by Zoey Parker
“Don’t you?” Samantha walked a little circle around the chair. “God, it’s hot in here. I don’t know how you can stand it.”
Emma blinked. She couldn’t stand it, not really, but she hadn’t been given much of a choice.
Samantha waltzed over to the door, the pinprick tap of her heels echoing in Emma’s head. Her manicured hand tapped on the door. It swung open. “Hey, can we turn down the lights? I mean, I love a tan as much as the next girl, but this is pretty much ridiculous.”
A moment later two of the three the lights flicked off. Emma whimpered with relief. Without the heat bearing down on her she began to think.
“You…” Her throat was dry and scratchy. She swallowed and tried again. “You’re working with them?”
“Ding ding.” Samantha waved a flippant hand, several expensive rings glittering on her fingers. “I mean, come on. What did everyone expect me to do? Wait around forever for Kellan the Idiot to come around to what was sitting right in front of him? Oh please. I know what I’m worth.”
Emma wasn’t so sure about that, but she didn’t have the energy to argue. “What happened?”
“What happened? I went to play for the other team. Oh, not chicks, sorry, sweetie, I don’t swing that way, and if I did, I’d go after someone who had a little more pride in their appearance, you know?”
Samantha bent just a little and plucked a flake of skin off of Emma’s face. Emma winced. She felt the tacky sensation of blood moving down her jawline.
“I mean, look at you,” Samantha continued, “you are just…there. Okay, fine, you’ve gone to college, but so what? With enough money anyone can do that. So it’s really whatever. But anyway. I guess I came up with the idea at the wedding. I mean, there you were, wearing some outdated dress and some hag hairstyle and what was I supposed to do if Kellan was willing to take you as a wife? I mean, I tried, don’t get me wrong. I really tried. I offered him everything you weren’t willing to do, but I guess you will do pretty much anything.”
The pain in her cheek brought Emma’s thoughts to a pinpoint focus. “You didn’t just tell my mom about the funeral, did you?”
“Maybe you are smart.” Samantha’s smile was a twisted impersonation of glee. “Things didn’t go exactly as planned. You were supposed to run away from your mommy and into the waiting arms of Gabriel’s men. But no, you had to do what you always do and make things more difficult first, right? But I did some quick thinking and got Ramon to come get you. It nearly worked, too, but no, Phantom had to be super creepy and watch everything. God, I wish I had been there to shoot him. He pretty much ruined everything.”
Emma closed her eyes and let her thoughts come together. Her head wasn’t hurting as bad as it had been. That was certainly a good sign, right? “What else did you do, Samantha?”
It was easy bait, but Samantha took it. “Oh, I started telling Gabriel about all the meetings. Every time the club got together. This shooting thing was supposed to happen weeks ago, but Kellan has been…indisposed.” She sneered until her pretty face looked like a bad representation of herself. Or maybe it was more Samantha than the pampered look that she was always wearing.
“But you won’t have Kellan,” Emma said. “He’s gone.”
“You think I want your sloppy seconds? Ew, gross. No, this was more about vengeance, you know? I mean, I wanted Kellan for years, dammit, years, and what happens? You show up with your face all messed up and telling some sob story about getting attacked by Michael. I mean, god. Don’t you know how to be an independent woman? Did you really have to get married so some big strong man could take care of you? Thanks for setting us back, sweetie.”
“I didn’t—”
“Yes!” Samantha snapped. “Oh yes, you did, you little skank. You used your big blue eyes to lure him away from me. I had him, dammit, I almost had him.”
Emma swallowed once, and lifted her chin. “He talked about you, you know.”
Samantha’s face went a little slack around the edges. Her desperate hope was a nearly palpable thing. “What did he say?”
“That you were pretty, or maybe he said you were hot, I can’t remember which it was. But he thought you were good to look at.”
Samantha straightened up. Her hand plopped down on a sleek hip. “I bet he did. I am good to look at. Better than you, at least I try.”
“Yeah, he said you were pretty, but he’d never touch you.”
Samantha’s eyes turned to flint. She lashed out and slapped Emma hard across the face. Her already burnt skin sang with agony beneath the sting of the attack. “Liar!” Samantha cried out, and hit her again. “Don’t lie to me!”
“And he’d heard from the other guys that you were a bad lay. Just laid there, didn’t offer any kind of encouragement. Don’t you know, Samantha? If a guy wanted to lay with someone who didn’t respond, they’d just get a doll.”
Samantha slapped her again, but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad that time, even though Emma was sure the woman had hit her just as hard. That probably wasn’t a good sign. Maybe there was some kind of nerve damage.
“Shut your mouth!” Samantha screeched. “Right now!”
Emma felt a sick thrill as she spat, “He called you toxic. He said even if I weren’t in his life, he’d never touch you. You were a sickness. You just used up men and went on your way.”
