“So are you.” Eyes burning with that love that continues to consume me, he flattens his hand on my lower back and tugs me into him. His bruised lips press against mine, as if he doesn’t even feel the pain.
Tears burn behind my closed eyes and I kiss him back with every ounce of relief I feel.
“You’re both pathetic.”
Drew’s head jerks back at that hoarse comment, the fire in his irises morphing, dying. It’s that heartless, bloodthirsty stare, the one I know means hell for Menahan and his big mouth. Tilting his head in the direction of the gurney, he turns on a slow pivot, heading towards a tray with so many instruments on it that I can’t decipher all of them.
My stomach turns, reality settling in.
Andrew’s truly about to do this. He’s about to become a torturer against my abuser.
“You know by now what I did to Kaylee, right?” Drew stops near the tray, smiling coldly down at Menahan.
But Menahan . . . Menahan’s feverish, one-eyed gaze is locked on me.
Something that triggers Drew even more. He storms up to Menahan and slams his fist into the side of his face. His voice when he speaks, however, remains calm. Unaffected. Business-like. “You’re done looking at her now and if you don’t want me to drag this on forever, you’re going to start answering my fucking questions.”
Stephen spits to the side and one of his teeth fly onto the concrete floor. “Fuck you. Just do what you have to do. Kill me. Just make sure Lexi watches”—his head swivels towards Andrew in an even more eerie fashion than Drew’s did seconds ago—“make her see that you’re just as much of a monster as I am.” And he smiles, that manic, bloodstained grin that’s more a bearing of teeth than anything else.
Sick of him, I’m the one that storms up to the tray. “This is the adrenaline shot, right?” I motion to a case full of needles.
Breathing slow in an effort to harness his own desire to end Menahan here and now, Drew runs his thumb across my cheek softly. I don’t even care if it’s partially to rub it in Stephen’s face. He deserves to witness firsthand who I truly belong to. “Not yet, baby. We want him on the brink before we start hitting him with those to keep him with us.”
Stephen scoffs. “You won’t have the balls to do it in front of her. You need her to believe you’re the hero too badly. See, Lexi? That’s the difference between him and me. I might’ve given you ugly, but at least I was real with you.”
I’m starting to wonder if he’s trying to tempt Drew to end him quickly.
And is he fucking kidding me? After the way he lured me in?
Growling low in my throat, I snatch a scalpel off the tray. Without thinking about it too hard, I slice a path across his left cheekbone, parting the skin wide open to the bone.
He tries to hold in his cry but a scream lodges behind his clenched teeth, his eyes squeezing shut.
“The only real thing you gave me was your monstrosity, Stephen.” I lean down so that my mouth is inches from his ear. “But Drew’s monstrosity? It’s tailor-made for me. My kind of evil. I live for it. I love it. And if it wasn’t for the fact that I know my man won’t want you to ever see any part of me like that again, I’d drop to my knees and choke on his dick right here to prove it to you. After all, with him . . . I. Just. Can’t. Stop. Coming. Why? Because he’s the one I want. The one I always wanted. Just. Like. You. Suspected.”
It’s worse than my cutting his face open. He goes wild on that gurney, trashing, shouting, and I’m taken aback enough to straighten and ease away.
Of course, I knew he’s obsessed with me. Of course. But I always believed it to be simply physical and egotistical. He wanted to own me, fuck me at his leisure, and his ego could never recover from the knowledge that I wanted Andrew—his main competition in all areas of life—more than I wanted him.
That I never wanted him at all.
The very physical rejection of my statement, how he seems to struggle to come to grips with it, traumatizes me in a way all his abuse never could.
Because it’s proof. Undeniable proof.
My loving Andrew doesn’t just anger him—it hurts him.
It means that soulless creature capable of such harm against me and the ones I love does care for me.
In the sickest, twisted way imaginable but . . .
My mind flashes back to him screaming he loves me and I nearly gag.
