by Theresa Papa
The room flips and then proceeds to spin like a bout of vertigo from hell. It rushes quickly, then slows down. I am awake. I am dreaming. I am Alice falling down the rabbit hole. My senses seem heightened for some reason. Jake gets me to sit on the sofa and pushes my head down on his chest, his rapid heartbeat pounding through my head. It’s like a drum that beats in the jungle with half-naked natives that dance around it. Naked, bare, free. Breathe in deeply. I experience his scent on a whole new level. Just the smell of him makes me wet. It’s like a tsunami; as it blows my body over a waterfall, a rush consumes me, and I’m destined to land in the rapids without a kayak. Hypnotized with want, with need, I crave release. I rush out of the French doors as I mumble something about needing some air. Waves in the ocean pull me in with their seductive thrall. My denial of Jake’s sexual advances from the night before is obliterated into millions of tiny pieces like a porcelain vase crashing to the floor, accompanied by the reasons I stopped him. The next thing I know, my mind swims with images of rooms laden with sex objects and toys from when I worked at Club Beta. The scenes of wild sexual fantasies being carried out, of which I was a voyeur, play on a reel in my head. I crave those sex toys now so I can give myself release. Instinctively, I stick my two middle fingers into my mouth and suck, then I proceed to seek out my orgasm by using them as a sex toy. My whole body is on fire with the fear that I may spontaneously combust. My breathing becomes erratic as my fingers plunge over and over deep within to bring me to the edge of orgasm but never over. Nothing or no one will ever render me sated again. Suddenly, Jake takes over with his mouth and hands. He expertly delivers multiple climaxes. I’m a shivering bowl of gelatin and a wet noodle all at once, but I can’t even think of making it stop. He’s up to the challenge and full of everlasting energy. The sounds that he makes confirm that he enjoys this as much as me. The next sound is not one of enjoyment or satisfaction. The click of a gun loading a bullet into the chamber.
“Get up slowly, Romeo,” a gruff voice orders.
My eyes open, and I scream while frantically I grab pillows to cover myself from the eager dilated pupils that take in my nakedness.
The conversation the gunman and Jake has rolls around in my fuddled head. Jake confesses that he just wanted to fuck me before he brought me to Richard for the money. Nausea hits, and I vomit all over the deck. The only thing I have the strength to do is pick up my dress, cover my bare body, and lie back down on the lounge sofa. The words ‘drugged her’ echo through my brief consciousness. What the fuck! Jake drugged me just like my father and Richard did when I was younger. I will never forgive him.
Movement catches my attention and makes me more lucid for a moment. The gunman has put his gun away, and Jake lets him near me. He kneels on the cushion near my feet on my right side and bends over, extending his hand with the intention to remove the pink dress that covers me. Jake is letting him touch me. I’m so weak there’s nothing I can do. If Jake never drugged me, I would have already kicked this asshole in the balls. Seriously, Jake? What the fuck!
“No, please, Jake,” I manage a plea.
Like a flash of lightning, everything changes. Jake comes up from behind to grab the gun out of the pervert’s waistband and jabs it into his temple.
“Like I’d let you lay a hand on her, you sick bastard. Get up off the lounge slowly, or I’ll blow your brains out.”
The asshole just smirks while he puts his hands up in the air and gets back on his feet.
“You really think you’re a match for me, Shadow Walker?”
“Stop calling me that! I quit the game. Back away from the girl and sit in the chair over here.”
The man sits in the chair like he’s ordered at gunpoint. Twenty minutes later, Jake stands there still as he rubs his lips together deep in thought. He’s wondering what his next move is. The muscle relaxer in the drug wears off somewhat, enough to slip my dress over my head. But I’m still warm and horny as hell. All I can think is that I should run from here, from both of these men who intend to end my life by handing me over to Richard to win the game. To collect the money. But what if Jake is telling the truth when he says he quit? I sure as hell don’t know what to believe now.
Jake breaks me from my quandary, his silver eyes soft and repentant.
