The Highest Bidder

❊ Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ Tʜɪʀᴛʏ﹣Sɪx ❊

• Enzo's POV •

When Thomas brought me a flash drive, I wasn't at all surprised to see what was on it. I was hesitant at first, but ultimately the look he shot me forced me into putting it into my laptop and clicking on the video.

I was glad that Sophia wasn't in the room to see it. For the past week since Eva had been taken, all she had been talking about was how I wasn't doing anything for her. How I wasn't trying to save her. What she didn't know was that I was waiting for this moment. The moment where Maverick showed me exactly where she was so that I could get her.

My guards and a few of my employees had been looking into Maverick's multiple estates and grounds, but ultimately we came up empty. I didn't know any of his aliases, or if he even had any. I had people looking into it, but they came up empty as well so far.

Thomas clicked the play button and took a step back.

Eva was sitting in a wooden stool, her neck and wrists shackled to the wall by a short chain. The only things she wore were thin black panties and a black cotton bra. I figured this to be the day she was taken, because Maverick's voice came through the speaker welcoming her back to reality.

"Fuck you." Her voice was barely audible.

I tightened my hands into fists when I saw what he was holding in his hand. It was a whip, but not just any whip. It was one that I only used once, but declined it every time afterward due to the sheer brutality of it. It was made up of leather, but if you hit a person a certain way with it, a metal hook on the bottom of the whip dug into the flesh.

He swung it up and then down across her thighs. She barely winced, but I saw the way her lip slid in between her teeth to keep herself from showing pain.

Thomas growled behind me.

He continued whipping her each time she cursed at him. And each time that whip came down onto her body, my own body went a little colder.

She was breathing heavily, I could see that much from the video.

Then he knelt down and held a knife to her collarbone. "You will show some respect, do I make myself clear?"

God, Eva just do what he says. I knew it was in the past and what happened in the video had already happened to her. I knew her mindset after the short time that she had spent inside my home. She wouldn't do what he said.

"Make me." She smiled a pained smile.

I closed my eyes when she began to cry out at the sudden burst of pain from the knife. It was like I could feel it too. I didn't want to watch her hurt anymore. But I needed to look for clues to see where she was. All I could see was the blood. I may be a trained torturer, but Maverick knew enough to leave someone on the brink of death. He didn't care about human life.

The tape fast-forwarded and he was standing before her, telling her that she wasn't going to be permitted to eat. But she could drink.

As long as she drank like a dog.

My jaw ached from how hard I was clenching my teeth. He threatened her not once...but twice. And that itself pissed me off. I couldn't imagine how Thomas was feeling watching it. He looked at her like the daughter he never had, and seeing her in that video being tortured was probably torturing him too.

I knew it was torturing me.

It fast-forwarded again to a more recent date. It was dated two days before I received the flash drive, so five days after she was taken.

She was curled up on the floor next to the water bucket. More bruises and cuts marred her body and she looked sick. Her body was pale and the only real sign of life was her shivering. She was thinner, even after those five days of not eating.

I wondered if she submitted yet and what she would look like in the next flash drive. I hoped that we would find her before that happened, but the tape wasn't giving any clues to her whereabouts. She was in a cellar. But that's all I knew. What cellar? Was she even in the state anymore?

Eva turned on the floor and I got a good look at her. What I saw almost threw me over the edge. I never lost my cool when it came to torture - I was the one doing the torturing half the time. But she should have never had to go through something like that. She should have been at my house with me. I should have protected her better.

Her eyes were swollen shut and her lip was split open. Dried blood and new blood covered her body. It looked as if Maverick hit her with a truck and just left her there to fend for herself.

Her lips twisted in pain and I saw tears streaming down her face, cleaning off a trail of her dried blood.

The video cut off and I covered my face with my hands. I should have fought Maverick when he was taking her from me. Anything was better than what she was going through in his hands. Death would have been better.

I wondered if she was even still alive.

"Are we going to find her," Thomas asked softly behind me.

"Give the video to Ron," I mumbled. "See if he can figure anything out from the video that I can't."

Truth be told, I couldn't take my eyes off of Eva through the entire thing. She was so broken and frail and I blamed myself. I should have brought my gun with me like I normally would have. But how was I to know that Maverick and her ex-boyfriend would be in that room?

Vince, was it?

"Also tell Ron to look into Vince's background." I raised my head. "She may be in one of his houses."

"Boss." Thomas put his hand on my shoulder. "None of this is your fault. She'll live through it. She's a fighter."

I let out a humorless laugh. "Yeah. She certainly is that."

I closed my eyes and allowed a picture of her to appear in my mind. Not the bloody and broken Eva on the video. But the Eva who would snap out sarcastic retorts without even thinking twice. The one whose smile played in my brain whenever I went to sleep at night.

The Eva who I had come to love.