“Oh baby, I did,” he replied, taking the blindfold off.
I laughed at the scene in front of me. A man sat only in his underwear, sweaty and bound to a chair. Rose petals were sprinkled around him as well as candles on the floor, too. Bennett walked over to the table of tools and pulled up the sheet to pull something from the shelf under it. He walked back over to me with a long, black velvet box, opening it to reveal a necklace that had a B with a crown over it, just like my tattoo.
“And a gift,” he said and smiled.
I returned his smile. Maybe he knew how to woo a woman after all.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’d like to wear it now.”
He took the necklace out of the box and walked behind me. The silver was cool against my skin as he clasped it on me, circling back around.
“Who is he?” I asked, nodding toward the man who looked at all of us with wide eyes.
“This is Stewart,” he said, narrowing his eyes at the man. “Stewart works for my father and I think it’s time to send my father a message.”
“What kind?”
“A message that’ll show him that he won’t threaten my wife and get away with it,” Bennett growled. My blood ran cold.
“He threatened me?” I asked.
“He told me to keep my eye on you, insinuating if I didn’t, something would happen.” He turned to look at me, his gaze hard. “I won’t let anyone touch a hair on your hair, let alone him. I promise you that.”
I took a step forward and smiled at him. “I know you won’t,” I said, and I meant it. After what happened with Stephanie, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was on my ass 24/7 and didn’t allow me to move around without him or at least without someone from his security. He was being more careful this time around, protective. I couldn’t say I blamed him after what he’d gone through the first time around.
Probably what he felt he failed to do with my sister.
His expression softened after a few moments and he smiled again. “Enough serious talk. I brought you here for a date.”
“So, what are we doing? Am I watching you torture this guy?” I asked.
He walked back over to the table, revealing all the weapons on the table. “I didn’t bring you to watch, gorgeous. What kind of date involves watching if it isn’t sex?”
I snorted. “I guess so.” Looking at the sniveling man before us, I turned back to Bennett. “Well, let’s get on with it. No need to leave than man in suspense.”
“As you wish,” he said with a smile. He motioned for me to come over to him, enticing me with the tools of destruction on the table in front of him. That heavy, darkness that I’d felt that night I killed the other guy came creeping back, making me tingle all over. It didn’t feel natural, so unlike me that it sent both a sliver of fear and excitement racing down my spine. The old me, Vanessa, would never do something like this. But the person I’d become, Aurora, wanted to bath in the blood I spilled tonight. I felt possessed, but not really. I couldn’t blame my desires on any paranormal entity or demon.
The only thing I could blame was myself and embracing the dark seed planted within me.
I looked down at everything at my disposal before me. Knives in all shapes and sizes, a hammer, a manual saw, pliers, a crowbar. I picked up a small razor blade, my mind going back to my first day of Hell week. Her blood…there was so much blood. Her screams…she screamed so loud. My heart raced as the memories suffocated me, taking me back to a place I didn’t want to remember. The week Bennett tortured me. The week he broke me. The week the old me fell silent for the most part and left me with a dark alter that was thirsty for revenge. Thirsty for blood. Thirsty to cause death.
“Hesitating now?” Bennett teased.
I narrowed my eyes at him and frowned. “Never,” I said, my voice flat as I dropped the razor blade and opted for the bolt cutters. Stewart couldn’t fully see me from where he sat, his head turning as far as it could to see what I had.
“Is this really necessary?” the voice asked. “I’ve seen enough blood to last me a lifetime. This doesn’t help with the overall goal—”
If you don’t want to see it, I’d advise you to go to sleep, I thought, eying the man before me.
His voice was muffled behind the bandana tied around his mouth. I walked around him, untying the knot at the back of his head to remove the gag. No sooner than I removed it, he began begging and groveling.
“Please,” he said. “I haven’t done anything wrong.” He took in a deep breath, fat tears rolling down his equally fat cheeks. “I have a wife and kids. Please, I won’t tell Wilson I saw you.”