Drew rips the scalpel from my hand and rounds the gurney to Stephen’s right side. Jaw twitching, he grabs Menahan by the jaw. “Just know that I don’t remove that other eye because I want you to fucking see what I’m doing to you. And after I’m done with you here, I want you to be able to see where we’re sending you.”
Stephen tries to spit in Andrew’s face but Drew jerks his head to the side, avoiding it. “In the end, she’ll hate you, too, one day. You’ll see. You’re just as wrong as I am.”
“Oh shut the fuck up,” I finally cut in, disgusted all over again. “Who the fuck do you think asked him to fuck me in front of Kaylee as she lay dying?”
“What?” It’s almost a high-pitched gasp, his mind refusing to accept yet more proof of who I belong to.
“We’re all fucking monsters here, Stephen. People like you made sure of it. But Drew is the only one I’ve ever loved and once we’re through here, you’ll have to live the rest of your miserable life knowing it.” I walk away to head towards a chair on the other side of the room. I have no intention of remaining close to Stephen, but also won’t leave Drew in here to do this alone. “Now, baby, do you want to start with the questions?”
“Questions?” Menahan snaps.
Drew jams the scalpel into his eyes, not deep enough to kill him but deep enough to ruin it beyond repair; Stephen arches on the gurney, screaming hoarsely. “Yes . . . about that. See, you’re not dying. Nothing you say or do is bringing that about. You started problems for us we need to fix long after you’re gone. So, depending on your pain tolerance, we’re going to play around with those toys there until you feel like giving me answers. And I’ve been reading up for weeks now on the most effective ways to torture. So keep that in mind while I work, yeah?”
t hey got me. Fucking captured.
It’s the first thing I hear as I start to come to. Burning agony radiates from my eye, reminding me . . .
Lexi—my Lexi ruined my eye. Jammed a needle into it.
To save him.
There’s a loud bang somewhere from my right. Forcing my lids open, only half the world comes into view and my chest tightens as I realize she did it. My girl did it. She blinded me from one eye.
She’s here. I feel her.
“Come here.”
That bastard’s emotion-filled command is heeded and I hear Lexi rushing to him. “You’re okay.”
No. No. It can’t be. That tone of hers . . . it’s everything I always feared. Everything I believed deep down those years she was mine.
Not yours. Never yours. Always his.
God damn it!
“So are you,” Andrew rasps.
She’s in his arms now, to my left, where I can see them both, and suddenly they’re embracing, kissing.
“You’re both pathetic,” I force out, truly hating her for the first time ever.
Bullshit. Could never hate her.
Andrew leaves her side, staring at me with a hatred nearly akin to the one I feel for him, and he walks towards the tray I’m seeing for the first time. “You know by now what I did to Kaylee, right?” And he fucking smiles at me.
I almost feel like smiling back.
Instead, I focus on Lexi. If I can just get her to pay attention to me and not him, I know she’ll realize the truth. She’ll see that she needs to help me out of here. Come back home with me.
A shadow falls over me and the fucker’s massive fist connects with my face, breaking my stare with Lexi. Something hard hits my right molars—a molar from the left side of my mouth, I realize. “You’re done look at her now and if you don’t want me to drag this on for
ever, you’re going to start answering my questions.”
Spitting out the tooth and a good chunk of blood, I pray Lexi is seeing this. “Fuck you. Just do what you have to do. Kill me. Just make sure Lexi watches.” Turning my head back to him, it takes everything in me not to outright gloat. “Make her see that you’re just as much of a monster as I am.” I smile to emphasize my point.
And because I know it’ll piss him off.
Lexi surprises me when she storms towards the tray. “This is the adrenaline shot, right?”
Wait, what? She’s offering to . . . help him? How? Why isn’t she waking up to the truth? She always rejected me because she thought I was the worst of the two, but here’s the evidence, clear for her to see, that he’s equally as bad.
Andrew caresses her face—my face—and I want him dead at my fucking feet. “Not yet, baby. We want him on the brink before we start hitting him with those to keep him with us.”
