“Haven’t you been paying attention these last couple of weeks?” I asked. “You no longer have either. I completely check out of my body every time you touch me. I don’t feel anything you want me to anymore.”
He clenched his fist as his arm lay tensely at his side, draining it of its usual tan coloring. The blue in his eyes seemingly began to darken. “You know what irritates me the most about you, Keaton? You’re fighting against who I made you become so you can live a life that isn’t yours.”
“I know some things aren’t perfect in my life,” I admitted, “but they aren’t supposed to be. Once I figure out what I really want, it will get better. It has to. What I’m not sure of anymore is why I’m with you. Whatever it was between us, it’s gone.” I turned my attention to Nadine. “I didn’t understand why you were loyal to him. Suddenly, I do. You love him.
“I think you know Noah isn’t capable of loving you. I don’t think he can even love himself.” I looked down at my lap feeling the heat of Noah’s slow simmering anger from above me. “I don’t know what I wanted. I know I won’t chase after something he will never give me. I know you don’t love Adam. I didn’t see it at Rebirth, and I don’t see it here now. No matter how hard Noah punishes me, or how badly he treats me, he will never look at you the same way he looks at me.”
She began to frown severely, lines formed in the corner of her mouth. “Hmph,” she huffed while staring me down. “You’re such an idiot, Keaton. Get your act together, because our reach is long and wide. If you want to keep riding on our train, get a ticket, and fall the fuck in line.”
“No,” I said firmly. “I want to live my life, or figure out how to live in it. I don’t want to hide or run away anymore.” I cast a glance at Noah, “I only hope that someday you will get the help you really need.”
My words obviously upset him. “Nadine, your advice was fucked. I’m tired of talking. It seems Keaton only understands one language.” He reached down and picked me up, positioning me to sit on the edge of the table. “Hold her down,” he barked at the two guests.
I rolled and tried to run but was preempted by Adam. He grabbed me from behind in a bear hug and pulled me back. I was forced to sit on the table and lay back. Acting swiftly, the three of them moved in sync to bind me to the table with rope and restrict the movement of my neck and my arms.
My legs were spread; Nadine worked to secure my legs to the table as they dangled off the edge. I kicked and wiggled, visibly upsetting her. “You’re going to have to drug her, Noah. If she kicks me one more time, I’m going to hurt her.” Noah was already at the ominous case on top of the server before she finished her statement. Opening it, he pulled out a syringe and stalked toward me.
“No. Please. Don’t drug me.”
Adam’s hand went over my mouth, shushing my cries.
Without affection, Noah harshly implanted the tip of the needle into my thigh and pushed the plunger. A burning warmth filled me, making my limbs disobey me and fall limp.
“We won’t be having dessert tonight after all.” I watched him plod in the direction of the kitchen and remove himself from my view. When he returned, he slammed the stockpot that was once on the stove onto the wood table.
He disappeared again and reappeared with the hand made whip. He dipped it into the boiling water and slid a pair of scissors over to Nadine. “Cut everything off of her. I’m going to remind her of something she’s clearly forgotten. Tonight…I’m going to make sure she never forgets again.”
Every hit, biting my skin with a searing burn, I tried to find what was lost to me—my positive memories that made the torment transform into a dull ache. It remained out of reach and out of sight, becoming unfamiliar in my need to cope. What I did remember was Noah’s cruelty—then and now. It flooded my senses until there was no spaces left for much else. It sent a message to me loudly, filling my ears with resolve and resolution.
Through the wells of my tears, I watched Nadine grin at me as she sat in a chair, pulled up to the edge of the table, between my gaped open legs.
“Please don’t,” I implored. “Don’t do this to me. I’m not that way. I don’t want this. I—”
“Keaton,” Noah bowed over me to glare at me, “your sexual repression, frigidness, and homophobia are showing. Disobedience makes me seethe with anger. I think you’re familiar with that fact very intimately, aren’t you? You are whatever I define, and right now, you are my whore, hungry for everything I want to give you—everything I allow to happen to you.”
