I remember running.
My eyes follow the path I took. I remember his hard body knocking me to the ground. And then I have flashes of memories of him pounding into me, both of us naked as he ruts between my legs, pushing my body into the dirt.
As if reading my mind, Vince growls out, “I didn’t.” His tone is defensive and hard. I swallow the lump growing in my throat. I know he didn’t. I would have felt it this morning. But I remember it. Why do I remember it happening that way? More importantly, why did he want me to forget?
“I know.” The words catch in my throat and come out much higher than I intended. I clear my throat and cross my arms to grip my shoulders. “I don’t understand, Vince.”
He takes a deep breath, but doesn’t meet my eyes. “You need to go inside, Elle.”
I look at the house. It's the same country home I thought was so cute this morning, but as I look at it now, fear makes my legs collapse. We’re in the middle of nowhere. I can’t go in there. In the movies, a secluded place like this is where they kill you. No one will hear me scream. My body begs me to run.
Vince grips my elbow and leans into my neck. His hot breath sends chills down my shoulder and back as he warns, “Don’t you fucking dare run from me.”
A whimper escapes my lips. He pulls me toward the house and I move with him. This has happened before, and I was still alive this morning despite everything. Maybe it will happen again.
“Will I forget in the morning?” I can only hope I will.
“No.” He swings the front door open as the hope dies in my chest. “It didn’t work.”
“I don’t understand,” I plead.
“Stop whining!” he yells at me as I walk inside with him. His anger forces me to rip my arm from his grasp, but it's a clumsy, uncontrolled motion, and my back slams against the wall just inside the door. My hands cover my mouth and I try to stifle the need to cry.
“Fuck!” he screams into the air, and kicks the door. I hear Rigs barking upstairs. His paws scratch against a door. I back away slowly and find myself cowering in the corner. Vince’s fists slam into the wall, leaving dents and a trail of blood on the white walls. His knuckles are bloodied but he keeps doing it over and over. Each time his fists pound against the wall my chest jumps and a scream threatens to escape. Rigs barks and growls and Vince yells at him to be quiet.
I’m fucked. I’m so fucked.
He finally stops and takes a deep breath. The only sounds in the room are the dog barking and Vince’s heavy breaths. His large shoulders rise and fall with power. He turns slowly towards me and stares at me for a long time. When he finally opens his mouth I let out a heavy breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “I’m supposed to kill you,” he says.
My body turns weak and I fall to the floor. I want to plead, but I can’t. I can’t do anything. I’m paralyzed. I don’t want to die.
“I’m going to figure something out, sweetheart.” He walks slowly toward me and picks up my trembling body. Half of me wants to push him off of me and try to run, but the other half is too terrified to consider fighting. The terrified side is the side that is winning. He carries me up the stairs and I remain as still as possible in his arms.
He speaks calmly. “You need to be good for me. You need to make this easy.” I can’t respond. But if I could, I’d tell him to go fuck himself. I’m not going to make it easy for him to kill me. I can’t speak the words, but he must sense my disobedience. “Don’t you fuck with me, Elle.”
I shouldn’t make him angry, but I can’t answer. Fear has crippled me.
He kicks a door open, and I recognize the room. It’s where we were this morning. I look at the messy bed, still unmade, and see a pink stain on the sheets.
I hear him shushing me; I feel him trying to comfort me. It just makes me feel even worse.
My chest has never felt so hollow or painful before. I never knew I could feel this much physical pain from emotional damage.
Chapter 19: Vince
What the fuck am I going to do? My phone keeps going off in my pocket. I know it’s the guys or Pops. I can’t answer it. I know what they’re going to say. I know their argument. I really believe her, I do. She’s not going to say shit. But I can hear them shooting back the next logical question. What if she remembers more? I still don't have an answer to that question.
Not only that, but she’s been seen with me now. Twice. If someone happened to be watching, which happens every now and then--if they’re watching and saw her, they can take her in. They can put pressure on her. And even the best of people collapse under that pressure. I look down at Elle and try rubbing her back again. She’s curled up on the bed. They’d get to her for sure. She couldn’t tell a lie to save her life.
