The Sacrifice: Chapter 65

I’m sitting in my room at the house of Lords when my cell rings. It’s a blocked number. Not unusual. The Lords always hide their identity. “This is Tyson,” I answer.

“I’ve got some information for you.”

I sit up straighter and turn off the TV so no distractions. “What’d you find out.”

“They’re married. Or at least were.”

“No.”

“Yep. Three weeks ago. To Luke Cabot.”

I’m not surprised. She’s nothing but a lying, vindictive bitch who will do whatever Daddy tells her to do. “Thanks, man.”

“Hey, Ty. I’d watch my back if I were you. Her father is trying to set you up for something.”

“I know.” When two families merge, especially powerful ones, there is always a big scene made about it. It might come a week later, but it comes nonetheless. That’s what we do. We show off our power, our wealth. Why hide the fact that Luke is her husband?

“He was never going to be married to you, Lake,” I say truthfully.

“Was he going to stand me up?” She frowns, not understanding. Why would she? Lake doesn’t know what kind of man Luke really is.

I grab the backpack Ryat brought and pull out the file, holding it to her.

She opens it up and gags when she sees the pictures. I reach out for her, but she takes a step back, eyes still on it. “What … this is her?” Her wide, watery eyes meet mine. “Tyson, this is the girl.”

I nod, following her as she walks to the pew closest to the doors and falls down into it. I stand in the aisle, bloody hands shoved into my jeans. “Who did this to her?” Tears fall down her cheeks. “W-hy?” Her voice cracks on the single word.

When I don’t answer, she looks up at me. Her eyes go to Luke who still sits tied to the chair at the front by the altar. “He did this?”

I don’t answer.

“Why would he do this to her?” She angrily wipes the tears from her eyes.

“Because she was at Blackout,” I say simply. Four women have gone missing over the last six months from Blackout. Only one had been reported. The others never will. They’re long gone. On a boat or on a plane. They’ve been sold to the highest bidder and will spend the rest of their life begging for death to come sooner rather than later.

“Bethany told me Frank blackmailed her into sending pictures of you, but she lied. It was Whitney.” She shakes her head, and I nod. “I found the pictures on Whitney’s phone. Your father said you would receive initiations on the phone he gave you, but that was a lie. He gave it to you to gain access inside of the club.” My wife is staring at the floor, unable to meet my stare at the fact she believed everything her told her. “Frank wanted to know what was going on, on the inside of Blackout because he knew that Luke and Miller were taking girls from my club.”

My eyes are on hers, and her head snaps up at those words.

“They wanted attention on Blackout. They wanted to frame me for the disappearance of all those women. They had tried before and failed.” Her brows pull together, confused by that, but I’m not going into detail right now. “They thought this time would be different, but their plan backfired because you forgot about the phone.” Her father didn’t gain anything from it. So, Whitney followed Lake around, took pictures, and then sent them to her, hoping to get a rise out of her, but again, it didn’t work as planned.

“He was targeting you?” my wife wonders, but before I can answer, she jumps up and runs down the aisle.

“Lake.” I follow after her, but she’s quick. The moment she reaches him, she knocks over his chair. He makes a gurgling sound of drool and blood as I pick her up with an arm around her waist, spinning us around. “Get him out of here,” I bark at Ryat who hasn’t left yet. “Put him downstairs in the basement. I’ll take care of him in a minute.” He deserves to suffer a little longer.

I set her down in the front pew, and her watery eyes meet mine.

“Was he targeting you because you married me?” she asks, licking her wet lips.

I sigh, running a hand down my unshaven face. Technically, her father started way before I married her, but that doesn’t matter right now.

“Why did he care that I married you if he wasn’t going to?” she wonders, her face scrunched with confusion and anger that she can’t understand it.

I can’t say the words. My tongue is all of a sudden heavy, my mouth dry. I wanted her to know how sick these people were, but now that I’ve found out what they had planned for her, I can’t do it.

