by K. V. Rose
My mouth falls open, a whimper lodged in my throat.
He yanks the knife down, my hand with it, and I can’t stop staring at his palm, waiting for it to bleed. But before I can see it, he pulls the knife from my hand, throws it across the room where it clatters to the floor.
He backs me against the wall, holds his hand over my mouth, dragging it along my lips. I taste the blood, and my own fear.
“The next time you want to threaten me with a knife, love, you better fucking use it.” His fingers knot in my hair, forcing my chin up, my eyes on the ceiling. “The thing about bravery, Addison, is that it walks a fine line with stupidity.” His nose finds my jaw, and I close my eyes, a shiver skating down my spine. “And you just did something very, very stupid.”
I pull the door to the only soundproof room in my house closed, and turn to Dante, who is watching me with an expression I don’t particularly like.
Something akin to revulsion.
“What?” I snap, instinctively gripping the playing card in my pocket, one hand still on the door to the room I chained Addison to the wall in.
Dante swallows, looks down at the floor. “Should I let her out at any point, sir?”
I consider his question for a moment, flexing the king of hearts in my hand. “Yes,” I tell him, and he snaps his head up, surprise in his gaze. “If, at any point,” I say, repeating his words back to him, “you’d like her to die, then by all means, Dante. Let her out.” Without another word, I leave him, my steps silent on the polished floors of the second floor, opposite the hall my bedroom is on.
I head toward it, eager to get my hands around Evora’s pretty little throat.
I would have gladly placed them on Addison’s. I would have shoved my cock so far down her mouth she couldn’t fucking breathe. I would have used that knife to spill a line of blood down her chest, over the scars on her tits. I would have fucked her with the gun on my hip, would have used her until she was begging me to stop. Promising me she would be good. That she would never throw my furniture around the room again. Swearing she would never be ungrateful for another meal I served her, and that she would never, ever point my own knife at me like she did tonight.
But I can’t do that.
She isn’t worth the payment it would cost me to fuck her up, and I have no use for a stupidly brave girl. Brave girls get killed in my world.
My mother was a shining example of that.
I force myself not to think of her.
Of Ollie.
Instead, I clench my fingers around the playing card so hard, it folds in half in my grip.
When I reach my closed bedroom door, I take a steadying breath, letting my eyes flutter closed. I don’t believe in fairness, and I don’t believe in mercy. I know that Evora will take whatever I want to give her when I enter this room, but I also know that if I scare her too much, she’ll turn shy. And I cannot deal with a shy girl. Not right now.
No. I need Evora to be willing to please me. Bleed for me. Beg for me.
I need her to open herself up to me, so I can bury my dick so far inside of her that she takes all of this rage too.
I need Evora as much as she needs me, and I need someone to take my mind off of Addison’s stupid display of bravado, and how all I really wanted to do was fuck her against my dining room table.
I relax my grip on the playing card, open my eyes, and open the door.
My eyes are heavy. My neck is stiff, my shoulders are throbbing and my back…my back hurts most of all.
There’s a raw, rough pain around my wrists where the chains are shackled, but it’s drowned out by the heavy feel of the rest of my body.
I blink, trying to pry my eyes open, but it takes effort.
My tongue is dry in my mouth, my throat sore from screaming.
And when the door opens and someone steps inside, I don’t really care who it is. If Ben had come back from the fucking dead, I’d let him take me out of here. I just want to get away from this wall jammed against my already-sore spine.
I just want water.
I just want my bed.
“Did you learn your lesson?” Max asks me softly from the door.
I turn my gaze without moving my neck. I don’t know how long I’ve been in here, but the pressure against my bladder along with everything else tells me it was more than overnight.
I don’t answer him, because even though I open my mouth, I can’t speak. The words are there, on the tip of my tongue, because I don’t want him to leave me in here anymore. I want to answer him, I want to obey, but I can’t even swallow.
Max sighs, and my heart slams in my chest as I think he might leave me again.
I try once more to speak, but then I hear his footsteps grow closer, instead of further away.
He’s standing over me, wearing all black, his steel-grey eyes gleaming in the light from the hall.
“You’re a mess, love.”
I keep my head against the cement wall, my throat arched up as I stare at him, pleading without words for him to take me out of here.
He squats down in front of me and my desperation to leave turns to fear at what he might do before I’m allowed to. His eyes rake over me, a smile pulling on the corner of his lips. My stomach flips and my hands start to shake, the shackles clanking against the wall as they do.
His smile widens.
He reaches into his pocket and I hold my breath, wondering what fresh hell he has in store for me.
But it’s just a key.
A key.
Elation warms me in this cold room as he carefully undoes each cuff, physically lowering my arms down one at a time, as if he knows what it feels like to be chained.
His thumb brushes against the raw skin of my wrists and he shakes his head as my arms begin to tingle, coming awake again.
“You shouldn’t always fight so hard, Addison,” he says quietly, staring at me as he pockets the key, one hand still around my sore wrist. “It’s almost as if you enjoy being tortured.”
Before I can think of a response, before I can breathe, he’s picking me up, one arm under my shoulders, the other beneath my knees.
