by J Bree
Then I spend a few hours sketching the circling gulls I’d watched during the day while I munch on fruit. Fresh, juicy fruit. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of eating fresh food. Even if the bread was good, I don’t think I could stomach another slice after my steady diet of moldy pieces. That and alcohol are strictly off the menu.
I watch as the sun rises again, drawing it as best as I can in a single color. I don’t want to go to to sleep, too afraid that this has all been a cruel dream and I’ll wake on that stinking bed again, but eventually I have to go to bed.
I decide to go back to sleep on the bed.
Illi isn’t home yet and when he does arrive, if he wants to sleep, I’ll go out to the couch. If he lets me and this hasn’t been a ruse. I take another long, hot, soapy shower. Loving every second of it. I have no other clothes to change into but the sweatshirt is still clean enough. I don’t usually wear pants to bed but I have no underwear and there’s no way I’ll sleep without them. Not ever again, so I put the pants back on and fuss with the thermostat before I climb into bed so I don’t overheat.
I’m asleep almost instantly, the demons in my head coming out to play. I can feel the hands on my skin and the pain of the men raping me. I feel their breath on my face as they laugh and sneer at me, burning me until I scream.
I scream out loud, the sound bouncing around the room and waking me up with a start.
The light switches on.
Oh god.
Oh god, oh god, oh god.
Illi stands in the doorframe, filling it entirely with the width of his chest. He’s wearing dark clothes but his hands are cut up and bleeding, the blood running up both of his arms as well.
He’s been hurting people, killing them.
The panic left in my system from the nightmare takes ahold of me at the sight of him there. I need to stab myself in the throat right now because he’s so much bigger than the other men and clearly more brutal, whatever he wants to do will be ten times worse, oh god.
I’m shaking too hard to do a damn thing.
So I shut my eyes and try to block everything out, but I still hear him exhale and walk into the bathroom. The water cuts on and he washes his hands. Okay, at least he’ll be clean. That’s a mark up from the cartel. If he breathes on me and smells of alcohol I will definitely vomit but if he’s taking the time to… oh, now he’s brushing his teeth.
Monsters brush their teeth.
A giggle bubbles in my stomach but I squash it down, this is no time for hysteria over monster dental hygiene. Curse him, that’s what this wonderful day of rest and calm and food has done to me. My guard is down.
“I can see the knife, baby girl.”
Oh god.
Oh god, oh god, oh god.
If I open my eyes now I’ll do something terrible like cry in front of him and I can’t afford to show any weakness. Well, more weakness, so I keep them shut.
“Have you ever held a gun before?”
My eyes fly open, meeting his. He’s standing there in shorts and nothing else and, my good god, he’s huge. Huge. Tattoos cover every inch of his torso and his nipples are pierced, the little silver bars catching the light.
He smirks at me and blood rushes to my cheeks. “It’s okay, baby, you can look. But that knife isn’t a great idea. I don’t want you getting hurt in your sleep, you thrash around some with your demons. I’ll give you one of my guns but only if you know how to use it.”
I blink at him, forgetting the sight of his chest altogether. “Why would you do that? What if I shoot you?”
He stalks over to the far wall and presses the panel. It pops out to reveal built in shelves that I would have never in a million years guessed were there.
I’m going to check every wall tomorrow while he’s gone.
He chuckles at me and says, “There’s two of these in the kitchen as well, have fun finding them, baby girl. You can come look through my shit here if you want? We can do it now but I’ve gotta tell you, I’m fucking beat.”
He knows I was snooping around.
“Do you have cameras on me?”
He looks over his shoulder as he grabs a gun and shuts the panel. “No. I have security over every inch of this place because it’s my home and I take care of what’s mine. I checked in on you while I was gone to make sure you were doing okay. I was twitchy about leaving you but a jobs a job. I had to take care of it.”
Oh.
He walks over to me slowly and then holds out the gun. I stare at it like he’s trying to hand me a venomous snake. “I’ve never even touched a gun. It’s… it’s not safe.”
He hums under his breath and steps forward to grab the knife, setting it on the small table. “I’ll leave that there for you and tomorrow I’ll take you downstairs so you can learn the basics about guns. We can switch them out once you’re comfortable.”
I nod and realize I’m sitting here discussing me learning about how to kill him. He watches me carefully and laughs at the face a pull. “I’m hoping you won’t shoot me but I also know I’m not going to give you a reason to shoot me. I want you armed and capable so if something ever happens you will know how to put the guy down. At least enough that I can get to you and finish the job for you.”
There he goes again with his crazy talk again. “You will grow tired of me, Illi. That is what all men do, they grow tired of the pretty little women they own.”
He frowns at me and stomps back around to the other side of the bed, laying the gun down on his own little table and sliding between the sheets. I throw the sheets off of myself, ready to go find the couch but he stops me.
“I won’t touch you. Not until you beg me to, Odie. Lay back and get some sleep. I may not own you, but you’re mine to protect so I swear to you, nothing is going to hurt you here.”
He won’t let me sleep anywhere else.