“Tyson?” She snaps my name. “Why did he care…” Her voice trails off. “The honeymoon suite.” Her eyes search mine, and I keep my stare as blank as I can. “My brother said… Oh my God, were there cameras in there? If I wasn’t going to marry Luke, then why would there be cameras in there?” She nibbles on her bottom lip. She’s getting warmer. “Then Luke told me that I better pray I was pregnant. Because I’d finally know my worth. Whitney…” She chokes on her sister’s name. “You asked if she was going to sell me…” Her voice trails off, and her eyes meet mine. They fill with fresh tears before they spill over her bottom lashes and roll down her gorgeous face. “You saved me,” she whispers brokenly, her shoulders shaking.

I reach out and cup her tear-streaked face, and her chest heaves. “Take a deep breath, Lake.”

“Why?” she gasps.

I don’t know if she’s asking why I chose to hijack her wedding or why Luke was going to pretend to marry her only to sell her body, so I don’t answer. She covers her face with her hands, and I pull her into me, holding her tightly while she clings to my bloody clothes.

I wasn’t innocent. I married my wife for revenge. I always suspected Whitney was still alive, but I had no proof. But I never thought making Lake my wife would bring Whitney out of hiding. Or save Lake from a life of slavery.

They gave up one daughter to offer up the other. I wanted to rub it in their faces that Lake was a whore—my whore. I fucked her every chance I got, any way I wanted. She needed to crave me. Want me. Need me. It would only work if I trained her to serve me.

The collar I gave Lake was the very same collar that Luke had purchased for Whitney as her wedding gift. I saw it in her bag when she came over to see me at the house of Lords. When she pretended to love me. I was pretending too, but I wasn’t trying to set her up for something.

I made sure Lake wore it for the wedding, my not-so-subtle hint that I knew what they had done three years ago. Just another way to show off my bride.

Pulling away, she sniffs and wipes her face free of the tears. Her bloodshot eyes look up at me. “Can we go home?”

I give her a smile, pushing her dark hair back behind her ear. “I need to go talk to Ryat for a second. Will you be okay by yourself?” I’d offer to take her downstairs with me, but I don’t want her getting sick again. I’m not sure if that was the pregnancy, nerves, or the fact that she saw her dead sister. It could have been a combination of all three.

She nods. “Yeah.” And rubs her hands on her bare thighs.

I kiss her forehead. “I’ll only be a second, and then we’ll leave.”

LAIKYN

I sit in the front pew, staring at the chair knocked over by the Lords’ table and the blood that covers it and the floor. Tyson pulled out all of Luke’s teeth. One by one with a pair of pliers. I’m going to hear his screams every time I close my eyes for a while now.

But nothing will compare to the woman I saw mutilated and thrown into a grave. She was unrecognizable. But I knew it was her because I recognized the folder that Tyson had shown to Collin in his office the morning after he fucked me in the ass.

I can’t help but feel responsible for her. If I had said something to Collin the morning he showed up at Blackout with the other cop, maybe they could have found her and saved her in time. But who knows if he had a hand in the poor girl’s disappearance.

Would I have ended up like that if Tyson had not married me? Probably. I reach up and the loss of my collar makes my breath quicken. My sister had it on when the Spade brothers carried her out of here. I need something to replace it. It doesn’t have to shock me, but something to show the world that I belong to Tyson Crawford. I’m his Lady. The ring—that I’m still missing—isn’t enough. Wives wear a ring to show they’re married. I need something more. Our marriage isn’t traditional, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Not like I put up much of a fight anyway.

I wish I knew then what I know now. I would have let him put that collar, leash, and gag on me. I would have crawled down this long aisle, leaving a trail of my drool behind me to be his whore in front of my family just to piss them off. Embarrass them.

Tyson sacrificed his life for me—his future, his career. Everything. I could never give him that. I have nothing on that scale to offer. He even lost Blackout because of me. When will it end? When will I stop costing him his life? What he’s worked so hard for?

