Lies & Lullabies

by Courtney Lane

“She tried to make up for her mistakes.” My voice faded, disobeying me and began to break with the admission. “She couldn’t do it herself. She tried to give me something good in my life with…Jasper, my stepfather. And she did. He was a kind, decent man who worked two jobs to make sure I had clothes on my back and food on the table.” A fog of tears welled up in my eyes. “She couldn’t help who she loved. She couldn’t help that she loved Michael instead of the man who loved her.”

  “Did you ever wonder how and why he found you?” Catch’s focus on watching me break in front of him had no end. “Have you ever wondered if your mother kept you a secret and told Michael where you were just before she died? Michael isn’t the only one you should hate for what was once your predicament, and I think you know this. You fight for many reasons—some of which you have yet to tell me. One of those reasons is because you are as angry at your mother as you are with Michael.”

  I turned from him, shuddering with sobs. The television went silent.

  Catch enveloped me, turning me and pulling me toward his chest.

  “No.” I weakly shoved at his body. “Don’t comfort me. You don’t get to do that!”

  “Shh,” he whispered in my ear, lying to me with his soothing embrace. He brushed his hands over the back of my head and held my head up to look at him.

  Michael kidnapped me and held me prisoner in a one-bedroom apartment, locked from the outside. He didn’t release me until a week after my father died. He handed me an obituary as though Jasper meant shit to me. And through the reminder of a man I had shoved out of my memories to avoid facing the pain, I relived the loss of his death all over again. It hurt so much, a merciless hollow scooped out my insides and made me ill.

  Touching my tears, Catch said softly, “This is how you earn me. Be honest, let me be there for you even when you’re vulnerable, and I’ll take care of you.”

  No longer under the shield of the woman who never felt anything, I clung to Catch and wailed in his arms. My stepfather’s death had risen out of the dark places in my mind and unfolded behind my closed eyes. I was forced to face it in a way I never had before. My legs gave out. My strength left me.

  Catch scooped me up in his arms and swept me out of the room.

  He set me down on the bed and settled next to me, holding me on top of the duvet cover, as my body shook with heavy cries.

  When there were no more tears to cry, he shifted, forcing me on my back. He looked down at me, touching my face, brushing his fingertips across my skin.

  As his eyes locked onto my hazel hues, the tears solidified what he already knew; he took a chisel to my exterior and chipped off the most crucial piece.

  -12-

  KILLING TIME

  Catch gave me acetaminophen for my pain and allowed me to stay in bed most of the day. I was restless and it wasn’t due to the pain he left me with. In comparison to the matches I had in the underground rings, he took it easy on me. He wanted me to know I couldn’t equal him. Point proven.

  I took solace in the fact I made him bleed a little. His stoic and cold nature cracked last night. He held me all night, seducing me with comfort and fooling me into thinking he cared about me.

  My eyelids began to grow heavy, reminding me of the persistent exhaustion that seemed to stick with me lately.

  A low-toned scream resounded next door, startling me out of bed. I slunk out of bed, shifting around with my posture folding.

  The screams became deafening echoes in the hall.

  A door down the hall was left open, sending an unsteady amber light into the corridor darkened by the night hour. The sound of cartoons filtered into the hall.

  The furniture inside the room was pushed up against the walls. A flat screen was mounted on the wall with a scene of Elmer Fudd hunting Bugs Bunny. Drop blankets covered the furniture. Plastic sheeting coated the room and the large windows. A man hung in chains from the ceiling. Barely standing, he swung back and forth on his feet. Half of his skin was peeled away, revealing striated muscle and bits of yellow fat.

  I covered my mouth on the verge of throwing up and swallowed back the burning acid bubbling in my throat.

  “I thought you would be desensitized to this by now.” Catch practically sounded annoyed.

  I folded my hands across my stomach, feeling completely nauseous.

  “There’s a box of gear beside you. Get suited up and ready to clean when I’m done.”

