Sotza turned his back to the room and took his jacket off. She watched the play of muscles beneath his shirt as he moved, rolling first one sleeve up his strong, corded arm, and then the other. When this was done, he opened a drawer in the desk tucked into the corner. He pulled a knife from the depths, unsheathed it and held it up to the light so he could look it over. Then he turned.
Vee nearly cried out at the look on his face. It was ecstasy. Pure and complete sadistic ecstasy. He was enjoying himself, looking forward to what he was about to do. The look of death that she’d learned to associate with men like him had disappeared, leaving in its place a warped pleasure. Her gut clenched and nausea gripped her. She knew she had to leave before she disgraced herself. Maybe she could’ve stayed if his face had stayed emotionless, if she could imagine that he regretted what he was about to do. But he didn’t, he wouldn’t. He would enjoy every second of the blood he spilled.
Before she could run from the room, he attacked, so fast that she stumbled back a few steps as though he were coming after her. He gripped john’s chin in one hand, yanked his tongue from between his lips with the other and sliced it off. Blood spilled down John’s chin and chest like a gory waterfall. His screams stopped abruptly and only a watery garbled sound remained. Vee had to bite her lips to keep from crying out. Dizziness washed over her. She locked her knees so she would remain standing.
“This is how I usually begin,” Sotza explained, lifting his eyes to hers. They were bright, manic, like he had a fever. “The screaming is distracting. I prefer music.”
Vee felt like she was swimming, like she was watching him through water or glass. Almost slow motion as he turned to the table he’d pulled the knife from, dropped John’s severed tongue on top and tapped a button on a black box. Music filled the room. Some kind of classical music. Vee didn’t know what it was. She didn’t listen to classical music. She usually preferred silence so she could hear her thoughts.
Sotza stepped back to John, standing at his side, staring down, his face a terrifying mask. “You tasered my wife, John. Look at her.” He gripped John by the back of the head and forced his face up toward Vee. “She is small, she is delicate. She should never be harmed, let alone hit with 100,000 volts. That’s about how much it was, right John? You shot her twice with a weapon I provided in case you needed to subdue someone without killing them. Except you messed up, John. You shot my beautiful wife then you handed her over to my enemy. Bad. Fucking. Move. John.”
Vee closed her eyes as Sotza attacked the man again, his knife flashing. She didn’t want to know what was happening, but from the horrific sounds coming from john she suspected it was awful. When she opened her eyes again she saw blood trickling down razor thin cuts across his cheeks, upper lip and chin. Sotza was slicing him open one piece at a time. Her gaze strayed to the blood making a path down the side of John’s head then shifted to the floor where she saw a strip of flesh she suspected was an ear. Her stomach lurched and she didn’t have time to close her eyes again when Sotza bent behind John. She heard something hit the floor, saw the agony twisting John’s face, suspected he’d just lost a finger or two.
This was The Butcher. The man she never wanted to meet, the man she’d married. Gone to bed with. Hoped for a future with. It was like watching the devil dance with his prey. Macabre, graceful, twisted. She couldn’t watch but she wouldn’t turn away either. She was caught, helpless in his spell.
“You’ve seen me do this before,” Sotza said quietly from behind his victim, leaning over to speak in John’s good ear. “You know exactly how long this can go on for. You know how good I am at keeping my prisoners alive, squeezing out every last drop of pain. You know this is my favourite part, don’t you John?”
He rounded the chair to stand in front of John, staring down at him. He bent to one knee, lifted the hem of John’s pant leg and made a quick slice. John lurched in the chair, his face twisting harder than she’d seen yet.
“Achilles tendon,” Sotza said. She didn’t know who he was talking to. He was still bent in front of John. “Supposed to be one of the most painful cuts a person can experience. A particular favourite of mine.” He sliced through the other one and stood, staring down at John as he writhed and screamed as best he could without a tongue.
Vee couldn’t see Sotza’s face from where they were standing, but she knew exactly what she would see. The maniacal ecstasy. The gratification he was receiving from this gruesome display.
