“Hands on the mattress, spread your legs. Stay.”
“What are you—”
“And don’t fucking talk to me!”
I scramble to get into position, my heart beating wildly. When I see him head straight for the rack filled with his torture tools my stomach churns and I have to clench my mouth shut not to beg him. No pleading, or one of my brothers will lose a finger.
He unlocks the barred gate keeping it all in place and tears a whip with tails off its holder, then he comes at me with death in his gaze. I can barely breathe.
“I’ve had—” He breathes heavy. “A really shitty day.” He flicks his arm and fire hits my ass. I scream.
Salvatore’s breaths get heavier as his whip scorches my backside. I bury my face into the mattress, my screams getting hoarser until I can’t even produce a sound. It takes me several moments to realize he’s stopped. Grabbing my ass cheeks, spreading them, he pushes his rock-hard bulge to my pussy and grinds against it. His hands come around to my breasts, grabbing them tightly, pinching the nipples until they peak and shoot arrows of distress to between my legs. It’s as if he knows because a hand glides along my stomach and dips in, finding my clit. I fight it, I try, but resisting his skilled fingers is impossible. My pussy swells and opens to him as my heart slams harder in my chest. My skin burns hot, my thighs tremble, and when he pushes his fingers inside me, I can’t stop the throaty whimpers that erupt. I rock against him, lost in the whirlwind of pain and pleasure, and that’s when he stops and leans in close, his chest against my back.
“One day, Chloe. One day, you’ll yield to me with no protests left on your pretty lips.”
A cry rips its way through my chest because I know it will happen. He’ll break me, and I’ll give up all hope of freedom, of a life.
Every night, with whiskey on his breath, he hurts me. He ties me to a disgustingly indecent cross, my arms and legs spread, and makes my skin burn hotter than Hell. Palms, whips, canes. He doesn’t stop until my screams turn to whimpers of complete defeat. That’s when he puts his hand between my legs and caresses me until my pussy pulsates with a need for a release he never allows me. His pants bulge, but he never undresses.
I’ll make you beg for it, he said.
Never. Never. Never. I repeat it as a mantra, day and night, wet and swollen as I clench my thighs, lying on my side because my back is on fire.
Every morning he’s gentle, dragging his fingertips from my throat, down along my chest, circling and flicking my nipples until they peak, until I have to fight to keep my breathing under control, across my belly and then between my legs. He teases my clit with skills that have grown during our time together, as he has gotten to know my body. He’s naked, erect, there’s hunger in his gaze. My insides scream at me to give in, to beg him. Mount me! Fuck me, you fucking monster! I arch and sweat breaks out on my body as he holds me on the brink of release. I’m terrified of losing control. He has promised to hurt my brothers if I come, and he’ll only let me come the day I fall to my knees and plead with him to take me, fully and completely.
He has driven me into a near-constant state of arousal and as the days turn into weeks, my humiliation grows, because I want that cock so fucking bad. I’m empty and aching. His whips hurt, but the growing need for him to fill me is a new kind of torture I had never imagined.
I hate him so fucking much, and I ache for every patch of his skin.
Chapter 14
Luciano
My captive blossoms. She’s being fed. She’s clean and smells of peaches. She has sweet curves again, an ass I can grab, her breasts coming back to their mouthwatering selves. With her renewed energy, the delicious defiance has returned to her gaze, even though it’s gone as soon as she has pulled the shirt over her head. She plays games. She’s still plotting. My demise, I assume.
One late night the shirt stays on and I raise an eyebrow as I look her over. I’m just about to tell her to get the fuck out of it when she speaks.
“Salvatore.” She swallows so hard I hear it. “I need—” Chewing on her lip, she shuffles her feet and inhales raggedly.
“Get fucking to it. I’m not a patient man.”
“I need something to do. Please! My insides itch. I need music, books, I need to work out. I’m going crazy. I don’t know why I’m here, and I don’t even know how long I’ve been here—”
“Three months, four days and,” I glance at my wristwatch, “about nine hours.”
She gasps, and then tears well up in her eyes. “If you give me something to do, I’ll consider your proposal,” she blurts out.