“Go inside, Elizabeth, and stay there until I come for you.”
I accommodate Jake’s request gladly as I retreat to the safety of the house. I close the door but watch them through the window. Their mouths move but what is said is out of earshot. Then Jake directs the man to get up and walk out to the beach. When he follows him down the stairs, the gun still pointed at his back. I lose sight of them both.
Chapter 37
Liz Pope
Two quick gunshots ring out from the beach where Jake took the man. Oh, my God, Jake killed him. Jake heads up the path from the beach to me. Our eyes lock, and his are filled with pain and remorse. I run from the house toward him when he falls to his knees. Upon reaching him, I take in all the blood that runs down his back. Jake is the one who’s been shot. He slumps further onto the deck. I cradle his head into my lap. My eyes move back and forth into his tearful ones.
“Why did you do it, Jake?”
His silver eyes soften with his feelings for me.
“Because I’m in love with you. I had to try to save you from him. If I surrendered and your life was sacrificed, I couldn’t go on anyway. Without you loving me back, there is no future for me,” he murmurs.
The life in his eyes is sucked away as he dies in my arms after professing his love for me. I’m in shock, my head bent over him, my tears spatter his face and chest in a downpour. The fact that I’m still in danger never enters my mind. This is the second man who loved me enough to die for me. I am so distraught that I begin to ramble.
“Tony was my only true love, but you saved me from David. I forgive you, Jake, even though your intentions were not honorable when you drugged me. I have to believe that obsession can make people do crazy things. After all, look at Richard Harrington.” I sympathize with the dead man in my arms as if he can still hear me.
“That’s right Harrington’s obsessed with you! And I’m the guy to give him his obsession and collect the millions,” a voice from above me says.
The asshole picks me up with his hands under my pits, letting Jake’s lifeless body hit the deck from my lap. He backs me up against him, gathers my arms behind my back, and growls in my ear.
“I won’t let pussy or anything take away my attention again, so don’t fucking think you can try to fool me like your friend here tried to do. Just in case you have any ideas…”
His words fall off as I feel a sharp stick in the side of my neck. A hypodermic needle renders me unconscious. The world again is black.
The sound of the sea awakens me. Not from the beach house window though, waves lap against the side of a vessel. When I open my eyes, I can see the dawn erase the starry night through a round window. Normally it would mean that I’m on a vacation on the Pope family yacht to see porthole windows, but memories of what happened before I was drugged plague my mind. A rush of sorrow falls over me like a wet blanket. A tear rolls down into my ear, and I hate when that happens, so I try to sit up. My head hurts, and my limbs feel like a puppeteer has me on his strings so I cannot move unless he lifts the handle. When I finally slip back into all facets of my body, I stand and look out the window. The thought crosses my mind that no matter how fucked up and nasty life can be, there’s always something miraculous in nature to balance it out. Murder, corruption, rape, suicide are juxtaposed with the sunrise or sunset, the mountains climbing above the plains, the tall pine trees that sway in the soft falling snow. And here out the window is the vastness of the sea with blue waves as far as the eye can see. No matter how much all of that should make me more positive, it’s not working. Now comes the backward spiral into the abyss of guilt and worthlessness. Love and contentment are now banned from my repertoire, eviscerated on t
he day I lost my Tony. There’s no reason anymore for me to fight what Richard has in store for me. There is no fight left in me, and I’m not worth fighting for. Anyone who has fought for me has ended up dead, and my soul cannot stand any more sacrifices made for me on it. My knees buckle, and I let myself slide down the wall to the floor in a heap. In my lap, my hands lay trembling, not from cold but despair. Thoughts of the future creep into my head along with uncertainties. Where am I? Has the asshole already handed me over to Richard and collected his reward? Have Nico and Jaxson continued to search for me in the wake of Tony’s death?
Sounds of a television in the next room catch my attention. I recognize the cartoon as Beauty and the Beast. I remember all the words to the songs from when I was a little girl living with my aunt Fiorella. How I loved to spend time with my aunt. Both of us sang at the tops of our lungs and danced around the room.
