by Marata Eros
“You will give me your full attention.”
I stare into his cold green eyes, like a sea robbed of warmth.
I'm reminded of Paco's bright-emerald hue. Open, glittering with his joy of being alive and, so I believed, in my closeness to him.
Unlike Paco’s, Tor’s green eyes are glacial, closed with indifference, and shimmering with his intentions.
I've learned a lot from a gaze. “Fuck you,” I say between my teeth.
He slaps my abused cheek, and my head whips into the mattress. My instant agony is a muffled wheeze between my teeth.
“A love tap, Greta. Have you already forgotten the feel of my fist?”
I hate that my voice is small. “No.”
“Then you will do what I say.”
“Why?” My one eye follows him as he clasps his large hands behind his back, straightening above me.
I breathe easier when he's not hovering above me.
Blood runs down my face, pooling in the hollow of my collarbone.
I want so badly to protect my body, to cover it, that my skin crawls with the urge.
Tor appears to sense my thoughts in an unwanted pulse of telepathy.
“You are quite naked, Greta.” His voice is a soothing drone. He grins, his teeth looking vaguely vampiric inside his cruel features.
I stiffen.
His eyes move over my form, lingering at my crotch.
I've never wanted to hide more than I do in this moment.
“Why are you here?” he asks in a mocking tone. “Why did I take you two years ago? Which question would you like answered first?”
Take me? Like what—to a picnic? No, gang rape is not something Tor gets to gloss over.
He speaks in a completely reasonable tone of voice, as though I'm not tied off in a cement basement somewhere.
“Why did you rape me?” Tears gush, flowing down my cheeks. I can't contain the memory of how injured I was—and still am.
Like liquid grief, my tears flow out of me like an unending river, burning over my abraded face, sealing the wounds with my despair.
Of course, Tor is unmoved.
“I am indebted to someone for the dismantling of you. Piece by delectable piece.”
What? “Who?”
He holds up a palm, slightly reddened from beating me. “In good time.” His mouth screws into a tight twist of lips.
Tor steeples his hands beneath his chin as though in prayer. I know this man hasn't prayed a day in his life.
“Our fathers were in business for many years. When my unfortunate psych evaluation came to my father's attention…” Tor hesitates for a few seconds, appearing pensive. “Along with certain proof of my deviant inclinations, he would have me put away. Disinherited.” He shakes his head.
The wetness of my memories dry on my cheeks before the testimony of his words. I listen while I hate him. His deceit. My vulnerability.
“I couldn't have that,” he says in soft reflection.
The pieces of the puzzle come together in macabre synchronicity. “You killed our fathers?” I ask slowly, suddenly remembering how badly Father had seemed to want to tell me something on his deathbed.
Tor drops his hands, rolling his eyes. “Your stubborn father would not die in my conveniently contrived vehicular accident,” he remarks with a tone of feigned patience.
Tor shrugs, and a hysterical bubble of laughter rises in my tight throat.
He notices my expression and gives curious pause before continuing, his head cocked to the left. “So, for what a lubricated autobahn could not accomplish, a goose-down pillow sufficed nicely.”
My stomach twists painfully. “You suffocated my father?” I whisper, though in my gut, I already know.
Tor shoves his hand in the pockets of his slacks, drilling me with his eyes. “Sure.”
Sure?
I swallow, and the dry click is the only noise besides the drip, drip of water finding its way into my new hell.
Keep him talking. “And your father?”
“His jet accident was engineered with more care. I am not—as you Americans say—a slow learner.” He's not telling me all this to purge his soul.
Tor is going to kill me. I feel it to my marrow, and my bladder clenches with the surety of my inevitable death. It's what might happen before my death that has me soaked in sweat and trembling.
Tor is freely confessing because there will be no accountability for his actions. He claps his hands together, and I jump. The plastic teeth of my bindings bite into my skin, flesh scarred and sensitive from the last time.
The wounds of my mind run deeper than those of my body.