  “I’m tired,” I admitted, fighting back a yawn. “You don’t have my sister, there really isn’t a reason for me to crawl on my knees and comply to whatever fucked-up shit you want me to do. You won’t kill me, okay, fine. You want me to stay here so you can fuck my head with your nine-inch cock and leave me sore? To give me money I don’t need? I’m not going to make it easy for you.”

  I returned to bed with a sigh, attempting to push the brutal images out of my head. The ear-piercing shrill of an automated saw vibrated off the walls, ensuring I wouldn’t be getting any sleep. After an hour of the same sound, and the pillow over my head lacking the ability to drown it out, I stormed out of bed, gritting my teeth through my aches and appeared back at the door of Catch’s torture scene.

  Catch faced me with a handheld circular saw in hand, smiling. “It’s nine and a third.”

  “I know,” I mumbled. “You press it against my bare ass almost every night, and you’re a shower, not a grower.”

  He chuckled at me and shook his head. “I understand your need to put up the impenetrable act with me. I affected you last night in a way you didn’t like. I understand. I do. But I won’t allow you to clam up in your shell when I’ve already cracked it open.” He pushed the trigger on the device, his smile broadening. “Feel up to cleaning now?”

  “Will you let me sleep after I do?”

  “The last thing I want is to deprive you of your need for ten hours of sleep a night.”

  Fueled with an angry gusto, I began to dress in the things supplied in the box by the door, throwing them over the T-shirt belonging to Catch that I wore to bed to serve as a barrier when he wanted to spoon me.

  He unlocked the man from the chained position and threw him on the metal cot with very little effort. Sitting in a chair covered in plastic in the corner of the room, he smoked his e-cig while watching me work. I memorized the instructions I was given the first time and moved through it with a zombie-like methodicalness.

  After putting on the mask, I set up the buckets with acid. Stepping toward the cot, I fiddled with the devices on the metal table, preparing to cut the man into pieces.

  I closed my eyes, telling myself over and over again that he wasn’t human in order to get through it. The moment the saw touched his skin, his chest began to move, and he began to scream.

  “Shit!” I dropped the saw with a loud thud and shoved the mask off my face, stepping backward in shock.

  Catch’s laughter filled the room. “You have to finish him off, sweetheart.”

  “No! No, I don’t.” I pressed my hand out toward him, receding into a corner of the room. “You want me to clean, I can. I won’t kill for you.”

  No longer amused, Catch’s features were pinched as he took a long drag of the e-cig. He flipped the tiny switch and ejected from the chair, stalking toward me. “You easily went to work without the sickness or pesky guilt clouding what you aimed to do. You’re ready for this. It’s time for you to do more.”

  “I already told you, I won’t do it.”

  His darkening blue eyes followed every erratic movement in my hazel orbs. “Then, is it correct to assume you like cuddling with me while I grind my cock against your ass every night? Maybe you’d prefer it if I fucked you every night instead and forced you to sleep in our cum. I can up the ante, sweetheart. Let me know if you’d like to be fucked to sleep nightly.”

  I clomped over to the cot and picked up the circular saw from the ground. A pressure in my chest, weighting me, made it impossible to continue. None of the options I was presented with were things I wante
d—or could admit I wanted.

  “Don’t make me do this.” My lilt moved into demure territory, begging Catch to stop pushing me to free fall into a pit of darkness.

  “Recognize him?” Catch’s tone was soft and warm, dipping into the cadence he turned to when he wanted to turn my world on its end. He stood behind me and brushed a hand down the back of my head.

  I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to see the human underneath the brutality. “No, I don’t.”

  He pressed his lips against my ear, kissing it. “Look again. His eyes are open.”

  The victim’s mouth continued to move. Fear and anguish thickened in his green eyes. His features, peeled away of skin, became clearer to me. The man on the cot was introduced to me by Deana as her boyfriend six months ago; Kyle.

  Kyle was an ambitious associate in the Leone organization who was recently turned into a made man. The same man who tried to corner me into a room and have his way with me when I was drunk at a costume party in August. “Kyle?”