“Oh, God! There are children here!” I exclaim to the empty room as I realize what that means if I’m already in the hands of Richard Harrington.
My body must be shrugging off the effect of the drugs because I get a rush of adrenaline to propel me into action. I hurry over to the door and jiggle the handle; it’s locked, of course. The other door in the room is the bathroom, and the sight subliminally makes me need to go. There are clean clothes folded on the deck of the tub. After I answer my need, I wash my hands and splash cold water on my face. Then I wash my body quickly before I put on the button-down shirtdress. The shoes provided are simple flip-flops. When I look into the mirror, my tired green eyes are puffy, and my lips are chapped. The woman vacantly staring back at me is defeated. What if I change that expression to determination, anger, and revenge seeking once again? The same face that I used to see before Marcus Dent abducted me, and my quest to find Richard was thwarted. I’m not as strong as then, but I could pretend for a little while. Maybe while my façade as a tough, strong woman is on, some of that courage will rub off on me.
I straighten my posture and run my fingers through my disheveled hair.
Now it will be much simpler to exact revenge because the search is over. I’m going to see the devil again, face to face.
Chapter 38
Elizabeth Pope
A key clicking open the locked bedroom door pulls my attention away from my pep talk. I check the room quickly, hopeful to find anything to use as a weapon. No such luck. But before I could be on the defensive, a small voice calls out to me.
“Hello? Ms. Pope?” the delicate voice murmurs.
I look around the bathroom door to find a child. She smiles and holds out a tray of food. At the doorway is a heavily muscled guard watching our exchange. The girl is no more than seven or eight years old. She is clean and well-groomed. And smiling! This is curious.
I rub my lips together and walk over to the little girl. She is petite with soulful, dark brown eyes framed in long, sweeping eyelashes. Her light brown ponytail is set up high on her head. I hold out my hand to take the tray from her, and her bronze skinned arms outstretch to give it to me.
“Hello, what’s your name?”
“Eva.”
“Thank you for the food, Eva.”
She nods and turns toward the door, the big burly man holds out his arms to her, and she happily jumps up into them. He whispers something in another language in her ear. She giggles. He reaches out to shut the door.
“Wait, where are we? Who are you? Are you taking me to Mr. Harrington?”
He looks back at me, his eyes softer now, and says, “I’m sorry I can’t tell you anything now, but all will be revealed to you very soon.”
I sigh, and my chest collapses in disappointment as he shuts the door then locks it behind him. The smell of food makes my stomach growl, so I eat to keep up my strength. When I’m finished, I decide to look out the porthole and try to see a landmark or something to show where in the world I am. The view reveals that we are about to enter a huge bay surrounded by mountains. There are tall majestic ones, some are low, and others run straight into the water.
There’s another knock on the door, and the lock is opened with a click. It’s the same man as before. I’m not afraid of him, though. I already witnessed his caring attitude toward the little girl. Maybe that’s a stupid mistake on my part. But it’s not like I can do anything to escape right now while we are out on the ocean.
“Ms. Pope, I’ll need you to come with me. But I have to put these on first,” he says almost apologetically as he holds up a pair of handcuffs.
In other circumstances, I might enjoy this extremely well-shaped specimen handcuffing me. But right now, I have to curb my filthy mind. If I didn’t hear Jake confess that he drugged me, I would think that I have a sex addiction.
I hold out my wrists, and he puts them on gently, then grasps my upper arm to lead me to an outdoor deck. The scenery around this huge yacht is breathtaking, and my mouth hangs open at the sight. My head twirls to take it all in. Up ahead, there is a city nestled in front of the imposing mountains I mentioned before. High up in those mountains stands something that tells me exactly where we are. The iconic Christ the Redeemer statue looms over Rio de Janeiro. I read several years ago that this was one of the ‘new’ seven wonders of the world.