I pressed my lips together and closed my eyes.
I could feel everything and move nothing. Her tongue tickled my sex and her fingers probed me.
Noah stood watch only inches behind her, holding her hair and visibly taking pleasure in watching me fracture.
Wearing a cruel expression, Nadine wiped my arousal from her mouth and stood. She crawled up my body until she remained on all fours above me. “Not a lesbian, huh? You sure liked that didn’t you?” She glanced back at Noah. “She’s ready for you.” She laid flat against my body with her thighs cradling my waist. Her chin was propped on her hand as she stared down at me and waited.
Having her above me and smelling the sick scent of her perfume nauseated me.
From behind Nadine, Noah unbuckled and unzipped, removing nothing of his clothing.
“Getting you wet was pointless,” Noah rasped. “You’re going to feel this night for weeks—and I’m not speaking of the place where you want me most.”
Immobile and able to feel everything, Noah proceeded to do something that I had no words for. What was once the gateway to pleasure I’d never experienced previously became a weapon.
I screamed and cried through Nadine’s hand, cupped over my mouth.
“I want to hear her, Nadine,” Noah growled through strained grunts.
“Should’ve warned me to wear ear plugs,” she muttered and dropped her hand. She sat on my abdomen and stared down at me, watching me intently.
He pumped into me with hard, deeply penetrating strokes and held my legs up, pushing the back of my knees toward his chest.
His erection was a serrated dagger, trying to pierce through the softest flesh over and over again. The harsh pounding irritated the welts from the place he burned me on my inner thighs.
When he withdrew, Nadine unbound me and slid behind me. She pushed me to an upright position, ensuring I saw Noah’s cock as it pulsed. It was dressed in blood, tinged pink from the milky fluid of his arousal. Every involuntary tremble and shiver from my body made me feel it. He…destroyed me.
FACE DOWN IN BED, I was too scared to move my head. Breathing, adjusting my neck—anything that meant movement exacerbated the anguish.
Noah happily whistled while the water in the shower rang out. The steam made the barely breathable air muggy and stagnant. I stared at the empty tan bottle on the nightstand and my body revolted from the pain and constantly shivered.
My back and my sex were in agony. My mind was torn to shreds from being demeaned and becoming the receptacle for every single one of Noah’s broken promises. They were no longer love notes, they were scars of hatred and depraved, distressful memories.
He slipped out of the shower, moving about the space as he put on his clothes. He watched me with an unseemly permanent smile on his face. “The salve should numb you in about two hours, but not enough for you to move around,” he said, referring to the ointment he’d placed on my wounds once Nadine and Adam left.
“You should think about what Nadine warned you about last night,” he continued. “Especially with your mother so adamantly going after the senate seat. The things I could reveal about you and her? What do you think I went back for after I left you at Rebirth? The recordings. I grabbed the case containing every recorded feed taken inside every corner of the compound. And last night…I think you know it was recorded, don’t you? Every inch of this place has a camera. There is no place you can hide from me. A proper woman like you would never want anything I�
��ve recorded to see the light of day. What would your high society friends think of you?”
I continued to stare at him while pressing my lips together to prevent giving him any reason to hurt me further, or to think he had broken me.
“I would ask where you planned to go today, but you and I both know you’re not going anywhere. I have something for you.” With a wink, he disappeared into the grand space. Upon his return, he sat on the edge of the bed and set a small box down beside me. Picking up my left hand, he slid a ring on my finger. “You will vow to be mine forever in the eyes of God.”
Staring at the blinding diamond on my finger, I lost the grip on my rebellion. I began to cry.
He leaned over the bed and trailed a tear down my cheek. “Tonight, I’m going to tell you about the course both our lives will take.” He grinned broadly, flashing his gleaming white smile at me. “I’m very excited about our future together, princess. You’ll be excited about it, too…eventually.”