‘Consider’. Bullshit. She tries, but she can’t hide the deceit in her voice. “It’s not a proposal. You will bend. Now get out of that fucking shirt and stand with your back to me.”
Chloe gives out a hoarse sob, then she grabs the hem of her shirt and pulls it over her head, throwing it before my feet. “I’ll never, ever give myself to you. You’ll have to rape me, over and over, and every time you do, you’ll hate yourself a little more. In the end your self-loathing will spill over on me and you’ll see me as the source in your fucked-up mind, and you’ll kill me.” She looks me straight in the eyes and there’s an unwelcome twinge in my chest at the dark desolation, and yet fiery determination in her otherwise so clear blue gaze. “And I’ll welcome death, Salvatore. I’ll never welcome you between my legs. The only thing I look forward to is the day you kill me.”
She looks away, presenting her battered backside. The swelling has abated during the day, but the bruises, in various shades, get new additions every night. A black haze of rage fills my mind, clenches around my soul and my whole being. I grab her upper arm in a vice grip and yank her with me to the other side of the room, toward the Saint Andrews cross, snapping the shackles into place. Wrists and ankles. I forget all about her pleasure, about my plan, about making her plead for me to take her. She pleads for me to kill her. I’ll show her death. I’ll fucking show her merciless pain.
My pulse roars in my head as I let loose the nine-tailed whip on her. She screams until her voice breaks, then she writhes and whimpers, but she doesn’t speak, doesn’t plead. When I break her skin, when fresh blood glistens on her battered back, I finally stop. We both breathe heavily. She hangs limp, unable to stand on her feet anymore. Her wrists are angry red and chafed.
“Fuck!” I roar and throw the whip across the room. I’m not turned on. Not in the least. I punished this girl the way I punish everyone who tries to fuck me over. Like I punished the doctor. Like I punish the people who cross me, the people who defy me.
My head spins as I stagger out of the room. With sweaty hands, I call Ivan. I have no idea what time it is. I didn’t check. I don’t care.
“Sir?” he says groggily, clearing his voice.
“Take care of the girl,” I growl.
“Take—Shoot her?”
“No. For fuck’s sake. Are you brain dead? She needs some fucking care. I-I can’t.”
“Yes, sir. Is she in your room?”
I sneer and disconnect, heading straight for the liquor cabinet. It feels as if my stomach content will make an appearance as I pour a tumbler full of whiskey and drain it. Then I refill, grab the bottle and escape to the now-empty bar at the other end of my mansion. The rooms are silent, these walls witnesses to parties, laughter, screams, and blood.
You’re a monster.
I’ve heard that so many times. I’ve always reveled in the epithet. Tonight, I am a monster. It’s not just a word. Tonight, I’ve become someone even I didn’t see coming.
I don’t go to her the next night. I fucking can’t. I can’t look her in the eyes. I’m sick, and she knows it. I don’t want to see her profound knowledge that something in me is broken beyond repair. I’ve shown her too much and she’s way too clever for her own good.
I bury myself in work. It’s business as usual. Day after day passes. Ivan gives me funny looks that I avoid, but the elephant in the room grows bigger with each passing moment.
&n
bsp; Finally, he breaks the silence. “Sir… the girl…”
“Give her something to do.”
A brief look of surprise crosses his features. “What do you mean?”
“Books, music, a TV. Let her fucking into my gym.”
His eyebrows shoot up but then he nods. “Is she to stay in your room?”
I push my fingers through my hair and spin the chair around, looking out into the garden. “Let her use the whole wing.”
He inhales. Exhales. “Yes, sir.”
“That’s all,” I say, my back still toward him.
Ivan doesn’t speak. The door falls closed and I squeeze my eyes shut. Maybe I should just grant her wish and do her in? I haven’t raped her. At least not what I’d consider rape. But her prediction is coming true anyway. Loathing builds in me, a darkness I haven’t felt since I was a child, since I lost both my parents in a senseless fucking work accident. A fire consuming the textile fabric, no escape routes, no repercussions for the management. I lost my sister Bianca too, only for a year, but to me it was an eternity. She was no more than fifteen when she went and married a ten-year older man. She’s always been calculating, always known what she wants out of life.
