Cut waved the blade in my face. “Rather interesting piece of equipment to have down your jeans, Nila.” Running the sharp edge over my collar, his face darkened. “Not only are you a troublemaker, but you’re also a thief.”

Placing the dirk down his own waistband, he smiled evilly. “I’ll remember that for future payments.”

Standing in a black bra and knickers, I squeezed my eyes. Nothing was going as I’d planned. Where was my courage—the belief that I would plunge that blade into his heart the moment I had the chance?

My chance was gone.

“Get rid of the bra,” Cut said. “Unless you want me to use the knife to help you.”

My hands flew between my shoulder blades, grabbing the clasp.

Bonnie coughed. “No, I think not. Keep your undergarments on.”

My eyes soared open.

“What?” Cut scowled.

She wrinkled her nose. “Seeing a naked gutter rat will ruin my appetite.”

Cut chuckled. “You have the strangest ideals, mother.”

She sniffed. “Excuse me if I prefer to enjoy my meal without being repulsed.” Swatting her cane at the chair again, she added, “Sit down. Shut up. And reflect on what you’ve done.”

Jasmine nudged me forward, playing the perfect role of enemy.

The cold tightened my skin, flurried my heart, and pinpricked my toes as I bent my knees and sat. I bit back a cry as thousands of nails kissed my butt and thighs.

My legs shook as I lowered myself slowly, doing my best to stay aloft and hovering over the sharp, stabbing needles.

“Stop fighting the inevitable, Nila.” Cut stepped behind the chair.

I tensed.

Then I screeched as he pushed on my shoulders, pressing me cruelly onto the nails. Pulling me back toward him, he wrapped an arm around my chest, hugging me from behind.

His breath wafted hot in my ear. “Hurts, doesn’t it? Feeling thousands of pins slowly sinking into your skin?”

I couldn’t concentrate on anything but the millions of tiny fires slowly worming their way through my flesh.

Bonnie stole my wrists, yanking my arms forward and pushing them against the spiked armrests. The entire chair bristled with armament and agony.

“Stop!” I fought her, but Jasmine took her grandmother’s place, forcing my arm against the nails and wrapping the leather cuffs around me.

She couldn’t make eye contact, fumbling with the buckle. “This isn’t to kill you, so the binds won’t be tight. It’s merely to keep you in place.”

Tears ran unbidden down my cheeks as every inch throbbed with pain and tension. I couldn’t relax—I kept every muscle locked, so I didn’t sink further onto the spikes.

“Don’t fight it, Nila.” Jasmine tested the cuffs before rolling away. “It’ll get easier.”

Easier?

Every inch of my skin smarted. My sense of touch went haywire, flicking from my back to forearms to calves to arse. It couldn’t distinguish which part hurt the most. I couldn’t tell if certain areas bled or pierced or if the nails were blunt with age and only tenderising instead of stabbing.

Either way, it was awful. As far as torture equipment went, I wanted off the chair immediately. I would take the First Debt again because at least the pain came in waves and was over quickly—this…it would strip my mind, throb by throb, until I was a quivering mess of agony.

Panting, I breathed through my nose. My scattered mind bounced like a wayward squash ball, not letting me tame my anxiety.

Cut chuckled as he dropped to his haunches before me. “The beginning is the easy part.” Rising, he pecked my cheek with a gentle kiss. “Just wait and see what’ll happen as the clocks tick onward.”

He looked at Bonnie. “How long did we say, mother?”

Bonnie checked a dainty gold watch around her wrist. “Elisa suffered two hours during dinner.”

Cut grinned. “Perfect. Make it three.”

I slammed back to the present, coughing with a rattling explosion. My fingers rubbed the healing scabs dotted like constellations down the back of my thighs, back, and arms. The sores had switched from blazing to itchy as my body healed, but the remnants of the nails had marked me far more than superficially.

Even now, days later, I still felt the numerous stings.

I fell asleep with phantom nails stabbing me and woke up hyperventilating, dreaming of being trapped in a coffin lanced with millions of needles.

Three hours in that chair had been the worst three hours of my life.

I supposed I should be honoured that they went out of their way to destroy me. I’d proven to be an anomaly, a challenge they hadn’t anticipated. I’d screwed up their grand plans and set in motion things that no one should have to endure.

And that was just the start.

That night, after the Iron Chair, I succumbed to a rattling flu.

I had no reserves. Barely eaten. Lacked sunlight and love.

Living with such evil and negativity stripped my immune system, shooting me straight into chills and body aches.

And there was no one to nurse me better.

Vaughn was banished from my sight. Jasmine was missing.

The rest became a blur as I’d huddled in a sweat-riddled bed and shivered.

My room never rose above a chill. I had no energy to start a fire, and even if I did, I’d been given no fresh wood to start one.

I was cold and hungry and desperately wanted to leave. I tried to remember what life was like before Hawksridge, before Jethro left, before my mother died. But I came up empty. All those happy memories were blank.