Yeah, now I was hard. I tuned in to her sighs and moans, her pleas for more. Ten years with her and she hadn’t once begged me for it. Well, I was going to make her fucking beg this time.
Her screams of pleasure had me spray my come everywhere, and muffled out the sounds of my groans. I wiped my hand down on my jeans and rearranged myself, then quickly stuck my eye back to the hole.
‘To be continued,’ he said as he pulled her panties back up, then kissed her. She held on to his face and hummed.
‘I love the taste of me all over you, almost as much as I love the taste of you all over me.’
‘Slut!’ I mouthed at her. Maybe this was a good thing, maybe she’d learned some lessons in the time we’d been apart and would be more receptive to my particular predilections.
‘Are you going to head back down?’ he asked as he stood up and straightened his tie.
‘Not for a while, I need to wait for my legs to come back to life, then I’m going to pack up my clothes and knick-knacks.’
‘Do you want me to ask them to come up and help?’
‘No, I kind of want to be alone,’ she said as she looked around the room. ‘It’s the last time I’ll be here when it’s all mine and I have a lot of happy memories to digest.’
‘I get that. You know where I am if you need me, or how to get me if you’re worried, right?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ she replied.
‘I know you’re trying to be brave. I also know that you’re rattled, Alex. Richard is out there somewhere and it fucking scares me too.’
‘You should be fucking scared, because I’m right here and you’re about to say goodbye to her for the last time,’ I whispered.
‘Go, I’ll be fine, Castle. I’m in a locked apartment with my friends downstairs, and one of your team outside. Nothing can happen in here.’
‘Guess again, Izzie,’ I added, then strained to hear whatever it was they just whispered to each other, but I missed it. I listened to his footsteps heading across the wooden floors, then the sound of the upper door opening and closing and his feet thudding down the stairs.
Alone. At last.
I’d lost everything because of her, not to mention having been repeatedly sodomised. This bitch was due some payback for what she’d done to me, and tonight was the night that my patience would finally pay off.
Isabelle Knight might not know what was about to hit her, but I’d make damn well sure to remind her.
Chapter Seventeen
Alex
‘COME ON, ALEX,’ I told myself as I sat up on the bed. ‘No use getting sentimental over a flat.’
I stretched as I stood up, still feeling a delicious pull deep in my belly from a powerful orgasm. I put my skirt on the bed, kicked off my heels and loosely buttoned my shirt at the waist as I headed into the kitchen. I chugged back some water, then fished my iPhone out of my bag, hooked it up to my stereo and pressed play on my favourites list. I cranked up the volume and started to sing along as P!nk belted out “What About Us?”
Dancing my way back into the bedroom, I dragged out my spare suitcase from under the bed and set it on top of it. I carried my first small drawer of clothes over and tipped them all out, setting the empty drawer at my side on the floor. I started to carefully fold my things and arrange them neatly in my case, smiling as I remembered how good it had felt to hear Rosie call me “Mummy” last night. It had nearly made my heart explode with joy. My past was almost behind me, I was unravelling the chains that had anchored me to Richard and his abuse for so many years, and I was excited about what lay ahead.
I didn’t have a second to react from the moment I sensed someone’s presence, to the moment a hand clamped down over my mouth and an arm tightened around my waist. I screamed, the noise muffled by the firm palm pressing into my lips, then winced as I felt the coolness of a metallic blade against my belly. My heart moved into my throat as a voice I’d hoped I’d never hear again sang into my ear in time with the music.
‘What about us?’
Every second of fear I’d ever experienced in my life, and thought I was finally handling, came together and slammed into me like a juggernaut. I froze, everything in front of me blurring in and out of focus as terror coursed through my veins.
Richard
‘Well, Izzie, what about us? How quickly you forgot.’
I dragged my tongue slowly up the scar on her cheekbone, loving that there were still signs of me all over her body. A body that had reverted true to form, trembling as I held her captive against me. My cock started to swell again at the knowledge that I still had some kind of hold over her, and I groaned and started to flex my hips to rub it against the cheeks of her ass.
