All Chapters of BEAUTY AND THE BODYGUARD: DANGEROUS DESIRE BOOK 2: Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

ZADE'S POVThe pain was instant and brutal. It exploded through my ribs like a bomb going off. My whole body swung sideways from the force of it, the chains catching me and yanking on my shoulders at the same time. White-hot pain shot through my side and up into my chest. I gritted my teeth so hard I thought they might crack. I didn't make a sound. I refused to give him that.Viktor watched with that same satisfied look on his face."You always did have impressive endurance," he said. "I trained you well." He nodded to whoever was behind me. "Again."The second hit came lower, slamming into my ribs just under the first one. The sound was thick and wet, like something heavy hitting raw meat. Pain exploded through my side in a white-hot burst that stole the air from my lungs. I felt something give way inside me — a sharp crack that traveled up into my chest. My body jerked hard in the chains, swinging forward and then back, the metal cuffs biting deeper into my wrists as my full weight

NANCY'S POVI had been tied up in the dark for what felt like forever. The ropes had rubbed my wrists and ankles raw, the skin there hot and stinging every time I tried to shift. My shoulders burned with a deep, constant ache from being pulled back for so long, and my legs had gone numb in places, then prickled with sharp pins and needles when I moved even a little. The chair was hard and cold under me, the old wood pressing into my thighs through the thin dress. The air was thick and damp, smelling like wet stone and old wood that had never dried out, mixed with something sour and rotten underneath. It made every breath feel heavy in my chest, like the room itself was pressing down on me.My stomach twisted with hunger that came in waves, sharp and empty. My mouth was so dry my tongue stuck to the roof of it, and my head throbbed with a dull, sick pain that got worse when I moved. But none of that compared to the heavy, sick feeling in my chest. Every time I thought about the video V

Zade's POVI looked up at the chains.The links were thick and old. Real iron. The kind that had probably been hanging from that beam longer than I had been alive. In the dim light they looked almost black, slick with the same damp that coated everything in this cellar. Cold water dripped somewhere nearby, slow and steady, the sound loud in the quiet.I flexed my fingers.Slow at first. One at a time. Forcing blood back into the tips where the cuffs had been cutting off circulation for hours. The feeling that came back was bad. That sharp pins-and-needles burn of blood returning to tissue that had been starved of it. It got worse the more I flexed, almost too much to stand, then slowly eased into something closer to normal feeling. My fingers still felt thick and clumsy, but they worked.I kept flexing until I could feel all ten of them properly.Then I looked at the ceiling and started thinking.The hook the chain ran over sat in the center beam. The biggest beam, running the full wi

Zade's POVQuickly but controlled, staying close to the wall, keeping my footsteps as quiet as the stone allowed.I had the key from the first guard’s pocket and extra weapons and the knowledge that Viktor was somewhere in this building with his careful suit and his smiling cruelty.And Nancy was somewhere in this building in a room I had not found yet.I had caused everything that was happening to her.I had been the mechanism through which she ended up in this place.I had stood in that office with Viktor and said things I had meant at the time and which I could not take back.She had heard the recording.She knew.I moved through the corridor and thought about none of that.I could not afford to think about it yet.There was only one thing that mattered right now.One thing.Get to her.Everything else—the explanations, the things I needed to say that I still did not have words for—All of that came after.First I had to get to her.I pressed myself against the wall at the corner a

NANCY'S POVI ran.My bare feet hit the ground outside the building’s steel door and the night air slammed into me. It was warm and thick with the smell of damp earth and crushed green leaves, but it didn’t feel like freedom. It felt too big. Too open. After hours of cold stone and stale air my lungs burned with every breath and my heart was hammering so hard I thought it might crack my ribs.Behind me Zade’s voice cut through the dark.Then the gunfire started.I ran anyway.Because he told me to. Because even after the recording, even after everything I knew, my body still obeyed that voice. It had been trained to. For weeks I had learned the exact sound of it when it meant right now, no argument, move. That sound was in my ears now, pushing me forward even while the rest of me wanted to turn around and go back to him.The gate rose up ahead of me. Iron bars. A thick chain. A heavy padlock. The wall was old stone, high and solid. I hit it at a full run and grabbed the bars with both