Rigs barks again and I know my poor pup wants out of the spare bedroom. I left him in there so he wouldn’t chew up all the furniture while I was gone. He wants to make sure everything is alright. But it’s not. He’s gonna have to stay in there until I can calmly let him out. This is so fucked. It’s all just fucked.
I try pulling her back to me, closer to me. My hand is fucking killing me, but I need to comfort her. I shouldn’t have done that. I know I scared her. Now she won’t even look at me. I just want to hold her. But she’s scooting away. I don’t like it. I don’t want to let go of her, but I need to figure this shit out. And realistically, the only thing I can come up with, is that she has to go.
I knew it back at my parents' house. I could see it happening, one of them coming up from behind her with a syringe filled with a lethal injection cocktail trio. It would feel like a pinch, and then it’d be over with. She’d go quickly and painlessly. But the image of her dead and limp in my arms is something I can’t handle. I don’t want that. I want her to live. I want to see her happy.
I need to figure this shit out, but I haven’t got a clue how. We never let witnesses live. I’ve got nothing but our standard protocol to go on.
I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her to me, forcing her into my lap. Her hand whips out and pushes violently against my chest.
“Don’t push me, sweetheart,” I grit through my teeth. You’d think she’d be doing whatever she could not to make me angry. I’m her only fucking hope.
“Fuck you!” she screams out, and I grab her mouth to silence her.
“Watch your mouth, sweetheart.”
“Don’t touch me!” She yells.
“Sweetheart, watch that mouth-”
“Fuck you!” she yells again.
“Oh yeah?” I pin her ass down on the bed. Both of her tiny wrists fit easily in one hand, and I shove them above her head and dig them into the mattress. My hip pins hers down. “You really think you should be talking to me like that, Elle?” I keep the threat in my voice. I have a soft spot for this broad. Everyone’s gonna know it. But not her. She can’t know that, not yet. She needs to be afraid until I can figure this shit out. And right now, fear is not the dominant emotion that I sense.
“Just kill me!” she screams in my face. Her words hit me like a bullet to the chest. Her face is red and her cheeks are stained with tears. Her eyes glassy with more unshed tears. Her voice lowers. “I know you're going to kill me, so just do it already.”
“I don’t want to kill you, Elle.” It’s true. I don’t want to. The fact that she’s telling me to kill her makes me sick to my stomach.
“So you’re going to let me go?” Her voice doesn’t hold any hope; she already knows the answer will be no.
“No.” She closes her eyes at my answer and turns on the bed to face away from me as best she can with me still pinning her down. I loosen my grip and let her go. I run a hand down my face and look around the room. It’s a safe house. So there’s no way she can get out of here. I need to go. I’ve got to get out of here for just a minute and figure out just how badly I’ve fucked up. And let my dog out before he tears the door down.
I open the door and check my key in the lock to make sure she can’t lock me out. She can’t
. So that’s a plus, I guess. I look back at her lying limp and in the fetal position on the bed. “I’m not going to hurt you.” I say it just loud enough for her to hear and take a step out into the hallway.
I shut the door and my fucking heart breaks as I barely make out her words. “You already have.”
Chapter 20: Elle
I have no fucking clue where I am. Obviously this is Vince's house, but where this is located, I have no idea. I didn’t pay attention this morning either. I just know it was a long drive. But I’m getting out of here. There’s no way I’m staying here. I don’t know how long he’s going to keep me here. I know they want me dead. They can’t risk me remembering whatever the fuck it is that I saw. But I really need to get the fuck away from here as fast as I can.
I finally get my ass off the bed and wipe the tears from my face. I need to do something. I can’t just wait here to die. For all I know he’s going to come in the room with a gun or something and kill me, or however the fuck they do it. I can’t just wait around. I won’t. I don’t want to die.