“Let us get started!”
“Started?” I manage through my tight throat.
Tor's chin jerks back. “You speak French?” he asks suddenly.
Enough. I nod with automatic slowness through my puzzlement.
“Déjà vu, Greta,” he says quietly and winks slyly.
Chills sweep down my naked body. “No,” I deny.
“Why—yes,” Tor says, genuinely perplexed. “Did you believe I played with you, elicited trust, braining that pretty head of yours and then bringing you here to confess my sins?”
Tor cups his elbows, rocking back on his heels while he guffaws in chilly false humor.
No, I didn't think that. I hadn't gotten that far.
I've been far too preoccupied with my injured and vulnerable state and the potential for things worse than what I've already survived.
I squelch my fear. “Tell me why I've been tortured and beaten. Now that you've killed our fathers, you can have your father's inheritance. I'm unnecessary in all this.”
He shakes his head. The dark copper of his hair glints under the sick yellow light cast by the florescent bulb softly swaying above my body. “No. Father was brilliant. He disinherited me. Between my unusual hobbies being revealed and my IQ, it's my belief that Father thought I was too much a risk to let roam free, or bequeath me a dime.” He gives a dark chuckle. “However”—he swings a palm dismissively—“provisions were made to the finest sanatorium in Europe.” His mocking gaze finds mine. “Only the best nuthouse for an Aros.”
Oh my God. One eye bulges in terror; my other remains swollen shut, but uninvited tears leak out.
Tor is legitimately crazy.
I force my body to be calm. Knowledge is power, Greta. “How is keeping me helping you?” I'm so proud that I can keep my voice steady.
The first genuine smile I've ever seen—because all the smiles that fell on me before now were a mask—lights his face. “This is the part that is so delicious to me, Greta.” He's impassioned, beginning to pace the small room. “Upon your death, the trust—as all Norwegian trusts are fashioned—falls to the next living relative.”
I know he's circling some insane revelation while I lie here, beaten and naked, smelling like piss. Hate infuses me with courage. I state the obvious, my heart racing, “We're not related.” I strain against my bindings.
His eyebrow pops. “True.”
Tor's malicious grin reappears; he clearly relishes the cleverness of his secret. “However, my wife will be taking care of that small detail.”
Sweat rolls from my bound hands to my elbows. “Wife?” Someone's married to this monster?
“Ah,” he says softly, “I see from your disgusted expression that you can't imagine anyone being joined with me.” He wags his finger. “Me, either. However, how wrong we both are. I have found my other half. She allows my ways and accepts…” He inhales deeply, muscled chest expanding. “My needs.” Tor's last words are spoken almost reverently.
“So you're going to-to—”
“Kill you,” Tor finishes pleasantly, lips curled in a satisfied smile.
I blanch. “Why?” I ask quietly. “What have I ever done to you?”
“It is not personal for me, Greta. It is personal for the woman I love. Your death and degradation is a means to an end. Your torture and ultimate death will give her jo
y, and—we will benefit tremendously.
“Everyone will believe we eloped. Your death will not be revealed. And we will—another wonderful expression I steal from the Americans—ride off into the sunset together. I will be rich, and my beautiful bride will be happy.” He sighs in utter contentment. “And it will be fun.”
Fun?! My mind spins. How? What?
A dull knock falls on the door. “Ah! My bride has arrived. I won't keep the two of you apart another second, now that you know the entire truth.”
Tor swings the door open, and Lisbeth passes through the rough opening.
Her eyes land on me trussed up on a mattress, urine and tears drying on my naked flesh. A slow smile takes over her face.
That's when I know.
My capture, my systematic rape two years ago—was never for Tor. He was only a vehicle of emotional and physical destruction.
It was Lisbeth. My own sister instigated the torture that crushed my body and soul.
I shut my eyes, wishing for death. Underneath that, I wish for Paco.
“Well hello, Greta. We meet again.”
