by James, Gemma
Now that symbol resided with my worst enemy, tucked out of reach in the pocket of his jeans.
He really had won.
The only hope I had left was stalling him. “What do you want, Zach?”
He took my chin in his harsh grip. “You’re not a stupid girl. You know a smart girl is one who spreads her legs.”
Shaking my head, I broke free of his hold. “You’ll have to rape me.”
“If that’s what it takes.” He shrugged before grabbing me by the shoulders and pushing me into the bathroom. Hot tears slipped free, one after another, leaving tracks of despair down my cheeks. A loud sob escaped my throat, one I couldn’t hide, and I hated myself for that sign of weakness.
“It’s okay,” Zach said, his tone unusually soft. “You can cry and scream all you want. No one will hear you.” He urged me toward the shower stall.
“What about the collar?” My fingers shook as I ran them along the back, where the electrodes irritated my skin. “Is it safe to get it wet?”
“It’s waterproof. Says so on the device.” He flipped on the spray. “Get in there. I want every last bit of that bastard off what’s mine.”
I could fight.
I could run.
I could scream and cry and beg.
I already knew none of those things would work.
I had to be smarter.
Stronger.
Willing to sacrifice my body. It was the only way I would have a chance at escaping. It was the only way to keep my unborn child safe.
As he removed his clothing, I stepped underneath the spray. He stepped in after me, and I let him wedge my thighs apart. He took his time washing me to his satisfaction, running his soapy hands over every inch of skin, paying extra attention to my breasts and the area between my legs. The whole time, I greedily swallowed the water that cascaded down my face, quenching my thirst from my time spent down in the cellar.
The shower seemed to go on forever. I wasn’t sure if that was a blessing, or a curse, because his sickening touch left tracks on every inch of my body, making my skin crawl. Eventually, he shut off the spray, and my heart throbbed in my chest as he rubbed a towel over my damp skin.
Time was moving too fast.
Time was running out.
I knew what was coming next, and the thought of it made me sick. Literally. I barely made it to the toilet before I spewed what little food Zach had given me. After I’d purged the last of it, I dabbed my mouth with toilet paper before facing him.
His expression was an unreadable, stoic mask. “If you barf when I fuck you, I’ll fry your pretty little neck. I’m not kidding, Lex.” He bent and retrieved his jeans from the bathroom floor. “The only thing I want out of your mouth is ‘fuck me harder.’ Do you understand me?”
“Fuck you, Zach.”
A twitch of his jaw.
That’s all the warning I had before electricity streamed through my bones. My muscles locked into unbearable spasms, and I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out. Unable to breathe or voice my pain, I dropped to the floor.
I wanted to beg for it to stop. Wanted to take back the epithet that had set him off in the first place.
The hot current was endless, and my soul seared because Rafe had planned to use this on me. That hurt most of all. And yet I wished he were here to hurt me all the same. I’d take this torture everyday to have him back. Just when I reached the edge of unconsciousness, the charge stopped, and I sobbed so hard my stomach cramped. I held onto my belly, terrified for the life growing there.
Zach picked me up off the floor and flung me over his shoulder. “The only one who’s getting fucked is you.”
That electric shock had sizzled the fight right out of me, leaving my limbs heavy and boneless. It was hard to breathe.
Impossible to think straight.
I could barely move, and that gave Zach the ultimate power over me. He flopped me onto the bed like his own personal fuck doll. After staying strong in that cellar, I had nothing left in this moment.
Only submission and sacrifice.
Time seemed to suspend, leaving me in a mosaic nightmare. I floated in another realm as he grabbed the straps of the restraint system from underneath the mattress. He captured my left wrist inside a cuff before doing the same with the right, then he moved to my feet.
I snapped out of it as he shoved my legs apart. “No!” My heel caught him in the nose, and he stumbled back, fingers pinching his nostrils shut.
But I hadn’t kicked him hard enough. He studied his hand, brows narrowing as if he expected to find his skin marred in crimson. A twitch of a smug smile pulled at his lips, and it was then I spied the looped belt he fisted.
Yanking at the restraints, I glared at him. “Go ahead. Hit me you sick fuck!”
“Jesus, Lex. This place is a sadist’s wet dream, and you call me the sick fuck?” With a grunt, he brought the leather strap down on my breasts.
“Ahhhh!” My spine arched, body lifting off the mattress for several agonizing seconds.
“Spread your fucking legs.” He lashed me across the thighs this time, and his knuckles whitened as he prepared to strike again. “You know I’ll make you bleed.”
When his attention drifted to my stomach, I couldn’t help but whimper. I envisioned him carving into my belly again, digging deeper and deeper until Rafe’s name was gone. Until all that remained was a bloody, mutilated canvas.
Zach’s ultimate masterpiece of raging art.
My legs parted without my permission, self-perseveration in the driver’s seat now, and he fastened the cuffs around my ankles, turning me into a spread-eagled fuck toy, unwilling and defenseless, but that didn’t bother Zach. For over half of my life, he’d taken and taken and taken some more.
This time was no different.
