"I have to say goodbye. I have to leave him a note. I have to-"

Knox grabbed her purse and tossed it on the counter. "You walk away with the clothes on your back. That's it."

"Let's go." Jude wrapped his arm around her, leading her to the door.

She turned, tearing out of his hold, and hugged Jones. "I love you. Tell Daddy I love him too. Take care of him, Jones." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Tell him I'm so very sorry."

Jessica took one last look around. "I feel ... numb ... lifeless ... dead."

"You'll be dead by morning." Knox led the way.

Jessica followed, resisting temptation to look back. She could never look back again.

Knight "Why suicide?"

Jillian looked at Knox, his eyes shut, jaw slack.

"It was the only way. Two unrelated murders would have raised too much suspicion. Suicide confirmed by a paid-off coroner was believable. Tragic, but believable." She coughed.

"Jesus, Jess ..." Luke homed in on the light splattering of blood that landed on her legs.

"My throat is raw. No ... no more talking."

She closed her eyes, swallowing the metallic taste back down. He said no more, at least not in the dungeon.

It didn't take long for her dreams to play. The closer she came to dying, the more vivid her dreams became. In her dreams he spoke to her with love. It was Jones standing guard over the most precious little baby cooing in a white crib. Luke's smile reached his ears. His lips mouthed, "I've never been so happy." The camera in her dream panned out, but the person standing on the other side of the crib wasn't Jessica. It was the completely put-together woman Jessica always knew he'd end up with, the one he deserved. Her hands were snow white, not a drop of blood had they ever taken from another human.

"Oh my ... this is not good."

"Jessica! G.o.ddammit! Stop it!"

Irene. Luke.

Her eyes fought to open. Her teeth chattered. Voices echoed. Jillian was tired or dead. "Is it over? Am I dead?" she whispered. She imagined a light. People talked about a light. Maybe there wasn't a light where she was going.

"There she is." Irene's f.u.c.ked-up face came to focus first. In her hands was an empty five-gallon bucket. "I fear we're losing you. Five gallons of ice water on your naked body and not so much as a flinch."

"Leave her the f.u.c.k alone."

"Luke ..."

"I'm here, baby."

"She's fine."

Knox.

"She's not fine."

"Baby?" Irene cackled. "I'm pretty sure once you decided to f.u.c.k your sister's physical therapist, you lost the right to call her baby. What was her name? Charlie?"

"Shut up, Irene."

She glared at Knox. "Tape his mouth shut. It's not his turn to speak."

The guy in the baseball cap placed duct tape over Knox's mouth. Knox gave him the you-will-die look. Jessica had seen it many times before.

"Now where were we? Oh yes, I think we were talking about Charlie."

Jillian met Luke's eyes. She hated the guilt in them.

"It just so happens ... I have some pictures of her." Irene opened one of three large envelopes that sat on the table. She held up a photo of a woman with dark chin-length hair and blue eyes. "She's quite attractive. Wouldn't you agree?"

Jillian stared at the photo, but didn't say anything.

"I asked you a question. Do you need incentive to answer?" Irene nodded at her sidekick.

He pulled out a long knife, but not just any knife. It was identical to the one Four used on Claire. He took a step toward Luke.

"She's stunning," Jillian answered, looking at Luke.

His face tensed with pain.

Irene gave the cutter a nod and he stepped away from Luke. "What about this one?" She held up a photo of Luke and Charlie holding hands while taking Jones for a walk. They were both smiling. "How does he look?

Jillian watched the guy with the knife. His hand squeezed the handle.

"Happy," Jillian said.

One rule: Luke lives.

"He does, doesn't he? How do you think he looks here?"

She held up a photo of Luke kissing Charlie by the pier, his hands tangled in her hair, hers fisting the back of his shirt.

"Answer me."

"Hungry."

Luke wouldn't look at her. It p.i.s.sed her off. He had no reason to feel guilty, but the look on his face fed Irene's desire to continue with her mind-f.u.c.k games.

"Hungry? I like that. I'd say from how far his tongue is in her mouth that he's starving. Were you starving, Dr. Jones? Did your mouth devour every inch of her body?"

"I didn't f.u.c.k her."

Irene nodded to cutter guy, but he didn't move toward Luke, he came at Jillian.

"No. No! Stop!" Luke's eyes widened, his body wriggling against the restraints.

Jillian looked only at Luke. She didn't flinch, not even a blink as the sharp tip of the knife pierced her skin on the swell of her breast. Blood oozed from the one-inch cut.

Luke squeezed his eyes shut, twisting his neck to the side. She needed him to stay focused on her. She needed him to know that she was okay, the pain was hers to take and if it meant saving him, she could take absolutely anything.

