Page 1 of Lost to Thievery
Ava
Hell.
I never believed in it, but standing in the darkest pits of it could reform a person.
Our bedroom echoed my arrhythmic, shallow breaths. It was left completely barren, just like my insides. The rest of Grayson’s apartment in Willsbury City was just as desolate, just as devoid ofthem.
My complete and utterhell.
They left nothing behind.
Except for me.
I was the only reason the FBI milling about even knew they’d been here. My memories were the only thing tethering them to this place. There were no scuff marks from the bed, where he made me his, over and over again, and then whispered sweetnothings in my ear while we laid tangled in the bedsheets and each other. There was no proof of how he fucked me against every wall and window of this room, like each time was our last. There were no fingerprints on the wall, where he steadied himself while I worshipped him on my knees that last night.
Worshipping the devil.
His cold chuckle, as he shook his head at my naivety, echoed through my body.“This is not hell, Princess. Hell comes later.”
The memory burned through me, devouring the little I had left of myself.
You knew, Gray, didn’t you? Right then, you had already planned this hell for me, flat out taunted me with it.
And I’d been too much of a lovesick puppy to see it.
“We found something,” Agent Becket’s voice slipped through my bitterness. He pulled at the tips of his latex gloves, looking conflicted. The same expression he’d worn before he showed me the CCTV footage of Grayson’s betrayal.
I steeled myself as I stepped out of the bedroom, out of the haunting memories. “Show me,” I answered bravely.
“We found a basement room that seems to fit our bandits’ style,” Agent Becket explained as we made our way down some stairs and into the dark basement of the building. We walked past a few doors, some open to show an array of dusty, forgotten items. At the very end of the walkway, stood a few agents before a closed door.
My heart sank to the dirty floor as we neared it—my instincts already knowing what laid behind it.
Death.
Agent Becket paused with his hand on the silver doorknob. “Are you sure you’re up for it?”
I nodded, willing my legs to walk forward and not run back the way we came. As soon as I walked through the door, a sickeningfeeling settled in my chest. Pain. There was so much pain in this room.
Yet, everything looked spotless. Like a strange operating room in a hospital. On one side of the room was a weird-looking contraption, surrounded by steel tables. The contraption stood upright, but it could be laid flat as well. Five steel beams came together like a star, with a strap on each beam. Underneath it was a large pan with a drain on one end, flowing into a clear plastic bag.
“A torture room,” I realised breathlessly, my heart pounding in my throat.
Agent Becket nodded and gestured me over to a table in the far side of the room. Behind the table, strung up on the wall, was an eerily colourful birthday banner. But instead ofHappy Birthday, it was changed toHappy Deathday. On the table beneath it was an extravagant display, looking like a table decorated for a party. But the chosen décor made my stomach turn.
The centre piece was a cage with a single nightingale bird. And the cake topper was a tongue. A human tongue.
Fingers and toes were dished onto a silver platter, garnished with mint. There was a martini too, but instead of olives on the stick, it was two fleshy spheres.
“Testicles,” Agent Becket answered when he saw my confusion.
I gagged and quickly turned away from the table.
Another agent walked up to us, eyes on the display, unable to look away from it. “That’s definitely our victim. But we found no other traces of Anderson in here. This is not the place of death.”
“No, it is,” I answered turning back to the display, fighting not to hurl my guts out at the tongue Charles had stuck down my throat so many times, now a cake decoration.
The agent looked at me, puzzled. “But there’s not a trace of DNA in this room.”