No matter how hard I push, he stands firm that we’ll share the bed. It’s so large that he never once touches me, not even when I wake screaming and thrashing about. When that happens he turns the light on and speaks to me, low and commanding until the demons clear and I’m aware of my surroundings.
He tells me all about his plans to kill the cartel.
I think he does it because he thinks I can’t remember what he says once I’m awake but those plans of his… they trickle into my dreams until I find myself daydreaming about his cleaver rending them limb from limb.
I want to watch it happen.
It think he’s private about his work because he never talks about it around me, only ever talking about mundane things like the weather or what he’s cooking us for dinner.
He does take me downstairs to learn how to use the gun. It’s then I learn that we’re not in an apartment building like I originally thought, but a large warehouse. The apartment is on the top level but there’s two others, the ground floor with the garage filled with expensive cars and the middle floor which has a giant gym and a shooting range.
He owns a lot of weapons.
He laughs at the look I give him when he opens the weapons safe, but I’ve truly never seen so many different guns, knives, batons, throwing stars, and a wide array of his trademark cleaver.
I can’t stop looking at those. He grimaces a little and says, “So you remember the alleyway then?”
I nod. “I do. I was… relieved to see them… dealt with.”
He rocks back on his heels like I’ve struck him. “Fuck. Here I was hoping you wouldn’t remember it. I thought you’d end up with more nightmares from that shit.”
I look down at my toes. I don’t want to speak about the cartel, I don’t ever want to think of them, but I don’t want him thinking of me as so… breakable.
I’m stronger than my face makes me look.
“I saw a man… get eaten. By dogs. It was… it wasn’t very, uh, good. He tried to help me. He warned the men who had taken me that the Butcher, uhm, you were looking for me.”
It takes me saying it to remember what that poor man had been
saying. The Butcher was knocking down doors looking for me. No man in the Bay was safe. Illi frowns at me, turning so his entire body faces me. “What man? I had people looking for you but I didn’t know any of them were missing?”
Oh no. “I’m so sorry he’s dead. It’s all my fault-”
He reaches out and carefully takes my hand, the first time he’s touched me since he first picked me up at the airport. I don’t hate the feeling and that surprises me. I look down at his hand and then squeeze his fingers a little in thanks.
“I’m not ever going to put that on you, baby girl. It’s all on me. I picked you up, thinking you were a pro.”
I frown at him. I don’t know what that means and he blows out a breath before he continues. “I thought you were a hooker, a professional. I took one look at all of this and thought you put yourself up for sale. It happens. Rarely, but it does. You weren’t chained up or scared, you stared at me with this fucking fire in your eyes and I made a bad call. A fucking terrible call. I should have asked you, but I was too busy trying to keep my dick calm because you were the most fucking beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”
Oh.
Well.
That’s not at all… what I was expecting. “So you do… want me.”
He squeezes my hand again and then lets it go, stepping back. “I want you the normal way people want each other. I want whatever you want to give me, whenever you want to give it.”
Right. Okay.
He steers me away from the weapons and then with gentle but firm instructions, he teaches me everything there is to know about guns. How to assemble and break them down, how to clean them, how to shoot them, and how to not shoot yourself. He doesn’t ever get frustrated with me, just murmurs praise and carefully adjusts my stance as he needs to. When I get the hang of one he pulls out another and slowly they get bigger and more powerful until I struggle to keep my footing under me when I fire them.
I focus myself entirely on learning this new, life saving skill and I do not let my thoughts come out to play. Not until we’ve cleaned up and made our way back upstairs, Illi nudging me towards the couch to rest while he gets started on our dinner.
The moment I sit our conversation comes flooding back to me in an all-consuming wave. Panic claws back up my throat because there’s no way I can give him… anything. I can’t even get in the shower without panicking at the thought of being naked. I triple check the locks on the doors. I can’t sleep through the night without waking us both up with my screams.
I don’t want to be breakable but in reality, I’m already broken.
I’ve been safe with Illi for a week when his doctor finally arrives to visit us.
I’m writhing with nerves, terrified I’m pregnant or have some disease, but Illi’s entire demeanor changes when he opens the door to the small man.
“I needed you a week ago, where the fuck have you been?”
His voice is cold and harsh, nothing like how he speaks to me. I’m instantly on edge and ready to lock myself in the bathroom until Illi decides to get rid of the man.
The doctor scoffs at him, brushing past and setting his bag down of the coffee table. I scoot away from him and swallow hard.
“Your good friend has started a hunt for something he should never have. I’ve been sewing his men up but they’re coming in faster than I can fix.”
I pick at the loose threads on the hem of my sweatshirt. Well, Illi’s. Everything I wear is his and it doesn’t matter how much I ask him, he doesn’t want me in anything else.
The room is silent again and I glance up to find Illi staring at me. “What is it?”
His jaw clenches and he struggles with his words for a second. “The Doc is the best in the Bay. The kid… Lips, she swears he did good by her when she needed help with her shit. If you don’t want to see him, I’ll take you somewhere else.”
I look back over at the doctor. He’s rummaging around in his bag like we’re not discussing him. “What did she need? Does he know about what happened to me?”