“Stop,” she whispered, her voice shaky. She didn’t think he would hear her, but then he looked over at her, a frown marring the perfection of his happiness. “Just stop,” she said in a stronger voice. “You’ve played l-long enough. Put him down, Sotza. Right now.”
She wasn’t asking. She was demanding. Drawing her line in the sand and telling him where she wasn’t willing to go with him. This was it, the moment she feared would come all too fast. Their reckoning as a couple. Would he step back over the line toward her? Salvage the few good moments she’d managed to find in their war. Or would he forcibly drag her over to his side, be like every other man in her life, prove his dominance, his superior strength over her.
“Leave.” His voice was so cold, so devoid of any hint of affection that Vee knew she was in trouble. Knew she’d gone too far. “Now. Wait for me up at the house.”
“You leave with me,” she whispered pleadingly, refusing to back down.
“Get out!” he roared, shouting at her for the first time. She was so shocked it took her a few seconds to register the depth of his anger.
She lifted her chin and made to walk past him, but before she reached the door she spun around. She was between Sotza and Mateo. Neither man had time to react as she lifted Mateo’s gun and emptied it into John. One bullet to the head, one to the heart, three in his torso. His head flew back, his body shuddered with each impact and then he went limp. Dead.
Vee handed the gun to Mateo who was quick to take it from her. She turned back to Sotza, facing what she knew could be her execution.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Vee paced the bedroom, trying everything she could to get her mind off those horrifying images. She’d killed before. Twice to be exact… well three times now. But the other times had been in self-defence, mostly. Tony didn’t count, she was ending her marriage, not conducting business. Every time she’d had to kill she’d used a gun. She hadn’t tortured anyone… mostly. Hadn’t taken pleasure in slicing off little pieces of them. Not the way Sotza had. He’d enjoyed every moment of his victim’s pain.
She shuddered in disgust, reliving the bloody scene. She would never forget the image, it was burned into her memory. After she killed John, Sotza sent her back up to the house with one of his men, instructing him to lock Vee in the bedroom. She’d gone quietly. What else could she do? She wasn’t the type to fight a losing battle. And she had felt the anger rolling off Sotza, knew he probably sent her away so he wouldn’t do something irreparable to her.
She wrapped her arms around herself as she continued to pace, trying to swallow the rising panic. She made the wrong move in every way. She’d interrupted Sotza at work, she undermined him, she forced her will on the situation. In short, she’d acted without thinking. Not something Vee usually did. Like Sotza, she was a planner, she made decisions with cool, careful thought. Sotza had every right to be angry with her.
Knowing that didn’t help her anxiety. She had crossed The Butcher. She would have to pay the price of betrayal, as John had. She was probably going to die. Thinking about what he’d done to John hit her again and she nearly ran for the toilet.
“Nice work, Vee,” she mumbled to herself. “You finally find a husband you can possibly live with and in less than a week you manage to royally fuck that up.”
The door opened. Vee froze as Sotza strode into the room. He looked the same. Sleeves rolled up his arms, tie missing. There was no blood on him, not a single drop. There should be blood on him considering what she’d witnessed. Yet he looked immacu
late. He looked at her as she assessed him. He watched without emotion, his gaze cold and dead, eyes flat. He gave her a minute as she struggled to come to terms with him as a man, a murderer and a husband.
“Sotza,” she said trying for a conciliatory tone. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect - ”
“You will not defy me like that in front of my second, or any of my men. Ever,” he said quietly, menacingly. He took a step toward her, his dark eyes blazing to life with fury.
“Sotza, let’s talk about this. I know I fucked up, but the way you were acting - ”
“You will not defy me again, Elvira,” he interrupted sharply, repeating himself.
An answering anger flared to life within her. He wouldn’t accept either apology or explanation. She had suspected, no, she knew, that they would clash over something like this. The dominant mafia boss who talked lip service about giving her freedom and setting her up at his side only to strip it away the moment they disagreed. He was reliving her last marriage.
