“Nothing. Because I will never give in to you. I will not let you win.”
“Funny how you believe you actually can win this.” I rake my eyes over her. “Take off your clothes. I’m taking them with me this time.”
“No.”
“No? You just saw me kill a man right before your very eyes. Butcher him. And you’re going to deny me?”
I can feel how hard she gulps. “I can’t do it,” she admits.
“Then I’ll do it for you.” I make quick work of her clothes and toss them into the blood on the ground. “There. I’m sure you won’t want to wear those ever again.”
“There’s no blanket down here. It’s cold.”
“Not my problem. You look much better naked, by the way.” I pick up her clothes and whistle to myself as I head for the door. “I’ll come back for the body in a little bit. Let it be a reminder of what I can do.”
It’s only when I leave the basement that I hear Susanna scream and I smile.
Chapter Six
Susanna
It’s cold in the basement without clothes. There’s no blanket to cover myself with. Nothing to protect myself from the chill in the air.
It doesn’t take me long before I start shivering. Gabriel doesn’t come back down to give me food.
He also doesn’t come back down to get rid of the body. Blood has stained the floor and my flimsy mattress – the only thing I can call my own. The only thing to offer me some comfort in this terrible place.
The body begins to smell not long after Gabriel leaves and now that it’s been hours, it reeks down here.
I stare into the eyes of the dead man. The hitman that Luca sent after Gabriel. I was so close to being saved. If Gabriel were to die…
But then, does anyone know I’m down here? If Gabriel is dead, will I be stuck in this basement with a dead body until I become one myself?
I shudder at the thought. Luca doesn’t care for me. He won’t save me. He only wants Gabriel dead to save Nina. My sister was always nicer than me. More liked than me. While I had more obvious charms, she had a sweetness to her that made me jealous. Why couldn’t I be like that? Why did I always have to be so hard on the outside, pushing people away?
After our dad died when I was eleven, nothing made sense anymore. That’s when I became hard. When any sweetness in me disappeared and was replaced with a coldness that I used to protect myself. If I pushed people away, they couldn’t hurt me.
But that’s crazy now. Because I’ve been kidnapped. I’m probably going to die. It’s a miracle I haven’t been raped yet. Everything I’ve done in the past just seems… silly.
I move the mattress far away from the dead body to get some relief but the stench is strong in the air.
After what feels like forever, footsteps come down the basement stairs and Chip and the Scar Eyed man appear.
“Disgusting,” Chip says, throwing me a glance. It’s pointed and it takes everything in me to ignore it. I’m not in the mood right now to deal with these assholes.
“Let’s just clean up the body,” Scar Eye says.
“Issac, you’re seriously telling me that you don’t have an opinion on the girl? She’s naked right now.”
Issac sighs and gives me a look before turning back to the body. “Gabriel doesn’t want us messing with her. He told us to clean up the body so we’re going to do that. If you mess with her Chip, you’re fucking dead and you know it.”
Chip looks like he wants to argue but he grumbles and turns to the body, helping Issac stuff it into a suitcase. They have to bend the body at odd angles to get it to work but they manage. It’s almost like magic.
Almost.
If this wasn’t a nightmare.
Shivers overtake my body. Even wrapping my arms around myself isn’t doing anything.