Jackie Russo turned out to be a really good person, a rock she could cling to. I ended up in the system. Five-year-old Luciano–a foster kid–hungry, dirty, abused, subject to leery hands between my legs, harsh slaps, belts across my back, words of disgust. I remember each and every one of the assaults.
Bianca saved me as soon as she could and took me in as if I was her kid, but the damage was done. I had closed off everything. I know I died there. In the hands of strangers. Not in flesh, but in soul. The sins I’ve committed since, the lives I’ve destroyed, it’s all on them, on the original monsters.
Obviously, I took my revenge. But torturing someone to their dying breath feels only fleetingly good. There’s no sense of completion after. No peace. There’s never peace. The war is never won, every victory temporary until the next disaster strikes.
And it always does. I’m on the road to Hell, one mayhem at a time, paving the path I travel with suffering and blood, with crushed hopes and bodies.
There’s never peace. There’s no escaping.
I should just kill her and get this over with. I’m worse of a fuck-up than I ever knew and there are exactly three people in the world who see this as clearly as I do in this moment.
Luciano Salvatore, Ivan Sokolov, and Chloe Becker.
I’m not doing Ivan in. He’s been my most loyal man for the last twenty years. I need him more than I care to admit.
But Chloe, she has got to go.
Chloe
My memories of that night are fuzzy when the sun shines, but in the dark night, in my dreams, they are mercilessly clear and I’ve woken up crying time and time again, my heart slamming against my ribcage, afraid to listen in the dark, to open my eyes and see if he has returned.
My entire backside was on fire. Everything hurt. Even my teeth hurt from my jaw having been clenched so hard. Tears, snot and saliva had wet my cheeks, my chin and my chest. It felt as if I’d been cut open. I had nothing left but a wish for death. Killing yourself isn’t easy when you’re shackled and I hoped I bled enough, that I’d bleed out and die.
Then Ivan came and carefully let me loose. I fell and he caught me, hauling me up over his shoulder, carrying me to bed. Neither of us spoke. We shared a profound knowledge that what Salvatore had done to me had passed a line that shouldn’t be crossed. But what was there to say on the matter?
The doctor came. For the first time I felt truly sorry for him. With my eyes squeezed shut, gritting my teeth to breathe through the pulsating waves of agony, I listened to the two men.
Ivan’s deep growl. “Give her something for the pain.”
The doctor’s stutter. “I-I don’t think I should. It didn’t go down well last time.”
“I’ll fucking beat you to a pulp if you don’t, you little weasel!”
Ivan’s roar made me flinch, and wrought sobs out of the doctor. Then a prick of a needle, and I soared. For a little while free of all shackles.
It’s been three days. Tall, blonde Rose returns. She washes me, changes the bandages.
Her fingers trace my shoulder, her touch lighter than a feather.
“You’re going to scar,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry he did this to you. You had such beautiful, smooth skin.”
The realization makes my stomach clench. I’ll forever see the signs of his brutality every time I look in the mirror. I’ll always be reminded. I bury my face in the pillow and mumble the eternal question that has no answer, “Why does he do this?”
Rose doesn’t answer. The answer is in the silence between us, the silence in this house. No one but the monster knows.
On the fourth day, it’s Ivan who comes instead of Rose. I greet him with a faint smile. It’s been a long time since I tensed up when I saw the bulky blond man. He’s carrying a large bag that he drops on the floor, then he disappears and returns with a giant TV that he rolls in on a bench with wheels. I cross my legs, perched in the middle of the bed, and take in this new development. A little seed of excitement tries to set root in my chest, but I quell it. I don’t dare to hope for anything.
He pushes it to the wall opposite the bed and fiddles with the cords before he drops two remotes by my feet. I look at them and then up at Ivan.
“He’s trying to say he’s sorry,” he mutters. “There are books.” He gestures toward the bag. “An iPad. Down the hallway to the left is a gym you can use. You’ll be free to move around this wing of the house.”