“Or what?” she cried. If he wouldn’t accept her apology then she would fight him, try to make her point. “You’ll do to me what you did to John? Isn’t that what you were going to do to me in Miami? Before you met me?”
“I was working,” he said icily. “You know the difference.”
“You fucking enjoyed every minute out there in that disgusting prison. Don’t bother to deny it. I was there, I saw your face as you cut him to pieces while he was still alive.”
“Vee,” he said warningly, stepping toward her. She backed up, her legs bumping the bed. “I won’t deny I enjoyed torturing the man that handed my wife over to the Mexican cartel. I would have done just as much damage for less.”
“No,” she snapped. “There’s a difference between revenge killing and what you did. You like it, you like hurting people. You’re a fucking psychopath!”
“Enough!” he yelled, reaching for her.
Vee jumped back, swiping her good arm at him. “Don’t you fucking touch me!”
The look that crossed his face was utterly terrifying. She’d seen it in her nightmares, before Sotza captured her and showed her his loving side. She’d seen it out in his prison building when he was cutting John to pieces. She wondered if she was about to die. He grabbed her, so suddenly that she was standing next to him one moment, then on her back a second later, trapped beneath him. His hands gripped her arms tightly. She yelped in pain as his hand squeezed her injured arm.
“You will never again refuse my touch,” he said to her, his voice chilling.
“Fuck you!” she hissed, struggling to heave him off, roll out from underneath him.
He ripped her blouse, right down the middle, popping the buttons. She cried out and slapped at him, but he held her arms while ripping the rest of her clothes from her body. What the fuck was he doing? She was naked beneath him now, only her bra still on and he’d yanked it so her small breasts were pushed over the top. She didn’t understand until he shifted his body, placing his hips between her legs and reaching for his zipper. His movements were quick, efficient.
His intent became obvious and Vee started to really freak out. “Stop, Sotza!” she begged, her voice rising. “Isaac, what are you doing?”
“Don’t fight me, Vee. You’ll injure you’re arm,” he said, his voice impassionate, though anger poured off him in spades. He gripped her face in one hand, shoving her chin up and to the side. His elbow rested on her sternum, pinning her to the bed. She tried to slap at him, but she couldn’t see what she was doing, couldn’t properly reach him. She kept hitting his arms and it was like hitting a brick wall – it didn’t move him.
“If you do this I’ll find a way to kill you!” Tears sparking in her eyes.
She gasped as his fingers touched her, entered her. Anger sizzled through her veins sparking an erotic charge. The air practically snapped with the tension between them. She brought her knee up, trying to slam it into his side. He was right, she couldn’t keep slapping him without hurting her shoulder. But her legs worked just fine. He grunted when her sharp knee connected with his ribs. Unfortunately, the move gave him better access to her vulnerable pussy. He pushed his fingers further into her, harder, more firmly against her g-spot. He flicked a thumb over her clit and she cried out. He wasn’t just going to brutally take her body, he was going to force a response.
He kept her pinned with an elbow on her chest and grabbed her leg, gripping it just above her knee and forcing it higher, opening her wider. She growled as he pumped his fingers in her, applying pressure to all the right spots and sliding his thumb over her clit. Her hips picked up the rhythm though her brain splintered in every direction; caught between the need to greedily sponge all the pleasure he was offering and horrified by his actions.
“Fuck!” she yelled as her orgasm built. She squirmed and fought, but he was much heavier and stronger. And she was fighting with an injury.
He took her chin and moved her head to face him. “Look at me,” he demanded, his voice a deep growl. “Am I The Butcher now, Elvira?”
“Fuck… you!” she snarled.
His eyes darkened at her defiance and he thrust himself harder between her legs. Unable to pull him away from him she wound her fingers in the cuff of his shirt and held on. He pulled his fingers from her and she cried out at the loss. She thought he would enter her then, push his long, thick cock against her and fill her up. The way she needed. Instead his fingers, saturated in her wet, sticky response, moved lower. She cried out and tensed up when his fingers sought her back entrance, touching her, exploring, then shoving past the barrier of her anal ring in one thrust. She cried out and dug her fingernails into his arm.
