He takes a careful hold of my arm and pulls me out of the room, into the too-bright corridor, before he closes the door to the torture chamber that is Salvatore’s bedroom.
“Can you walk, Carmen?”
I look at my naked feet, my ankles red and chafed, traces of dried cum along the insides of my legs.
Ivan follows my gaze.
“I… I need a break,” I whisper and sway, the walls around us tilting.
“Come here.”
He scoops me up and cradles me like a baby to his warm broad chest. It hurts where he touches me, but I steel myself against the ache in my back. It’s no use showing him the state I’m in. He already knows it. He’s got a thick carpet of blond chest hair and he smells of cologne, a little on the heavy side, but not unpleasant. I wonder what he’s doing here. I wonder if he’s as evil as Salvatore. He’s given me the odd glance of pity, something no other man in this place has done.
“You can just call a cab.” My voice is barely audible, but in the dead silent house it carries anyway.
Ivan scoffs. “The driver is waiting for you outside.”
My chest clenches. It hurts more than any cane ever did, knowing I’ll have to face Lucas with who I am, with what I let these people do to me.
Too soon, we’re at the entrance door.
“Want me to carry you to the car?”
“No! It’s all right. I can walk.” I am so close to adding ‘see you’, but by God, I do not want to see any of them ever again.
“Take care of yourself, Miss Moreno.”
“What’s your last name, Ivan?”
“Sokolov.”
“What kind of a name is that?”
“It’s Russian, miss. Now go. Your car is waiting.”
I put my hand on the door handle. “Ivan Sokolov, your master is a monster. You know that, right?”
He studies me with his usual unreadable gaze, then something dark flickers through them.
“There is more to Mr. Salvatore than you see. Good night.” He puts his hand on mine and opens the door for me.
I was stalling. I know that. When the door swings open, the limousine is waiting, but there’s no sign of Lucas. The early morning air is slightly chilly, and goosebumps erupt along my naked legs. I throw one last glance at Ivan. It’s almost as if I want to clutch to him and beg him to not let me go back out there. Facing Lucas, facing the house and the girls, trying to heal yet again almost feels harder than just staying in this house of horrors. I wonder what Ivan means with ‘there’s more to Salvatore’? He’s a power-hungry sadist and a psychopath. That’s all I see.
Chapter 15
Lucas
I hold it together as I leave Carmen at the mansion, passing the gate guards. I hold it together a few more minutes, then I pull up by the side of the road and scream and hit my fists on the dashboard over and over until my knuckles bleed. The gravel squirts behind the car as I speed off, down along the serpentine road, an I-don’t-give-a-fuck-anymore voice in my head telling me to just turn the wheel to the right, fly over the steep edge and get it over with. Instead I hit a bar downtown. A seedy bar, filled with lowlife criminals, wannabe cowboys, and hookers.
After two beers and three shots of tequila, I feel invincible. I also loathe everyone around me.
“Dude, you’re in my way.” I shove at whoever stands next to me. My sore fists itch to hit something. Someone. Anyone here will do.
The man is in his thirties, tall but gangly, with a face only a mother could love, and has unsuccessfully been hitting on one of the hookers the whole night. He wears a checkered flannel shirt, no-brand jeans and cheap, well-worn cowboy boots.
“What the fuck’s your problem?”
“You’re in my face. That’s my problem.”
The fist comes flying, but he shows his intention from a mile away. I’ve practiced Krav Maga three times a week for the last two years. It pays off. I block it and hit his solar plexus, making him bend over and gasp, that’s when I throw an uppercut to his chin. He falls straight back, like a log, hitting his head on the floor. I’m about to throw myself over him when someone grabs my arms from behind. Turns out there are two, bending my arms up on my back. I consider making a backflip and a toss, I can totally take them, but then the fight drains out of me and I let them steer me out of the venue. Their grip hurts, but I welcome the pain.
I’m shoved face first onto the pavement, hitting hands and knees, scraping them pretty badly on the uneven surface.
“Get some fresh air, kid. And don’t come back. Ever.”
I spin around and fall down on my butt. My mind spins. Fuck. What time is it? How many hours until I pick up Carmen? How drunk am I exactly? It’s like something hits my stomach and I double over in pain. What shape will she be in? The memory from last time, of a little nose peeking out from under the yellow blanket, big pained eyes, her beaten body, is burned onto my retinae.
Nausea rises in me as I get to my feet. I try to walk on a line, to see if I’m sober enough to drive. I’m not a small guy, I can take some booze before it impairs me. It works fairly well and I hop in the car, confident I won’t kill anyone.
On the way home, I call Christian Russo.
“Yeah?” he grunts. It’s clear I woke him up. His voice is raw and raspy. “What the fuck do you want?”
“It’s Payne.”
“I know who the fuck you are.”
“You gotta take me on your next hit, man.”
He laughs. I hear him move around, water flushing. “Kid, you vomited last time.”
“I’m ready.”
“For anything?”
“For anything.”
“Well, fine. We’ll let you know. Now let me get the fuck back to sleep.”
