by Mari Carr
Pleasure’s Fury
Masters’ Admiralty, book 3
Mari Carr
Lila Dubois
Contents
Pleasure’s Fury
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Hidden Devotion
About the Authors
Pleasure’s Fury
While on the trail of a madman, Antonio Starabba finds something unexpected—the killer’s next victims, tortured, in pain, but alive.
* * *
Leila and Karl are both members of The Masters’ Admiralty, the same powerful secret society Antonio is sworn to defend as a security officer—aka assassin. Rescuing them means letting the killer escape, and once they’re safe, Antonio is overcome with a deep need to protect them, and takes them to one of his family’s villas to rest and recover.
* * *
As the weeks pass feelings develop between the three of them, but there’s a problem. The killer is still out there, eluding capture, and he’s made it clear that his next victims will be Leila, Karl…and Antonio.
Chapter One
Dying hurt more than Karl expected. If he’d been given a choice—and his captor had not offered one—Karl would have chosen something quick. It would be too much to expect quick and painless, but quick and painful was far preferable to his current situation of dying by inches.
His back throbbed, and Karl groaned through his nose. That throbbing had to be his kidneys. After what he thought might be two days without water, they were shutting down. He’d been trying not to open his mouth, as breathing through it made the painful dryness all the more apparent. Ignoring his desperate thirst was a supreme act of will.
There was a narrow window high in the wall of his torture chamber, but it was covered in aluminum, which blocked all but the barest slivers of light. That small bit of illumination had given him a sense of his prison. It was a large, clean room, with a concrete floor and raw cinder block walls.
He had never seen the door, and could only assume it was behind him.
There were two drains in the floor and a tall utility cupboard in the corner. He hoped there was another drain under him, since he was strapped to this chair with no access to a toilet.
Karl flexed his arms and legs. As he’d lost water weight, the bindings on his arms, legs, and chest had loosened enough that he could at least contract his muscles and roll his wrists.
The strap across his forehead, holding his head in place, was as tight as ever.
Electrical wiring was tacked to the walls in neat vertical lines and ran across the ceiling, threaded through metal brackets. There were a few bare bulbs dangling from above, but they were off, and had been since he’d entered this hell on earth.
No, maybe that wasn’t right. Maybe there’d been a light on when the man had brought him here. Karl couldn’t remember. The last thing he remembered was getting on a train in Paris headed to Athens. Then he’d…he’d gotten sick, been taken off the train in Milan?
His memory was a jumbled mess. He had only flashes of being strapped to a stretcher, and a man looking down at him.
Evil smile, dead eyes.
Karl closed his eyes—there wasn’t much difference between open and closed, but he could sometimes pretend he was able to relax with his eyes closed. His glasses were long gone. His eyesight wasn’t terrible—he had a slight astigmatism that meant it was easier to see with them than without, especially for reading, but he could see. The lack of light made the lack of glasses a relatively minor problem.
He was pretty sure he was getting close to the end of his life because he could no longer even pretend to relax. He was in too much pain.
Unrelenting, endless pain.
He wasn’t exactly looking forward to dying. Escape and living would have been preferable. He’d tried to free himself that first day, once he was aware enough to understand that this wasn’t some nightmare. His efforts had been in vain. He was strapped, naked, to a wooden chair, his forearms bound to the arms of the chair, his calves and ankles to the front legs. His feet were on the floor, and though he’d tried to rock himself side to side or tip back, in an effort to break the chair, he hadn’t been able to move it. The chair must be bolted to the floor.
That, plus the extra-high back of the chair—high enough for his head to be bound to it—said something chilling about the man’s preparation.
When Karl failed to free himself, he’d yelled for help. It had been risky—at the time, he’d been sure the man was nearby.
Karl yelled until he lost his voice, until the thin line of light disappeared and reappeared again.
He’d tried to think his way out, tried to figure out where he was, so when he escaped he’d be able to give details to the authorities. It helped keep his mind off how desperately thirsty he was.
In the lowest moments, he asked himself why.
Why him?
The throbbing in his back was now shot through with irregular stabs of pain, sharp enough to make him wince and shiver.
The pain was distracting enough that he didn’t register a new sound.
“Good evening, my friend.”
Karl’s eyes snapped open, his heart stopping. With a reserve of strength he didn’t know he had, he jerked in his bonds and tried to turn his head.
Footsteps sounded, and then the lights clicked on.
Karl had to close his eyes. The light, after so much time in the dark, was as physically painful as his stabbing kidneys.
He blinked rapidly, hoping to force his vision to adjust. More footsteps, and then the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor.
