Death Layer (The Depraved Club) by Celia Loren, Colleen Masters Read Free Book Online Page A

find me!”
    “People disappear all the time.” Mr. King rips my purse from
my hands, turns his back and is walking toward the door. “You signed over
access to your social media and email accounts with your confidentiality
clause. I can keep your life going all over the world for months before anyone
grows suspicious. By then…well…let’s just say your future has changed.”
    What. The. Fuck.
    “No!” I explode. “NO! You can’t fucking leave me here!
Vincent! You son of a bitch!”
    My nails are clutching at something, anything, and I fasten
myself on Mr. King’s shirt. It rips in my hands and I’m like a drowning woman,
flailing, sinking. I grab at his belt, his legs.
    Mr. King whirls around and punches me in the face, dropping
me in a world of blinding pain. I’ve never been struck before and am in as much
shock as pain, my entire body shaking. By now the two bouncers have closed in
over us, separating us.
    “Let me go!” I scream, frantic, kicking and clawing.
    “Don’t damage my property,” Jack growls.
    Mr. King shoots him a withering look.
    “Look Clark,” he hisses at me, and I can see dark passion,
anger, rage, and frustration in his face. “This isn’t what I wanted but this is
not a game. These people do not fuck around, and you do not fuck around with
them. Jack owns you now. And you will cooperate with Jack, or I will personally
see to it that your little sister gets a bullet in the brain. Understand,
Clark?”
    Looking into those cold eyes, I believe him.
    “No,” I plead. “Don’t do this.”
    I thrash against the iron arms of the bouncers, but it’s
useless. They’ve probably got three hundred pounds on me all together. My
weight sags and my fury devolves into dry racking sobs that rattle my bones.
    “Vincent, don’t!”
    Mr. King turns and walks out of the room. As the door shuts
me in, I hear Jack laughing.
    “Welcome to the Death Layer, Red.”
    D.L.
    Death Layer.

 
    Chapter Six
     
     
    “Now, let’s see what we’ve got to work with here.” Jack is
chuckling low and dirty, and the enormous bouncers spin me around to face him.
“Open up.”
    Before my brain can decipher what he means, I find my arms
pinned in a vice-like grip by one bouncer as the other rips open my blouse.
    “Stop!” I scream, thrashing. I kick with my legs, trying to
find their insteps or balls but I can’t reach.
    “Feisty bitch,” laughs Jack. “We just wanna take a look,
Red. Don’t worry, we’ll save the touchy stuff for the Beast.”
    “Fuck you,” I spit. “You sick bastard.”
    The bouncer slaps me for that. Hard.
    “Enough, I don’t have all night.” Jack snaps his fingers and
the bouncer’s grip on my arms shifts, and now a thick bicep wraps around my
throat and squeezes. Sputtering and gasping, I realize he’s cut off my air
supply. Dots appear and dance in my vision. Tears form in my eyes as they
frantically lock gazes with the giant squeezing my throat. His expression is
blank, grim.
    I try to gasp the word, “Please,” but can’t make sound,
can’t even cough.
    I feel my blouse come off in shreds. The fly to my jeans
opens and I feel big fingers fumbling with the waistband.
    “Yup, she’s a natural alright,” someone laughs.
    “Let’s see,” Jack grunts. “Easy! Don’t kill her, jackass.”
    Air. Air. No air. The last thing I feel is the tug of my
pants being removed as the darkness takes me under.
     
     
     
    My eyes crack open a notch and I look up, but the view makes
me dizzy and confused. All I can see is a concrete floor disappearing under the
rhythmic stride of large feet. I’m swinging like a doll, face-to-face with the
backside of some beat-up leather pants.
    It takes me a minute to process that I’m slung over one of
the giant bouncer’s shoulders and that we’re walking down a long, dark hallway.
Jack and the other bouncer are behind us. I notice drains in the floor.
Drains…for draining what? The place looks like a bunker or