Samantha let out a dangerous scream and leaped at Emma. But the door slammed open and two men dragged her out of the room, interrupting whatever she might have done. One of her heels caught against the lip between the floor and the room beyond. The door slapped against it, leaving her with an inch of freedom.
She had to go, she had to go right now. Before she could even think about it, Emma was lunging for the exit. Her fingers curled around the heavy door. It wasn’t made of wood, but metal. Who the hell had metallic doors inside their house? She pulled her arms apart, and the door opened. Cold air filled the space, rushing over her body. Energy spilled through her muscles.
“Hey!” a voice called. “Hey!”
She didn’t listen, she just ran, ran away from the voice. She didn’t know where she was, but it felt like an upstairs rather than a down. An exit had to be downstairs. The hallway was elegantly appointed. Lots of red rugs and big pictures on the walls. Most of them were massive pictures of fancy cars, but some were actual paintings. It was a strange mesh of styles, but all the colors were tied together.
Her bare feet made very little sound as she charged down the hallway. There were so many doors, six on one side, five on the other, all of them were closed. She heard feet running behind her. She cursed and opened the first door, closing it behind her. She closed her eyes and prayed to whomever might listen that they didn’t find her here. Heavy steps pounded past her and she let out the breath that she was holding.
“Hey, chica. You stopped by to say hello?”
The blood froze in Emma’s veins. She didn’t want to look, but couldn’t seem to stop herself. It was a bedroom, with the same lush red carpet as the hallway. But the walls had been painted a deep, unrelieved black. She turned slowly, feeling the hard flatness of the door behind her back.
Michael was sitting on a king-sized bed, decorated in every shade of black Emma had ever seen. He was wearing a pair of silk pajama pants in a hue so similar that his legs almost looked lost amongst all that fabric. His unclothed chest sported more tattoos than bare skin. The single window behind him had been treated with some sort of plastic that blocked the best of the sunlight from coming in. Not that she thought there was any sunlight, the window was dark.
But not dark enough to hide the glimmer of metal at the edge of the bed sheets. She could see some sort of buckle-restraint system peeking out from beneath the mattress. Her mind fed her terrible images of what a man like Michael would do with a person caught in those restraints.
There was a long table to one side. She recognized some as the variety of whips and other rough-sex playthings you could get at any adult toy store. The other
s were less playtime worthy. One was a long handled knife with a wicked curved blade. One was a leather strap with beads on the end. The last was a shiny club, like a nightstick.
“I’ve been waiting for you.” His voice was a purr, as if she had walked into a carefully planned seduction.
She didn’t want to find out why.
She grabbed the door handle and pulled. It was nearly open when he slammed himself against her, using her own fumbling body weight to close the door. She slipped to the ground. He reached up and slid a lock into place.
“I just got finished telling my brother how much I wanted to spend some time with you before he sold you off.” He hands caressed down the smoothness of the door, and then cupped her shoulders. He hefted her weight upwards until she was trapped between his body and the door. He wasn’t a tall man, not really. Just tall enough that when he looked at her she couldn’t see anything but his face. “He said I couldn’t have you. That you needed to go to your buyer without my hand prints all over you.”
“Please don’t.”
“Oh no, see, I believe in divine intervention. Here I was, thinking about all the things I want to do to you, and then you show up in my bedroom. Of all the doors you opened, you had to open mine.”
His hands slid up and down her arms. She felt sick. She tried to pull away but there was nowhere to go.
“Your brother said no.”
“Better to ask forgiveness, chica, than to beg permission.”
“You got it the wrong way.”
“You’ve met my brother, you know better.” He grabbed her and hefted her off the ground. She struggled, but his hands were like vices on her already tender arms. She wanted to fight, she wanted to struggle, but her body was barely cooperating. She was so tired, and her head felt fuzzy. She had been so close to escape.
He tossed her on the bed and she tried to slither to the floor. He grabbed her and tossed her again. When she tried a second time he grabbed her and slammed her against the dark glass beyond the bed so hard she felt it buckle beneath her back.
“Stop it,” he snarled at her. “You deserve this.”
“No, I don’t.” It seemed pointless to argue, but she couldn’t stop herself. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do a damn thing. I didn’t steal your brother’s drugs. I didn’t sell them. I don’t have the money from them and I don’t know how to get it. All I ever did was go to college and you attacked me there.”
Suddenly she was impossibly angry. This was the jerk who had started it all. This man, right here, was the reason she had run home afraid and everything had happened the way it had. He had attacked her, and he thought she deserved whatever sick twisted fantasy he was planning? Oh no, no, siree.
She jerked her leg up, catching him in the chin with the hardest point of her knee. His head rocked back, but he didn’t release her. She did it again, harder this time. She felt something crunch. His hands twitched, and it was just enough for her to jerk out of his grasp.
