch her. Together, we fell into a heap in the hard earth.

“Liv,” I whispered, brushing the hair out of her face. “Are you hurt? Did they—”

But I didn’t finish. Before either of us could even come to our senses, a tall, thin form slowly strode up to the edge of the grave and blotted out the sun. Montgomery stood over us, hands casually in his pockets.

“Perfect,” he said, his expression blackened by the shadow that had taken over his features. “There’s just enough room for two.”