Not waiting for me to pull the clothing free, he yanked the bag from my fingers, and tossed the white garments on the floor. They merged with the tiles and sheepskin below. “Yours. I expect you to wear them.”
When I didn’t move, he came up behind me, rubbing his erection into the crack of my ass. “Fuck, you piss me off not talking.” He slapped my thigh. “You think you’re so strong, but you’re not that strong. You don’t want to talk to me? I don’t need you to talk.”
Biting my earlobe hard enough to draw blood, he laughed as I flinched. “One day, you’ll break, and when you do, I’ll fucking celebrate by listening to your screams.”
Grabbing my nape, he marched me forward until I crashed against the dressing table. “Carry on not talking to me. I don’t need your girlish voice when I know you like to write.”
My flesh rippled with indignation as a droplet of crimson from my bitten ear landed on my shoulder.
He rolled his hips, digging his cock into my back. “Remember those notes I stole from you when you first arrived…they were entertaining reading. I want some more. I want to know what you feel when I take you. I want to know everything you keep locked inside that mute little brain.”
I forced myself not to look over my shoulder at my hiding place. Sheets and sheets of notes to No One hidden so damn close to where we stood. I’d have nothing left if he found them.
I couldn’t breathe as he slammed my face against a large book resting on the edge of the table. “This is another gift because I’m feeling like Santa fucking Claus tonight.” Pressing my cheek on the ornate bound diary, he hissed, “Scribble away, my dear. Let’s see what else you have to say about me.”
The new Mont Blanc pen beside the new pages begged me to use it as a harpoon. To stab it in his eye and dance in his blindness.
Do it.
Kill him.
Now!
My fingers crawled to the pen, but he swiped it into his fist. “On second thoughts…this is too good for you.” Licking my ear, he smeared my blood. “I see your plans, Pim. Shame on you for thinking about using my gift for other activities.”
Damn you.
Screw you!
Let me go!
Hot, angry tears blurred my vision.
And then nothing else mattered as he threw me to the floor and planted his foot into my stomach. “Such an ungrateful bitch. The things I do for you!”
Kick.
Kick.
Kick.
Instinct curled me tight, but discipline made me unravel and accept. I’d long since learned trying to avoid his tirade only brought another and another.
“You think you’re better than me. You’re not!”
Kick.
Kick.
My ribs screamed. My lungs suffocated. I hurt.
I’m strong enough to obey.
The doorbell rang with perfect punctuation of his damning abuse. The cheery chime sent blades slicing down my spine.
Breathing hard, he reached down and almost ripped a handful of my hair as he dragged me to my wobbly feet. “Ah, he’s here. Time to play.”
I bit back a hate-filled breath, existing in fire-searing agony.
He let me go, straightening his shirt. “Now that you’ve seen the length of my generosity, it’s time for you to do the same by being the perfect whore for my guest tonight. Get fucking dressed. And come downstairs.”
* * *
To No One,
I’m sitting here fingering these strange new clothes, and I don’t want to wear them. Does that make me odd? I don’t want to be confined. I don’t want whatever strands weave this creation to strangle me.
Can you see them—the white monstrosity? No, of course, you can’t because you don’t have eyes or ears or a heart.
He said he has a guest coming tonight. A different one from the usual animals he shares me with.
I don’t know what that means. I don’t like not knowing.
Can I crawl inside your soft squares and hide behind your pencil lines until it’s over?
…
…
I got dressed, No One.
I slipped into the skirt and polo neck and stared so damn long in the mirror. I’m confused why he’s making me wear this. It isn’t sexy. The material hangs off me, hiding my gaunt frame and all the bruises and scars he’s given me.
But why would he do that?
Why hide the accomplishments he’s marked me with? He likes them. He calls them my jewellery. Tells me how generous he is to give me yet another strangled necklace or rope-granted bracelet.
Oh no, he’s calling me.
I don’t want to go.
I have no choice but to go.
Chapter Nine
Elder
There were multiple versions of Hell.
Most were cliché-filled and nothing more than a nuisance—overdramatised and the topic of conversation for attention wannabes. However, some versions warranted the name.
One version visited for a brief moment, tore apart a life, and left the ruins for whoever was brave enough to pick up the bloody pieces. Another version appeared especially for bastards, delivering payback for whatever atrocities they’d committed. A third acted as a hurricane, bringing destruction to all those in its path—deserving or not.
And then, there was this.
The lying, cheating form of Hell where every twitch, every vowel had to be carefully chosen and meticulously delivered, because if care wasn’t given, death wasn’t the worst punishment available.
I was in that Hell.
I’d willingly walked into a demon den, and for what?
Why the fuck am I here?
The answer dangled like a worm inside my mind. But if there was a worm inside my thoughts that meant the core of me was bad. A rotten apple slowly devoured by filth.
And it was.
For many years that was exactly what I was.
But not anymore.
Where the worm had tunnelled through my humanity and righteousness, something else had filled the holes. Something that thirsted for power, even though I already had endless amounts. Something that craved wealth, even though I already had oceans. Something that demanded I never forgot who I was at the beginning.