Bullshit! “You won’t have the balls to do it in front of her. You need her to believe you’re the hero too badly. See, Lexi? That’s the difference between him and me. I might’ve given you ugly, but at least I was real with you.” She has to see that now. She has to.
A rough rumble leaves her. In a flash, she’s next to me, a slash of silver cutting through the air—
Before cutting through my left cheek.
The agony is instant, encompassing my entire face.
My eyes slam shut. I try to swallow my scream, but the tortured sound leaks anyway, amplified by my clenched teeth.
And yet it’s nothing compared to the pain of knowing she did this to me. She’s ruined another part of my fucking face.
“The only thing you gave me was your monstrosity, Stephen.” She spits my name like a curse. Her gorgeous lips are suddenly near my ear, almost close enough to touch, and I hate how badly I miss the feel of them. “But Drew’s monstrosity? It’s tailor-made for me. My kind of evil. I live for it. I love it. And if it wasn’t for the fact I know my man won’t want you to ever see any part of me again, I’d drop to my knees and choke on his dick right here to prove it to you. After all, with him . . . I. Just. Can’t. Stop. Coming. Why? Because he’s the one I want. The one I always wanted. Just. Like. You. Suspected.”
My man.
Choke on his dick.
Can’t stop coming.
He’s the one I want.
An earthquake breaks free in my chest, a sensation too powerful to be real. Struggling against my bindings, I shout with the need to be released, to get my hands around Andrew’s neck—to fucking kill him so she’ll finally forget him and notice that I’m the one that’s been here the whole time! That she belongs to me!
My face is grabbed, by a hand too large to be hers, and my vision returns in my left eye to show me the man I hate more than any other glaring down at me. “Just know that I don’t remove that other eye because I want you to fucking see what I’m doing to you. And after I’m done with you here, I want you to be able to see where we’re sending you.”
Furious, I spit at his face.
But, as usual with almost every type of hit I aim at him, he manages to evade it last second.
“In the end she’ll hate you, too, one day. You’ll see. You’re just as wrong as I am,” I grind out.
“Oh shut the fuck up. Who the fuck do you think asked him to fuck me in front of Kaylee as she lay dying?”
Lexi’s comment kills a piece of my soul. The death reverberates through me, too powerful to ignore, and all I can manage out is a weak, “What?” She—she’s become a monster like him? Like me. She’ll do it for him, rule by his side in her vicious glory, when she could never do it with me?
“We’re all fucking monsters here, Stephen. People like you made sure of it. But Drew is the only one I’ve ever loved and once we’re through here, you’ll have to live the rest of your miserable life knowing it.” She walks away from me without another look and I can’t see where she goes since I’m fucking tied to this thing. “Now, baby, do you want to start with the questions?”
“Questions?” I snap.
Only to be rewarded with that fucking scalpel slammed into my right eye.
I hate that I scream for him. Fucking despise it.
“Yes . . .” Andrew slowly comments below my screams. “About that. See, you’re not dying. Nothing you say or do is bringing that about. So, depending on your pain tolerance, we’re going to play around with those toys there until you feel like giving me answers. And I’ve been reading up for weeks now on the most effective ways to torture. So keep that in mind while I work, yeah?
chapter 68
h is fingernails are all gone.
So are his toenails.
Drew’s already delivered at least a dozen strategic cuts through his body, yet Stephen’s stubbornly withholding the info we need.
Hence the sleek, modern version of the thumbscrew Drew’s settling on the gurney on either side of him, next to his hands.
Menahan stopped struggling what had to be hours ago. The first adrenaline shot was administered a minute prior, when the puddle of blood beneath him got too large and his eyes began rolling into the back of his head.
Drew slips his damaged fingers into the thumbscrew. In medieval times, the device—which I believe was once also known as “pilliwinks”—was operated manually, the handle on top turned to squeeze the fingers between the two metal slabs.
Of course, these don’t have a handle on top and are mechanical. Drew slides Menahan’s fingers between the steel slabs and presses a button on a small remote. The increase in pressure is minimal at first, but Menahan grunts in agony as it exacerbates the injured tips of his fingers.
