by Dori Lavelle
“Go to hell. I’ll never share a meal with you.”
“As you wish. Hanna will bring your meal to your room.”
When Hanna brings my dinner, it comes with a note from Damien.
My love,
Your anger burns me from a distance. I only need to look into your eyes to read your thoughts. You think I'm the devil himself, don't you? I'm writing to tell you that you couldn't be further from the truth.
I can't understand your pain. Maybe I don't want to.
I'm giving you something precious, something many women only dream about. But you push me away. I'll move a step back for now, but you should know one thing: you can't wish me away. You hold something that once belonged to me. You've stolen my heart, and only your love can fill the gaping hole you left inside my chest. I need you, and with a little time, you'll see you need me too.
33
Damien tries to get me to have dinner with him again two more times, but I stand my ground. He insists I’m his wife and that I belong to him. The sooner I accept it, he says, the better. Our mostly one-sided communication is only over the speakers, however. He never comes to see me. In a way, that’s a good thing. I don’t know if I’d be able to hold back from attacking him, as I tried at his cabin.
Today, his armed bodyguard, who introduces himself as Adrian, is ordered to strip the room of anything breakable or that can be used as a weapon. I guess he’s in his late fifties, with a handlebar moustache darker than his gray hair. For an older man, his body is fit and muscular.
When he introduces himself to me, he extends a hairy hand. Under normal circumstances, I’d probably shake it and return his smile. He has a gap between his upper front teeth, and his smile is open and genuine. For a moment it touches my heart—a flicker of warmth to melt some of the ice. But these are far from normal circumstances, and I’m not a normal guest in Damien’s house.
Unperturbed by my lack of warmth, Adrian shrugs and does his job, humming a tune under his breath. He leaves only the necessities—the bed, the table with two chairs, and nothing else. No decorations on the walls, no lamps, no mirrors.
As I watch him leave, I wonder why a man so obviously good-hearted would work for a person like Damien Steel. Why would he carry two guns, prepared to shoot an innocent woman if she somehow manages to break through a door that doesn’t even open from the inside? It has to be the lies he’s been fed. Like Hanna, he believes I’m sick and mentally fragile, a danger to myself and others.
A few minutes after the door is locked, a note is slipped under the door.
I dreamed of you last night. We were in the shower, skin to skin. You gazed into my eyes as you slicked my body with soap from head to toe, and finished the journey with your graceful hands tight around my dick, gliding up and down my length until I lost control. Unable to hold on to my sanity, I spun you around and bent you over. I just had to feel you, to peel back your layers and get to the core.
Then I opened my eyes and the dream turned to ashes. The damn wall between us has not come down. I'm waiting, rosebud. I'm waiting for you to give me the permission to crush the wall that separates us with my bare hands.
Sleep well tonight. I’ll see you soon.
On the third day, Damien comes to see me. He’s wearing a crisp blue shirt rolled up at the elbows, and black dress pants. His dark hair is trimmed and teased with a little gel.
A thread of longing whispers through me, followed by an ache deep within my gut, in the place that used to be occupied by butterflies.
“You’re eating dinner with me tonight. No discussion.” He allows the door to lock behind him and strides into the walk-in closet. He exits with a black-and-white silk fabric draped over his arm, and a pair of kitten-heel sandals hanging from a forefinger.
I turn my back to him and look out the windows, at the darkening sky outside, wondering as I do every day where in the world I am. The steel shutters are always opened automatically first thing in the morning, and closed again after the sun sets.
“You have two choices. You either get dressed yourself, or I do it for you.”
Damien touching me with the same hands that once brought me pleasure? It’s too much to bear. If I have to get dressed, I’ll do it alone.
The idea of dining together as though we’re an ordinary couple sickens me, but after days inside a locked room, I’m desperate to get out, even if only for a few minutes. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get to know my surroundings beyond this room, in case I ever have to hide from him. Though, for the same reason, I doubt he’ll show me around.
