by Sam Mariano
Flicking a glance at my exposed bra, Pietro meets my gaze and smiles.
I feel dirty, so I pull the jacket around me and cross my arms.
"I don't suppose either of you are ready to tell me where my supply is yet?" he inquires, glancing back at Liam.
Liam skewers him with a glance.
Pietro nods. "I figured. That's okay." Then he turns, nodding to Greg. Greg disappears through the door and I frown, wondering where he's going. Dreading where he's going.
"You two get to have a little sleepover. My treat," Pietro states, mockingly generous.
Greg wheels in a cot—a hard metal frame on wheels with a thin, white mattress on top.
Pietro's vacant gaze meets mine. "Strip down or Paul will help you."
"What?" I ask, hoping I somehow misunderstood him.
Behind Greg, Antonio approaches with ropes in his hands.
"We'll have to restrain you as well, obviously," Pietro explains. "Can't have you trying to loose Liam. I'm not sure if you realize, but we've really pissed him off," he says, offering a hollow grimace. "You'll spend the night, and when we come back, Liam here will tell me where he put the shit he stole from me."
Paul comes forward, grabbing my jacket. I resist, but then I don't want him to rip it.
"Why do I have to strip down?" I ask. "You're not capable of restraining me with my clothes on?"
"Paul's going to keep guard," Pietro explains, barely able to hold back a smirk. "Keep you company."
I want to be wrong, but I know what he's threatening.
I know what Paul will do.
In front of Liam.
Bile actually rises up my throat. I take a breath, willing the impulse away, but I'm really afraid I'm going to vomit.
I swallow convulsively and only seem to further trigger my gag reflex. I stifle the retching my body so desperately wants to do, but I can still feel it in my throat.
"This wasn't our deal," I tell him, like that means something.
"Yeah. But I make the rules, sweetheart. Not you."
"Please don't do this," I say, pride be damned. I've survived plenty of abuse from Paul, but the thought of his hands on me, his mouth on me... worse things I can't even stand to think about, especially knowing Liam will be tied to a chair, helpless to stop Paul from hurting me.
Forced to watch. To listen.
"You could just tell me now," Pietro suggested, glancing to Liam. "Save Annabelle some... pain and suffering?"
Liam meets my gaze, features steady, but eyes pleading. I’m sure he wants me to understand why he won’t fold and save me. He doesn't need to show his hand even that much though; I trust him completely. I know he will do what's best.
I know once Pietro has the information he wants, we're both as good as dead.
Maybe he would keep us alive until he could verify, but once he did....
My stomach roils in protest but my brain understands. I raise my head high, push away the moment of pleading. Whatever they dole out, I can take.
Pietro’s dramatic pause ends. "No? All right, then."
"Wait," I say, glancing at the bed. Before they can tie me up, before I'll be as helpless as he is, I hurry over to Liam. It's not the easiest position to work with, but I brace myself on the arms of the chair and lean in, brushing my soft lips across his swollen ones. I want him so badly, so deeply, in every way, and I need this to get through the next day.
Liam does, too. His kiss, even without hands, is passionate, desperate, mind-numbing. His tongue sweeps into my mouth, running along the inside of my lower lip. I savor the taste of him, the feel of him. This is what our days should be filled with. This is how every one of our nights should end. No fear, not being bullied, trussed up and controlled by evil bastards. This.
It feels like a last kiss should.
Paul drags me away, breaking the kiss. I don’t fight him. I climb onto the cot, chilled to the bone, but I don’t complain.
Paul uses the rope to tie me to the bed and smirks like he’s accomplished something.
I’m naked and afraid. The dank, empty warehouse does nothing to warm me as I lie there in a bra and panties, shivering.
I’m finally with Liam, but in these circumstances, I’d almost prefer to be alone.
I want a blanket more than I ever have in my life. It seems excessively cruel that they haven’t given me one, and I decide it’s probably Paul’s doing. He knows my blanket cocoons are my safe place. He wouldn’t want me to have that here.