“Of course you won’t. Wilson won’t see you in order for you to be able to,” Bennett said, folding his arms across his chest.
“Bennett, I’m begging you. Whatever you wanna know, I’ll tell you. Please don’t make me pay for your father’s mistakes,” Stewart said.
Bennett stared at him for a long moment before he sighed. “It’s not up to me anymore, Stew.” He looked at me and grinned. “It’s up to my wife.”
“Mrs. Moreno, please,” he begged. “I swear I won’t tell anyone. I’ll even switch sides. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll do it!”
Mrs. Moreno, I thought. My new name that apparently held so much weight with other people who knew Bennett. Bruce, Nyxin, and Saint looked at me in amusement and Bennett looked to me expectantly.
“What I want?” I repeated, a wicked smile pulling at my lips as I settled myself behind him. He trembled slightly as I lowered my head next to his to whisper in his ear. “All I want is to spill blood.”
“No,” he wailed, jerking against his restraints. He balled his hands into fists when I tried to settle the bolt cutters against his fingers.
I looked to Bennett. “I could I get a little help, please?”
“Of course,” he said and strolled over. “What do you need?”
“His fingers,” I said. Bennett pried the man’s hand open and nodded to me. A rush of euphoria and pleasure that was borderline orgasmic when I cut his finger off and he screamed. Maybe I could understand why Bennett got off so much on other people’s pain. Blood oozed out of his new wound as he screamed, the sound motivating me to go further. I cut off another, and another, and another until all ten digits lay on the floor at my feet. I released a deep breath and rolled my shoulders, tossing the bolt cutters back on the table as Stewart wailed in agony.
“Done already?” Bennett asked with a raised brow.
I walked back over to the table and picked up a knife. “Not even close.”
BENNETT
Stewart cried out in agony as I stood before him, Aurora pacing behind him like a rabid animal ready to pounce on its prey.
“What the fuck do you want from me, Bennett?” he asked, bowing his head.
“I want to know where Wilson and his top men are hiding,” I asked. “I can’t seem to find Calvin, which is who would’ve been in your spot right now.”
“I don’t fucking know, man. I’m not even high ranking!” he yelled as he jerked against the zip ties that bound him to his chair. “The only thing that fucker told us was that we were on our own and to watch out for you. He didn’t give a shit about any of us.”
“That part’s obvious when he left you guys like sitting ducks waiting to be slaughtered,” I said with a shrug. “Well, since I can’t find who I’m looking for, I’ll have to make an example out of you.”
“I have a family! Please don’t do that to them!” he begged, keeping his eyes on Aurora as she circled around him.
“I had a family, too,” I said with a frown. “ I had a mother. A girlfriend. An unborn baby. Do you think Wilson gave a fuck about my family before he took them from me?”
“That’s not my fault!”
“All’s fair in vengeance and war,” I said and looked to Aurora. “The floor is yours, gorgeous.”
She wasted no time in putting multiple stab wounds into him, Stewart’s scream filling the space around us. I could
n’t help the grin on my lips as I watched her. She made murder look like a graceful dance, which was both odd as fuck yet sexy. It was interesting to see how much she’d changed after just spending a week in hell. When I’d first taken her and she killed Alice only after having been at my house for less than half an hour, she’d been mortified at the thought of having blood on her hands. But after she broke, it was as if her moral compass broke with her. The only thing left within her was her darkness, vengeance against those who’ve wronged her, and a thirst for bloody brutality. There was that small inkling of concern that it would only be a matter of time before she eventually turned that darkness and brutality against me sooner than later, as I was no saint in her eyes.
Walking back over to Bruce, Saint, and Nyxin, we all stood back and watched Aurora have her moment. The joy in her expression, the way she smiled in a way that lit up her face, and the way she giggled every time Stewart screamed brought a smile to my face.