“Who did you pay in the mafia to come after me?” Drew asks for what must be the tenth time.
Shaking, Menahan forces out, “Fuck . . . you.”
Drew’s response? He presses the button on the remote again and the slabs start closing faster. “Even if you have hopes of escaping where we’re sending you next, surely you realize you’ll be no good to anyone with ruined hands?”
This is the absolute wrong time to be in awe of the sight he makes, but I can’t help it. He removed his blazer and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. Covered in blood—both his and Menahan’s—and his face beat up from the fight with his victim, Drew stands over him like a dark, avenging angel, huge arms crossed, expression completely devoid of mercy.
“I asked you a fucking question. Many, actually.” He presses the button once more.
A pathetic whimper-like, grunting sound rattles in Menahan’s chest. From where I’m sitting, I can see his fingers turn bright red . . . then bright purple.
“You’re really not going to answer me, are you?” Drew chuckles mirthlessly, shoulders shaking. “Do you understand how much worse it’s about to get? And no. None of it will bring you near death. But it’ll make you wish you were.”
“See?” Menahan forces out, blood-tinged spit flying from his mouth. “See, Lexi?”
“I do see,” I reply calmly, crossing my legs and intertwining my fingers on my lap. “Baby, press that button again.”
Drew does.
Blood begins squirting rapidly from Menahan’s bared nail beds. Had he been anyone else, the gruesome sight might’ve sickened me.
But it’s him. Not only the man that abused me for years, that used my mother as a guinea pig to a deadly virus, but the one that’s killed thousands in the last month just to find a way to intimidate me.
To bring me back under his hold.
The same man that offered five-hundred-fucking-million-dollars to the mafia so they’d gun down the love of my life like some animal.
“Who. Did. You. Fucking. Pay. Directly?” Drew enunciates slowly.
An unearthly growl is Menahan’s only response.
So, with a shrug, Drew presses that button one final time.
The slabs all but slam shut around Menahan’s fingers, the cracks of his bones shattering loudly in the room, followe
d by his short, breathless screams.
They’ll be no repairing those. Not without the precious technology he so adores.
Once there’s barely anything left to crush, Drew turns the thumbscrews off, leaving them on Stephen’s hands. He yanks a case with the needles towards him next and at first I believe it’s to inject Menahan with another adrenaline dose.
“Wanna know how we killed that petty lowlife you paid to kill my employee?”
My eyes widen with realization and curiosity. The needle in Drew’s hand contains nanobots. But for what purpose?
Drew holds up the needle for Stephen to see. “We flooded him with nanobots programmed to tear him apart from the inside. A ton of them. A grotesque expenditure of money, to be honest, especially since the bots were forever lost inside him. Even if we hadn’t thrown his body into the acid tank, they weren’t recoverable. Anyway, I refuse to spend the same amount of money on you and I’m not looking to destroy your entire body.” His eyes cut in the direction of Stephen’s groin, lip curling with disgust. “Just one part of it.”
None of the wounds he received got him to talk.
The utter destruction of his fingers wasn’t enough.
But as Drew’s threat registers, Menahan’s one good eye widens and he begins struggling on the gurney anew, words rambling as he rushes to speak. “Fine. Fine. My contact was the same guy in charge of hunting down Barnard. No, listen to me! I paid off Barnard’s remaining debt although they’d already killed him, okay? Bought his attention. He told me his name Aslan and he had direct access to the Pakhan of the East Coast syndicate. Im-Imre, I think his name is, but all communication was done through Aslan—wait! What the fuck are you doing? I’m telling you—arggghhhhh!”
Drew slammed the needle directly into Stephen’s dick and he presses down on the plunger. Without pausing, he brings out his phone and types in the instructions. “Good for you. But you used that filthy thing to rape my woman for years. You’re fucking losing it.”
Okay, this part does make me sick, but after nearly five years of abuse, I force myself to watch. I force myself to ignore the horror of Stephen’s barbaric screams and feed off the justice being served.
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