He’d resigned himself to a slow and quiet death, but now his murderer was here, and maybe it would end quickly in blood and bright bursts of pain.
By the time the man was in front of him, Karl could see.
The man seemed to be in his thirties, and was average height but heavily muscled. His head was shaved, and he wore a red football jersey with an off-center white cross and the number six on it.
He was dragging a massive black bag.
A body bag, complete with a body.
Six—as Karl was going to think of the man—dropped the end of the bag, glared, and then spit on it. When he turned, Karl saw the other side of his face, hidden until now. Blood streaked it. Part of his ear was missing, and there were bite marks on his cheek.
“I am sorry, my friend. I left you alone too long.”
The man spoke English, but had an Eastern European accent Karl couldn’t quite place. Maybe if he weren’t light-headed with a combination of rage and fear, he’d be able to think more clearly.
Even if he wanted to, Karl couldn’t have replied.
Six frowned, then went to the tall metal cabinet. He pulled keys from his pocket and opened it.
Karl tried in vain to jerk even just one arm free. Whatever was in that cabinet was not going to be something pleasant.
Six withdrew a green garden hose and carried it to the back of the room. Karl’s bound
head prevented him from turning to see what, or who, was back there. He tensed, expecting the hose to wrap around his neck or to feel it lash against his naked skin.
A moment later, he heard the squeak of a faucet turning on.
Water.
Karl couldn’t muffle his desperate sound of desire.
Six casually strolled over, delicious-looking water pouring from the hose he held in one hand.
“I did not mean to be gone so long.” Six kicked the body bag, then raised the hose, pointing it at Karl. Water splashed his legs, groin, thighs, and then, blessedly, his face. Some snarling, defiant part of him wanted to keep his mouth shut and ignore the water. To let the dehydration finish its slow murder.
That part was quickly drowned out by Karl’s survival instinct.
He opened his mouth and gulped in the water. At first his throat was so dry he couldn’t even swallow, and the water dribbled out.
“Slowly, my friend.” Six laughed. “Or maybe I will call you my dog. I had planned for you to be my helper, but maybe I will let the dogs have you.”
Karl was only vaguely aware of the words. He was finally able to swallow. Cool, glorious water flowed down his throat. His stomach clenched painfully, but he kept going, kept swallowing, quenching the desperate thirst.
Six pulled the hose away.
“No, please.” Karl’s words were a hoarse plea.
Six looked at him with a disquieting sort of dispassion, then put his thumb over the opening of the hose, turning the water into a pressurized spray. Karl closed his eyes as his captor hosed him down.
Disturbingly, for a moment, he felt grateful.
“Here, you have a drink.” Six took the hose and carefully placed it in Karl’s right hand. He took care to make sure Karl had a good grip on it, and that the hose was angled so the water arched up to hit Karl’s face.
Karl desperately gulped water. Whatever didn’t make it into his mouth splashed his face and chest, running over his lap. The seat of the chair must have been mesh or rattan because he could feel the water sliding to the underside of his thighs, and then heard it dripping onto the floor, cleaning and cleansing him.
He was so focused on himself, on bringing himself back from the edge of death by satiating his terrible thirst, that he wasn’t paying attention to what Six was doing. It was a testament to how desperate his own physical suffering was that he’d forgotten about the body bag.
Until he heard her gasp of pain.
Karl’s eyes, which had closed in bliss, snapped open.
He adjusted the hose with a small motion of his fingers so the arc of water wasn’t obstructing his vision.
The body bag was unzipped and open. Six kicked it, eliciting another moan, and then bent over it. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a horrific parody of a smile, and he reached into the bag.
Six dragged a woman out of the bag by her hair. For a moment she was limp, before jerking and trying to reach up. She didn’t get far—her hands were cuffed to a chain around her waist. She wore blood-streaked white slacks and a pretty blouse, as if she’d been kidnapped while out on a date.
There was blood on her hands and around her mouth.
She’d fought.
Six hauled her across the floor. The woman struggled to get her feet under her, but there was a hobble chain on her ankles. He dumped her on the floor, over one of the two drains, then went to the open cabinet.
The woman managed to get to her knees, her upper body swaying.
“He’s coming back,” Karl choked out. It couldn’t help her, couldn’t help himself, but he could warn her.
Then again, it might have helped if he hadn’t spoken in his native Dutch.
The woman’s head whipped around, and he got a better look at her face.
She had petite features and a sort of pixie-like appearance that, for a heart-stopping moment, made Karl think she was young, maybe less than twenty. Then he saw her eyes—a piercing, pale blue. Those were the eyes of a woman, not a girl.
She jerked her head in a small nod of thanks, then looked over her shoulder at Six.
