by Alta Hensley
Who did this? Who killed Layla? Oh that poor woman!
Do I call the police? Do I run?
I took a cautious step toward Layla’s bloody, limp body and examined it for any signs of life. There was so much blood. So much blood! I couldn’t see anything or where her wound even started. Was her head bashed in? Was her throat sliced open? I couldn’t tell because of all the blood.
I glanced at the front door but remembered that the only way to leave was by boat. Harley had the boat. There were other boats but where were the keys? His house was safe, he had said. Only one way on and off the property. It was safe! No! It wasn’t safe! Layla was dead!
“Harley!” I screamed again, though I had no reason why. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t there…
Hysteria washed over me like an ocean wave tossing my nearly drowned body to shore, but not before dragging me along the coral studded reefs, shredding my flesh to pieces.
“Harley’s not here, bitch,” came a deep man’s voice from my right.
Before I could comprehend what was going on, two masked men in all black rushed toward me. The bigger of the two grabbed me by the neck and threw me back against the wall.
“Where is he?” the man asked. His breath smelled of cigarettes and coffee. He had blue eyes. That was all I saw other than black. A black mask inches from my face.
I tried to shake my head, but his grip only squeezed more. “I don’t know,” I squeaked out.
“Don’t lie to me,” the man said, pressing me harder against the wall.
“He left to get breakfast. I woke and found a note.”
It hurt to talk. It hurt to breathe. He was going to kill me. I would suffocate and be left for dead right beside Layla.
The man didn’t say anything to me, but waited as if I would have something more to say.
“Fuck it,” the other man said from behind my attacker. “Let’s get out of here. We’ll get Harley Crow another time.”
The grip around my neck weakened, and a shred of hope filled my core that I may actually get out of this situation alive. They had masks on. I wouldn’t be able to identify them. Maybe they would allow me to live.
“Take her with us,” the man from behind added. “Nothing will piss off Harley more than kidnapping his woman.”
No, no, no, no, no.
“I’m not his girl,” I said quickly, only being rewarded with the grip of my neck tightening once again.
“Shut up, bitch,” the blue-eyed man demanded.
He was angry. I didn’t want him to be angry. But they had to know I wasn’t Harley’s girlfriend.
“We’ve been watching you since last night. We followed you here. We saw what you did. Don’t fucking lie to us.”
“I’m nobody to him,” I wheezed out. “It was only last night. One night.”
The man took me by the throat and banged my head against the wall in warning. It wasn’t hard enough to knock me out, but it certainly got my attention. “I said shut the fuck up.”
“Here, use this rope and tie her up.”
The man spun me around and pulled my arms forcibly behind my back. The rope scraped against my skin as he weaved and looped it around my hands.
“Please,” I begged. “I swear I’m not Harley’s girlfriend. We just had sex once last night. He won’t care about me. Just let me go, and I won’t say a word. I’ll leave. I didn’t see you. All I see are masks.” I said the words so fast, like rapid gunfire, in the hopes that I could get them out before he would force me to be silent again.
A metal gun was placed at my temple. “Say another word, bitch, and I will add your body to the pretty young thing over there on the floor.” When the rope was knotted and securely fastened around my wrists, I was spun around to face both men. “Harley fucked with the wrong men this time, and he’s going to pay.”
I didn’t say anything even though I wanted to somehow make them see reason. I wasn’t Harley’s girlfriend. I had nothing to do with him or what he did to others. I was only a woman who lusted over a bad boy. A bad boy who was about to get me killed.
They guided me toward the front door, not avoiding the pool of Layla’s blood as they did so. I had no choice but to walk through it. The sticky wetness oozed between my toes, and nausea took hold. I couldn’t swallow the lump in my throat, and though the man’s hand was no longer around my throat, I couldn’t breathe. My legs threatened to buckle, but the thought of falling scared me. I didn’t think the men would have any patience for my weakness.
“We’re leaving bloody footprints all over the entryway,” one man said.
“Good. Let that asshole come home to find we killed one of his women and kidnapped the other. It will be our welcome home sign.”