I’m right. After I get dressed, he blindfolds me before walking me out of the room.
After going down what I assume to be a long, winding staircase, he presses my shoulders down.
I sit, and he removes the blindfold.
34
The dining room has floor-to-ceiling bay windows overlooking manicured gardens, which are accessible by double doors. A rectangular, glass-topped dining table sits majestically in the middle of the room, surrounded by eight white leather and dark wood dining chairs. Built-in cabinets line one wall, and antique sconces light up the room.
I start when Adrian appears beside me, holding a long, red scarf in his hairy hands.
“Tie her legs together,” Damien orders.
“You must be kidding.” My body locks with rage as I glare at both of them.
“Not at all, rosebud.” Damien buries his hands in his pocket. “I need to do what’s necessary to keep you safe, remember? What are you waiting for, Adrian?”
I make it hard for Adrian to get the job done, kicking my legs so he can’t get a firm hold. In the end, he’s stronger, helped along by Damien, who holds me down by the shoulders.
Once his job is done, Adrian moves to stand by the door. He doesn’t meet my eyes.
“Give us some time, Adrian. I need to be alone with my wife.”
Once Adrian leaves, Damien pulls out the chair to my right and pours us both a glass of wine. I ignore mine.
“You look beautiful tonight. I hope you like the clothes I bought for you.”
The walk-in wardrobe is filled with all kinds of designer clothes and shoes. In my normal life I gravitate toward jeans and t-shirts, wanting to forget my past life as a model. I hated having to dress up for shoots and events.
Still, I have to admit that he has great taste. The black-and-white evening gown I’m wearing would be perfect for the red carpet. It has a beaded black bodice, a scoop neckline with a slit down the middle that ends at a flat bow band at the waist, and a sleek A-line skirt. The type of dress I would have chosen for a formal dinner.
Before I can respond, a pair of double doors on the far side of the room opens, and Hanna enters, followed by two other women. They exchange greetings with “Mr. Steel” and lay out covered silver serving dishes on our end of the table, around the candelabras.
Before she leaves the room, Hanna glances at my bound legs, then nods at Damien and walks out. The doors close behind her.
“Perfect.” Damien uncovers one of the dishes—herb-coated beef tenderloin steaks in a bed of mushrooms.
I’m horrified when my stomach groans audibly.
He looks up with a raised eyebrow. “I’m glad you’re hungry.” He opens another dish—chicken cordon bleu.
By the time all the food is on display—including roasted and mashed potatoes, sautéed vegetables, and brown rice—the room is a cornucopia of delicious aromas, and my mouth is watering.
He reaches for my plate and serves me some of each dish. During the meal, we don’t talk. But once Hanna and her helpers have cleared the table, Damien rests his elbows on the table and clasps his hands. The intensity in his gaze holds me in place.
For the first time, I notice a small barcode tattoo on his inner wrist, with numbers below the vertical lines. A date, perhaps. The numbers are too small for me to read. I don’t recall seeing it when I visited him in prison.
“I think it’s time we have a serious conversation.” At his sugge
stion, my attention drifts away from the tattoo. “I’m surprised you never asked how I got to you—how I managed to get you into my car that day.”
“It doesn’t help me at this point, does it?” I do my best to divert my focus from the itch on my ankle, where the scarf is tied too tight over the bracelet.
“No. No, it doesn’t. What’s important is that you’re here with me.” He reaches for my hand, but before his skin meets mine, I move it away. “I don’t know how long you want to play this game. But that’s okay. I welcome a good challenge.” He withdraws his hand and takes a drink of wine. “Anyway, I want to tell you.”
I shift in my chair and fold my arms.
“I didn’t do it alone.”
“Obviously,” I mumble. You were locked up, I want to add, but I bite my tongue.
He ignores my remark and continues. “A few people helped me along the way. One of them was Adrian, my right-hand man. You’ll probably be surprised to know that the other person was Milton Weiss.”