I wanted to believe the lie in order to cope. Wanted to ignore the fact that everything had changed. I’d changed. I wasn’t alone anymore. I had Rafe.
He was mine, and I was his.
But he wasn’t here. Zach was, pushing two fingers into my pussy to get me ready for his cock. It took a while, but eventually, my body betrayed me, and his touch grew slick and warm. He climbed onto the mattress and settled between my thighs.
My brain went on auto pilot.
“Beg me to fuck you.”
I didn’t answer, and he slapped my cheek.
“You’re going to beg for it.”
So I begged for it, and that’s when the violent thrust of his cock snapped me out of lethargy. I bawled as he filled me with his blackness, plunging to the hilt until I stretched to accommodate his girth. There was no room for anything but him inside me.
I felt another piece of me die. I hadn’t realized there were any pieces left for him to murder.
“Christ,” he groaned. “You feel so fucking good. It’s been forever since I’ve been inside your cunt.” He pushed up on his arms and watched as his cock slid out before sinking inside once more. “I’m gonna put my baby in your belly again. Gonna make sure we always have something connecting us.”
Thank God the effectiveness of his sperm was one thing I didn’t have to worry about. Closing my eyes, I turned my face away.
“Look at me when I’m fucking you.” His fingers gouged my chin as he forced me to meet his eyes. “You’re not hiding from how this feels, Lex.”
“It feels like you’re raping me!” The words launched from my tongue, rage rocketing out with unexpected power, and I spit in his face.
I expected him to backhand me. To beat or cut me.
I didn’t expect him to wipe the spittle off with a cruel smile. “You and I are one. Your spit doesn’t bother me.” He pushed in with a grunt. “Your body is my home.”
“You’re insane.”
“Maybe so, but if insanity feels this fucking good, I’ll take it.” Three more thrusts brought him even deeper. “I know it feels good for you too.”
“It feels vile. You make me fucking sick.”
“Your w
et cunt tells a different story, Lex.”
“Just because you’re able to get a reaction from my body doesn’t mean you get my heart.” My lip curled in a sneer, and while Zach pummeled my insides until they became tender, I infused my stare with all the hatred boiling in my soul. “My heart belongs to Rafe. It always will, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.”
Letting out an irate roar, he backhanded me.
And I laughed in his face. “The connection I have with him kills you, doesn’t it? You can’t stand it. You can’t make me love you, Zach. You. Are. Powerless.”
He roared again, only this time his hand circled my throat, the pressure of the collar cutting off my air. I gasped as his strength increased, my surroundings fading fast as the heels of my feet dug into the mattress.
Terror held me in its grip.
When Rafe choked me into blackness, he did it with precision, with just enough strength to send me under without harming me. He did it slowly, carefully, my safety always at the forefront of his mind.
Zach was so out of his mind he might choke me to death.
Tears leaked from my eyes, and I ached for my unborn child, soul bleeding for everything that could have been.
If only I hadn’t prodded the beast in Zach.
“Stop…” I managed to choke out. The press of his fingers crushed and bruised, and I couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment I passed out, but I awoke disoriented and gasping for breath as I clutched my neck, free of the restraints that had held me down just minutes before.
And Zach was gone, leaving behind his sticky, hot cum pooling between my thighs.
8. CRAZY
Alex
Too shaken and scared to leave the bed at first, I waited in suspended horror, analyzing every ache and pain in the vicinity of my belly, part of me terrified the rape would trigger a miscarriage. By the time I rolled off the mattress, I almost expected Zach to catch me in transit to the bathroom.
The first step jolted through me, initiating the fight-or-flight response, except I could do neither. My spirit was torn open, spilling metaphorical blood as his cum dripped down my thighs. I stumbled into the shower stall and took the longest shower of my life. Squeezing my eyes shut, I leaned my head against the tile and let the hot water rain over my body, washing the stickiness of Zach’s forceful culmination off of my skin.
Washing him away.
Except I knew better. I would never be able to get him off my soul permanently. How many showers had I sobbed through, just as I was doing now, during all the years he’d fucked me and made me come?
Too many to count.
The more I thought of him pounding into me, his manic eyes cataloging every nuance of shame and humiliation crossing my face, the more hysteria gripped me by the throat. I buckled into the fetal position, my fingernails like razor blades on my skin, slicing me open and digging in…digging in a little deeper.
I lay there on the shower floor, salty tears mixing with blood and the water going down the drain long after the temperature turned icy, and my skin turned wrinkly. It still wasn’t long enough. I didn’t want to leave the steamed-up sanctuary of this shower. Didn’t want to face him. But I didn’t want him to find me like this either.
Vulnerable.
Terrified.
Broken.
After wrapping myself in a bath sheet, I entered the bedroom and froze. This room no longer felt like it belonged to Rafe and me. From the second Zach took me by force in our own bed, this room stopped being ours.
It belonged to Zach now.
Another sob bubbled up, almost breaking free, and I swallowed it down, because I’d cried enough. Tears wouldn’t erase what Zach had done. They wouldn’t protect me from what he’d do again.