  I stared at Catch, slack-jawed. I almost spilled the question, “Is there a reason you’re going through the entire Leone crime family?” I began to understand the purpose behind the large boxes. They were full of people. I halfway wondered if Michael was in one of them.

  It was stifling and abrupt. Catch’s power was suddenly revealed to me. Deana’s stories about the Di Stefano family rang true. They were smarter and more careful, as though someone untouched by the old ways and old traditions headed the charge. Someone young, intelligent, and ruthless. Someone undaunted by the principles drilled into the men born into the organization; an outsider.

  Someone like Catch.

  “Something very interesting is happening in those beautiful eyes.” Never one to miss anything, he caught the shift. “Does this mean you’re ready to do what you are meant to do?”

  I nodded, slipping away from his touch, and stepped closer to the cot.

  I told myself I was granting Kyle mercy. That he would never have a normal or valuable life if he lived through this. My concerns over no longer being of use to Catch would come to fruition, and a man who would kill without any sort of remorse would do the same to me. No one—not my ties to Michael or his disloyal soldiers—would be able to help me.

  Kyle’s lips moved, cursing me and reminding me of what Michael told me any time I stupidly tried to connect with anyone in the Leone bloodline, aside from Deana.

  I allowed evil into my mind, encased my heart in a glacier of ice, and spilled blood for the first time in my life.

  * * * * * *

  Dragging my heavy body back to the bedroom hours after Catch had left me to clean, I bypassed the bed and headed straight for the shower. A stench stuck with me that no amount of scrubbing my skin under the hot water would abate.

  I stepped out into the heavy fog to a white terrycloth robe hanging on the hook that wasn’t there when I entered the bathroom. After washing my face and brushing my teeth, I entered the bedroom with dread. It would be another night I’d have to sleep, cuddled next to Catch. It would be worse this night than any other night.

  He sat on the edge of the bed. A discreet flip of his hand beckoned me toward him. Taking my hand in his, he directed me to kneel. Too tired to fight, my knees met the floor as I positioned myself between his gaped legs.

  “I was ten the first time I held a gun. I was seventeen the first time I took someone else’s life in my hands. But as I learned, and you will learn, it becomes easier. It will be an uphill battle for you. Underneath the tough-as-nails act you hide behind, you feel things more deeply than I do. Believe me, it will be much easier to do in the future.”

  “I won’t do it again.” My hoarse words were lost in the space between us. “I can’t.”

  The pads of his fingers dug into my chin. He tilted my head up to look into his darkening blue eyes. His hair fell forward, grazing across his sharp cheekbones, softening his features. “You will, sweetheart. You will do it because we are very much alike. I’ve fully fit into my role; you’ve yet to grow into it. You will…soon.” Taking my hands, he directed me to stand and pulled me into bed with him and tortured me with his warm embrace.

  -13-

  A SONG FOR YOU

  Catch honored his word and allowed me to sleep in another bedroom without his presence the next night. I couldn’t. The horrific visions danced in my head like a horrible version of counting sheep. I found myself reaching out for him, and was sickened by my own action. I missed something I thought I hated. The sad truth: the man of my nightmares kept the nightmares away.

  I slid out of bed, closing the door to the bedroom behind me.

  I ventured downstairs in the dark, searching rooms all left unlocked. There was no point. I had no escape in the middle of nowhere.

  In a grand sitting room, floored in honey-shaded wood with the common wall to the house painted white, sat an ivory grand piano that hadn’t been there before, calling to me silently.

  Invisible blood remained on my hands, making me feel dirty. The piano stood as the symbol of something in stark contrast to the house and the fucked-up things that occurred. I wanted one piece of beauty to hold onto to keep myself sane, even if it was fleeting.

  It was the one thing I could do, no matter the audience, and touch a piece of purity. Michael made me play for him every night, and when I performed, he didn’t exist in the room. The music prevailed and rose over every dark and dirty thing in my presence.

  I fingered the spotless lacquered surface. The fresh smell of wood and paint indicated the piano was relatively untouched and new. I settled myself on the bench and uncovered the keys. Pressing a few keys here and there, I checked the piano’s tune, finding all the notes on key.