I inhale to speak, to ask questions my mind hasn’t even begun to process, but Ivan spins on his heels and disappears without closing the door.
Waiting a few breathless moments, I then jump off the bed, grimacing from the strain on my back. I dart to the bag and kneel, pulling open the zipper. Books! All genres imaginable. Classics, new to me authors. My heart speeds up before it sinks again.
Anyone who shows me kindness will be punished.
‘He’s trying to say he’s sorry.’
I sneer and at first, I don’t want to accept his gifts, but then the excitement takes over. An iPad. Headphones. Spotify! An iPad with Wi-Fi! Is he stupid? I try to connect with a browser, with my mail, but it doesn’t work. Fine, not stupid.
I don’t want to feel grateful. I don’t want to feel this sudden burst of happiness, but I do. My insides are as giddy as a child’s on Christmas day. I begin to sort everything in piles, then I snap up my head and look at the half-open door as I jump up. The only times I’ve walked that hallway I was either blinded by a hood over my head, or in such bad shape that everything was blurry anyway.
My feet remember the feeling of the soft carpet. There’s a pleasant scent of sandalwood lingering in the air and I follow it to a bathroom I vaguely remember. Opposite it are the dreaded stairs. I shudder but I already know I’ll take a peek down there as well at some point. Behind the next door is yet another bedroom with an adjacent bathroom. The scent of Salvatore is stronger here. The large bed is unmade and the sheets are crumpled. Is this where he has spent the last few nights? Is he ashamed? I think of the gifts. Is he? Is there a streak of humanity in there after all? I spin on my heels and dart out. My body is so conditioned to react to him that even after his cruel treatment my pussy tingles from the ghost of his presence.
Gritting my teeth against the humiliating onslaught of sensations, my back is burning hot from the memory of his whip, I flee his room and pull open the next door. My mouth falls open as I take it in. A fully equipped gym. From what I can see it has everything you need for every muscle group in the body. Oh, please don’t take this away from me!
Examining the next two rooms, just peeking inside, I find a room with a padded, pale blue gurney in the middle and white cabinets along the walls. It looks like a mix between a sick bay and a beauty parlor. I think I was here once. I remember kind hands on my body, a mumbling
man digging around in my mouth. The last door hides an office, looking much like the other I was in when I first got here.
Standing indecisively in the middle of the hallway, I then stare at the door on the far end. No doubt the exit. Assuming it’s locked, I still can’t help trying. I’m not even disappointed. Of course it’s locked. I turn and take in my new relative freedom. I don’t know what to do first. As I walk back to the bedroom, dragging my fingers along the wall, my mind spins, overwhelmed with all the new impressions.
I put on music. Just a random list of latest hits. I realize I don’t even know the latest releases. Not since a long while. I pull off the bandages, shower, rummage my own drawer for a new set of clothes, then I spend the rest of the day in front of the TV, hungry for news. There are political scandals I’ve never heard of. Celebrity divorces. Lots of news about the threat of a recession. Even more news about extreme weather, and of the latest mass shooting. It’s depressing and perhaps I haven’t even missed it. It’s also a shock to see that the world has kept turning without me. I wonder if anyone misses me. My friends? My brothers? I wonder where Kerry went and if she is safe from Christian. I’ve been so numb that I haven’t thought about the outside for a long while.
The next day I try some careful exercises in the gym. My wounds have scabbed, and it hurts surprisingly little.
Ivan comes by three times a day. I’m hungrier now that I move around more, and it’s as if he reads my mind.
“I’ll get you more to eat.”
“Thanks. Aren’t you tired of babysitting me?”
“You’re looking good,” he mumbles and turns.
“Ivan!” I take a step toward him, putting my hand on his rock-hard arm. “Is he coming back?”
Ivan shakes off my hand and pulls open the door.
“Please! Is he… tired of me?”
He freezes for a moment, then he strides down the hallway and disappears. I’m left with my questions, with my skin burning for the touch of a man who only knows how to torture me, and with the self-loathing that comes with the realization.
Capo Page 11