I think of Ryder and that other guy—Al, I think. I don’t know where they are or if they were able to find a place close enough. Who knows if they even know where I’m at, and if they do, will they put their own necks on the line to help? And if so, when?
My future is lost in an ocean of uncertainty.
There’s nothing and no one I can depend on—this time, not even myself.
Annabelle
“This is so romantic, isn’t it?” Paul asks, trailing the back of his index finger across my collar bone.
“Fuck off and die,” I reply blandly, the embodiment of boredom.
“I mean, we never tried exhibitionism before,” he says, like I haven’t spoken. His hand moves down my chest, skirting dangerously close to the cup of my bra.
Liam’s voice jolts me out of the absent state I’m trying to head into.
“I’m gonna stop you right there, Paul. Turn around. Look at me.”
Paul doesn’t lose his cocky little fucking smile, but it weakens and he does glance back at Liam. “You want some popcorn?”
Liam is doing his scary stoic thing, and he meets Paul’s gaze with detached calm. “Do you recall that night I had your throat beneath my boot and I warned you that if you ever put another unwanted hand on Annabelle again, I’d kill you dead?” He lifts his eyebrows, ever so slightly. “I’m going to warn you right now—and please, please don’t think I’m exaggerating or being in any way facetious, because I mean this very literally. If you put your puny dick anywhere near Annabelle, when I get out of this chair I am going to rip it off and feed it to you.” He remains calm, but reiterates, “I will literally grab your dick, rip it off your body, put the flaccid, bloody remains in your mouth, and make you chew it.” As if to illustrate his point, he gnashes his teeth.
I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated my big, beautiful sociopath more.
Paul chuckles, but I know him well enough to know it’s a nervous one. Glancing back at me, he says, “Man, this guy’s got no chill, does he?”
“None,” I verify.
“Look, man. I don’t even want Annabelle anymore,” Paul informs Liam. “I’m the one who left her. I… I’m in a committed relationship.”
“Good,” Liam says evenly.
Neither of us bothers to ask how the person he’s so committed to would appreciate him feeling me up or forcing a kiss on me a few minutes ago, but I’m content to let that one go.
I don’t want to see Paul’s dick ever again, bloody or otherwise.
His fun spoiled, it doesn’t take long for Paul to grow bored of guarding us. When he opens the door to step outside, I hear feet shuffling and a voice. Antonio is outside the door. They must’ve put an extra guard on us, in case Paul wasn’t sufficient.
Good thinking.
Paul is a lot of things, but rarely sufficient.
“Why’d you come back?” Liam asks me, now that we’re alone.
I want to tell him I didn’t come alone, but I don’t know if they can hear us outside the door. I don’t know if there are cameras somewhere and I just don’t see them. I’m not willing to take that chance.
“They would’ve killed you,” I state.
“They’ll still kill me,” he points out. “Now they’ll kill you, too.”
“Maybe.”
“The drugs won’t keep us alive forever. I may’ve been able to cow Paul,” he says, so dismissively I have to smile, “but that’s not going to work on Pietro. He’s empty inside. He’ll hurt you to make me talk,
and as soon as I do, we’re both dead.”
“I know that,” I mutter, glancing down at the door.
“So why?”
I want to tell him so badly. I want Ryder to be the answer to our prayer, but I don’t even know if he is. I don’t even know if any of this will work. I could’ve very well walked into a situation I won’t walk out of, and Liam’s right—Pietro will inflict horrors on me in an attempt to get the information he wants, and once he realizes nothing will work, he’ll call it a loss and we’ll both die.
It was quite a gamble, I realize.
But it’s done now.
“If you’re going to die, at least you won’t be alone.” Then, pulse quickening, I look back at him and add, “The least I could do was make sure someone you trust was with you.”
His brows furrow together, then realization dawns on his face. His gaze sharpens, questioning.
