Wrecking Beauty

by Celia Loren

  He gripped the shirt in his hands, his knuckles turning white as he thought about what could be happening to her at that moment. He took a staggered breath and laid the shirt next to him on the bed, almost reverentially.

  He stood, sliding off his leather jacket. He pulled off his t-shirt, wincing at the pain as he raised his arms. He unbuttoned his jeans as he walked into the bathroom, then turned on the hot and cold faucets in the tub and closed the drain. As the tub began filling with water, he stepped out of his pants and underwear and kicked them toward the wall.

  The water began to steam, and Cutler stepped into the bath and sat down. The water felt like it was singeing the lacerations on his stomach, but somehow it felt right to him. The water turned a light red as dried blood from his body soaked off into the water in red tendrils that dissipated as they spread. It was nothing compared to the pain Addison must be in now, he thought. And he’d been unable to save her. She hadn’t wanted to go, and he’d convinced her. He’d assured her it was safe, and he'd taken her away from the safety of the club because he wanted to have sex with her...he should have known better.

  He closed his eyes in fury as a hot tear slid out of his eye and dropped into the water. He didn’t deserve her. She’d been slumming it with him in the first place. She was a gorgeous and educated young woman, and he hadn’t even finished high school. He would find a way to save her from that monster, and then he’d let her go; he'd save her from himself in the end.

  As the water rose, he sat up and turned off the faucets. He sat back against the tile, then let himself sink down under the water. His eyes opened under the surface, and he watched as the blood from his face stained the water dark red.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Addison felt her head drop against her chest and jerked it up. She was exhausted, but didn’t want to fall asleep. She felt vulnerable enough already.

  She looked around the cold room she was being kept in. After they had left the hotel room, the men had all holstered their guns, except for one, who had pulled his jacket over his arm, but kept his gun trained on Addison. They'd gone in the elevator straight down to the parking garage and into a black SUV. There, a black jacket was thrown over her head so she couldn’t see where they were going.

  They had driven for a little while—could have been twenty minutes, could have been forty. She was completely disoriented, and Owen had been singing along to the classic rock station that the radio was tuned to. She had marveled at his casual attitude. He had just beaten Cutler and kidnapped her, and he was acting as though he were on a road trip with his buddies.

  When the car stopped, she'd been guided outside momentarily before they entered a building. She could tell it was large because she could hear their footsteps echoing when they entered. All she could see underneath the jacket were her own feet, still in the expensive heels. They had walked through the building, then gone up some stairs and down a hallway. Then she'd heard a door open and close, and she was forced into a seated position on the ground. She had been instructed to put her hands behind her, and she felt them being tied together with a piece of rope. The jacket had been pulled off her head, and she saw the back of one of the men as he shut the door behind him.

  She didn’t know how long she had been in here. There was a glass section on the top half of the door, but it let in only a steady grey light that seemed not to change with time. She studied the door. The glass was tempered, like the kind one might see in an old office building. She could just see a scratched-out name on the opposite side of the glass. So, maybe she was in someone’s old office in an office building? But when they had walked in the building the space was larger, almost cavernous. Not like an office building at all.

  She sighed, and leaned her head back against the heating pipe she was tied to. It was cold, and paint was peeling off it. Wherever she was, it was abandoned, and no one had been here for years. She shifted, trying to get comfortable. Her hands were pulled tightly behind her and tied to the base of the pipe. She could slide up and down the pipe slightly, but couldn’t get enough leverage to stand. Her butt was sore and cramped from being in the same position for so long. And she was cold. The sexy dress had seemed like a good idea last night but now she just wanted to cover up her bare legs and arms.

  But she was glad they had left her alone so far. She remembered Owen’s threat of torture in the hotel room, and chills ran through her body. A flash of Cutler’s body lying on the ground ran through her mind, and she felt a sickening knot low in her belly. She had never seen a human treated like that before; as though he were an object, the parts of his body broken down into just organs and bones and muscle, viewed only through the lens of how to cause damage. The whole of his person, his humanity, completely forgotten.

  Had he been able to get help? How long had he lain on the floor of that hotel room? What if he’d been hit so hard his brain was bleeding and no one had found him yet? She shut her eyes tightly against the idea but the image was burned into the backs of her eye lids; his body, curled on the floor, helpless and bleeding.

  A twinge of pain from her left eye brought her back to the present. She moved her mouth around, feeling the swelling that extended from her jaw up to her eye where Owen had hit her. She could still taste iron in her mouth from the cut where her teeth had sliced into her cheek from the force of the blow. She shook her head slightly. Her left ear felt full, as though it needed to pop.

  She heard footsteps in the hallway approaching the door and she froze; fear coursing through her. The door opened, and Owen entered with a chair. Her mouth went dry, and every muscle in her body involuntarily clenched. Was he going to make good on his threat?

  He smiled at her, and kicked the door closed behind him. Walking to the center of the room, he unfolded the tan metal chair and set it down. He crossed to her and stood over her smirking.

  “Addison. Addison, Addison, Addison. What a troublemaking little slut you turned out to be,” he said lightly.