‘Oh, Izzie, Izzie, Izzie. What am I going to do with you? Do you remember the last time we were together? Do you? That was the best night of my fucking life, teaching you a lesson, watching you try to fight back. It was incredible, right until the moment that you drugged me and ruined me, you bitch! But don’t let it be said that I don’t have compassion. I’m about to top that night and this time, once I’m through, I’ll show you some mercy and slit your fucking throat like this.’
I dragged the blade quickly across her stomach, a shallow slice just to show her that I meant business, and heard her whimper as it opened up her flesh.
‘That’s it, let me hear what it does to you when I teach you your place in the world. Do you remember how much it turns me on to hurt you, to hear you cry? Yes,’ I chuckled as a pitiful whine came from her lips. ‘I think you do, I don’t think you’ll ever forget. Not that you could, not with my marks all over your skin, and the fracture lines that still run through your bones. I shaped you, I fucking made you, Izzie. But just in case, maybe I should give you a little reminder. Feel free to scream by the way. I turned the music up while you were singing, your friends won’t hear you and I really, really want to hear you scream again.’
I shoved her forward aggressively, and she face planted into the mattress. Not giving her a second to recover I bounced up onto the bed and sat on the base of her spine, pinning her down as I lifted her left hand to examine it. I felt high, drowning as the head rush at the thought of causing her pain intoxicated me. I owed her.
‘No ring yet, maybe you’re not as good a cocksucker as I recall.’
‘Please!’
I smiled as I heard the faint plea in a shaky voice, then grabbed her ring finger and yanked it back. The satisfying snap was accompanied by an even more satisfying muffled scream. I groaned, the sound of her pain the biggest turn on to me, and moved to her middle finger, repeating the process. Every second she sobbed into the mattress, and her body writhed below me, was another second of pure and utter exhilaration for me.
‘Which little piggy cried all of the way home next I wonder?’ I whispered in her ear as I tapped the two remaining fingers on her left hand.
‘Castle.’ She croaked out his name and I scowled at her back, snapping both remaining fingers in rapid succession and shoving her face deeper into the mattress as her screams grew louder.
‘Castle’s not coming, not before I do. But when he gets here, he’s going to find you horribly disfigured, beaten and lifeless. No one touches my property, no one.’
‘I think you’ll find she’s mine, you sick, twisted fucking bastard,’ a voice roared, catching me by surprise. As I turned my head in its direction a forceful blow slammed into my left temple and sent me flying across the room. My head bounced off the wall with a loud crack, and my vision tunnelled and everything started to go black.
Castle
‘Oh God, Alex, what’s he done to you?’ My voice came out a hushed tremble as I carefully rolled her over, my fury rapidly being replaced by gut-wrenching concern. Tears were trickling down her pale cheeks, but she was unresponsive. ‘Alex, talk to me,’ I begged, stroking her face gently, but it looked completely vacant, like she’d checked out. What the fuck had he done to her?
‘Shit,’ panted Adams’ voice behind me.
‘Out,’ I barked, without so much as a backwards glance, as I quickly pulled her gaping shirt closed to protect her modesty.
‘But–’
‘Out now! She needs some privacy, wait downstairs for me and call the police and an ambulance,’ I ordered, not taking my gaze off her. I waited to hear him leave and started doing up her buttons. ‘You’re going to be okay, Alex, you’re going to be okay.’ I kept repeating it on a loop, not really sure who I was trying to convince. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be okay after this. I’d failed her.
Her whole body was shaking violently as she just stared blankly up at the ceiling. I winced as I saw blood on her belly, which had soaked through her shirt, and noticed the fingers of her left hand were purple and swollen, one sticking out at a grotesque angle.
‘Oh, Alex,’ I breathed. My body was overtaken with a slew of compassion mixed with rage. I had no idea which I should tune in to as she just lay there, seemingly oblivious to my presence. I had no idea how to reach her.
I’d got here as fast as I could when she’d pressed that pendant, but I wasn’t fast enough. When I’d left her Adams was on guard outside watching the gallery entrance, I hadn’t had time to program everyone’s numbers into the pendant software, and I’d thought she was safe in here with him on watch and her friends downstairs. I’d been sorely wrong.