I nod as much as I’m able, just a tiny motion, because I’m paranoid. It doesn’t seem like the kind of place you could put cameras, but they did bug my house.
Liam’s whole demeanor changes. He eases back as much as he can—poor guy, he’s gotta be so uncomfortable tied up like that—and takes a slow perusal of the room. His eyes move to the high ceilings, the windowless walls, the door with all the extra locks.
Not an ideal spot to break into, I imagine.
And that’s if Ryder even knows which building we’re in. I sure didn’t see him anywhere.
The door opens and Paul slinks back in. I listen as he closes the door and notice they don’t lock all the locks when he’s inside with us.
Maybe we want him to be inside.
“Do you have a blanket?” I ask, my voice small and delicate, the way Paul thinks he likes. (Really, he likes when I piss him off. But he thinks he likes me delicate.)
Paul snorts, pulling up a folding chair on the other side of the room and planting his ass in it. He pulls his phone out and starts playing around on it.
I sigh, injecting as much despondency as I can into it.
“Shoulda made a better fucking choice,” Paul mutters, not looking away from his phone. “You were at home in our bed, you wouldn’t be wanting for a fucking blanket, now would you?”
“No,” I murmur. “I suppose I wouldn’t.”
He nods, satisfied. “Thor wasn’t such a good fucking pick, now was he?”
I won’t fess up to that, not because Liam’s here and he may not understand I’m playing Paul, but because that would be too much and I don’t want to make Paul suspicious.
Instead I go quiet. Blow out some breaths and shudder from the cold.
It takes somewhere around ten minutes before, muttering a string of foul curses, Paul gets out of his chair and yanks his coat off.
His coat smells like him, but I don’t make a face as he drapes it over my body to keep me warm.
I offer a tiny, reluctant smile. “Thank you.”
He mutters and walks back over to his chair, but I’m satisfied.
If I need Paul to help keep me alive, I’m pretty sure I can call on the little weasel.
Liam may have thought he was going to kill me, but you don’t save a woman from her abusive husband if you’re going to let her die anyway.
And you don’t give her blankets when she’s cold.
It’s a long night. What’s worse, there’s no light or dark, so no real sense of time in here. I don’t even know if it’s just been a night. The only way we can determine it must be morning is Paul leaving and the changing of the guard outside the door. I don’t know who it is, only that it isn’t Antonio.
Liam and I chat, but only monotonous stuff, none of the questions we both want answers to.
All we can do is wait, and we don’t even know for what.
More time passes.
The door eventually eases open and a stocky guy with a big nose lumbers in with a bottle of water. He regards Liam but doesn’t approach him. Instead, he comes over to me and unscrews the lid.
“Drink,” he says, tipping the bottle up to my lips.
Relief fills me and I greedily gulp down as much water as I can. It occurs to me that I should make sure I don’t drink more than half so Liam isn’t shortchanged.
Once he pulls the water away, he glances back at Liam again. “Wanna tell us where the shit is stashed?”
Liam doesn’t even glance at the guy.
Big Nose nods his head and moves the water bottle over me, dumping the other half all over my body. I cry out as the icy cold water hits my freezing cold skin and that successfully gets Liam’s attention. He still doesn’t speak, but cold fury takes up residence in the depths of his beautiful brown eyes.
Smirking, Big Nose tells me, “Stay warm, Principessa.”
Paul took his jacket when he left so I don’t even have that for cover. Cold rivulets of water drip down my side, soaking the mattress beneath me. Violent trembling wracks my body and my stupid teeth chatter no matter how hard I try to control it.
Several seconds pass before Liam asks, “How tight are your ropes?”
My wrists were already irritated from all the rubbing, and to be honest, I hadn’t even tried to get out of them. “Tight,” I tell him.
“Did you bring your car keys in?”
I turn my head and look down at the pile of discarded clothes. “Yeah. Don’t know if they grabbed them, but if not they should be down there.”
The chair moves with his efforts and I can only imagine the shape he must be in under that rope.