And who I was at the beginning wasn’t a worthwhile citizen. I was shadows and gore and screams. I’d lost my honour, my family, everything that made me human.
Losing everything meant that when I’d gained everything, the luck bestowed on me didn’t make the darkness inside me better…it made it worse.
So goddamn worse.
Not that my new host knew that.
My lips twitched as I climbed from my car and nodded at Selix. “I won’t need your services tonight.”
My bodyguard, driver, and all-a-round minion narrowed his gaze. His dark hair in a bun on top of his head sucked up the light of the early evening, his jaw clean-shaven and sharp. “Are you sure? You know what this man is. You did the research. I would advise rethinking your—”
“I would advise you stop trying to give me advice.”
We’d met in the days before I was someone. An enemy who struggled the same toils I had. When my luck had changed, I’d hauled him from the gutter with me.
After all, there was no better person to employ than an enemy.
If I could buy his loyalty and earn his friendship after we tried to kill each other, nothing could break us apart. We’d built a foundation on something so much stronger than light and happiness. We were forged from the same despicableness.
There’s weakness in that as well as strength.
And because of that, I wouldn’t stop reminding him that I might trust him with my life, but he wasn’t my conscience. Not before, not now, not ever.
I doubt I even have a conscience anymore.
According to my heritage, I was a no one. Not worthy to be called a man.
I’m fine with that.
Selix snapped his lips together. “I’ll be around the block if you need me.�
��
Doing up my blazer button, I nodded. “You’ll know if I do.” Dismissing him, I strolled toward the front door of the large white mansion.
White.
I sneered.
The biggest lie of all.
It gave a visitor the impression of innocence and purity. But the opposite was true. White was the colour with multiple faces. It lied about its identity, hiding its pigment while smothering others. The final blank thought before death.
My new host believed I was what I said I was. If he’d researched me as I’d researched him, he would know nothing true about me. Only the carefully laid crumbs of worthless knowledge.
He wouldn’t know my background.
He wouldn’t know my skills.
And he wouldn’t know my end agenda.
But soon, he would.
And then, my task in Hell would be complete.
Chapter Ten
Pimlico
Tonight was different.
I didn’t like different.
My stomach hurt from where he’d kicked me. My head swam from his punch. My ear stung from his teeth. And that was him being gentle.
My mother’s lessons on how to read bullies had become a full-time occupation. I knew now what made men like my master tick. I stole pieces of him every moment he looked my way or touched me.
I was the sponge to his evilness, soaking everything I could for my benefit. However, no matter the small victories I enjoyed, the tragedies far outweighed my triumphs.
Tonight wouldn’t be a triumph.
I could sense it.
What’s going to happen?
I shivered as awful answers unspooled, each one worse than the last. The house felt dangerous and strange, poised for something I couldn’t prepare for.
Leaving my doorless bedroom, I made my way downstairs. My bare feet couldn’t camouflage the black and blue shadows from him breaking my bones, nor hide the malnourished pigment of my skin. But the white skirt, as it fluttered around my legs, covered my nakedness and scars for the first time since I’d arrived in Crete.
If that was even where I was.
The colourless polo neck gripped my throat with cotton fingers, making me fidget and pull at the obstruction.
Lately, he’d had a tendency to use collars and ropes, keeping me bound in awful positions. Normally, that position ended up strangling me as he finished. It terrified me while it was happening, but it’d also stained the times when he wasn’t. Whenever he touched my neck now, tears instantly brimmed. No matter how strong I was, he’d turned that part of my body into a trigger for terror.
And now, he’d dressed me in clothes that suffocated me on his behalf.
Gulping my rising panic, I stopped midway down the steps.
I can’t do this.
Turning around, I bolted back up.
You don’t have a choice.
I paused on the landing with my face in my hands, sobs threatening to undo every rib. I hated my sudden fear. Unknowns did this—they rattled my fragile strength—ready to unleash the detonation building inside me.
Over the past two years, I’d developed a security system that ensured I breathed another day even when some days I wanted to die. Others, I wanted to scream. Most, I wanted to slaughter him.
It was thoughts of slaughtering him that kept me going.
And I evolved.
Before, he’d force me to kneel, and I would stand to disobey. He’d crunch my face into the floor, and I’d spring up in defiance. For my troubles, I was hurt over and over.
Now, I bowed because it made him believe I respected him, all while my heart sharpened the daggers I wanted to plunge. I kneeled because it gave him power, and when he had power, he didn’t assert it as often.
He was a coward with a vicious, sadistic drive. But I played him the best I could. I got into his head. I couldn’t avoid his daily ferocity, but I could avoid utter excruciation by being smart.
However, being smart and subservient came with a price. My actions of survival made me live and breathe the existence of a slave, and occasionally, just occasionally, my constant fear and unhappiness won.
As it was winning now.
The sobs swelled until my skin begged for relief from the tight clothing. I wanted to strip and disappear.