“It’s all very picturesque, Elizabeth. Is it not?” a female voice asks to capture my attention to the vast deck in front of us. The voice, somewhat familiar, pulls me toward the slim woman with strawberry blond hair tightly woven on the back of her head in a chignon. There’s a silk scarf flitting in the wind behind her that complements a crisply pressed silk and linen pantsuit. Diamond rings adorn almost all of her fingers, resting on the railing as she looks out to sea. I stare in astonishment since I haven’t seen her since my father’s death when she ran away with all of our money.
“Mother?” I ask, with a squeaky voice.
My own mother turns to face me. She is just as I remember her. She grins, but it never reaches her soulless brown eyes.
“Please sit so we can talk. Christian, can you please serve the iced tea?”
The man gently leads me to a seat at a round table with fresh flowers in a heavy crystal vase in the center. The man pours our tea, and before he leaves, he smiles at me and attaches one of my cuffs to the leg of the iron table.
Irene Pope is still a beautiful woman with perfectly fixed hair, crisply pressed clothes, and a taut profile with very few age lines, but it’s obvious her heart is still black. Silent and in shock, my mouth hangs open. My mother glides over from the railing and takes the seat opposite me.
“The bay is referred to by locals as Guanabara Bay. When the Portuguese first came here, they thought it looked like the end of a river, which is where the ‘rio’ came from. They discovered it in the month of January. Hence the name ‘Rio de Janeiro,’” she preaches.
I blow out an exasperated breath and adjust myself in the chair.
“Why don’t we skip the history lesson, Mother, and you can tell me why I’m here.”
“There’s no need to be insolent, Elizabeth.”
“How am I expected to be? You have me handcuffed to the table even though we are at sea and the only way for me to escape is to go overboard,” I spew back at her.
“That was Richard’s idea, not mine. We all have to take orders from him at one point or another, darling. He pays the bills.”
My head falls back while I dramatically roll my eyes at her.
“Why does Richard pay your bills, Mother? Didn’t you make off with enough money when you took everything after Dad’s death? And may I remind you, left me with nothing.”
“Don’t be naïve, Elizabeth. I’ll need that money for my retirement.”
“What exactly will you retire from, Mother? Blowjobs R Us?”
She purses her lips and squints her eyes, making a face at me.
“Don’t be crass! Very funny, darling. But I don’t feel I owe you an explanation. Now let’s get down to why I’m here to meet with you before
you go to Richard’s.”
“So just like my childhood, you’ll once again turn me over to the devil. Nothing new here!”
There’s no answer as she taps a few things on her iPad and hands it over to me. There are some pictures of me as a little girl, looks like I’m about three or four years old in a cute little green dress. There’s a doll on my lap, and the dress makes my eyes look vibrant.
“Why don’t you explain why you’re here with me instead of a walk down memory lane with my childhood pictures?” I throw the tablet onto the table toward her. “Just get all of this over with, Mother!” I yell. “Hand me over to Richard, do your worst to me, I don’t care anymore!”
“Elizabeth, calm down. I’m doing this for your own good. I wanted to warn you so it’s not such a shock when you arrive at the house,” she says as she taps the tablet again and hands it back to me.
This time. it’s a video of me at the same age as before. First, I hug the doll and then my mother picks me up and faces the camera.
“No, no, no, no! You didn’t!” I scream with the realization that my mother in the video looks exactly like she does this minute, twenty years older than she would be if that little girl were me in her arms.
“It wasn’t me, darling. It was Richard. He was so obsessed with you. He had you followed when you went away to college. The private investigator reported to him about your pregnancy and the subsequent birth. He paid actors to adopt your daughter so he could have her to himself.”
The cuffs cut into my wrists as I grasp the table leg with an iron grip. Tears quickly splice down my cheeks.
“That fucking monster has had my daughter all this time? I will kill him with my bare hands if he’s put her through any trauma or used her for his disgusting pornography,” I scream.
“She’s still too young for his tastes. He doesn’t have to trade a daughter anymore to get what he likes. I can assure you that has not happened yet. Richard’s very good with her and makes sure all her needs are taken care of. As a matter of fact, Eva, the girl you met earlier is her nanny now.”