I walk as quietly as I can to the curtains in the room and open them wide. The windows are large. Really fucking large. Like they were meant to be used to escape from the bedroom. Good. 'Cause that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I run my hand along the top of the sill, searching for a latch, but I don’t find one. My forehead wrinkles with consternation, and my heart beats faster. I push against the top. I try pushing it up with everything I have in me. But it doesn’t budge. Fuck! What the fuck is the point of this window being so damn big then? I want to pound my fists against it, but that would be stupid. He’d hear. I have to be quiet. I have to figure out something else.
I tiptoe to the door. My heart’s trying to leap up my throat, but I keep moving. I have to try. I push my ear to the door and I can hear his voice, but I can’t make out the words. He must be downstairs. I twist the knob, but it doesn’t budge. I try again with both hands and it doesn’t give. I look at the knob and see it’s not locked, but then my eyes travel up. There’s a second lock. Motherfucker!
I want to scream at that asshole. He locked me in! I’m locked in here like a bird in its gilded cage. I huff in a staggered breath and walk backwards slowly until I’m against the wall. I lower myself to the floor. I have to wait. I raise my head and cast a glance around the room. I need to find a weapon. I’m quick to get up with this thought in mind.
I may not be able to run, but I’ll fight. I’ll do whatever I have to. I pull open the drawer of the nightstand. It’s empty except for a stack of papers. I go through his dresser, one drawer at a time. Nothing. Not a damn thing. I stare at the gun safe in the corner of the room. I can’t imagine he left it unlocked, but I have to try anyway. I pull the door, but it’s no use.
The bathroom. I race to the en suite, but keep my steps light. There has to be something in here. My eyes catch sight of a razor. It’s not much, but it’ll have to do. I grab the plastic handle and tilt it on its side on the counter. I need to crack the plastic so I can get to the blade.
My eyes search for anything that’s hard and heavy enough to do the job. I finally see the tumbler by the sink. The bottom is stainless steel. I grab the towel from the hook and lay it on the counter to absorb some of the noise. I smash the tumbler on top of the razor, hard, but not hard enough to make much noise.
My heart stills and my blood rushes faster, waiting to hear anything from downstairs. Nothing. So I hit it again and again until the plastic cracks. I try pulling the plastic back, but I need more give. I tilt the razor and try to angle it so it’ll be more effective. I raise my arm up and smash it down.
Yes! The plastic cracks even more, and I’m able to wiggle the blade out carefully. I raise the blade up to my eyes to look at the shiny, metal weapon. It’s small. Really fucking small. But maybe if I can catch him by surprise, I'll be able to hurt him enough to escape.
“Whatcha doing, sweetheart?” I jump at the sound of Vince’s voice and nearly drop the blade.
I stare at Vince from across the room. He sneaked up on me. How long has he been watching me? I don’t answer him. Instead I make a fist and position the blade in the space between two of my fingers so it’ll cut him when I swing.
We both know what I’m doing. My blood heats and rushes in my ears. My heart feels like it's trying to escape my body. It’s beating that wildly. But I ignore my heart and blood both. Vince’s gaze is hard and focused on me.
“You planning on hitting me, sweetheart?” He takes a step toward me and as much as I want to stand my ground, I instinctively take a step back. “You wanna hurt me, Elle?”
No. I don’t. I don’t want to hurt him.
“You wanna kill me baby, is that it?” I shake my head, but keep my eyes trained on him. I take another step back as he steps even closer. My back hits the wall. I’m cornered. Sweat covers my body with a chill.
“That’s not very nice. Here I am trying to help you.” He lunges for me and I try to hit him, but he grabs my wrist and forces my hand above my head. I scream and try to push him away as he twists my wrist and the blade slips through my fingers. Faintly, I hear the thin metal hit the tiled floor.
My body sags as he pushes his hard chest against me. I close my eyes and push my head against the wall. Sadness weakens my body.
He grips my jaw and forces me to face him, but I keep my eyes closed. I can’t look at him. “You were going to kill me, sweetheart? You wanted to kill me?”
I try to shake my head but I can’t. I try to speak, but with his hand on my jaw, I can’t.
“Look at me!” he yells into my face, and it forces a whimper out of me, but my eyes stay closed.
