Page 81 of Silver Sinner

"Value," I choke out through my tears. "What value? I-I'm a waitress. I have no money. I have nothing."

Pavel's cold, calculating laugh cuts through me like an ice knife. "Did you really think the nice man you were dating was just a friendly billionaire? Oh, that makes this all the more fucking funny."

"Doesn't it?" Trik bursts out laughing in my ear while I freeze on the spot, staring wide-eyed at Pavel.

He's talking about Pierce. How does he know about Pierce? Suddenly, the dark little voices in the back of my mind that rose up every time I questioned what I did or didn't know about Pierce rise tenfold, and my breath catches at the back of my throat.

"Pierce?" I croak out.

"A good man," Trik mocks. "A decent man. So decent that he gave you to us. How kind, don't you think?"

My heart stalls and it's like a punch to the chest. I hear what Trik is saying but it doesn't make sense. My confusion must have been visible, because Pavel rolls his eyes and grunts.

"Why not reunite them? I'm sure he'll be happy to see she's safe and sound with us." He can barely get the words out without a sneer, and Trik joins him in that cold, cruel laughter.

Then his hand takes me by the upper part of my arm, nails biting into the soft, fragile flesh below my armpit, and he drags me from the room. It takes all my effort to keep up pace with him as he drags me down a corridor, through two sets of doors, and then down a spiraling flight of cold, stone stairs into a creeping darkness. The lower we go, the colder the air becomes until we reach the bottom. As my feet slap on the stone floor, Trik thrusts me forward and releases me as he turns on the light.

Several lone lightbulbs above flicker to life, revealing a metal grating wall stretching from my left to my right. Inside, a man hangs suspended from the ceiling by his wrists. His arms strain out to the side, and he's held just high enough that his bare toes barely scrape the floor. He's naked, save for a scrap of fabric left from his boxers clinging to his hips. Blood trickles down both arms from his wrists, painting crimson along the snake tattoo that coils down his arm and rests at his shoulders. His entire torso is bruised and bleeding from several lacerations and holes, but one in particular near his waist seems to have bled the most, given the dried blood staining his thigh.

Oh my God.

"Pierce!" I throw myself forward, clanging into the rough parts that bite sharply into my palms when I wrap my hands around them. "Pierce!"

It's a horrifying sight. Pierce. The man I love. The man who has saved Maddie and me time and time again. The man who has shown me countless kindnesses hangs before me like an abused slab of meat. His thick, silver hair is matted with blood and there's barely even a hint that he's breathing.

Until he slowly, sluggishly, lifts his head.

His eyes are as vibrant as ever, even as his face twitches in pain. The moment they lock onto me, they widen.

My heart breaks and then Trik is against me, pushing me up against the bars with a gleeful yell.

"How does it feel?" he sneers in my ear. "You ran so far away from me, turned your back on the mafia, only to end up right back in bed with them."

31

PIERCE

Layla is here.

How is she here?

How is that even possible?

For a moment, the sight of her brings such a rush of blissful peace that I fear I've died. She's exactly who I would want to see at the end, and the thought of seeing her as I die is a much safer scenario than her being here for real.

Then, Trik presses up against her like he has any right to touch her, and reality crashes back around me. She's here. She's real. Layla stares at me with wide, tear-filled eyes, clutching the bars so tightly that all color fades from her knuckles. A fresh bruise radiates across her face, along with a painful shudder of disgust as Trik drapes against her and spits out the truth.

Oddly, Layla doesn't look that surprised. She stares at me as if Trik's words have confirmed something she already knew, but I can't decipher if such a look is good for me or not. My sluggish heart begins to race in my chest as Trik finally paces away from her and dances each step with glee.

"Shocking, right?" Trik sneers. "I spent all that money making you fuck off because lets face it, the last thing I needed was everyone to know that I'd fathered some bastard child of a whore. I hoped you'd use that money to shoot up in an alley somewhere and die, taking care of the problem. How easy that would have been."

Layla still doesn't move. She stands there, running her eyes over my body as if she's taking in every injury with the same pained expression I've seen on Moses so many times.

Moses.

I haven't seen him since I woke up here. Trik told me he died at the bar and they left his body there to rot. I can barely think about it without being consumed with rage and guilt, so I try not to.

"Lay—" I try to speak, but my throat is far too dry. Every movement hurts, every breath rattles the broken ribs in my chest, and I'm fairly certain Trik's vicious beating when I woke up definitely punctured or burst something inside me. A strange heat's been growing in my abdomen and it's not fading.