  She raised her eyes up to him defiantly.

  “I’m going to undo your ropes now, but don’t be stupid. One of the men is at the end of the hall with a semi-automatic and he won’t hesitate to use it.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “I’ll take your silence to mean that you understand.” He knelt and reached behind her. She felt revulsion as his arm pushed against her as he untied her. Addison felt the ropes loosening and then falling away. Owen wrenched the length of the rope out from behind her. She stretched her arms in front of her, rolling her wrists around and rubbing each of them in turn where the rope had left its twisted indentations.

  “Go sit in the chair,” Owen commanded.

  Addison stood, wobbling as her legs gave out slightly. She’d been sitting for far too long and her legs felt like rubber. She straightened, and walked over to the chair and sat. She took a deep breath, trying to control the lurching of her stomach.

  Owen walked up behind the chair and roughly pulled her arms behind her. She felt him tying the ropes around her hands, even more tightly than they had been bound a moment ago. He walked in front of her, and she tried to pull her hands apart, testing the knot. There was no give. Where had he learned to tie knots like this?

  Owen smiled at her as though he were reading her mind.

  “I’ve always enjoyed tying girls up. The ones I saw in my…extracurricular activities, that is. But there’s only so far you can go in those situations.”

  He leaned down over her, and ran a finger down her cheek, then held her chin in between his thumb and forefinger, examining her face.

  “Still beautiful, though a little worse for wear,” he said, turning her face from side to side, examining the bruise he’d left on her cheek. “I have to say, I was rather shocked to find you so exposed in bed this morning. Not very ladylike Addison.” He tsked-tsked with his tongue.

  Addison's foot twitched, and she strongly considered snapping her leg up and nailing him with a kick in the crotch. But then who knows how much worse it
would be for her, and she’d still be stuck in this room with him. She stared up in his face, trying to make her expression as impassive as possible, not giving him anything.

  She marveled at how he looked outwardly the same as he always had, back when her estimation of him was so different. He was wearing his favorite black North Face fleece with a blue and white button up poking above the collar. His stone-colored khakis were clean and unwrinkled, and he had on a pair of boat shoes. He looked like he had just excused himself from an Econ class so that he could take a quick breather to torture her. Her eyes gleamed a little at the thought, imagining how his classmates would react to seeing him now.

  “What?” he growled, disliking the bit of life that had just sprung into her eyes. Addison decided she wouldn’t respond. She would give him as little as possible to lessen his satisfaction.

  He stepped back, studying her.

  “So you bought yourself a new dress. You look like a whore in it.” His voice was light, but she could hear the venom running through it. “I knew you were never fit to be a part of the Devlin family, to bear my children, and now you’ve proven it. Who knows how many diseases that animal you fucked last night has?”

  Addison marveled at how Owen could still think of himself as above anyone else, considering the current situation. He was like the old kings of England, she thought, who believed their power was handed down from God. Owen seemed to think his wealth gave him some kind of divine right to treat everyone else however he wanted to.

  “I bet you sucked his dick, didn’t you?” Owen asked. Addison looked back at him, stone-faced. He slapped her suddenly across her left cheek, and Addison couldn’t help but cry out as her still swollen flesh seared with pain. She felt the cut inside her cheek reopen and blood fill her mouth. She stayed with her head cast to the side, trying to catch her breath. After a moment, she raised her head again, blood dribbling down her chin from the corner of her mouth.

  She saw Owen’s eyes were dilated with excitement. He’s turned on by this, she thought in disgust.

  “Is this what you did to Lauren?” she asked, the question spilling out of her mouth before she could stop herself. Shit, she didn’t want to make him mad, but she couldn’t help wanting to push his buttons right now.

  Owen’s nostrils flared in anger, and his cheeks flushed. Addison winced, leaning back and preparing to be hit again. Suddenly, he laughed, but his eyes remained cold. She watched him warily, unable to predict his rapidly changing moods.

  “No, actually,” he responded. He walked over to the wall opposite her and leaned against it, then slid down until he was seated on the ground. “She was quick. I wasn’t very good at controlling my anger back then, and she tried to break up with me, so I beat her over the head with a lacrosse stick.”

  Addison gasped. He said it so carelessly, like he was filling her in on what he had eaten for dinner the night before. Owen giggled.

  “It’s funny—you really don’t know me at all. You dated me, lived with me, I helped pay for your MBA, you accepted my marriage proposal, and you have no idea who I am.” He opened his hands and spread his arms apart, as if offering himself to her. “What do you want to know?”

  Addison still didn’t want to give him anything to feed off of, but she had to ask: “Why didn’t you just let her go?”

  He tilted his head at her quizzically.

  “When she tried to break up with you, why didn’t you just let her?” she continued.

  His brow furrowed. Addison realized that he’d never actually considered the option.

  “She was mine,” he finally responded with a shrug. “If I couldn’t have her anymore, I didn’t want her to exist. Not that I was going to marry her or anything, she was too far below me. But she was the hottest girl at our high school.”

  “What about her parents, her family?”

  “I don’t really think about them, to be honest.”