The doctor straightens. “The little Wolf needed help with her reproductive organs and I know that you were sold at auction. She called me herself and asked a favor of me. The little Wolf does not ask for favors, not ever. So here I am. I will examine you, run some tests if you need them, and if there’s a baby, I will give you your options.”
Illi takes a threatening step forward. “She knows her options and you’ll fucking leave them to her.”
The doctor doesn’t look worried about Illi’s threatening stance. “They’re her options, not yours. Do you own her? No? Then I will speak to her about them. Men do not own women’s organs, not even the Butcher.”
Well.
That’s kind of sweet and not at all what I was expecting from an illegal doctor. I meet Illi’s eye again and nod. “He can… examine me.”
The doctor makes me test a urine test to check me for pregnancy. It comes back negative and I almost cry in relief. Then he takes a few vials of my blood. Illi’s jaw clenches the whole way through until I think his teeth might just break in his mouth.
When I show the doctor one of the cigar burns he frowns and clucks at it, snapping on gloves and prodding at it. Most of them are healing, there’s only two that are still inflamed and both of them require me to take my clothing off for him to see.
I try to talk my way out of it but the doctor insists, so I have to remove my pants. My hands shake as I do it but Illi’s eyes stay on my face and the doctor doesn’t touch me, just asks me to move my legs as he needs me to and then lets me know once it’s over.
He finds me a different cream and tells Illi what medication I need. He can’t write me a script but when I question Illi about it after the doctor leaves he shrugs.
“I can get you anything you need. I have a guy for everything, baby girl.”
Chapter Sixteen
Illi
The biker doesn’t talk, no matter how much I carve him up.
I stick to superficial cuts, things that will heal, because I don’t want him dying before I get the information I need. I don’t want to have to find someone else and leave Odie again.
She’s starting to trust me. She talks to me, and gives me these little smiles that fucking tear at my heart, and there’s no way I’m going to go out for jobs right now when I can be staying closer to home. Closer to her.
They also sing to my dick but I’m used to the permanent blue-balls now. Fuck, I never knew celibacy would come so fucking easy to me but all I have to do is shut my eyes and think about the cigar burns on the inside of her thighs and my dick just settles the fuck down. The rage in my blood can’t fucking take it though.
I might have a fucking aneurysm at twenty-four if this keeps up.
I wake up next to her and for the first time since I got her here she’s slept through without screaming the place down. She looks peaceful and happy in her sleep, her face buried in my pillows. She’s taken to switching them before I get in here, thinking I haven’t noticed but I notice everything about her. Every-fucking-thing.
“You know I can go on like this for days, right? This isn’t my first rodeo, I always make my corpses squeal.” I say as I wash my tools.
He’s covered in blood but he hasn’t screamed or begged me to stop once. He’s sweating, definitely in excruciating pain, but he’s fucking resilient for a guy who can’t even drink legally yet.
Kind of makes me pissy I have to kill him, but a job’s a job and I’m fucking great at what I do.
I leave him chained to the chair and lock up my fridge, catching a quick shower in the bathroom in my gym before heading up to see what my girl is up to.
I unlock the apartment door right as my phone pings in my pocket with another pissy message from the Viper. Fuck, I hate that dickhead.
I need to get him off of my fucking case, and it’s clear the biker isn’t going to give me shit. Guess I will be heading out for the night.
But first I’m seeing my girl.
I fi
nd her on the couch with the Food Network on TV, some show about America’s best burgers playing and she’s watching that shit like it’s the answer to all of her problems.
“I’m just going out on a job, baby girl. Do you have your gun? I’ll lock up and have my phone on me. No one is getting past my security, either.”
She blinks up at me with a slow smile stretching across those full lips of hers. Fuck, I could just spread her out on the couch right now and feast on her for fucking days but there's still some shadows in those big eyes of hers, I'm not fucking pushing her yet.
I can be patient for now.
It’ll be so fucking worth it.
“I have it under my pillow. Should I go get it? Will you be gone a long time?”
Fuck, that breathy voice she uses on me now goes straight to my dick like the best and worst fucking torture. “I’ll be back by dawn, baby girl. You’re safe here, I just wanted to make sure you have it.”
She smiles again, pushing her hair over her shoulder and out of her way as she stares up at me. Fuck. I want to wrap it around my fist as I fuck those lush lips of hers.
Fuck.
I need to leave before she gets an eyeful of what’s happening in my jeans and freaks out.
“Call me if you need me. The kid’s number is in your phone as well so hit her up if you need some company.”
She nods and focusses back on the TV, sighing as she collapses back into the plush leather cushions. I need to finish this fucking job so I can spend a week at home with her, coaxing her into my bed naked and wet and willing.
Fuck.
I leave before I let my dick get me into trouble. If I followed it where it leads I’d end up in hell. I triple check the alarms and then take the Mustang out for the night, the rumble of the engine soothing to my shot nerves.
I’m going to find the Twelve tonight.
There’s a meeting being held by the Fox over some bullshit about the supply levels of drugs to his parties, and he’s holding it in one of his regular party venues out in the woods. It’s a decent drive away so I call Roxas to get some answers on something that’s been grating on me for days.