“You sick—”
“Careful,” he warned me. “You’ve decided that it has to be this way. If you want a different outcome, adhere to a different script. Remember, you no longer exist for them; you exist for me and my love…my pain and pleasure when I want to give it—when you deserve it.” He strode out of the room, whistling the entire way.
Upon hearing the door latch close, I mentally prepared myself for the onslaught of physical revulsion. It didn’t matter how hurt or torn up my body was. I had one purpose: to find a phone. I made it downstairs to the guard station and was able to convince Lem to allow me to use his cell.
It was the last thing I was able to do before I passed out.
“HELLO?” NATHAN CALLED OUT into the large empty space, waking me. “Shit, Keaton. I had to do some mission impossible actions to get up here. He has you locked up like a prisoner and under guard.”
I squinted for a moment, whispering my discontent into my pillow. I barely remembered how I got back into bed, nor did I remember calling Nathan. I was sure my call was placed to Sonja, the one I knew wouldn’t judge me, and instead, she sent Nathan, the one who would judge me despite promising he wouldn’t.
“Over here,” I croaked, closing my eyes. I couldn’t bear to see his reaction when he saw my naked body laying face down in bed.
Closing my eyes mattered very little. He gasped and whatever he held in his hand fell to the floor with a hard thud.
“Please, Nathan. The pills. Did you get the pills from Brandy?”
His feet shuffled near me. Paper ruffled as he stepped into view. He set a Tupperware bowl of what looked to be Sonja’s soy soup and placed a bottle of pills on the nightstand. He picked up my left hand tentatively. As he shook his head in slow motion, his eyes were shut so tightly wrinkles formed at his temples. Turning around, he pulled up a chair from the corner of the room, and sat cross-legged on the other side of the bed. Releasing an exhaustive sigh, he squinted and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Please don’t,” I whimpered.
“As soon as you take those pills, we are getting you out of here. And that ring on your hand is going right where it belongs. Trashed or pawned.”
“When the pills kick in, I have to go to work.”
His eyes widened and his mouth fell agape. He manually closed it and swayed his head from left to right. “I don’t think there is enough Oxy in the world—no judgment—that can make you feel well enough to go to work. Keaton, I think you really need to slow down and think about what matters here. It’s not your job or anything else in the world. It’s you. You have to go to the police about this man before he kills you, or worse yet, you marry him and then he kills you—receiving money that doesn’t belong to him.”
“I have to think about everyone else. I can’t leave him. Believe me, I want to, but I can’t.”
“You have a plethora of people who can make sure he won’t get to you.”
“You have no idea how powerful he is and what he can do. I don’t want anyone else hurt because of me.”
“I knew it at the dinner. You found another Gregory.” He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “You’re not a magnet for awful men, you’re a goddamn vortex. Why are you really staying with him, Keaton? If you want out, we can get you out. After all, I got in here even though he has you locked down like Fort Knox.
“I know you don’t love him, because I know you. The way you two are together? Even at the dinner it was clear there is no love there. I kept trying to understand why you’d be with him. Think I know. You found someone to make sure you remembered your guilt and paid for it every day. You were not responsible for what happened to Reese and Phoebe, stop allowing this man to make you feel like you were.”
His words were jagged slivers of truth, attacking my eyes and throat. Both revolted, unable to function properly from the throes of tribulation.
“Think about this: What if he kills you, Keaton? What does anything matter if he kills you?”
“I will leave. I have to be smart about it.”
“Meaning you have to delay until he eventually kills you? I’m not letting that happen.”
“You can’t protect me.”
“The hell I can’t. If you leave this man, I have resources, Keaton.”
“Since…when?”
He bent at the waist and clasped his hands over his lap. “There’s something I need to tell you. I wasn’t supposed to, he was going to in due time. But there is a reason I’m here and why I came back when I did. Me and my entanglements…”
“What do you mean?”