You’re running out of time.
Move.
If I didn’t go willingly, he’d come for me. He’d hurt me. I’d been hurt enough today.
I’m strong enough to obey.
That sentence had become a war cry, a lullaby, a prayer. I reminded myself constantly that it was true. It didn’t matter if some days it was a lie…I was still here. In a strange way, I’d won.
Sucking back tears, I did my best to straighten a spine that’d long since bowed beneath domination and pain and trudged down the steps.
Slowly.
So slowly.
But not slowly enough.
My toes reached the bottom floor before I’d had time to wipe away the droplet on my cheek. My throat constricted as I inched around the corridor to the lounge. The polo latching on my neck clung tight, turning my fear into something thick and cloying.
I was two seconds from tearing off the offending items when I saw Master A’s guest for the first time.
My first thought was…run.
His eyes matched those of the men surrounding him.
The eyes of a killer, pain-deliverer, and user.
But my second thought was…run to him.
He didn’t know me.
Master A didn’t rule him. He could finally be the one to set me free.
Or kill me.
Either conclusion would do because for the first time in such a long time, I remembered what it was like to see a stranger. To feel hope instead of forcing myself to remain strong.
My knees wobbled as his attention remained on the usual gang of assholes who took advantage of me at Master A’s discretion.
He hadn’t seen me, hovering ghost-quiet against the wall.
The interloper sat tightly wound like a sword waiting to leap from its sheath, glaring at the three men on the opposite couch.
Master A had never fully introduced me to the animals who’d abused me, but I knew their names. I knew their barbarous tastes. And I knew they were as bad as the rest.
Darryl, Monty, and Tony all discounted me the second they sneered in my direction. I was nothing to them. Just like the crystal chandelier above the dining room table was nothing or the vase on the sideboard in the entrance hall.
They saw me, might even appreciate me for a brief moment, but then I was unimportant.
I just wished I were unimportant enough not to entice sexual interest when alcohol flowed, and Master A gave the order to do whatever the hell they wanted.
The sick prick got off on his friends hurting me three at a time. He sat there masturbating while they—
Stop!
I stuffed each awful memory deep, deep inside. It was the only way I could endure more on top of a mountain already scaled.
Besides, it doesn’t matter.
I was far more interested in this foreigner in my nightmare midst.
Who is he?
My fingers twined in the ugly skirt, seeking refuge from their cold fragility. It’d been so long since I’d been dressed; I’d forgotten how comforting a simple covering could be.
Not that it protected my body.
Every part of me was still visible, just…shadowed. The white material didn’t hide my nipples through the tightness, and the skirt hinted at secret, violated places between my legs.
I vaguely remembered my mother saying sometimes clothes were more provocative than downright nakedness. Maybe that was what this was? A tease? A reverse strip show?
Master A noticed me, striding from the kitchen with a glass of champagne. He didn’t drink it often, and I almost backed away in surprise as he passed the delicate stemmed flute to me.
Kissing my cheek, he looked at the stranger before his
sing in my ear. “Our guest isn’t aware of our little games okay, my sweet Pim? And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t give him any reason to find out.”
Facing away from his guest, he subtly drew a line over his throat in a threat.
I didn’t know if that meant he’d kill the newcomer or me.
Stealing the champagne from my fingers without a single drop splashing my tongue, he wrapped an arm around me and carted me toward the man.
The closer we drew, the more intrigued I became.
Unlike Master A and his similar blond counterparts, this man was a black stain in the middle of European fair complexions.
His hair was blacker than black, looking like an ink spill on the death of a perfect night. His gaze matched the coal depths, hiding so much but taking everything in.
I guessed he’d given up adolescence a while ago and bordered late twenties, early thirties. He was what my mother used to call ‘confused ethnicity.’ He wasn’t like me, who could track her roots back to Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. He was a mismatch of origins—enticingly exotic.
He was handsome and staring right at me.
Staring as if he didn’t expect a girl to be here; a slave who’d well and truly forgotten the outside world.
I dropped my gaze, encouraging a sheet of hair to obscure the remnants of bruising on my cheekbone.
I hadn’t been anywhere or seen anything new in two years.
Until this man.
Stopping before the stranger as he stood stiffly from the couch, Master A grunted, “I thought I’d add one more to our dinner arrangement if you don’t mind.” Digging his fingernails into my elbow, he smiled cordially. “This is my girlfriend, Pimlico.”
The man raised an eyebrow, drawing my attention from his hair and eyes to the rest of his symmetrically masculine face. His nose held just enough authority without being too big. His chin was square enough to expose every clench of his teeth, and his throat powerful enough to reveal every swallow, rippling with sinew and muscle.
My eyes followed his neck, following the contours of his flawless skin until it disappeared beneath a dark grey shirt with the collar unbuttoned. He wore a casual black blazer as if he’d shrugged into it at the last minute while shopping at Armani or Gucci, and his long legs put him half a head taller than Master A, who already towered over my shorter frame.
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