Once chased. Now caught.
Two years after her brutal ordeal that almost ended her life, Rachel Sims returns home to Australia. For two years she's been in the Witness Protection Program, living with the trauma of her attack by vicious gangland leader, Vincent Salvatore. But just when she thinks she's safe, she's assaulted and kidnapped.
Cohen Morgan has done the one thing he swore he'd never do: commit a crime. Actually, he's committed several in a blink of an eye. His actions are a must if he wants to continue to infiltrate Melbourne's Underbelly. The woman he's abducted isn't the usual type wanted by the gang. And from the moment Cohen sees her knife and bullet wound scars, he knows she's different. She's a fighter. A victim. A survivor. And she could blow his entire undercover federal operation.
A basement with one door will hold Rachel captive.
A basement with two small windows will hold her screams.
A basement with three steps will be stained with her tears.
A basement with four walls will be painted with her blood.
And her torture will have Cohen questioning whether his badge is worth Rachel Sims' life.
PROLOGUE
SADIE
Two years ago
I can’t breathe.
Her arms desperately thrashed as Melbourne’s vicious underbelly boss held her face into the river. Sadie Harris felt it. The hand in her hair. The fingernails in her arm. Pushing her. Drowning her. Forcing her to inhale water. Every time she saw the black start to encroach her vision, he’d wrap her hair around his hand and yank her to the surface.
On instinct she gasped for it.
The air seemed heavy.
The air felt synthetic as it surged into her lungs.
Her chokes, she felt against her throat.
Her coughs added to the burn.
Then it hit her.
The water rose up, leaving an agonising cut along the way as she threw it up.
The tears, Sadie couldn’t help. The water torture Vincent Salvatore had unleashed on her was exactly that. Torture. Over and over again. More and more. He’d had her wishing for death.
Death would be so easy.
She screamed words telling him to do it. To kill her. Make it all go away. Stop the brutality. Words that seemed like the words to say. He’d already ran the knife throughout the length of her body. Knicks and stabs he had made.
Then Salvatore bent down.
And Sadie felt the delicious sensation of the cold barrel of his gun run along the side of her face.
Death was easy when it was in the hands of a mad man.
Len Webster is a romance-loving Melburnian with dreams of finding her version of ‘The One.’ But until that moment happens, she writes. Having just graduated with her BBusCom from Monash University, Len is now busy writing her next romance about how a boy met a girl, and how they fell completely and hopelessly in love.