His revelation is a hand that closes around my neck, cutting off my breath. Brittle silence descends between us.
“No.” I shake my head. “Not Milton.” He was playing me the whole time?
“I’m afraid it’s the truth. Sometimes we don’t know people as well as we think we do.” Damien sighs. “It wasn’t an easy feat to get him on board. He actually did have feelings for you. But I offered to pay him twenty thousand dollars to spy on you, and eventually lead you to me. When I say I, I mean Adrian, who was acting on my behalf. Milton could have had reservations if he found out I was involved. Or rather, Judson Devereux.”
“You… you… How dare you?” I shout at him, my shock yielding to anger. How could Milton do that to me?
“Don’t blame yourself for not seeing through Milton. It’s hard to know who to trust these days. Don’t be mad at the kid. He acted the way any greedy person would. He took the cash and ran.”
I swallow the lump in my throat with difficulty. “You won’t get away with this. Someone will find me eventually. Then you’ll go back to prison where you belong. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you rot in there.”
“Stop holding on to false hope, Ivy. No one will come looking for you. As far as they’re concerned, you’re dead.” He stands, walks over to the cabinets, and opens one. Keeping his eyes on mine, he pulls out a black folder and returns to the table. He places the folder in front of me. The cover is monogrammed with a gold letter S. Below it are the words Steel Enterprises Inc.
“Have a quick look inside.”
My mouth is dry as I open the folder. Sensing bad news, I long to down the glass of wine that has been standing in front of me the entire meal. But pouring alcohol into my system could be a bad idea.
A black-and-white photo of me is the first thing I see. It’s part of a newspaper article. My throat closes up as I register the headline: Former Model Ivy Hollifield Dies Young. Above the headline is a single word that makes my blood run cold: Obituary.
Damien clears his throat and takes the folder from my hands. “You don’t have to read the whole thing. I’ll summarize it for you.” He takes the folder back to the cabinet, then comes to stand behind me. His hands are hot on my shoulders, but I don’t move.
“The day after you came into my life, there was a tragic bus accident in Boston. A bus blew up in flames on a highway. There were no survivors, and the bodies were burned beyond recognition. As soon as I read about that horrible, horrible tragedy, I thought of you and saw an opportunity. As far as everyone is concerned, you were one of the passengers.” He runs a finger down the side of my face. “You’re dead and gone, Ivy, and soon to be forgotten. Except by me, of course.”
A single tear drops from my eye onto the glass table.
35
Rosebud, my heart aches for you every day you’re not in my arms. My hands itch to reach out and touch you. I crave to run my tongue along the lines of your body.
I'm dying to slide between your folds.
But I also want you to need me, dammit. I need you to dig your nails into my flesh when I enter your warmth—not from pain, but because you're overcome with desire. Because you want to hold on for the ride of your life.
Until you let me in again, my dick will continue to throb with longing as it waits for you to open not only your legs, but also your life to me. I can’t wait for the day when your body craves my touch, when your moist pussy hungers for my dick. Don't make me wait too long.
I clench my teeth tight as I shred the handwritten letter and shower the floor with the pieces. I’m furious at myself for reading it in the first place. Why do I do this to myself? Am I searching for the man he used to be? Regardless, his words both draw me in and repulse me.
He has left me alone for a week, to grieve and accept the fact that everyone believes me to be dead, that my previous life has been erased. Not once does he come up to see me. No sound of his voice over the speakers, either. Nothing.
Hanna has clearly been told to stay away as well. He wants me to stew in my isolation, to crave human contact so much that I beg him to come to me. I spend my days sitting on the bed for hours on end, staring at the door.
Damien could leave me in the room to hunger for human contact, entertainment, and food. But he feeds me. Three times a day a small, rectangular partition carved into the bottom of my door is unlocked, and someone slides a tray of food through. Three meals a day, without fail. The first day I don’t eat. The second, I only eat the breakfast and throw it up again, my stomach too unsettled to keep anything down. But on the third day, I’m ravenous. I eat everything he sends up to me, wishing it could fill the emptiness.
