No.
Terrified.
Overpowered.
Breaking.
I took a step back, seeing as if for the first time this filthy floor in this filthy room. This terrible place where I would break her, break this beautiful, perfect creature and make her less. I would take everything away from her. That was what I did. What I had done to so many others.
I stumbled backward some more, misstepped, and caught myself.
Pure. I’d felt something pure washing over me. What a joke. What a sick, fucking joke.
I turned on my heel and walked out the door, slamming it shut behind me, locking it, locking her in. I grabbed my jacket and keys and stalked out of the cabin, breaking my own rule and leaving her behind. I climbed into my truck and drove through the narrow passage in the woods and out onto the open road. I didn’t stop at the nearest town like I would have in the past. I didn’t want a woman. And I didn’t want whiskey. I just wanted to be out of my head. Out of my skin. I wanted to be someone else. Anyone else. Because the lowest scum of the earth had to be better than the filth that was me. Than the aberration that was me. This hateful monster who hurt, who broke, who took beauty that did not belong to him and destroyed it.
She was right. Salvatore had been right.
I was a monster.
I was the worst kind of monster.
6
GIA
He’d left the blanket behind. After washing my face and hands, I grabbed it and wrapped it over my shoulders, not caring how dirty it was, not caring about the stains or the smell. I just held it to me and climbed onto the bed and lay on my side, shivering, knees pulled in to my chest, clutching this foul blanket to me. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make the tears stop. I wept like I had when I’d watched Mateo die. How could there be tears left inside me? How could more come, how could I not be dead of dehydration after all this fucking crying?
They’d shot him in the back of the head after they’d cut out his tongue. They’d made me watch it all. Watch him as he set his face before the block—a fucking tree stump stained with the dried blood of how many others? I’d watched as he had laid his tongue on the stump, his eyes wide, trying hard not to show his fear. Failing. I’d seen Victor’s nod in my periphery, giving the order. Watched the ax come down and blood pour and Mateo fall over, a garbled scream coming from him. From my brother. My vital, loving, crazy brother whom I loved so, so fucking much.
He’d done it to save me. To spare me. He’d made Victor promise. He’d made the deal. He’d offered his tongue in exchange for my life.
And then, after, was it a mercy then that they’d hauled him up to his knees and pressed his head back onto the block until he held it there, chin cushioned in his own dismembered tongue, in the pool of his own blood seeping into the stump of the tree. He’d looked at me once more before closing his eyes. That was the moment he’d given up hope. I knew it. I saw it. Victor pushed the barrel of the gun to the back of his head then. This time, the scream was mine.
There had been so much blood, an impossible amount. My brother’s blood covered me as he fell over, gone, his savaged, beaten body murdered, his life stolen before my eyes, just inches from me while I stood powerless to save him.
He’d made Victor promise he wouldn’t kill me. That was the deal. They’d have cut his tongue out anyway, but maybe they’d have done it after he’d died. Or maybe they’d force him. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. All I knew was that I’d never forget the sound of the ax coming down, the look on Mateo’s face, in his eyes. And then that final, deafening sound of the gun being fired.
I’d read that in real life—as opposed to the movies—it sounded like a pop, but this was no pop. It was an explosion, an ear piercing, deafening explosion. Louder than anything I’d ever heard before. More horrible than anything I’d seen.
I’d never forget that day. I’d never forget what they did to him. And it was the one thing that kept me together now. The thing that had me gathering the pieces of myself. Because if I gave in now, then Mateo’s death was for nothing. Victor thought he’d won. That Mateo and I were finished. But he was wrong. I had vowed vengeance for what he’d done. I had promised it silently to Mateo, to myself. And I needed to pull myselftogether, to collect my strength, because I knew now that I had a chance. I knew it.
I had fully expected Death to rape me. I thought…I thought what else could he want? I had taunted him—hell, maybe I wanted him to kill me, to end it all, to make the decision and take the responsibility of vengeance away from me. But that was weak. I knew that now. Hell, I’d known it then. And he, this man I called Death, he surprised me. He unwittingly gave me hope.
I was different to him. He wanted me. I could see it in his face, his eyes. He’d made a mistake, taking off that mask. He should never have done that. He didn’t know me. He didn’t know I would stop at nothing to avenge my brother.
Although he was right about one thing. There was one area where we were alike. We both hated. We’d both been hurt—no, we’d been battered. But neither he nor I had broken, and I wouldn’t break now. He wanted to break me. It was his job. I had a suspicion, though, that that wasn’t wholly true. His own conflicting emotions weakened him. But it would be good to remember that those exact things made him dangerous. They made him volatile and unpredictable. I needed to control him. I didn’t need to search for a how. I knew how. I just had to come to terms with the fact that the idea of it didn’t repel me like it should. The thought of his hands on me, his mouth on me, his cock inside me, it didn’t turn my stomach. The opposite, actually. And that was what made me sick. That made me question who I was. How I could feel these things, feel this way. How I could not abhor this man.
Because if I did hate him, if I were repelled by him, I would still do what I had to do, and I would hate myself a little less for it. But as it stood now, as I felt now, I knew I had to be some sort of monster to be able to feel attraction for my captor. To come under his tongue. To want it again.
I’d lied when I’d said what I’d said to him about it being physical. It wasn’t physical, not for me. It never could be.
He’d said he had two weeks to train me. To ready me for the auction. Well, I had two weeks, then. Two weeks to get under his skin, to burrow so deep he couldn’t let me go. He’d have no choice but to keep me. Perhaps even to help me.
No, that I could not expect. I would kill him as soon as I could. It would be good training for when the time came to kill Victor. Because killing was new to me. I may have been born into a family of foot soldiers, men who’d worked for various crime families for generations, but I’d never even touched a gun, never felt the weight of one in my hands. I would learn, though. Maybe I’d even learn how to wield an ax when it came time to take Victor down.
I let hate fuel me while I gathered my courage and pushed the blanket off. I walked into the bathroom and, with my hands bound, switched on the shower. I didn’t wait for the water to warm. Instead, I stepped into the tub and stood beneath a spray of icy water, not thinking about the dirt at my feet, the filth around me. I washed away my fear and willed myself to think of Mateo, of his strength right up until the end. I exchanged fear for strength and let the water wash away any weakness inside me. When I was finished, I returned to my room and waited there, ready for Death to come.
But he didn’t come back. Notfor the space of six meals.