Wait, she’d understood him? She spoke Dutch?
The woman leaned away from Six, as if she were cowering, but when he reached for her, she darted under his hold and head butted him in the crotch.
Six staggered back, holding his dick.
Karl slid his fingers along the hose, placed his thumb over the tip, and tried to turn it into a jet spray, hoping he could use it to distract Six, give the woman a chance to get away.
She dropped to her side and rolled, knocking into Six’s legs and causing him to topple to the ground. She started to knee-walk away, but simply couldn’t move fast enough.
Six snarled in rage, cursed, and then reached out, grabbing the woman and yanking her back. He forced her to the floor and rolled on top of her, wrapping both hands around her neck.
He was squeezing so tight, his knuckles were white.
Karl managed to turned the hose, spraying Six as he lay atop the woman, strangling her.
Six jerked back, his face rising to look at Karl. A snarl distorted his features. This wasn’t a man. There was nothing human in those eyes. It was a monster. A demon made flesh.
Six staggered to his feet, stalked over, and jerked the hose from Karl, throwing it to the side. Water pooled on the concrete floor, running in rivulets toward the drains.
Six took a breath, then looked back to Karl. He was smiling, the human mask back in place.
“Ah, thank you, my friend. You are right. I cannot kill her, not until I have the third.”
The third?
The woman started coughing, rolling onto her side and curling into a fetal position as she did.
Six casually kicked her as he went past, retrieving the chain he’d been holding when she’d attacked him. He reached up and padlocked a center link of the chain to an eyebolt in the ceiling. Dragging her up by the hair once more, he forced the woman to stand, then took one end of the chain and wrapped it twice around her neck, securing it in place by sliding another padlock through two links. The lock dangled against her sternum like a horrific pendant.
He took the keys from his pocket once more and undid the chain around her waist. She made one desperate attempt to scratch him, but he forced her hands together behind her back and cuffed them.
Karl watched, helpless, as Six pressed his lips to her ear, his words inaudible to Karl, but distressing enough to make the woman’s face twist in fear and anger.
Six went back to the cupboard, returning with surgical scissors. He cut away the woman’s clothes, then ran his hands over her, murmuring to her all the while.
Karl felt sick as he watched her close her eyes, her mouth twisting as their captor touched her.
He had to do something. Help her.
Ridiculous thought. He couldn’t even help himself. But maybe he could distract Six.
“Why?” Karl asked in English. “Why are you doing this?”
Six straightened, his hands sliding off the woman. There were existing bruises all over her body, and splotches of red that would probably become bruises, especially on her ribs.
“Why?” Six smiled. “Because I can.”
Once more, the demon peeked out from behind human eyes.
“How will you kill us?” Karl asked. It was part curiosity, part an attempt at distraction.
Six wiped his cheek with the back of one wrist, frowning at the blood transfer. The sight seemed to distract him. He started to walk toward the door. He paused briefly by Karl’s chair. “I will kill you in a way the world has never seen before.”
Six walked out of Karl’s line of sight. The water shut off with a squeak, then there was the sound of a door opening and closing.
Karl looked at the woman. She was facing him, and therefore the door behind him. He could tell from the way she sagged that Six truly had left.
She looked at him and their gazes met.
Something passed between them. A grim acknowledg
ement that though they were strangers, they were in this together. That they might survive together or might die together.
She shifted her weight from foot to foot. With the chain around her neck, if she lost her footing or her legs gave out, she’d strangle.
Maybe he could keep her distracted, for as long as they had, until Six came back.
“I’m Karl,” he said in Dutch.
She frowned at him.
“I’m Karl,” he repeated in English. Maybe she hadn’t actually understood his words before, but rather the intent.
“Karl…Klimek?” Her voice was husky, little more than a whisper.
Karl stiffened, his fingers curling against the arms of the chair. “How… Who are you?”
“My name is Leila Virtanen. I’m a security officer for Kalmar.”
Karl took a breath and held it, his thoughts whirling as he tried to process that information. “You’re a member of the Masters’ Admiralty?”
Karl had assumed he’d been abducted by chance, a crime of opportunity. But if Leila was a member of the same secret society he was—the oldest and most powerful secret society in the world—this was no coincidence.
“They’re looking for you,” Leila said softly. “And someone will come looking for me.”
Behind him, there was the sound of the door opening.
Karl met Leila’s gaze, and saw his own fear reflected there.
“They’ll find us,” she whispered.
She still had hope, a hope he’d given up on. He’d been ready to die.
He wouldn’t take that away from her.
Leila’s gaze flipped from him to the door. He tensed.