He gives me what my body wants, even though I don’t give him what he wants. Giving myself to him would be emotional suicide. I’m not ready to die, not yet—not even emotionally. To hell with the obituary and the lies he told everyone. I’m still here, alive and breathing. My beating heart is proof of life, and I’m not ready to sell my soul. As long as I have everything I need to keep me alive, I might still be able to survive this. How, I don’t know yet.
I should at least be grateful that he hasn’t hurt me physically. Some jailers abuse their prisoners both physically and mentally, destroying every piece of them. But Damien is convinced that once he breaks me emotionally, I will belong to him physically. What he doesn’t know is that it will never happen.
After eight days, I wake from a troubled sleep to the sound of the blinds and shutters being opened, as they always are first thing in the morning. I don’t get why he even bothers to open the shutters every day. Why not leave me in my darkness?
On cue, my breakfast appears through the door partition, and it slides shut again. The aroma of eggs and coffee fills the room. I listen to the commotion on the other side of the door—Adrian making himself comfortable at his post outside.
The last thing I want is to get out of bed to do nothing all day. But I decided two days ago that I have to pay attention to my health despite the circumstances, so I have started putting the yoga lessons I used to take with Chelsea into practice, if for no other reason but to keep my mind calm.
I get out of bed and straighten the sheets. It’s something to do. So is brushing my teeth and washing my face. I eat breakfast once I’ve completed my morning routine. I take my time eating, since time is all I have, then place the tray at the door. Adrian’s hairy hands will pull it through the partition later.
My long, empty day starts, and as usual, I try not to go crazy. It’s hard not to when all I have to think about day and night is not going crazy. I’m so desperate for something to keep my mind off my situation, something to give me a reason for breathing. As though Damien has read my mind—or perhaps my thoughts from my pained expression—in the afternoon, instead of pulling out the lunch tray through the partition, Adrian opens the door. He’s carrying a box in his arms.
“I brought you some books. Mr. Steel thought you might need something to occupy you.”
For
a moment our eyes lock. I want to be angry with Adrian as much as I am with Damien. He’s Damien’s right-hand man, after all. He followed me around in Oaklow to invade my privacy when I was none the wiser. But something inside my heart refuses to see him as an enemy.
His dark eyes are too kind, too warm. In them I read only sympathy. He knows I’m suffering and there’s nothing he can do about it. It helps to know he cares. At least, I choose to believe he does, and that’s enough for now.
He leaves the box by the door, nods at me, and walks out with the tray.
“Thank you.”
The genres are diverse, including romance, thriller, and science fiction. Sci-fi is not my cup of tea, so I throw those books back into the box. Next I toss in the romance, since any romantic notions I may have once believed in are stagnant inside my heart. I choose a thriller and settle back on the bed.
Tears fill my eyes with the turn of each page. The story of a little girl’s torture touches my soul. Before I was kidnapped, a story was just a story—something to be enjoyed during a moment of relaxation or boredom. But now I find myself wondering about the facts beyond the pages of the book. Did the author experience something similar, or know someone who did? Or is the story simply a product of his imagination? Isn’t fiction always born of some shred of truth?
In my race to reach the end of the book, I come across notes scribbled in the margins in a language I guess to be Spanish. I wonder who the book belonged to, and what the notes in black ink mean. With no way of finding out, I move on to the next page and then the next, engrossed in the story.
To my surprise, the book I pick up the next evening is a sci-fi novel; I had not planned on reading it, but it pulls me right in. My eyes droop before I finish the story, and the book falls to the floor. Somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness, I hear his voice.
“Good night, my angel.” His voice is like poisoned honey. I turn my face away from the direction the sound is coming from and fall asleep.