“You know, I gotta admit that baby doll is a bit…unhinged,” Nyxin said after a few moments.
Bruce snorted. “Are you saying that because she punched you?”
“Fuck you, you dick. You don’t have to keep reminding me,” Nyxin growled before gesturing to Aurora. “Unless you’re fucking blind, do you not see the scene before you?”
Aurora was carving different words into Stewart’s skin with a sharp knife, her brows furrowed in concentration. Aside from his new cuts, his body was covered in blood from the multiple stab wounds he now had.
“If I’m being honest, how’s it any different from what Bennett does?” Saint asked with a shrug. “I mean didn’t you see what he did with the twins? You practically witnessed him removing someone’s organs.”
“I know, but he’s him and she’s…I don’t know what the fuck she is,” he said, shaking his head.
I chuckled. “It’s only different because you don’t expect this kind of brutality from a woman and it’s not a normal occurrence that they’re usually given the chance to do what she is,” I said. “Gotta admit that ‘crazy’ looks good on her.”
“You say that now until she’s holding your dick with a pair of bolt cutters,” Nyxin said with a scoff.
“Please just kill me already!” Stewart yelled, his skin growing pale from blood loss. Aurora only smiled at him and continued her work until he began screaming. She stopped and frowned, moving around to stand in front of him. Leaning down until her face was leveled with his, she screamed in his face, which only confused him.
“I learned a long time ago that screaming doesn’t help anything. No matter how loud or how long you scream, the end results are still the same,” she said. I thought back to her multiple punishments and how she screamed. Back then, her screams were what pushed me further, serenading me like a beautiful melody. I’d said something similar to her, mostly because it made her scream even more as helplessness really started to settle. Just the idea of someone wanting to hurt you and there was nothing you could do or no one there to save you heightened the fear in your voice. To see my methods put into practice by her was a bit unnerving…and fucking sexy, too.
“See what I mean?” Nyxin mumbled.
I shrugged. “I like it,” I said with a grin.
My phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out, frowning at the text preview from a private number. Turning my back to the scene before me, I opened the text.
Unknown: What’s your wife doing in my warehouse?
A picture followed the email, showing a screenshot of the tracking app connected to Aurora’s chip. I ground my teeth. He’d hacked my program and was now keeping tabs on Aurora. I slowly turned back around. If he knew where she was, it was only a matter of time before he sent men here, or worse, hatch a plan to either kidnap or kill her.
“Shit,” I hissed.
Bruce looked over to me with a raised brow. “What’s up?”
“Give me a second,” I said as I sent back a response.
Bennett: Leaving you a surprise
My phone rang as soon as I hit send on the message, KC’s name popping up on the screen.
“Yeah,” I said upon answering.
“I just got a notification that your tracking app you have for Aurora has been hacked. After intercepting some of Wilson’s text messages, he knows where you are and are sending men your way,” he said quickly.
I took a few steps away from everybody. “Yeah, I know. He just text me before you called. I need you to disable her chip.”
“What?”
“Disable her chip. Don’t just turn off the tracking; disable it completely. I don’t want him coming back in and turning it back on.”
“If I disable it, you won’t be able to track her either,” he said. “The chip will be completely useless.”
I looked back at her. Disabling her chip could threaten everything if she got away. With no way to track her, she could be the very thing to take down my whole organization if she knew I wouldn’t be able to find her. Once all of this was over, there was also nothing that would keep her from running for the hills to get away from me and there would be no way for me to get her back. On the other hand, keeping her chip active gave my father the ability to track her every move no matter where she was. To keep her chip active would be sealing her to the same fate as Stephanie, and I couldn’t go through that twice.
“I know,” I finally said. “I don’t want him knowing where she is. Is there a way you can hack it and re-route it to look as if we’re in another location?”
“I can try,” he said. The faint clicks of keys sounded on his end of the phone before he sighed. “I can’t. The only way that would work was if you were near someone else with a chip. You don’t have the proper tools to remove the chip from her, do you?”