Harley’s clean house. They’d ruined his perfectly clean floor. The funny thing out of all this, is that the bloody footprints may upset him more than me being kidnapped. How could I get that through to these men? I was not Harley’s woman. I wasn’t the right person to be used as a bargaining chip. They’d fucked up when they’d killed Layla—poor Layla. She would have worked, but not me. Not me!
The bright morning sunrays forced me to squint as the men pushed me out the front door and down the stairs. The wooden planks of the dock heated the bottoms of my feet even though I shook from head to toe.
In desperation, I listened for the sound of a boat engine approaching.
Please come. Please have Harley pull up with those beignets.
I squinted in the direction I remembered we had come from last night.
Nothing.
Nothing.
As the men forced me into a speedboat of their own, I knew I was doomed.
I remembered when I was a little girl, my father had told me to never get in a car with a man if someone was trying to kidnap me. He’d told me to scream “rape” and to fight with everything I had. He’d told me to not fear being killed right there, because if I got in that car, I would be dead anyway. But only after they raped and tortured me. My chances would always be better fighting rather than getting into the car.
So here I was… not listening to my father and climbing into the boat without a fight. But even if I screamed “rape”, who would hear me? Plus, my hands were tied behind my back, and one of the men had a gun still pointed at me.
What advice would my father give me now?
The man pushed me down to the floorboards of the boat out of sight from anyone who would pass us on the waters. When I sat balled up against the dirty metal hull, he reached for a long black scarf and tied it around my eyes. As he tied the knot too tight behind my head, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. There was nothing I could do. I had to just allow the darkness from the scarf to calm my panicked thoughts. My only hope was that my captors wouldn’t do what my father had said bad guys would do. I had to pray they wouldn’t rape and torture me.
And maybe…
Just maybe…
When they soon realized that Harley had no intention of coming after me to seek revenge, they would see that I am not Harley’s woman. I am not his woman!
I had to hope. I had to hope that these men, hell-bent on hurting the notorious Harley Crow, would soon realize I was not a player in this twisted game. Although, I now had to play the game. I had to play along and be a good girl. Do not make them angry. Do not make them angry.
“Drink this,” one of the men ordered as he pushed a plastic bottle to my lips forcing them open.
I did as he commanded and swallowed the water that I knew was mixed with something. It tasted tangy and chalky. I didn’t think it was poison. That would be too easy. I knew my death would not be as easy as drinking poisoned water. When I was done, I heard him toss the empty container to the side. I then felt him pull something over my head.
“I don’t need to wear this anymore,” he said. “My mask will help keep that blindfold on your face. We don’t want you peeking, now do we?”
There was silence, and I only sat as still as I could. I couldn’t see anything, an
d the mask was so thick that it made it hard to breathe in the muggy bayou air. I could smell the man on the fabric. Revolting. Stale, musky, dirty, and damp with his sweat.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Marlowe,” I answered softly. Yes, I would be that good girl. I had to convince them not to hurt me.
As the engine started and vibrated beneath where I sat curled in a scared tiny ball, I did wonder what Harley would do when he walked into his house to find Layla dead and bloody footprints all over his living room.
Would he call the police? Most likely no. His kind did not involve authorities.
Would he come after me? Maybe he would—out of pride alone—but there was no way he would even know where to look for me. He’d said himself last night that he had a lot of enemies. How would he know which enemy had kidnapped me?
My body grew weary and my mind fogged over. I needed sleep. Sleep…
My father had warned me. He’d always said to never get into the car with the bad guys. And that is what I’d done. I’d gotten into the car last night outside of Spiked Roses with Harley Crow—the baddest guy of all—and now I would die because of it.
Chapter Eleven
Marlowe
“Are you scared?”
Those were the first words I heard as I regained consciousness. I couldn’t see. I was in the dark as a thick and suffocating fabric covered my eyes and face. I remembered the man’s mask being put on me while in the boat. I couldn’t move. My hands were still tied behind my back, and my feet secured to the legs of the chair I sat on. I had been kidnapped, and now strapped to a chair like I was in the middle of a horror movie.