A strangled hiss escapes my mouth as my stiff body adjusts to being against something that isn’t a cement wall. He straightens, pulling me close to him as I lie limp in his arms, closing my eyes tight, trying to adjust to the pain.
“Put your arms around me,” he says against my ear.
The sensation of his warm breath on me makes my skin crawl, but I do as he says. Slowly, with stiff movements, but still. I do it, my fingertips only grazing one another because I can’t quite put my hands together around his neck, not without risking more pain lighting up my shoulders.
He pulls me even closer, presses a kiss to my temple.
“If you obey me, I’ll take care of you. Despite what you might believe, I don’t enjoy hurting you.”
Anger rolls through my body with his words, making my limbs stiff and more pain course through me. I don’t believe him. He’s a fucking sadist.
I say nothing as he stares down at me, as if waiting for my response.
If I could form one, it wouldn’t be a good one. And I do not want to stay in this room.
“Addison, I’m going to need you to say something.” His words are mild, but my anger is quickly replaced with panic as I think about another night in here. Another day.
I shift my gaze to his again to find him watching me carefully. Patiently.
I open my mouth, my throat raw like sandpaper. Still, I won’t be left in here again. “Okay,” I manage to say, although my voice doesn’t sound like my own.
It seems to please him, because he smiles. “You learn so quickly, baby girl.”
Then he carries me out of there.
My landline rings, and I stare at the caller ID for a moment, contemplating letting it go. Letting Christopher London panic, or simmer in his rage, the more likely response for a man like him.
There’s no love lost between Addison and her
father, I can tell that much. She might have said she wanted to go home two nights ago, but what she really meant is she wanted to get away from me.
I answer the call, holding the corded receiver to my ear as I lean back in my chair. I don’t say a word.
“Max?” Christopher’s voice is full of fury.
“You dialed my number,” I tell him, staring at the ceiling. “I hope you’d know who would be on the other end of the line.”
A brief moment of silence, and I can imagine the string of expletives Christopher is throwing my way in his head. But wisely, he says none of them.
“Let me speak to her.”
I think about her yesterday, over twenty-four hours after I first chained her up. I carried her back to her room after she spent an entire night and day shackled to a wall. She hated me, and I could feel her hatred rolling off of her in waves, even though she didn’t say a word. Even though she let herself go limp in my arms as Dante followed us back to her bed.
I set her down, and she had glared up at me, circles beneath her eyes, red veins visible in the whites of them.
She’d been screaming a lot, apparently.
She didn’t sleep well that night.
Makes two of us.
All she’d said to me after I set her on the bed, in a hoarse, angry whisper, was, “I have to pee.”
The thought makes me almost laugh out loud.
“No,” I say to her father in answer to his demand.
Christopher swears on the other end of the line, and I smile to myself. Good. He’s getting angry. Maybe he’ll end this between us now, and I won’t have to put a bullet in his brain when he realizes he’s never getting his daughter back, no matter how much money he offers me.
“How do I know she’s even alive, Max? How the fuck do I know you haven’t already taken her down to Mexico and let every fucking thug of yours rape her to death?”
I shrug, unseen by Christopher. “There’s an idea.”
“You are sick, Max. You’re fucking sick. If you don’t give the phone to her, I will not be paying for anything, and everyone will know just how fucking disturbed—”
“How many times did you hit her, Christopher?” I ask him, interrupting his illogical tirade. If he does tell “everyone” about what I’ve done to her, that works in my favor. Not his. He couldn’t protect his own daughter, and I fed her to the sharks? In our world, ruthlessness is a badge of honor.
He’d be stripped of his while I gained another.
Interestingly, with my question, he goes quiet on the line.
I smile to myself, drum my fingers against the arm of the chair. I know he’s hurt her, the way she holds her ground but flinches when my hand comes to her face. She did that before Ben even laid a hand on her. “Did you ever touch her?” I press. “Where fathers shouldn’t touch their daughters?”
More silence. Interesting.
“So, no? You just wanted her to get those implants for your friends to enjoy? Not so she’d look more like a whore to you, and less like someone you should take care of?”
He sputters on the line, and I smile to myself, eyes still on the ceiling, waiting for him to end the call. I can wait all day. He’s getting panicked because we both know he can’t pay the price I asked. We both know how this waiting game will go, and I’m content waiting for him to end it, right now. Swallow his pride, give up the girl he never wanted anyway, and I won’t have to kill him in the end when he puts up a fight. Instead, he can hang his head, take his losses, and try to make sure he doesn’t fuck up again, so his son doesn’t end up my prisoner too.
“I hope you had her looked over,” he says, surprising me. His voice is wicked, and I don’t move, listening to him. He’s got my attention, although I know how men like Christopher work. When he’s backed into a corner, he’ll lie to get out of it. I’m listening when he speaks, but I don’t believe a fucking word he’s saying. “Her mother died when she was a child, you know?”
I did know that. I know a lot about Christopher, and in turn, Addison. You don’t kidnap someone without doing your research. Addison’s mother had an aneurysm. The night after she tried to run away from the London compound and was stopped by a cop in Christopher’s pocket.