  “Why are you this way?” she whispered. “I mean, you’re so good at looking like a human, but I don’t think you are one at all.”

  Owen squinted at her, not sure whether he should be offended by this description of himself.

  “I’ve never felt much connection with other people, I suppose. My teachers in elementary school made me go to a therapist once, but they were easy to fool even then.”

  “I don’t suppose it would do any good for me to beg for my life.”

  “None at all,” Owen answered plainly. Placing his hands on his thighs, he sprung to his feet. “Enough talking, time to get to work.” Addison braced herself. He unzipped his fleece and reached to his side, and pulled a gleaming silver knife out of his holster. She almost cried out in fear, but bit her lip, stopping herself.

  “I’ve always wanted to do this,” he said, “but I’ve never gotten the chance. I mean, we’ve all seen torture in the movies, but mostly I’m going to be guessing. So you’ll have to tell me what works and what doesn’t.”

  He walked behind her, and Addison felt her heart racing. What was he going to do with her? Maybe she should make a break for it and run down the hallway—it would be better to be killed quickly by one of those other men than be tortured by Owen. She felt his body heat as he kneeled behind her and grasped one of her hands roughly.

  Suddenly she felt a piercing sensation in her middle finger and realized he was pressing his knife under her fingernail. She screamed as blinding pain shot across her hand and up her arm. She lurched forward, trying to escape his hold and the pain he was creating. She felt his grip tighten, but he wasn’t able to get enough leverage from his position, and she slipped out of his hand.

  Addison fell to the floor and pushed herself along the dirty carpet. She tried to turn over and stand, and cried out again as she landed on her hand. She saw Owen stand and walk toward her, his hands and knife dripping with blood. Her blood, she realized with horror.

  “Owen, please, please,” she cried as tears streamed down her face. She had never felt pain like that before. The hitting never came close to it, and she would do anything to avoid feeling it again.

  Owen approached her and stood over her, trapping her between him and the wall.

  “On a scale from one to ten, how much did that hurt?” he asked.

  “What?” she gasped. “I don’t…”

  “On a scale from one to ten, how much did that hurt?” he repeated calmly.

  “Ten…ten,” she sobbed.

  “See, that’s what you think now. But soon, I bet you’ll realize that was only a four or a five. You just have nothing to compare it to, no baseline.”

  “No! No!” Addison screamed as he bent over her again.

  Her eyes darted to the door as she heard the sound of fast approaching footsteps. The door opened, and she recognized the man Owen had called Viktor standing in the doorway.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Owen?” he demanded, then saw Addison on the floor. He knelt down to her and began to help her to her feet and back to the chair. He deposited her there and turned back to a scowling Owen. “Just kill her already. All this is pointless.”

  “You just don’t have the stomach for it,” Owen retorted.

  “You haven’t seen anything close to what I’ve seen in my life, Owen,” Viktor answered calmly. “But this girl doesn’t have any information you want, and I’m guessing she’s done nothing to deserve what you’re doing to her right now. So just kill her already and let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Addison stared at this man. Who was he? She felt grateful to him, and couldn’t believe that feeling was directed toward a man who was suggesting she be put to death immediately.

  “I don’t want to discuss this here,” Owen said, his every word dripping with anger.

  “Fine,” Viktor said, walking over to the door and holding it open for him. Owen looked like he was going to say something else, but stopped himself and crossed out the door. With a quick, unreadable look back toward Addison, Viktor followed him out.

  Addison heard a lock cli
ck behind him and she slumped over. She let herself slide down the chair and onto the ground, then curled up into the fetal position. Her hand was throbbing, and she could feel blood still dripping out of the wound onto her skin. She closed her eyes, trying to steady her breath and stop her tears.

  She didn’t know if she was passing out or falling asleep, but she welcomed the blackness that finally covered her eyes as she drifted into unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Cutler sat on his couch with three guns set on the table in front of him. On the left was his old double-action revolver, next to it was his Ruger semiautomatic pistol, and on the right was his Glock, stripped to its pieces. He concentrated his whole energy on the old cloth in his hand, wiping the barrel carefully with a solvent. If he thought about anything else besides the feel of the metal and cloth in his hands, he might go crazy.

  He examined the barrel, searching for any traces of carbon buildup or oil. Satisfied, he began reassembling the gun. He loaded a full magazine into the receiver and held it in his palms. He had used this gun quite recently to kill the Russians who had murdered Kyle and Salem. He wanted it working perfectly now; there was unfinished business to attend to.

  He heard a knock on the door and adrenaline pumped through his body. He switched the safety off on the Glock and drew back the slide to chamber a round. He knew that Owen and the Russians wouldn’t be likely to knock, but better to be safe than sorry. He also wasn’t used to anyone knocking on his door—until recently this had been his secret hideout.

  He tiptoed up to the small window next to the door and peered out. He saw Greyson on the stoop and relaxed. He unlocked the door and opened it, tucking his gun into the waistband of his old jeans. As the door swung open, he saw Greyson frown slightly as he registered the weapon.

  “Any news?” Cutler asked.

  “Yeah, there’s some news,” Greyson responded cautiously.