Pain shot through her body as she tried to adjust to his rough entry. She panted, trying to breathe through the new and strange feelings flooding through her. She tried to close her legs, deny him further entry, but he effortlessly kept her positioned, spread wide for his assault. She wanted to yell, to swear at him but she was too swamped by sensations. She couldn’t catch her breath enough to form the words. He began moving his fingers in her tight passage, raking them across sensitive erogenous zones she didn’t know she had, lighting her lower body up with a heady combination of pain and pleasure.
He was mastering her, showing her that he could do anything he wanted to her, whether it was to cause pain or pleasure. He could give her the world and he could take it away just as easily. While he wreaked havoc on her body, he devastated her mind. As long as she knew he was capable of doing this to her, attacking her, forcing her pleasure against her will, she would never be his equal partner. She would always be just a woman.
He twisted his fingers inside her. She cried out as his knuckles dug into her sending sparks of pain radiating through her ass. But as quick as the pain came, it receded and was replaced by an equally unbearable pleasure. He pressed his thumb into her pussy, until he was hooking her in both holes. The pressure was so intense she didn’t know which way was up. She was so far past fighting him, she was now just trying to survive what he was doing to her. She covered her face with her hand, trying to at least visually block him out.
“Look at me,” he demanded. She moved her hand without thinking. She wouldn’t defy him now, not while he had complete control over her. His fingers picked up a rhythm that made everything within her focus on that precious orgasmic point. Her salvation. To fly into oblivion, away from him. “You will not take your eyes off me when you come.”
She stared up at him, watching his hard, implacable face while he forced the forbidden on her. Drove her higher and higher. She tipped her head back, but kept her eyes glued to him as her orgasm screamed towards her.
“Who is your master?” His voice was harsh.
She bit her lip and shook her head, refusing to give him what he wanted. Suddenly the pressure in her anal passage increased. She didn’t know what he did, was beyond being able to follow his movements, but the shift sent her soaring higher. Higher than she thought possible. She thought she w
ould shatter, that her heart would stop from this sexual torture he was playing out on her. He was going to kill her with sex.
“Who do you obey?” he asked, his voice a guttural snarl.
She couldn’t take any more. “You!” she screamed as she hurtled over the edge of her orgasm. He didn’t let her enjoy it though, he kept pumping his fingers, demanding more from her.
“Say my name!”
“Sotza!” she yelled, tears leaking.
He moved his hand to her throat and squeezed, just shy of choking her. “Again,” he demanded, pulling his fingers from her ass and lining his cock up.
“Please,” she begged him, sobbing, not even knowing what she was begging for. She was terrified that he was going to enter her anally and tear her to shreds. But a dark part of her wanted him to. Wanted that magnificent pressure to come back.
“My name!” he shouted from above her.
“Isaac Sotza!” she yelled back. He thrust into, taking her vaginally. Relief and pleasure shot through her sending her soaring.
“Again,” he growled hovering over her. A bead of sweat fell from his forehead onto her cheek.
“Isaac Sotza!” she screamed, digging her fingernails into whatever piece of flesh she could reach.
“Who owns you, Elvira Sotza?”
“Isaac Sotza…” She sobbed. She would have promised him the world in that moment.
His fingers tightened around her throat, cutting off her ability to breathe. She didn’t care. In fact, she was so caught up in the moment, drugged with endorphins that her lack of breath pushed her higher toward the intense peak she was desperately seeking. Her mouth opened in a wordless cry of ecstasy, she pressed her knees into his sides, cradling him, taking each brutal thrust and silently begging for more.
He lowered his face until it was inches from her own and watched her, his wild dark eyes holding hers captive as he fucked her with a brutality that was exciting, erotic, terrifying. She didn’t know if she would survive, blackness dotted her vision and she felt helpless to do anything but take the savagery he was forcing on her. She felt his cock grow bigger inside her as he neared his own release, as he drove her toward another exhilarating peak. She tried to gasp for breath, but nothing came out.
Queen’s Move: Book Two of The Queens Page 22