  Shutting my eyes and throwing the disgusting things I’d seen out of my head, I began to play for myself in what would be the first time in seven years: Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9, No. 2.

  The music vibrated through me as it filled the room with an intense and heavy mood. It didn’t matter if I missed a note or my timing was off. The butchered song transported me away from the pretty prison where I was forced to do ugly things I rationalized were to save my own life.

  I imagined I was somewhere I had never been—somewhere where happiness surrounded me and I was free of everything that tied me to evil. The more I thought of a place far above the hell, the more fluid the notes came to me.

  Concluding the piece, I took a breath, feeling a little like a version of myself before my world was ruled by a despotic man.

  Slow clapping gave me a start and drew my eye to the doorway. Catch stood at the doorway, shirtless in jogging pants. His hair was a mess that somehow worked as some sort of style as it fell away from his face. He looked more relaxed than I’d ever seen him, unassuming and genteel.

  I couldn’t help what I thought. Internally, things were shifting and I no longer knew what my feelings were, but they were there, deep under the surface. At my core, something grew and continued to thrive under Catch’s nurturing and manipulation. I both shunned and welcomed his presence.

  My fingers slid from the keys and settled on my lap.

  “That was beautiful, Sugar. Don’t allow me to stop you. Keep playing.”

  “I was done.” With every soft pad of his bare feet against the wood floor as he neared me, my body began to react. I clasped my hands, pushing them deeper into my lap to steady the trembles.

  “The piece is familiar. I’ve heard it once before when I attended a gala years ago.” He recalled with subtle glee. “The pianist later played the piece for me in private. It’s a very beautiful and complicated piece. Probably one of the only two good things she would ever do. Between the two, I’d have to say you played it better than she ever could.”

  I sat there in silence, staring at the keys, angry that he infiltrated the one little piece of purity I tried to hold onto.

  “You should take that as a very big compliment and thank me.”

  I ignored him.

&nb
sp; In five fast and long strides he was at my side.

  I jerked up, straightening my spine, prepared to bolt off the bench and leave.

  He stood at my back firmly clutching my shoulders, forcing me to remain seated on the bench.

  My fingers began to cramp and rebel. Rage slithered through me, running roughshod over my nerves. My hands trembled as I touched the lukewarm ivory keys.

  His hands slipped to my neck, surrounding my larynx. His body pushed against me, pressing the pulsing hardness onto my back. He leaned forward, breathing down my scalp. A hand reached up to clasp the edge of the cover from across me.

  My body became hyperaware and was no longer under my control. A new engineer had taken over the train.

  “You can play the most beautiful piece Chopin has to offer. And with every slip of your tongue, you can lie to me. Why don’t you trust me, Simone?” His other hand tightened on my neck and a delicate, soft cadence enticed me with sticky sweet candy.

  My head jerked with the motion of his hand brutally pushing down on my neck. “You haven’t given me a reason to trust you.” My words were strangled and breathy. “Tell me you’ll let me go tomorrow, and maybe I will.” I removed my hands from the keys to rest on my lap.

  “I told you to keep playing.”

  “I can’t play anymore.” I strained through my stifled breaths and clenched teeth. The fiery cinders rifling through my entire being threatened to cleanly burn away my need to fight him at every step.

  His palm surrounded my throat and clenched down, allowing me to breathe and swallow with increasing restriction. My neck arced at an awkward and extreme angle until my gaze landed up on his face.

  He bent down until his mouth touched my hairline and skirted down to kiss the tip of my nose. “I’ve been nothing but kind to you.” He moved his supple lips down and gently kissed my mouth, filling me with confusion and a contradiction of emotions, weakening me at the fracture point.

  “I could be kinder if you appreciated what I’ve done with you and for you.” His hand slid down my chest and cupped my breast. “Why are you so desperate to leave this beautiful life I’m giving you?” Through the thin material of my shirt, my nipples responded to the soft touch of his hand. He brushed his fingertips over the tiny nub, pinching and tugging it through the thin cotton.