No wonder we couldn’t find him. We’d looked everywhere but in her bloody loft, the stairs to which were hanging down as I’d charged through her flat to find her. He’d had access to her in here any time he’d wanted and we’d had no idea. I closed my eyes and drew in a breath in an attempt to quell the rage that was suddenly threatening to overpower my other emotions, as I tried not to imagine what would have happened to her if she hadn’t called me to take me up on my offer to leave the country when she did.
‘Can you ever forgive me?’ I whispered as I opened my eyes again to gaze down at her. She still had a blank expression on her face, her eyes dull and lifeless. I needed to see something in them, a spark, anger, fear, pain, anything was better than nothing. It was as if she’d gone catatonic and retreated into herself. ‘Alex, talk to me,’ I demanded forcefully as my concern overrode my patience. ‘I need to know that you can hear me. Give me a goddamn sign that you know you’re safe now, Tiger?’ I demanded, almost yelling at her for some kind of reaction.
I didn’t expect to see her eyes widen as a flame suddenly ignited in them, and I didn’t expect to hear her scream the word “No” as pain radiated through the back of my skull.
Bile rose in the back of my throat as I slumped forwards onto the bed, noise rushing into my ears as the light began to fade.
You’ve failed her, Tate Castle, my inner voice told me as I retched and the world and Alex slipped out of my grasp.
Alex
‘You’re not safe, Izzie,’ Richard sneered as he loomed over me, with the empty wooden drawer in his hand. He tossed it onto the bed above my head as I tried to pull myself together, to focus on him and not the pain, or Castle’s prone body, unmoving next to mine. ‘I told you that destiny was inescapable, but it seems like our time has run out. Part of me had hoped to see Isabelle make a reappearance, as I owe her payback, but I think, on reflection, that seeing you too scared to fight back is the look I’ve always loved on you best of all. I kind of love that it’s meek and feeble Izzie Knight that I get to end, shaking on the bed like a feeble kitten, just how she always did.’
‘I’m not Izzie Knight anymore,’ I whispered, choking down the pain that was pulsating through my left hand, not to mention my heart at the thought that I might have just lost Castle, or what it would do to Rosie. I ignored every instinct to block out the memories of that last night with Richard, and channelled them, grouping them until they were a laser sharp image that reminded me that this was nothing. It was a fraction of the pain I’d borne then, and God only knew I’d built up a high tolerance to it over the years.
‘She speaks,’ he said softly, a smug and satisfied smile creeping across his face, making me want to obliterate it. ‘Maybe I’ll see my darling Isabelle after all.’
‘I’m not Isabelle Knight either,’ I grated out, digging deep to find my real voice and projecting the strength that Castle had given to me, reminding me only moments ago who I’d become.
‘You think you’re who, Alex Bishop, now? How’s she any different from the pathetic woman that I manipulated and controlled for years?’
‘Because she’s not a feeble little kitten, she’s grown some goddamn claws since you last saw her,’ I hissed. I twisted sideways off the mattress and stood to face him, drawing my shoulders back to raise me to full height, as I lifted my chin in defiance and glared at him with more hatred than I ever thought a human being could possibly carry.
‘I’m finding it hard to keep track, you’ve had that many names. Who the hell are you then, Izzie?’
‘I’m Alex Bishop and I’m a fucking tiger!’ I roared, cradling my broken left hand against my chest I threw a right hook at him.
He gasped in surprise as the punch connected, and staggered backwards. I screamed again, focussing every ounce of anger I’d ever felt in my life, at the rage I’d felt when I saw him hurt Castle, to lift my foot and slam it into the centre of Richard’s chest before he had time to recover from my first blow. He stumbled through the open bedroom door, groaning in pain as he landed on his back on the edge of the coffee table, then fell onto the hardwood floor, right as Adams came barrelling back into the room.
‘Back off,’ I yelled as he prepared to tackle Richard. ‘He’s mine. I. Said. He’s. Mine,’ I warned him, fixing him with a glare as he went to interrupt me.