“If you leave, Braedan will help you. He’ll make sure Noah can’t touch you. But you have to take the first step, Keaton.”
“Braedan?” I had suspicions about the man before, despite the good nature that made me feel…different. But now my suspicions were mind numbing. “Why is he helping me and my mother so selflessly?”
“Because his name isn’t really Braedan. You know him—or knew of him.” He leaned closer to me and cupped both hands over his mouth to whisper, “It’s Sander.”
My eyes widened and my mouth dropped in shock. “Sander?” I whispered back, conscious of Noah’s warning about the cameras. “He…escaped?”
“He did, and for obvious reasons, he needs to keep things quiet about his identity and why he’s here,” he replied, keeping his volume low and quiet. “He’s the only unknown, to the world, who got out of Rebirth alive. What do you think Noah would do if he knew Sander wasn’t dead?”
Sander was one of the housemates at Rebirth, but he never spoke, at least not when I was around, and I’d only seen him around a handful of times. I couldn’t remember much about his face, but of what I remembered, he fit the description of the man I glimpsed at during the party. Regardless of whether or not he was altruistic in his desire to help me, I had to meet with him. “How do you know him?”
“That’s a long story and whole lot of drinks, Keaton.”
“Give me time,” I said, promising that I would leave Noah when the timing was perfect.
“I’ll give you twenty-four hours. I will not stand by and watch this man murder you because he screwed your head and made you think you couldn’t get out from underneath him and whatever he’s doing to you. I think Sander is legit, and you know me. I do background searches on everyone. I really do believe he can help you. After all, look what he’s done for your mother. Use him.”
“Princess, you are being deeply deluded. The saddest thing is I think you’re fully aware that you are. You like being this way because it’s comfortable. You’ve become complacent while living a big fucking lie.”
-THE SECT
“…thank you, everyone, for your attention and your support over the years.” As my mother stood at the head of the table inside the conference room at F.A.C.E., after formerly announcing her retirement, her employees rose to clap and offer her their best wishes.
I couldn’t stand and the pain pills I had taken were making me drunk with drowsiness. The only reason I was allo
wed to return to work was because I promised Noah I would quit and remain in my prison. His reactions were unpredictable, and I became terrified over his promise to hurt someone I loved. I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Even if it meant my life, I would stay with him to ensure no one else was hurt.
After borrowing clothes from my mother’s assistant, I spent the entirety of the meeting, remaining in my seat, pretending I had a headache. I became tied up between managing my suffering and figuring out how to tell my mother I had to resign. The last thing on my agenda was to break her heart any more than I already had.
As people began to file out of the room, I tried to disappear behind someone and evade my mother’s attention. It seemed easy enough since she was busy reading a text on her phone.
The second I stood before her, her eyes darted up to me, then to the ring on my left hand. A look of dread settled onto her face. “Not so fast.” She pointed to the seat at the head of the table.
“I really have to get to work.” I gave her a false smile.
“You’ve been avoiding me for far too many weeks. With that ring I see on your finger, we most certainly need to have a chat. Please, have a seat.” She pulled out a chair for me and sat on the edge of the table.
The moment I turned around and winced, she noticed. She immediately marched toward the doors and pushed the locking mechanism.
Touching the sensor, she made the blinds retract down the glass, leaving us in privacy. “Lift up your skirt, Keaton.”
“Mom…” I stared at her phone on the table curious as to who had texted her.
“I’m your mother. I’ve changed your dirty diapers and cupped my hand over your mouth when you had to throw up while you were sick. I gave you that body. There is nothing to be embarrassed about.”
I shook my head, backing away from her. My mother acted aggressively, out of character, and stunned me. She marched forward and spun me around. She didn’t get a chance to lift up my dress. Her touch at my back provoked the dampness to seep through the bandages and cling to my silk shirt.
The Rebirth of Sin (Wicked Trinity Book 2) Page 11