“Love, why are you…?” Tor asks, wafting his palm around her face.
Lisbeth looks like a corpse.
Through the mud of my thoughts, I think of Paco’s plan to pay off the doctor. He must have somehow disguised her. Now she's free of the threat from the narco. Paco probably believes he saved my deserving sibling, that he saved the day.
Not that I would ever be a damsel in distress.
My status has just been elevated to something above that. The clock of my life is ticking, counting down like an expertly crafted bomb.
Every piece of their elaborate plan is falling into place like dark puzzle pieces raining inside my head.
Lisbeth stands to inherit everything if I no longer live. They kill me, and she gets everything using my name. No one will question anything. She looks exactly like me.
Tor is her husband, so in a finely engineered plan, he will gain his rightful inheritance through marriage. By Norwegian law, the next of kin will take hold of the estate. Lisbeth only has to wait until she's thirty, and every cent will be hers.
“I don't understand.” Actually, I do. But I'll never accept it.
Lisbeth arches her perfectly sculpted platinum brows. I shiver, essentially looking at myself. God help me if I ever look like her or that I could mold my expressions into ones as cruel as the one she wears.
I know when there's no hope. I swallow past my fear. “Fine, kill me. But why hurt me,” I finish in a low voice.
Lisbeth paces over to where I lay, her eyes roving my naked form. I feel the heat rush to my skin, and I'm sick over my embarrassment. Why should I even care if this woman sees me naked?
My tears begin again. Because she should love me. And somehow, her hate and need for revenge make everything hurt so much more.
Lisbeth's eyes rake me with contemplative intensity. “If I didn't despise her so much, Greta's shame would be charming.”
“I think I recounted the sweetness of taking her virginity,” Tor reminds her adoringly.
My eyes close. I feel so violated. Tor recalls the robbing of my innocence as though it were just another day. Any day.
But to me, it is a day I'll never forget.
“Yes,” Lisbeth hisses. Her rich, blue eyes narrow as they gaze down at me. “But you made her your slut.”
Tor gives her a smile full of soft tenderness and lifts his shoulder.
I shudder at their exchange.
“I did. Along with help from a few friends.” He gives a crooked little “aw shucks” grin.
Lisbeth ignores Tor, moving closer to my position.
I flinch.
“I hurt you because Father chose you,” she says in fierce answer, her fists balled at her sides. “How were you any better? More worthy.”
She kicks me so suddenly, I'm unprepared, and I hear, and feel, a rib give. Lisbeth knocks the wind out of me, and I can't even clutch my side, protect myself.
Instead, my uninjured eye burns with unshed tears. My breath is imprisoned in my chest, and I don't even have the strength to gasp. White searing pain lances my chest.
Tor puts a cautionary hand on her arm. “Now, Lisbeth. You can be an audience to the next event, but if you hurt Greta too badly, she will, unfortunately, pass out.” Tor's voice holds a pout.
My breath returns, wheezing between my teeth. I hate them.
Lisbeth is breathing heavily, obviously excited by my pain. Her eyes are clear. “Can't have that.”
“No, we cannot,” he agrees.
Additional precious oxygen floods my lungs, and I swallow air like a starving woman.
“When do the men arrive?” she asks, eyes still riveted to my abused face, the ghost of a grim smile touching her lips.
Men?
The hard-won air leaves my body in a sudden gust, and I whoop in another swollen breath that tastes like dirty seawater. I splutter, fighting the desperate breath because each one is agony as it expands my lungs.
Tor smiles down at me. “Shortly.”
Lisbeth takes his hand and places it against her cheek. His large hand palms her face. “I love you,” she breathes in a sultry whisper.
They kiss, twining together like poisonous vines.
Their rapturous embrace symbolizes the loss of my hope, and my body relaxes. I can't stay in adrenaline-fueled fight or flight indefinitely.
At some point, I have to come apart.
Closing my eyes, I allow the chill to overtake me as my mind shuts off.