Richard scrambled up with a look of panic on his face as he eyed the stocky bodyguard, then looked at me, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened to him. I needed this, I needed to feel like I’d had some part in ending this vicious circle I’d found myself trapped in. Being saved wouldn’t help my recovery. I needed to take control of my own destiny. I turned the tables for once, and smiled at Richard, the way he used to smile down at me as he kicked the shit out of me.
‘What’s wrong, Richard? Scared of a feeble little pussy cat?’ I taunted as I moved closer. ‘You used to get off on me trying to fight back. You used to provoke me to try and hurt you, to give you an excuse to inflict more pain. Well I’m ready to fight, so come and face your masterpiece. Come and hurt me some more, you know you want to.’
‘I want to fucking kill you,’ he growled. Rage flared in his eyes as he quickly moved behind the kitchen island and drew a carving knife out of the block, checking to see where Adams was. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, hovering by the door, ready to leap into action if he needed to. It gave me a much-needed extra boost of confidence to know I had him in my corner as backup.
‘Kill me? Come on, we both know that you won’t,’ I said as calmly as I could, while inside I was anything but. ‘You see I know you, Richard King. All that time you kept me against my will I took the time to study you, and learn how your mind worked. While you were still struggling to get a grip on who I really was, I worked out exactly who you were. That’s how I beat you before, and that’s how I’m going to beat you again. You’d never go for the kill, you’ve never been into instant gratification. You can only get off on taking me to the point where I want to die, then letting me heal so you can repeat it all over again. Again, and again, and again.’
‘You don’t know jack shit about me.’ His words came out in a snarl as we faced off against each other, the air crackling with tension so thick, not even the knife in his hand could have sliced through it.
‘Ten years gives me a goddamn double doctorate specialising in knowing everything about you! Come and end it then, Richard. You’re not getting away this time, not with Adams standing there blocking the door and the police already on their way. If you’re going to be sent down for a second and final time, you might as well make it worth your while and carry out your lif
e sentence with the knowledge that you killed me.’
I took a few paces towards him, my body flooded with adrenaline, flight in hiding, fight buoying my bravery. I just hoped I wasn’t about to come crashing down, as once it wore off, the pain was going to hit me with the force of a freight train and I’d be defenceless against him. Richard raised his right hand, angling the knife down in his grasp as we slowly moved closer to each other, circling like opponents in a boxing ring, waiting for the right moment to strike.
‘Alex,’ Adams warned as he inched closer to me.
‘I told you to back off,’ I warned him, without taking my eyes off Richard. ‘If he’s just killed the only man I’ve ever loved, I’m as good as dead anyway. This ends now. Come on, Dick,’ I urged, crooking the fingers of my right hand in a “come hither” motion. ‘How about it, you must hate me for beating you before. I bet a pretty boy like you was choice meat for all of the big dogs in prison, to use and abuse. Did it hurt when they bent you over? Did you cry? Did you call out for your mummy while you trembled like a pathetic little pussy?’ I used every jibe I could to goad him as my chest heaved with each breath I took, not knowing if it was about to be my last.
‘Fuck you, Izzie,’ he roared as he rushed at me.
‘For the last time, I’m Alex!’ I yelled.
Everything moved at warp speed as a last burst of adrenaline surged through my body, my blood coursing through my veins making my heart pound and my skin sweat. The sun fractured off the glinting blade as he drove it down towards me in an attempt to stab me. Reacting instinctively after my hours of training with Castle, I thrust my hands up above my head, planting one foot behind me to steady myself and braced my wrists into a cross to strengthen them. His wrist landed firmly in the V shape that I’d created and it temporarily stalled his attempt to attack me with the knife in its tracks.
He grunted as he tried to power through my defence posture, but I gritted my teeth, screaming to expel all of my strength to hold him at bay as I stepped forwards, then dropped rapidly to the floor and spun, thrusting my elbow forcefully up into his crotch. He toppled forwards over my shoulder, and landed with a heavy thud, making the floor below me shudder.
Inescapable Page 27