“No,” I muttered, gripping my hair tight in frustration.
“I’ll go ahead and disable the chip, but you need to get out of there. He’s not coming himself, but he’s sending his men to your location,” KC warned.
“I hear you. Disable it so that they don’t track us from this location,” I said.
“Will do. I’ll text you when it’s completely disabled. Don’t leave until it is.”
“Heard,” I said and hung up.
Bruce looked at me with a raised brow. “Everything okay?”
“Wilson hacked into my tracking system and tracked us here through Aurora’s chip,” I said, keeping my voice low. “KC said he intercepted texts from him and he’s sending men here to either to attack us or take her.”
“We need to get the fuck out of here before they have the chance to,” Bruce said.
“What’s happening?” Saint asked with a frown. I repeated the same information. I made sure to keep my voice low enough to where Aurora couldn’t hear and kept glancing over at her as I spoke to my men.
“We need to get her somewhere safe,” Nyxin said. “Are you sure you still want to leave?”
“KC is disabling her chip—”
“Disabling her chip? What if she runs? She could ruin all of us,” Bruce hissed.
“Will you shut the fuck up?” I snapped under my breath. “As long as she doesn’t know it’s disabled, then it should be fine. I’ll figure out something else for a replacement later, but right now I need it disabled. The last thing I want is for those fuckers to come to Hawaii and fuck up my vacation.”
“Right,” they all agreed with a nod.
“But we have to get out of here before they have a chance to get here,” I said, looking back at her. She now stood very still, staring at me with a dark look in her eyes.
“Bennett,” she said slowly, putting the knife back on the table and wiping her bloody hands on the white protective suit. Stewart gagged on his own blood from a slit across his throat and the sound echoed in the enclosed space.
“Yes, gorgeous?”
She smiled and held her hand out to me. “What’s a date if you don’t dance?” she asked.
“But there’s no music,” I noted. She shook
her head and walked back around to the front of Stewart and gestured to him.
“Don’t you hear the beautiful music Stewart has provided for us? His song is rather short, so we don’t have long,” she said and began to twirl around in front of him.
“Holy shit,” Saint said softly. “What the hell did you create, man?”
“Exactly what I wanted,” I murmured and walked over to my waiting wife. They always said you should be careful what you wished for. When I made Aurora into a clean slate, I wanted—no, needed—her to accept my darkness as hers. She needed to in order for her to be ready to take on Wilson. There was no room for error and no time for weaknesses or fear if she wanted to be a part of this.
She’s nearly darker than you, a bigger monster than you asked for, I reminded myself. Even as I saw her dancing in the puddles of blood spilled by her hand, I couldn’t help but still admire the dark queen that she was. The bright small on her face as she danced to the imaginary music, the way she kissed me when I finally reached her, and the happiness that sparkled in her eyes showed me that I’d been successful at wooing the woman she was now. I could already tell our marriage wouldn’t be normal, but our relationship was far from normal. Seeing her change before my eyes now put me on guard, even more so now that her chip was disabled. As long as she didn’t know that she was technically “free,” then things would be fine.
“I take it that you liked the surprise?” I mused, looking down at the carnage she left behind.
She let out a light and airy giggle. “I did,” she murmured, placing a kiss on my lips. “I’m definitely impressed.”
“I guess I proved you wrong about not being able to woo you then,” I grinned at her.
She giggled and nodded. “I’ll admit I underestimated you. I thought you were going to do something stupid with flower. I hate flowers.” She looked down at the rose petals on the floor that were now covered in Stewart’s blood. “But I love when they’ve been painted in blood.”
“I figured you would. I’ll remember that for the future.”
She glanced over at Stewart, who was now dead and silent. “I guess the song’s over. I want to get out of here. You still owe me the second half of our date.”
Rules of Bennett: The Complete Collection Page 48