He disconnects in the next moment. If a cell phone could be slammed down to end the call, he just did the equivalent. My heart jolts. I’m ready. I don’t care anymore. It’s all fucked anyway. I know I have a soft spot somewhere deep inside, a weakness that shouldn’t be there. I need to burn it away, and it can only be done with blood, with pain, and grit.
They want me to prove myself. I’ll fucking show them.
I make my way home and face plant on my mattress, tired beyond reason. It’s as if my bones have turned brittle, as if my muscles are ash. I feel used up.
Her head falls off her neck and lands on the brown vinyl floor with a little crunch. There’s no blood, which I find a little odd. Her hair is long and brown. Curly. It doesn’t make sense. Icy fingers grip my heart as I fall to my knees and turn up the face.
Carmen’s unseeing eyes stare back up at me. I throw myself back, scrambling to get away. I didn’t do that. I didn’t cut off her head. I never killed her! It doesn't matter. My horrified mind has kept repeating the ‘what ifs’ since that fateful night. The only time I find some calm is when I’m with Carmen. And now that’s over.
“It’s okay, Lucas,” says a soft voice. Her voice. “I have peace. You must find your way. Find me.”
I wake, sweaty, shuddering, my head pounding. My mouth is dry and the voice keeps repeating for me to find my way.
Find me.
Did dream-Carmen mean herself? But she made it very clear she didn’t want me around. I shake my head. A dream is just my own subconscious. I want her. I want to find her. But I can forget that.
I stagger to the kitchen and drink a glass of water, greedily gulping down the cool liquid. Then I toss down two Advil and pray the heavy headache will subside. Unwanted images of what Carmen’s doing right now flits through my mind. It’s four o’clock. They haven’t called yet, so the fucking monster is probably still at it. Is he raping her? Or is she in on it? I have to force myself to unclench my fists. I want to down a tequila, or two, but it’s not the wisest idea. Instead I try to distract myself with cable TV. Old reruns of Friends.
When my phone rings, I almost fly through the roof. My heart pounds at a hundred beats per minute. Fuck. I don’t want to see her. If someone had asked me a while back
what would scare me the most, I wouldn’t have thought it’d be picking up a girl in my car.
I splash my face with ice cold water and hop in my jeans and a new T-shirt. I haven’t showered after the little stint at the bar, I was too tired and now it’s too late.
Thirty minutes later, I pull up on the neatly combed gravel outside the front door. I’m too numb to get out of the car. I don’t want to see her. And I want nothing else than to take her in my arms and never let her go. Can’t she see that this is destroying her? Once again my heart blackens as I think of the monster that lives here, who ruins everything he touches. I want to hurt him back, but I just don’t know how. I’m in his clutches like everyone else and I do want to live. Carmen is right that we’d be in constant danger, and I don’t know which life is worse. A life of certain destruction here, but alive, or a life on the run, with an almost certain violent death? And it is like she says; he’d probably drag her back and punish her every day for the rest of her life for disobeying him.
I stare in front of me at nothing. I have no idea how much time has passed when the front door opens, and I have an eerie, agonizing feeling of déjà vu.
She walks on her own feet this time, though, wearing a gray oversized T-shirt. The door closes behind her. I sit as if frozen. I don’t know how to get out. I don’t know how to face her pain. Or my own.
I watch as she hesitantly walks down the stairs, clutching her arms over her chest, every step measured. She looks like she’s in pain, her eyebrows knitted together as if she’s focusing hard. I jump to action, I can’t just sit here, but before I can get out, she has opened the back door and slid in, laying down on her side on the rear seat.
I twist and look at her, meeting her dulled gaze.
“Just drive, Lucas,” she whispers.
Holding her gaze a few moments longer, I then turn the ignition and get us the hell away from the house of unmentionable horrors.
After a few minutes in silence, she buzzes me. There’s a speaker through which the passengers and the driver can communicate. I turn it on.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry.”
My heart jolts, but I don’t want to think anything, or feel anything. “For what?”
“For saying those things. I didn’t mean them. I just needed you to let go.”
“It’s nothing. It’s okay. I didn’t believe you anyway.” I did. What she said broke my heart. But I’ll take it.
“The thought of you was the only thing that kept me sane through the night.” She sounds so tired it kills me. I pull in at an abandoned parking lot by a closed mall in some nondescript neighborhood.
The silence stretches, then I sigh and turn, pulling the divider to the side. “Do you want me to come over?”
Carmen nods and despite how awful everything is, I can’t help the joy that spreads through every limb, as if carbonated soda flows in my veins instead of blood. Hopping out of the car, I fling open the door and climb into the back, sitting opposite her.
I take in the state she’s in, the goosebumps on her legs, the tremors that run through her, and shrug out of my pilot style leather jacket, carefully covering her with it. She’s curled up like a little baby under it.
“You smell nice,” she says.
I grimace. “I smell of booze and a bar fight. Sorry.”
She tilts her head. “You were in a fight? Why?”
“I… was a little frustrated.”
“Did you hit someone for me?”
“Maybe. In a way.”
She looks down, chewing on her lip, then she says in a barely audible tone, “I wish I could do that myself.”
