“The strawberries, the daisies…” The words are barely a whisper, but he catches them regardless. He had been taunting me this entire time, and I was just too stupid to see it.
“Always with the strawberries. Such a sweet tooth,” he coos, brushing my cheek. I cower from his touch, swallowing back the impulse to yack all over his shoes as his wicked grin grows. The first day I had met the neighbour boy, son of the lead detective of the local police, he had ripped a handful of Mrs Turner’s daisies from her window planter. That kindness was short-lived. The second time he brought me flowers, I was so close to death, I had visions I was at my own funeral—at least I wished I was.
“You…you know each other?” Megan stutters with a slack jaw, and I hate that this is how she will find out the truth about my past.
“Unfortunately,” I sigh. “Although he’s had some work done. Is this back-alley glow-up and dye job for my benefit?” I sneer, answering Megan but keeping my eyes trainedon him. Mateo Trent and Matthew Turner are one and the same—son to a rapist, nephew to a sadist, and building quite a reputation for himself it seems. I had hoped I’d never have to see him again. The universe clearly thought one more fucked-up blast from the past couldn’t hurt. I gulp back the fear I can see he is searching for as his sleazy gaze travels south to where my shirt hugs my heaving chest.
He pulls the hunting knife out of its sheath and turns it over in his hand, teasing the fabric, trailing the tip of it down between my breasts before he applies pressure. I cry out as he slices my skin, his heated gaze widening as a crimson patch blooms and soaks through.
“Six years isn’t long enough, you twisted fuck. I see torturing girls half your size is still your go-to weekend extracurricular. How proud your mother must be,” I hiss, grinning when I see a red mist creep up his neck, his fists tensing in frustration around the blade handle.
“Shut it, bitch, before I hollow out your guts and make you watch as I paint the floor with them.”
Playing the dead mother card is a cheap shot, but it does as intended. A part of me wants to goad him enough that he will actually follow through with his threat. It can’t be worse than what Nathaniel has in mind when he murders everyone I hold dear and steals me away.
“Your father never had much restraint either if I remember correctly. Are you always the last one who gets to play with Daddy’s toys?”
I block out the intrusion of the memory of Hells Haven’s decorated lead police detective as he held me down with his boot against my throatand talked his seventeen-year-old son through what I think was his first attempt at rape.
“Our small-dicked captor here revels in his moral decay, taking perverse pleasure in the depravity of breaking down someone weaker than him. Wickedness isn’t his flaw; it’s his peculiarity. A true sadomasochist at his rotting core.”
Turning on his heels, frustration with my antics telling in the way his tense shoulders rise and fall rapidly as he rakes his free hand through his hair. He’s unravelling, and I’m not going to lie—it’s a display of pure visual poetry. If I have any chance of getting us out of here, it will be using this monster when he least expects it. He is the weak link, and I need to hurry this along before they up their numbers and Silas joins the party. The devil has nothing on Detective Turner, and of the three of them, he is the one I’ve never been able to hide my fear from; the darkness in him running too deep to contend with.
“You are a dead man, Turner,” Matthew doesn’t even acknowledge Caleb’s threat.
“Did you get hard when I twisted the plastic into your gut? It certainly made me fucking smile.” I laugh heartily, and he lunges for me. Thin fingers gripping my chin, he pushes my lips together, teasing the steel of the blade in his shaking hand against my cheek.
“Maybe I should start with them.” He nods towards the brothers, and my eyes dart across to follow the motion. I stiffen beneath him. “I feel like that might make you a little more responsive and a little less…combative,” he finishes with a flourish of his weapon in the air as though he was searching for the perfect word. “I would happily tear you up right now, ripping that tongue from your dirty little mouth and reenacting the time we last played, but my uncle has plans for you,” he taunts, a twisted sense of levity in his tone that has my fingers twitching to gouge his eyes out; fucker wouldn’t be so cool, calm, and certifiable then, I bet.
I laugh aloud at the thought of him flailing around on the floor.
The hissing whip of his hand through the air has the laugh dying on my lips, his ring slicing my cheek as he backhands me.
“You’re going to pay for that, Turner; what limb should I start with? I can’t remember the last time I got to play a good game of Operation,” Cooper snaps, but Matthew pays him no mind, his eyes tracking the subtle movement of my lips as blood seeps from my mouth.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
EBONY
“You’re behaving like this, and I even bothered to bring you a present,” Matthew chimes excitedly as he moves around what I’m now calling the head bench where Nathaniel’s trophies are displayed. With a drum roll on the steel top, he reaches down to the shelf below, pulling out a black box secured with a gossamer red ribbon.
“What’s in the box?”he caterwauls, his Brad Pitt impression mediocre at best as he tugs at the bow. Megan is inconsolable now as Matthew holds up Brandon’s severed head.
Playing chicken with him might just be the worst decision i’ve ever made, but I just can’t seem to help myself. “He doesn’t seem your usual type. I have to be honest, this wasn’t the double date I had in mind.”
“He stuck his nose where it didn’t belong.” He slaps Brandon’s face as though in greeting.
“You’re a sickfuck; he was your friend.”
“He became a liability. Overheard something he shouldn’t have. Shame though, he really did have the best drugs. How do you think we got you girls down here? Never underestimate the power of undiluted GHB. Just enough to have you compliant.”
“Weak,” I say under my breath as I shake loose the stinging pain radiating down to my skull. He drops Brandon’s head back into the box and pushes the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows.
“Excuse me?” he asks, affronted as he grinds his teeth, waiting for my response.
“You’re weak, Matthew. Do you need me to say it a little slower?” I state, using his real name and earning his ire. A glutton for punishment, I don’t stop there. I continue to goad him. Leaning forward, I spit a mouthful of bloody saliva in his face.
I expect another hit, but he surprises me by calming his rage, his neck creaking as he appears to limber up.