I don't truly feel Tor give a brutal pinch to my nipple—the numbing of my soul has begun—nor do I hear their voices murmuring together like conspirators.
My ears are full of the sound of the sea, shuffling underneath me like a pillow of desolation.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Paco
My dull senses spark to life.
Every bit of my body is tight with injury, sluggish with reaction, and burdened with healing.
I keep my eyes closed, lying perfectly still and hanging on to the fact that I'm still alive.
Tallinn did keep warning me.
He said that there was an animal inside me—a primal, raw, and savagely instinctual animal that slept, waiting.
I feel him now—prowling.
That part of me slept through my life until now.
Maybe Zaire, a friend from my early childhood, always saw that buried part of me lurking in the shadows of the civility all men have been molded into.
The owner of Club Alpha has either given me the greatest gift of my life or delivered the greatest finale.
Bindings cut into my wrists and ankles. I know by the feel that they're plastic, not a tie made of organic material.
I might have been able to work with rope, twine, or something that could be stretched to opening.
My eyelids slowly rise. Both are swollen. I can still feel the imprint of a heel on my face.
The sea is the first sound I'm consciously aware of. It drifts underneath my body. The noise is almost like the breathing of a sentient being. The sound beckons, as though it yearns to lull me back into sleep with an embrace like the grave.
I fight the pull, fully opening my eyes to scan my surroundings.
Tallinn's dead. The phrase breathes through my mind like stolen wind. That realization pauses my perusal for a bloated moment I can't spare.
If he is dead, what would Tallinn wish for the most, if he were here—right now? My life.
I continue my perusal of the “room.” The space is really a box of concrete. Water creeps in at the corners, and a bare bulb swings slightly in an invisible current of air that slips through the poorly insulated area. I shiver from the cold as I spy the single exit. A five-panel wood door completes the prison. No windows.
My eyes trip over the slumped form of a man in a stool. He's leaning into the corner, muscular arms folded in, head tipped back into the crack formed by the corner of the wall.<
br />
Soft snoring is the second sound I hear, as though the sea and this man have contrived a discordant melody.
I finish my scan of my accommodation as my eyes fall to the door again. One exit.
I shift slightly and wince. I'm so sore I don't know which of my injuries is worse, the ribs? Head bashed in—the slit of one of my eyes, impairing my vision? Too numerous to choose just one.
But that I've not been killed doesn't bode well. One can't torture the dead. It would have been far easier to kill me. Therefore, if I’m still breathing, I must serve another purpose.
Lifting my head, I gaze down the length of my body and see I have been deposited on a soiled mattress. I look first at my feet then slowly check every inch of myself on the way up.
I wiggle my toes. One shoe is missing. I frown, absurdly offended by the missing footwear. Lifting a knee, I stifle a groan. I recognize a deep contusion when it presents itself.
I finish my analysis and lower my head.
The snoring of my “guard” continues.
I center my body, letting my mind shuffle through my thoughts like a deck of cards—remembering what I've been taught.
“Paco, in the unlikely event your Latin ass is restrained—” Tallinn chuckles. “I want you to do this, assuming you've been bound in front of your body because they're lazy.”
I lean back in my desk chair, watching Tallinn through hooded eyes. “And you wouldn't be flajo?” I smirk.
His grin looks like a baring of teeth, but his eyes glitter with interest. “Lazy? Not on a bet. Not where torture's involved.”
I frown, not understanding the expression, though the meaning is clear.
“Come here.” Tallinn cups his fingers in a come-hither gesture.
I stand and smoothly walk to his position.
“Arms up.”
I lift my arms.
“Wrists together.”
Our eyes meet.
I don't like the promise of being bound.
Tallinn smiles. “See?” He wags his fingers. “A real guy isn't going to voluntarily let anyone tie them.” He chuckles. “Unless it's a hot chick. We'll make exceptions for the females.”
My lips quirk. I put my wrists together.
