As the kitchen emptied, food packed away, dishes loaded in the dishwasher, counters wiped down, and everything back in its place, Steel found himself drawn to his tablet. A couple of taps with his fingertip was all it took to bring up the feed of thewoman ensconced in the basement, currently suffering through a much worse Christmas Day than any of them were.
In her cell, Rose Gardner sat on the floor with her back against one of the walls, naked as the day she was born. Even through the camera, he could see her skin was flushed red and dotted with sweat thanks to the heat he was currently having pumped into the small room.
Steel had never intended to enjoy torturing Dr. Gardner’s little sister, she was an innocent after all, but he’d never expected to feel bad about it either.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this, little ladybug, but I need you broken if I'm going to reel your brother in,” he murmured, surprised to find that under all the rage that fueled him, he still had a heart.
December 25th
2:19 P.M.
Beads of sweat rolled down her body in a near constant stream.
If there was even a breath of air in there, then it would probably help to cool it down. Then again, the point was to make her so uncomfortably hot she would break.
Rose almost wished she were capable of cracking so they could just move on with this farce and get it over with.
Farce was exactly what this was.
Because if Mr. Bedroom Man and his friend honestly thought that her brother cared one iota about her, they were stupid as well as amateurish.
Despite the strength she felt emanating from her captor, he actually hadn't hurt her when he’d dragged her up off the floorearlier. And after issuing his threat, he’d merely dropped her back onto the floor and stalked out of the room.
Almost immediately, the heat started pumping into the room, and she’d actually laughed when she realized he thought being hot was going to bother her.
It was unpleasant, of course, it had to be well over one hundred degrees in the small room, hot enough for the concrete to heat and feel like it was burning her skin when she touched it, which of course she had to because there was nothing else to climb on to get off it. But she’d quickly stripped out of her pajamas, since the flannelette was only going to take her to heat stroke quicker, totally uncaring of the fact that she was now naked in front of these men.
Sick freaks were probably watching her, but she didn't care enough about that to let it bother her. If they wanted to get themselves off to the sight of her naked body suffering through their torture, then she’d rather that than them touching her.
What they failed to understand, because they hadn't bothered to ask, was that whatever gripe they had against her brother was totally overshadowed by her own.
No one had more reason to hate Ridge than she did.
Ridge was her parents’ treasured progeny.
River and Rock Gardner—and those were actually her parents’ birth names—were the very definition of crazy scientists. At least from the few memories she had of them and the stories she’d heard from Ridge, who had raised her after their deaths.
They lived in a small cabin that didn't run on anything that wasn't designed and built by them. Off-grid but still with all the modern conveniences that everyone else had. They had planned to have only one child, who they would mold into their image, and together the three of them would …
Well, she never knew exactly what they had planned, but chemistry and biology were the center of their lives. The cabin had a lab, and it didn't matter to them that Ridge had been a child, he worked from sunup to sundown, every single day of the year.
Their mind games had worked because after their deaths, Ridge raised her the same way.
Rose was the unplanned pregnancy none of them wanted. River and Rock wanted a sole heir, one they could pour all their time and energy into. She was the accident that got in the way of that. Especially since she wasn't like them.
Glancing down at her naked body, and then at the camera, Rose amended that to not completely like them.
Apparently, she had caught a little of their psycho because she honestly didn't care what Mr. Bedroom Man and his buddy were doing right now.
Her brother hated being saddled with her, but after an explosion almost killed them both and took out their parents and both sets of grandparents, there was no other choice. He’d hoped to mold her just like their parents had molded him, but it had never stuck.
She didn't care about science.
Didn't want to learn chemistry and biology. Although she understood both branches of science just fine, when she’d caught on to how badly her brother wanted her to master them, she’d realized the best way to get out from under his thumb was to pretend she couldn’t grasp what he was trying to teach her. Something she’d managed to do the second she turned eighteen.
Thankfully, Ridge had been happy to be freed from the burden of responsibility for her, believing she was no use to him, and he’d left her alone these last five years. There was no way he was going to care that she’d been caught. The only thing he’dcare about with her captors torturing her was that he didn't get to be the one to do it himself.
Only four when her parents died, she didn't know if they were sick and demented like Ridge, but given they’d raised him in their image, she had to assume they were. Rose did know for a fact that her brother got off on other people’s suffering.