"Dr. Jones, clearly you're new to this game and not as experienced as Jessica-Jillian-whatever the h.e.l.l you want to call her. Let's review the rules: Don't speak unless spoken to. Answer only the question asked. And be honest." Irene tsked. "If you don't master the rules soon, I fear your baby won't last long. Understood?"

He nodded.

"I can't hear you."

The cutter stepped toward Jillian again.

"Yes."

"That's better. Now ... sadly I don't have any more photos of you and Charlie, but I do believe she flew out to Houston to be with you. Am I right?"

"Yes."

"Now you're getting the hang of it. Next question. I know my dear ex-husband spoiled your plans, but if my sources were correct, she was on her way to the hotel where you were staying. True?"

"Yes," he answered through gritted teeth.

"Were you two going to share a room?"

He did it again ... he diverted his eyes. Jillian silently begged him to not look away, to not give Irene anymore control.

"Yes."

"And were you going to f.u.c.k her?"

Tears filled his eyes.

Jillian didn't want him to answer, not for her, for him. She'd let them cut her ... forty-four times if necessary to take away Luke's pain.

"Look at her when you say it. It's the only way she'll know you're telling her the truth."

He met Jillian's eyes, a single tear rolled down his cheek. "Yes."

Irene faced Jillian. "How does that make you feel? And don't lie. I'll know if you're lying."

She searched Luke's eyes for something more than pain and regret, but that's all she could see. "Empathetic."

Silence settled over the room as Irene studied Jillian, her eyes narrowed, lips twisted. "I can see that."

She turned and grabbed the other two envelopes, one in each hand as if she couldn't decide which one to open next. "Knox, sweetie pie, you're next."

He grunted as the guy tore the tape from his mouth.

"I know you taught physical torture techniques used to acquire information from less-than-cooperative people, but I've never found them to be near as effective as psychological torture. Physical scars heal. Emotional ones don't. Wouldn't you agree, Dr. Jones?"

Luke glared at her.

"That's fine. Don't answer that now. We'll revisit it later." She opened the envelope. "I had some stills taken from the video footage of the private training session you had with Jessica after her kidnapping."

"Irene ..."

"Knox ..." She leveled him with a stern glare. "First Sunny and then Jessica. You could have just hit me, or cut me, or physically done anything to me and I would have recovered. Those wounds would have healed, but instead you treated me like a wh.o.r.e not worthy of your time, your attention, your love. And then you snuck around with a married woman. Do you know how humiliating that was for me? How torturous that was for me? And then this ..." she pulled out several large black and white photos and tossed them on the floor so everyone could see them.

Luke closed his eyes. Knox and Jillian did not. They were there. She wasn't showing them anything new.

"Sunny rejects you so ... what? You f.u.c.k her daughter. How did that work out for you? Oh, yeah ... you left on a gurney. And you ..." She shifted her attention to Jessica. "If he raped you, then why didn't you tell anyone? Is it because it wasn't rape? Is it because it was consensual? I watched the tape over and over and I saw what the two of you did to each other. I think you'd have a hard time convincing anyone that it wasn't some BDSM fetish the two of you have."

She bent down and grabbed one of the photos then fisted Luke's hair, jerking his head back until he opened his eyes. "See this? Count yourself lucky that you dodged this bullet. You just about married one sick b.i.t.c.h."

Jillian glared at Knox.

One rule: Luke lives.

She didn't want a single hair on his head injured and it infuriated her to see Knox sit there and allow Irene to touch Luke. She would have lunged at her, intent on further mangling her nose or sinking her teeth into Irene's carotid. Knox just sat there.

"This is upsetting. Wouldn't you agree, Dr. Jones? Could you really blame this man's wife-me-for completely losing it after seeing this video? Look at you. I can see it in your eyes. You want to f.u.c.king tear him apart. Does that make you a crazy person?"

"You blew up my house."

"SHUT UP! You cheated on me! I read the letters you wrote to Sunny. I saw this video." She shoved the photo in Knox's face. "You brought me to my knees. YOU made me crazy. You and f.u.c.king Edgar drugged me, thinking I just needed an antidepressant to achill out' about you and your G.o.dd.a.m.n wandering d.i.c.k! Then you sent me to a mental inst.i.tution for five. Long. Years. No visits, just divorce papers." She stepped back, her face taking on a blueish cast as she fumbled though the stuff on the table for her inhaler.

The man with the knife rested a hand on her shoulder. "I'm fine," she whispered after taking a puff. "I need some air." He helped her up the stairs, leaving photos of Knox raping Jessica scattered on the floor.

"If we make it out of here, I will kill you."

Knox chuckled at Luke's threat. "Get in line, buddy."

Chapter Thirty-Six.

Jackson's phone lit up. He was seconds away from raining h.e.l.l down on that s.h.i.thole of a house. After seeing Luke bound and escorted inside the night before, he decided to wait until morning for a text and go in if they didn't send one.

A, B, or C?

"f.u.c.king amateurs," he mumbled.