She fell to the ground and crawled across the bed, a feat made more difficult by the satiny fabric they were made of. She kept slipping backwards. The sensation of it made her realize just how ravaged her skin was. Ravage was not a word she wanted to be thinking of right this second. She scrambled over the bed, and felt his hands wrap around her middle, hauling her backwards. He fell bodily on top of her, pinning her between him and the mattress. He ground his groin against her and she nearly vomited.
“No,” she growled. “No, no, no.”
She reached out, searching for something, anything. Her hand wrapped around the cool metal of a heavy buckle at the end of a long strap of nylon webbing. He grabbed her and rolled her over, his body still pinning hers. She struggled, but that only made him make sounds of enjoyment. She was definitely going to be sick.
She let him explore her chest, his fingers grabbing and pinching and tugging at skin. When he was distracted, she swung. The crack of the metal against his temple coupled with a sick moan. He cursed and grabbed for her wrist. She swung again. A bruise blossomed beneath his tan skin, turning it a dirty copper.
She pulled away, and he stumbled after her. “Come back here.”
“No,” she said thickly. “No, I won’t.”
She scrambled to undo to the lock and open the door and he slapped his hand against it hard enough to jerk the knob out of her hand. It was louder than is should have been, like an explosion. He swung his head around and she cracked her forehead against the thin piece of bone at his other temple. He made a sound and stumbled back.
“I’m going to get you.”
“No, you aren’t.”
She reached for the array of toys and her hand wrapped around the club. She lifted it and swung with whatever force was left in her. Michael’s head jerked to the side. He went down, his chin catching the bedpost on the way. He hit the ground and stayed there. Emma didn’t need to be told that he was dead, she could see it in the loose way that his muscles slumped against the ground.
She ran.
She didn’t see anything as she charged out of that den of sickness and down the hall. She saw stairs, and she took them, not particularly caring where they led her. She heard the shouts of men, and smelled smoke. She paused in her running to get a look at her surroundings.
She was in some kind of dining room. A long table decorated with crystal everything lingered in front of her. The pale light of an overhead bulb illuminated the rims of vases and cups. She knew it wasn’t some overhead light that made them look like molten fire on top of well worked wood. She dragged her gaze up, up and towards the long sliding glass door. She wondered if it was the one she came in through. It had to be, she could see a beautiful in ground pool out there. A mermaid statue spitting water was perched in the very center. Beyond that was fire. The gate that she had come in, or at least a gate, had been blasted open. Fire lingered on the plants and the wood of the guardhouse.
She took a step forward, and saw the flash of gunfire. How had she not heard it before now?
“Kellan.”
She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. He was out there somewhere. He had survived!
“Kellan!” she cried.
She made as if to run when an arm latched around her wrist. The cold circle of a gun was pressed to her back.
“No, no, you don’t.”
Gabriel dragged her back against him, ducking behind the table with the crystal. There was nothing sexual about the way he wrapped his arm around her and held her in place.
“You didn’t kill him.” The laugh that came out of her mouth was wild and half mad. “You thought you did but you didn’t, and now he’s here to save me.”
“Shut up,” he hissed in her ear.
She found she couldn’t. Once she started laughing she couldn’t stop. Everything seemed so wonderfully hilarious. The gun pressed to her back, the fact that she had been nearly raped, Samantha’s treachery, it all seemed like a fantastic joke. In the very, very back of her mind she knew these things were no laughing matter, but shock didn’t really care how you were supposed to feel. It just dealt with all the crazy hormone shifts and did whatever it thought would make you feel better.
“Stop it!” He shook her. It only made her laugh harder. He shook her again and she started to hiccup with the force of her crazed giggling. His hand swung out and connected with her cheek in an open handed slap. “Damn you, woman.”
The laughing stopped. Her ear rung. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“You are going to get me out of here.”
“How?”
He hauled her backwards, and her feet dragged along the carpet. It didn’t feel nice, but none of her body felt nice right now. She felt sick and tired, and all she wanted was to go home and curl up with her husband, whether he thought of himself as her husband or not.
“So there,” she said to her imagination. It made her start to snort again, giggles lay just under the surface of her anxiety.
“What?”
She blink
ed and tried to lever herself to her feet. “Don’t mind me, I’m not feeling very well. I had a concussion, and then I got all dehydrated, and then I thought everyone I knew or loved was dead because of you. They aren’t, but you know that. Then Samantha hit me, and then I tried to run. I ran right into your brother’s bedroom, did you know that?”
He had led her into a massive garage, seven shiny cars were lined up in a neat set of rows.
“Wow,” she said under her breath. “Those are pretty.”
“What is wrong with you? What did you do to Michael?”
He shook her again, and her head rocked. She really wished he wouldn’t. “Hysterics, probably. That’s what’s wrong with me, I mean. Not your brother. I don’t know what’s wrong with your bother other than the fact that he is a grade A psychopath, or is that sociopath? I get them confused sometimes. One means you don’t—”