Again and again if I didn’t find a way out of here. Escape was the only thing on my mind when I tiptoed down the stairs, naked as the day I was born and trying not to tremble. Trying to make as little noise as possible. Because catching Zach unaware was the only way to get the upper hand, the same way he’d caught Rafe and me. We’d lowered our defenses at the most inopportune time, foolishly believing in the fairy tale.
Believing in Happily Ever After.
I heard movement coming from the kitchen—the same place I first discovered Zach the morning after my wedding. Creeping through the dining room, I poked my head around the corner and found him at the oven. Something sizzled, and my eyes immediately zeroed in on the cast-iron skillet on the stovetop.
I didn’t see a pan; I saw a weapon. Suddenly, every item in view became a potential ally against Zach.
A potential way out.
Zach turned and spotted me from his periphery. As his hazel eyes took a lascivious journey from my breasts to the space between my thighs, I resisted the urge to cover myself, because fighting him got me nowhere. I needed him to relax around me, to buy into his ridiculous belief that I cared about him. That I loved him even.
The thought made me sick.
“Are you hungry?” His lips quirked at the corners. “That’s probably a stupid question. You must be famished.”
“It smells good,” I said lightly, taking a seat at the small eat-in table for two. As I slid onto the bench, I realized that this was the first time I’d set eyes on the room—really seeing the space as I took in the rustic decor and stainless steel appliances.
The ceramic bowl of apples on the counter.
The memory of Rafe gagging me with the fruit played behind my eyelids, and I blinked the bittersweet recollection away. I wouldn’t make it through the next fifteen seconds without breaking down if I kept thinking of him.
Zach placed two plates onto the table before sliding onto the other bench seat. My stomach let out a painful growl at the sight of the steaming chicken, rice, and vegetables in front of me. Zach nodded for me to dig in, so I did. Famished didn’t begin to describe my level of hunger. Since becoming pregnant, I’d had a healthy appetite for the first time in a long time, so eating once in several days had been unbearable.
After I’d swallowed the last bite, I set my fork down and met Zach’s unsettling gaze from across the table.
Always watching.
Yet he never thought to question me about the fresh gouges in my skin. For years, he’d turned a blind eye to the scars, never caring enough to ask about them. He’d definitely never cared enough to punish me for them. His sole focus had always been to get between my legs.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you pack away food with that much enthusiasm. I’m glad to see the anorexia isn’t a problem anymore. I’m not into fucking a skeleton.”
Of course, that’s all he cared about—how useful I was to him.
“Anorexia was never a problem to begin with,” I said. “Dad admitted he pushed the eating disorder angle so he could lock me away from you.” I didn’t have to glance at him to sense the anger washing over his features, tightening his lips and locking his jaw.
Five laborious seconds passed. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck him. If he hadn’t interfered, maybe we wouldn’t be in this place. Did you ever think of that?”
I could tell him how I’d cried myself to sleep every night reliving the rapes, or how the guilt of sending Rafe to prison had eaten me alive. I could tell him that those few weeks locked away in an eating disorder clinic had been the closest I’d had to happiness while living under the same roof as him.
But that would only prod the beast, and it was time to try a new method.
“You really think things would have turned out differently?”
“Damn right, they would have. We would’ve grown closer, if he’d just left us alone. You would have never gotten distracted by Lucas, or Rafe’s release from prison. I could have made you happy, Lex.”
A shiver went through me. Lucas Perrone would have found another way to enact revenge for Rafe killing his brother on the inside. Besides, I’d go through the horror in those tunnels a thousand times if it led to the day Rafe an
d I said “I do.”
I wanted it back—the utter joy and contentedness that getting to that place with him brought me. I wanted Rafe back.
“Admit it,” Zach persisted. “We would have had a chance without Dad’s meddling.”
I shrugged, feigning nonchalance, hiding the bitter anger coiling inside me. Pointing out how crazy he was wouldn’t get him to see the truth—the insane didn’t recognize their own crazy. “Maybe you’re right, but it’s too late to go back. So where does that leave us now?” I studied him closely, watching for any signs of suspicion.
Was he figuring out my angle yet? Or would he turn a blind eye to the lie, only seeing what he wanted to? Just like the scars marring my arms.
“We have the chance at a fresh start, Lex. As soon as you unlearn all of your bad behaviors, all the shit Dad put into your head, you and I will be able to start over.”
He had no idea, no fucking clue how crazy he was. He believed his fantasy of Happily Ever After. But I’d believed in it, too. I thought I’d finally found it with Rafe, only to have it ripped away the very next morning.
Sometime during my twenty-four-years on this earth, I’d heard the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.
Maybe we were both crazy.
9. NO ECSTACY
Alex
After dinner, I felt Zach’s gaze on my naked backside. His undivided attention burned my skin from where he still sat at the eat-in nook. I reached for the skillet and squeezed the sponge over the cast-iron until suds foamed in the bottom.
The wheels in my mind turned with ideas. With hope.
Almost in a trance, I followed the motion of my hand as it scrubbed the pan in unhurried design. In my mind’s eye, I hefted the skillet, whirled around, and brought it down on Zach’s skull. The vision was so real I could actually hear it—the resulting crack blasting through my head, echoing with satisfaction.