Without any warning, he leaves me. My body falls limp to the floor and my knee slams down against the tile. Fuck! I grab it and lay on my side as the pain shoots up my body.
“Fuck, Elle!” He bends down beside me and picks me up off the floor. I expect his anger, not for him to take me gently into his arms. I bury my head in his chest. I can’t take this. I’m not a person who can handle this kind of situation. I’m just breaking down. He walks me back over to the bed and sits down with me limp in his lap.
His hands pry my grip from my knee, and I watch his face as he looks it over, examining my injury. It’ll bruise, but I’ll be okay. It hardly hurts anymore. He’s looking at me like I got shot. The concern on his face just doesn’t make sense. He runs his fingers over the mark that will be a bruise. And then his dark eyes find mine. “You shouldn’t have done that, sweetheart.” There’s a trace of a threat in his voice.
But there’s something else, much stronger. Something that makes my breathing pick up. My fingers itch to run along the prick of his stubble. I want to grab his hair and push his lips to mine. Maybe I just want comfort, maybe it’s something else. I don’t know, but I want him. I need him.
I may die any minute now. I’m not going to hold back. I reach up and grip his hair, pulling myself to him and crushing my lips against his. His lips are hard at first and he pulls back, looking shocked, but also guarded.
“Please,” I whisper. He answers by pushing my body against the mattress, keeping his lips on mine.
He pulls back and takes a shallow breath before asking me, “You think you can manipulate me with your pussy?” I shake my head. That’s not it. That’s not why.
“It’s not going to work, sweetheart.” He tries to pull away from me. And I can’t stand the distance. I need this. I need to feel his hard body against me.
“Please,” I beg again. If he denies me I don’t know what I’ll do. I feel sick with myself. But I won’t refuse this need. I have for so long. Not again. I can’t.
His hard body cages me in, and I find myself wanting more. Wanting to push him harder. His eyes spark with an unvoiced threat, but more than that--desire.
Yes!
“Please,” I say again, and pull his lips to mine. His tongue dives into my mouth. I suck his bottom lip. His hips spread my legs and I part for him. I still hurt,
but I need this. I need to get lost in his touch. I need to feel something other than this hopelessness and despair. His hands move to my thighs and push the hem of my dress up to my waist. I moan into his mouth as his erection pushes against my clit.
He breaks our kiss to look down at me. I’m panting beneath him, my fingers digging into the mattress. He pulls his shirt above his head, his muscles rippling with the movement.
“Take it off.” I immediately obey him and pull at my straps and shove the dress off my body. I watch as he kicks his pants off and takes his hard dick in his hand to stroke it. He’s the epitome of lust and power as he pushes my knees farther apart and runs his fingers down the thin fabric against my pussy, before pulling the panties down my thighs. I shudder under his touch. My body feels cold without his warmth. I need him.
“On your knees.” I turn over and hate it. I don’t want him to take me from behind like this. I feel him run the head of his cock from my entrance to my clit. The velvety feel of his head on my throbbing clit makes my back arch and I moan into the air. I want him to hold me while he fucks me. I want to feel like there’s more than just lust, but before I can say anything he slams into me.
Fuck! I clench at the sheets, grasping handfuls of the fabric as I scream into the mattress. Holy fuck. That’s intense. More than earlier. Much more. My legs tremble as he stills deep inside me. I’m so close to the edge of pain. The mix is a dark delicacy. I don’t know how to handle it. I want to move away, the feeling too intense, too much. At the same time, I want to push back. I need more.
“Are you okay, Elle?” Vince whispers in my ear, and it’s only then that I realize tears have leaked down my cheeks. My head shakes back and forth on its own accord.
He quickly withdraws, causing a bit of pain, and leaves me feeling empty and raw. He pulls me into his chest. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He kisses my hair. “I didn’t realize you were hurting.” I brush the tears away with the back of my hand and try to pull myself together. I’m such a fucking mess.
His Hostage: Valetti Crime Family (A Bad Boy Mafia Romance) Page 10