I say nothing, let him continue. He’s blending whatever bullshit he’s about to spew at me with facts. Smart man.
“You know how it is, Max. Men like us, we’re busy.” True. “She was raised by nannies, her schooling was done by tutors. She went to church every weekend, but otherwise, she spent most of her time in my house.”
I wait for him to get to the point, think of her down on her knees praying and try not to roll my eyes. God doesn’t exist, no more than the Tooth Fairy or Father Christmas. God is a crutch. A way to prop people up when all of their hope is gone.
Addison hasn’t had hope for a long, long time.
It’s how she’s adjusted so well to her time here in my house, despite her stubbornness. Any other girl, I’d probably have to string up in the soundproof room for the length of her stay.
“Danik was with her a lot,” Christopher continues, an edge to his voice for some reason I don’t yet grasp. “And so was her uncle.”
I dip my chin, sitting up straighter.
I didn’t know she had an uncle. Granted, I didn’t look too much into extended families. The mother came from New York, the daughter of a physician. Christopher is the son of a chemist-turned-drug runner, but from my research, I assumed they were both only children.
Christopher laughs darkly into the phone, and I clench my fist around the playing card in my pocket, taking it out and laying it flat on my desk as I stare down at the matte black face, raised edging around the king and hearts.
“He’s long gone now,” he continues, and I don’t know what the fuck that means, but Christopher keeps talking. “I’m not sure what happened with them. You understand, Max, I’d never intentionally put my daughter in harm’s way.”
I arch a brow, say nothing. We both know he’s full of shit. I won’t do him the favor of calling him out on it.
“But something seemed to change in her, one summer I was down in Mexico City. I came back, and her and Danik were…withdrawn. Skittish, around each other. My brother said nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but my brother has always been a little strange.”
Runs in the fucking family.
I flip the playing card over, running my finger down the plain, black backing, waiting to hear the moral of this story.
“I’m not sure what he did to her, Max, but I’d imagine whoever it is that wants her, he wants a virgin.” Christopher blows out a breath and I sit up straighter, my palm trapping the playing card underneath. “I’m not sure she qualifies. Not after that summer at least.”
I stare straight ahead at my office door, unblinking.
Not breathing.
I’m not even sure if my heart is beating.
“Hit him, Maximus.” My father’s voice is calm, steady. We’re in the shed behind the compound, a large, empty building with boarded up windows. It’s hot in here, and I’m drenched in sweat, even though I’ve done nothing yet.
The person in front of me is tied to a chair, arms bound behind him. Blindfold over his eyes. Duct tape over his mouth, so he doesn’t start humming like he does when he’s nervous or upset. He’s rocking in his chair, but it’s bolted to the floor.
He can’t escape.
My father won’t let him.
Even though Oliver is his son, too. He’s five years younger than me.
Eight.
He’s eight.
“Hit him, or I’ll do it for you.”
I don’t move. My hands ball into fists. I watch Oliver’s bare chest rise and fall rapidly, his pale skin glistening with sweat, the sharp bones of his ribcage visible with his youth.
I know why my father wants me to do it. Oliver peed in his pants again, didn’t tell anyone because he can’t talk, and my father happened to find him first, his beige shorts turned brown with uri
ne.
If I had found him… If Mom had found him…
My heart twists in my chest.
It doesn’t matter. We didn’t.
Our father’s voice in my ear makes my legs tremble. “If you don’t hit him, Max, I’ll bring in Coda.”
I close my eyes for a second, bite my tongue so hard I taste blood, all so I don’t whimper. If I whimper, this won’t end well for any of us.
I take a step toward Oliver, and my father claps a hand over my shoulder, meant to encourage me.
I lift my fist. I’m strong. My father trains me. I lose, often. Just last year, he broke my arm. The year before that, a rib.
But I’m stronger now.
I’m a man. After I had my first woman last year, on my twelfth birthday… I push that thought aside. It wasn’t as enjoyable as my father had led me to believe it would be.
I get closer to Oliver. He’s holding his breath now, his body rigid, tendons flexing in his neck, but he’s still rocking, still nervous.
But he knows it’s me.
He trusts me.
He loves me.
Even though I know the alternative will be so much worse, I can’t do this.
My father roars behind me, a sound that makes me jump, and then he shoves me to the floor, and his fist lands in Oliver’s face. I hear the crunch of bone, screams muffled by duct tape, and I clamp my hands over my ears.
But I won’t let him do it.
I push to my feet just as my father lands another punch, and I grab my father’s elbow, yanking it as hard as I can.
He turns to me, his fist raised and covered in blood, his grey eyes piercing mine, teeth clenched. “You dare stop me?” he asks me quietly.
I let go of his arm, scramble backward, until I hit the wall.
My father smiles. “You’re a coward.” He turns back to my brother and he hits him again.
I’m going to puke.
Oliver doesn’t make any more noise.
My stomach convulses. I can’t look. I can’t look at what I couldn’t stop.
My father leaves him there, drags me back across the lawn to our home, where he nearly rips my arm out of its socket as he pulls me up the stairs.