The sound of the double doors opening have me spinning my head around, but I don’t see anything there. I stand. “Hello?” I holler, my eyes searching the entrance.

The Cathedral is eerily quiet. Creepy when it’s empty. The stained glass windows howl from the wind outside. The old wood creaks. It’s cold, sending a chill down my spine.

“Tyson?” I call out, thinking that maybe he had to go outside for something. But still nothing. Wrapping my arms around myself, I walk over to the door that I know leads to the hallway and office. I’m not sure how to get to the basement, but I watched him go this way so it’s a start.

I turn the knob and open the door but quickly take a step back as I scream in surprise. “What are you doing here?” I ask, rushing out.

“Luke called me.” His dark eyes look around the Cathedral. “Where is he?” His eyes fall to the blood, and his jaw sharpens.

I take another step back, but it’s putting me farther away from the door, which is where I want to be.

“Where is he, Lake?” he snaps.

“I … I don’t know,” I stammer.

“You always were a shitty liar.” He reaches for me, and I jump out of the way, running around the Lords’ table, but he leaps onto it and jumps off, managing to grab my hair. Yanking my back to his front, I cry out, and he shoves me to the floor.

I glare up at him as he smirks down at me. “Why were you so mad when I was forced to marry Tyson when you knew the wedding to Luke wasn’t going to be real?” I’m so tired of not knowing the truth. Of having to guess and be way off.

He snorts. “It’s funny that you think anyone would want you, Lake.” He reaches for me again, and I kick out my foot, making contact with his knee. Grunting, he lunges for me and yanks me to my feet with a hand around my arm and pulls my back to his front.

“Because he was in on it.”

“Ty—” My brother slaps his hand over my mouth, spinning us both around to see my husband has joined us, gun drawn and pointed right at Miller. I want to cry in relief, but I have to try and take a calming breath through my nose.

“Let her go, Miller,” Tyson demands with his arms out, gun trained on my brother.

“God, isn’t this poetic.” Miller laughs. “You couldn’t save Whitney, and now here you are, not able to save your wife.”

Does my brother not know our sister is alive?

“Let. Her. Go.” Tyson’s voice is controlled, but I can see how tense he is from where Miller holds me hostage, and it makes me even more nervous. That my brother might be able to kill me.

“If you had just stayed the fuck away…”

“You know I couldn’t walk away. Not after what happened to Whitney.” Tyson shakes his head. “You had to know I’d take the only thing left.”

I flinch at how Tyson speaks of me. Like I’m nothing to him. But even I know that I started out that way, things have changed now.

“But you fell in love with her.” Miller snorts, ignoring Tyson. “God, you’re as pathetic as she is.” His fingers pinch my nose, and I kick my legs out, twisting in his grip, but he closes the distance between us and the Lords’ table. Smashing my body into the side of it, he limits my struggle.

My eyes grow heavy, my body betraying me.

“Miller—”

“You will not beat me!” my brother roars, interrupting my husband. I feel something being pushed into the side of my head. Tyson tosses his gun to the side, and it slides across the floor, then he lifts his hands in the air.

“You want me?” he shouts. “I’m right here.”

“You just had to take her from us,” my brother growls, his body vibrating against mine. My arms fall to my side while my chest heaves, desperate for air. “Gave your life up for her. How fucking pathetic.”

“I’m right fucking here!” Tyson is screaming, his words full of rage and desperation.

I blink, and it’s hard to open them.

He steps closer, and my brother steps back from the table, but I don’t have the strength to fight.

“Miller.” Tyson’s eyes are on mine. They’re large as he takes small steps closer to us. Needing to get to me. “Let her go.”

The pressure to my skull is released and then I feel it in my side, digging into my ribs.

“You want me? Do it!” Tyson screams. “Fucking do it. Shoot me, you son of a bitch.”

Tears well up in my eyes, and I beg him to stop, but no one can hear me.

My brother laughs. “I’d rather you know what it’s like to lose the only woman you’ve ever loved than die.”

My eyes fall shut as a calmness washes over me.

BANG.