“Marlowe? I know you can hear me, Marlowe.” The voice was deep, calm, yet the evil laced throughout sent a small shiver up my spine. “I asked you if you were scared.”
The voice chuckled. Maniacal. Depraved. I pulled against my restraints to no avail. I couldn’t feel my fingertips, and my feet were losing feeling fast.
“Did Harley Crow teach you how to play possum? He teaches all his women to play possum, but I have always been able to break them. Each and every single one of those weak women. And you, my dear Marlowe, will break as well.”
I swallowed back my terror. Who was this man? What the hell was he talking about? Breaking other women? He knew my name. His voice was different than the men who had kidnapped me. There was an underlying accent that I couldn’t quite pinpoint—maybe Russian?
I couldn’t see the man. Was he in front of me? My head was still foggy, but I knew I was someplace else besides the floor of a dirty boat, and now I was no longer just kidnapped by two killers; I was a hostage. This man would use me. He had what he thought was one of Harley’s women, and with that, came power.
“You don’t have to say anything, my dear Marlowe. I don’t need a solitary word out of you to get what I want. I won’t need your words. I will simply need your screams.”
I heard footsteps walk up behind me, and the mask over my head was removed, pulling off the blindfold at the same time. I blinked against the harsh fluorescent lights as I attempted to take in my surroundings. It was a white room—white walls, and white tile floors. Nothing was in the room except for a large mirror that took up most of the wall in front of where I sat. A large metal door was to my right and nothing else. No windows, no furniture other than the chair I sat on. Staring at my reflection, I saw a man standing behind me with the mask and blindfold in his hand. He stared ahead, emotionless, at attention like the most stoic of military soldiers. He wore black pants, black boots, a black shirt that revealed tattoos covering every inch of his arms. Black, thick ink of some ancient tribal design ran from his biceps to the tops of his hands. He seemed robotic, so still I couldn’t tell if he was even breathing. His eyes did not stare at me, but rather he stared straight ahead into the large mirror as if he could see right through it. He towered over me, over my tiny frame tied helplessly to a metal chair.
“Welcome to your new home, Marlowe,” the voice said from a speaker I could not see. It appeared to be coming from behind the mirror. The man behind me was not the voice. No, the voice was hidden behind the mirror like a coward.
I took a deep breath, trying hard to conceal my fear. I did not want them to see my growing panic. I think it was what they wanted to see. They wanted me to scream and cry. Something deep inside of me whispered to stay calm. Stay calm.
Stay fucking calm!
“Let’s begin with introductions, shall we?” the voice began. “My name is Lukas Knox, enemy to your lover Harley Crow, but I assume you already know that. And that monster standing behind you is Sadist.”
I stole another quick glance at the man who still remained frozen. It was as if he could not hear that he had just been called a monster. Maybe he didn’t care. Or maybe he was indeed a monster. Was his name really Sadist? Why would he call himself that? Fuck! Where the fuck was I? Fuck! Where was Harley? Where the fuck was Harley?
I stared back into the mirror, noticing that there was a different sort of glare coming from the reflection. Though I could not see Lukas behind the glass, the radiance of a dull light told me he was there.
“Go ahead and look at him. I know you want to. Look at those hands that could snap your neck at my command.”
Not being able to resist the urge, I moved my eyes ever so slightly to more clearly see how the man looked. I saw no reaction from the man called Sadist. Lukas’s words did not impact him at all. He remained in position. He stared. He stood ready for command.
“Sadist will be your guard. He will be your Master. He will be your everything until we decide what to do with you. But are you curious about what happens to you while we decide your fate?”
I remained silent, continuing to stare ahead. I will not break. I will not break. I will not break. If I chanted the words enough in my head, I could make them true. This is what I was praying would help. I would not break!
“Oh, Marlowe. You are a willful one. Though Sadist here will eventually beat that stubborn pride right out of you. But for now, I will go ahead and tell you. If you look on top of the mirror, you will see a video camera.”