“Please don’t hurt yourself,” I said.
His deep, gravelly voice is taut with aggravation. “I’m fucking sick of this.”
So am I, but we need to be in the best shape we can when Ryder saves us. If Ryder saves us.
He has to. All my hopes are pinned on this stranger.
“When’s the last time they gave you any water?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer. “Don’t waste your energy.”
“You’re freezing.”
“I’m fine,” I assure him, making a more focused effort not to tremble. It doesn’t work, but hey, I tried.
I understand, though. The helplessness bugs me, too—our absolute dependence on someone hopefully saving us—it has to be even harder for him.
“When’s the last time you depended on someone?” I ask.
I glance at him, unsure how he’ll receive such an out-of-the-blue question. Especially one so potentially vulnerable.
A moment passes before he answers. “I can’t remember.”
My eyebrows rise and I send him a searching frown. “What do you mean?” I ask.
His head shakes slightly but he seems pensive, maybe sifting through memories, maybe just unwilling to share. I wish I could tell. Maybe it doesn’t matter, because Ryder won’t come and Pietro will kill both of us before it all ends, and we’ll both die with no one ever knowing either of our stories—and no one who really cares to, anyway.
Back at the cabin I probably wouldn’t have pushed, but here, now, it doesn’t make sense to hold back.
“You might as well tell me," I say lightly, despite our situation. "I promise I'll still find you mysterious for however long we get to live."
Ignoring my morbid, possibly true, joke, he says, "I'm not trying to be mysterious, I just... I really can't remember. I must've been a kid," he says, like it's a guess. "I don't know. I always remember knowing I couldn't depend on people. I tried to, I guess, but it always turned out to be a stupid-ass idea and eventually I stopped. I guess I gave people chances to prove me wrong after that, openings, but... it never happened. So I don't really know how you classify that."
I ponder his response for a moment, some of it feeling familiar. I had left openings for my mother, even after my sham wedding, for her to get back in if she tried. But she never tried. At least, not in a way that would've worked. If she had admitted wrongdoing and apologized, maybe then I would've been more receptive, but she skipped those crucial steps.
"I take it you didn't have great pa
rents," I say.
"Didn't really have any. I had a mother for a minute, but she wasn't ready for a kid and dumped me off with her father and step-mom. I pretty much took care of myself and just slept there. I used to steal her cigarettes and trade them to these little assholes at school for their lunch or money—whatever they had that I wanted."
That hurts my heart a little, but I don't show any response since I don't want him mistaking it for pity. "How old were you?"
"Nine, ten, eleven. In sixth grade they got divorced. She moved away. He moved us into this little apartment above a repair shop. I started working down there under the table and learning the way of things. It got easier then. I didn't like stealing so I liked having my own money."
"Did you live with him until you graduated?"
"Nah. He met some other woman and moved in with her. I stayed in the apartment above the shop and worked there until I was old enough to enlist."
I sort of smile. "I knew you were a service guy."
"Once upon a time," he verifies. "Anyway, then I was an adult, so..."
"So you never really had anyone."
"Not really."
"What about relationships? Any serious ones?"
"I don't really have the lifestyle for it," he says, which doesn't surprise me. I am surprised, a moment later, when he says, "Eh, that's an excuse. I wasn't so married to the lifestyle I couldn't have changed it, I just... I don't know. It isn't easy to get close to people."
Tenderness surges until I feel like I'm drowning in it. I try to keep a lid on it, but God, I just want to hug him.
"You feel close to me?" I ask, ignoring the scary rush of adrenaline I feel just asking, opening myself up that way.
"You have to ask that?"
"I feel close to you," I reply. "But it's still nice to hear."
He looks a little surly, but it amuses me. "Yes, I feel close to you," he mutters.
I wish we weren't maybe-dying, because I really want to get close enough to tease him. I don't want to right now, not when he's just opened up, but God, I need more time with him. We haven't had enough. Not nearly enough.
"I'm scared," I finally tell him.