I reach for her and she lets me take her little hand. A jolt runs through me, feeling her warm skin on mine. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to put up with this.”
I’ve never seen such desolate eyes in my life, not even after last time. I remember them filled with agony and somehow shut off. The despair, and hopelessness she radiates now is like a blow to my chest.
“I won’t give up on you,” I mumble and caress her hand with my thumb, stroking back and forth over her smooth caramel colored skin. I take in her face, and her little form under my leather jacket. “Are you hurt?”
She nods. “Yes.”
I push open the door to the cabinet by my feet and grab the bottle of Advil and a coke. “It’s not much, but it’s what I’ve got. Here.” I unscrew the cork and hand her two pills, which she obediently swallows. “I’ll drive you to the house.”
As I put us back on the road, my mind starts spinning the options. I am getting her out of this shit. There’s no doubt in my mind. I’ll find a way in deeper into the organization and figure out what their weaknesses are. I don’t care what happens to me but fuck me if I’m gonna let them keep doing this to her.
I pull up outside the house and hop out to go wake up the matron but before I can close the door, she buzzes me again. Pulling open the back door, I stick in my head.
“Yeah?”
“Just help me to my room. Please. Don’t wake anyone up.”
“Okay.”
On shaky legs, she makes her way out. Barefoot on the gravel, she looks so vulnerable, and as I put my jacket over her shoulders, impotent rage rises in me again. I fight it down. It’s of no use to me right now. I’ll find that feeling again when I need it.
The house is quiet as we tiptoe through the common area, up the stairs, through the dark corridor, all the way to her room that is located at the far end. It’s the second to the last door on the left side. I know the way by heart. I’ve kept coming here, every day, reading to her, laughing with her, listening to stories from her home country, telling her stories from the farm. It’s funny, because it turns out that in a way we’re not that different. She gets something warm in her gaze as she talks about the mountains, and the open sky. She has made me realize that the years with my grandparents were the best two years of my life. I was young and stupid, and thought it was boring shit. Now, I’ve come to feel suffocated in the foggy city, waking up to a lid of smog every morning. Every street corner stinking of garbage and exhaust from cars.
I pull the comforter to the side, Carmen hands me my jacket and slides into bed, still laying carefully on the side. Tucking her in, I want nothing more than to watch over her, to keep her safe, and tend to her every need.
“Carmen… can I stay?”
“You don’t have to. I’ll be okay. I just need to sleep.” She lays with her eyes closed already, her voice a mere mumble.
“Please, let me. I can read to you when you wake up.”
She peeks up at me, scoots back, then tugs at the comforter, pulling it to her. “Come lie with me, then. Just hold me, please.”
I spring to action, toeing off my shoes, and pulling off my jeans.
As I slide in under the duvet, and she nestles in with her head on my shoulder, my heart swells. I don’t care what she thinks, what she says, that she tries to scare me away. She’s mine and I’ll be there for her no matter what happens.
Chapter 16
Carmen
My sweet, sweet Lucas snores lightly after he has fallen asleep. I doze off from time to time, but my whole backside is scorching hot, sending arrows of pain through me every time I move even the slightest and it’s hard to come to peace. My pussy and ass ache, and I feel filthy with Salvatore’s cum in me, on me, and from the memory of all those men pinching, groping, shooting their disgusting spunk all over my body. It’s getting harder to dissociate, to put it away in the box of things I can’t stand living with. It’s as if that box doesn’t close properly anymore, as if it’s getting too full.
I study the man next to me, drinking in his features. He smells of unbrushed teeth and faint remains of alcohol. I don’t mind it one bit. I’m much worse off myself. Lucas is like no one I’ve ever met before. He looks so macho, tall, broad-shouldered, a mountain of muscles, but his heart is open and honest. I’ve never met a man so capable of caring. He asks, he doesn�
�t just take. He gives without demanding anything in return. What have I done to deserve his presence in my life?
I jerk as someone knocks on the door. Before I can answer the door opens and the matron sticks in her head. Her gaze darts to Lucas and then back at me, her eyebrows shooting up on her forehead.
“I wondered what the limo was doing here. How are you, love?”
“It’s not good, Matron.”
“Do I need to call the doctor?”
I shake my head. “I just need a shower and a rest.”
Lucas stirs and opens his eyes, his beautiful blue eyes looking straight into mine, making my heart do a salto mortale. He gives me a faint smile and then looks over at Matron.
“I can take care of her,” he says. “Do you have some stronger painkillers?”
“I don’t—” I begin. I don’t need them to drug me up again. I’m afraid I’ll like the dulling of my mind too much.
“Yes, you do,” they both say at the same time.
I throw out my hands in defeat.
“I’ll be back in a minute. I’ll also have a word with that— that man, because this isn’t acceptable!”
“Please, don—”
But she’s already out the door.
“Let other people help you. You’re not alone.”
I rub my hands over my face. “I just don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
“That’s for the rest of us to decide. Do you want a shower?”
“Oh God, yes! I’m the ickiest, most disgusting I can be. I can’t believe you slept beside me.”
Russo Saga Collection Page 55