I glanced up and saw a camera pointed at me. The red light was on. I looked toward the corner of the room to my right, then my left, and saw two other cameras which also appeared to be on.
“You are on video for all to see—or at least for who we want to see you. But more importantly for Harley Crow to see. I will have demands of Mr. Crow. If he chooses not to acquiesce to my demands, his poor woman will suffer the consequences before his very eyes. And if he meets all my demands, and you don’t provoke Sadist here to kill you with his bare hands, then you may be returned to the outside world alive. Maybe.” Lukas released another wicked laugh. “But most likely not. Though I promise you, that if Harley is as stubborn as I think he is, and you have suffered the hand of Sadist because of his foolish actions, you will beg me to kill you. I will simply be giving you mercy.”
My heart thumped against my chest as the reality of his words sunk in. I shouldn’t have allowed them to take me alive. I should have fought to the very death. I should have listened to the childhood warnings of my father. He’d told me I would be tortured. He’d warned me. Why did I not listen to him? I never listened to him! Now I would pay!
“You are being recorded, Marlowe. Just know that right now, Harley is watching your big brown eyes so full of terror. He is seeing you sitting there with your raven hair matted, you wearing nothing but your lover’s shirt. Yes, he can see you are trying to be brave. You are trying to be stoic. You are doing everything he would do in your position. But that asshole who killed my brother will watch as Sadist strips you bare, tortures you, violates you, and even gives you pleasure when I’m feeling particularly generous and command him to do so. Because don’t forget for one second that I have all the control. And that sick fucker, Harley Crow, will watch helplessly one moment, and then also watch while jacking off to what is being done to you in morbid fascination.
” Lukas laughed loudly, the shrill sound bouncing off the walls of the room. “Harley Crow will finally be at my mercy just as you will be at Sadist’s.”
Sadist had not moved an inch. His black hair and black eyes only added to the appearance that he was death himself. His hands were clenched by his sides, his broad shoulders held back, and his head held high like he was a proud man. Yet, he stood and did nothing as some sick bastard spoke of him like he was a captive slave at Lukas’s mercy. Could he not hear what I did? Did he not want to shatter the two-sided mirror to reach the man who spoke the way he did? Did he then not want to grab a shard of glass and tear Lukas’s jugular out as I so desperately wanted to do?
“I will avenge my brother’s death. I’m sure you know what Harley did to him. How he tortured him. Cut off his fingers and toes one by one. Were you there, Marlowe? Do you get off on watching Harley kill his victims?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know anything about that. I wasn’t there. I didn’t know your brother at all.” I swallowed hard as bile rose in my throat at the thought of this voice belonging to some vengeful man who believed I had anything to do with the torture and killing of a man. “I’m not the person you think I am. I’m just a waitress at a gentlemen’s club in New Orleans. Nothing more.”
“So, let’s begin, shall we?” Lukas continued as if he hadn’t heard a single word I’d said. “There is no need for anyone to have to watch you sit in that dirty tee shirt. No man really wants to see a woman tied up and dirty. I mean… we like our women dirty, but not on the surface. No, we want you clean and lickable.”
I clenched my jaw, fighting the rage that threatened to surface as well as the hot tears that begged to be allowed to course down my face. I stared straight ahead and hoped he would listen to my plea if I could deliver it just right. “I understand you have reason to want to hurt Harley Crow. I understand that.”
“Do you?” he asked. “Did he kill your brother?”
I shook my head, trying desperately to appear calm and collected. “I know you think that I am the perfect revenge on Harley, but you’re wrong. I don’t know him. I only came to his house last night. We only had sex once. I’m just a waitress he didn’t even know existed before yesterday at”—I paused and swallowed back the words Spiked Roses. I didn’t want to risk putting anyone else in danger—“the gentlemen’s club I work at. I came to his house one time and that’s it. I’m not his girlfriend, and he doesn’t care about me. This plan of yours won’t work, because I’m the wrong woman. I don’t think he will think twice about sacrificing me if he had to. I don’t hold his heart. I don’t.”