by Marian Tee
Helios glanced at Kellion. “The photographer got some good shots?”
Kellion’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “The best.”
Helios nodded. “Make sure it shows up on the front page of as many tabloids as possible.” He glanced at Yuri. “Any news about James?”
“I’m on the last of the journals Ioniko Vlahos’ father wrote. It appears he and James Cartwright were once good friends, Vlahos being one of James’ regular sponsors. He speaks of the many clubs they used to haunt all around the world when James used to race. It’s possible James may drop by one of them. People like him usually do. They want to remember their glory days and are bitter when no one actually remembers it but them.”
“Can you really keep doing this?” Andreus demanded, no longer able to contain himself. Helios was so damn close to his breaking point. He was fucking sorry that MJ had been taken away, but he did not hold much hope that she was still alive. Manolito Chavez was a monster, and it had been two months since he had taken Helios’ woman. Unfortunately, it had also been said that no woman lasted more than a few weeks in the trafficker’s care.
“I’ll do what I have to do,” Helios said in a hard voice, “and for as fucking long as it takes until I get her back.”
“But what if she’s—”
“Don’t say it,” Helios snarled. “Don’t you fucking say it. MJ is alive.”
In his mind, MJ was looking at him and smiling, and he tried not to think about how she appeared more and more luminous with each passing day, more ghost than human.
Afxisi.
Rise.
Rise against everything that went against them.
His jaw clenched. “She’s alive, all right? I can feel it here.” He thumped his chest. “This one will keep beating as long as she’s alive. So trust me. She’s waiting for me.”
“Say she’s alive then.” Andreus ignored the warning look that the others shot at him. Maybe they were content to let their brother do something foolhardy, respecting his decision as President, but he had always liked to live his life dangerously. Even if Helios ended up kicking him out of Afxisi, no fucking way was he just going to stand by and let one of the few men he cared about risk his life so recklessly.
“Can you fucking say you’re taking every precaution to stay alive and actually be there to rescue MJ when the opportunity comes?”
Helios didn’t say anything.
“You’re risking too much. You’re using your heart, not your head, and that’s not what you fucking taught us to do to survive. You’re playing a dangerous game with that bitch Gracie. If she finds out you’ve been leading her on all along, she’s going to make you pay – and MJ, too.”
“What the hell do you want me to do then?” Helios shouted. “Just sit here and do nothing—”
“Fuck no,” Andreus shouted back, also shooting to his feet. “I’m saying let us goddamn help you. You can’t fucking expect us to bear seeing you kill yourself like this and do nothing.”
Helios tiredly ran a hand over his face, feeling like every second without MJ by his side was sucking the life out of him. “I can’t have any of you more involved than you already are. This is my fight—”
“This is Afxisi’s fight. And like it or not, we are as much a part of it as you are.” Andreus looked at Kellion and Yuri.
“We would lay down our lives for you without being asked,” Kellion said.
“Like fuck I’ll ask that.”
“Let us at least help with the costs,” Yuri said quietly. “You’re down to – what? Two, three hundred mil? That’s not going to last you forever, Helios, not with the rate you’re buying just about every politician in the world searching for MJ. We’ve got more money than we have a need for. Let us use our resources, too.”
Helios wanted to argue, but he could see on his friends’ faces it wouldn’t do him any good. “Do whatever you want then.”
A smile cracked Kellion’s face. “Gracious as ever, President. You’re welcome, too, by the way.” The light-hearted taunt served to somewhat ease the tension in the atmosphere. and they all relaxed.
“There is one other thing you can do to expedite things,” Andreus said.
Helios glanced at his treasurer with mock irritation. “Another fucking suggestion? Don’t you only say more than a few words when you're with Hailey?”
Andreus ignored the dig. “Ioniko Vlahos.”
Helios stiffened. “What about him?”
“If any one of us were to make a move against Manolito Chavez’s business, they’d know we’re on to him. But if it was Ioniko who did it, and if he can use his influence without getting directly involved, you could exploit it and step in as a savior at the right time. You could offer your help…”
Kellion’s eyes glinted in understanding. “For the right price of course.”
The right price…being the girl who owned the key to his heart but was now trapped in another man’s cage.
In his mind, MJ was still smiling.
But this time, her eyes were filled with unshed tears, and her voice was softer, hoarser.
Hurry.
****
MJ sank to her knees in front of Manolito, her every move subservient.
“What’s this?” Manolito might be genuinely surprised, but there was no disguising the eagerness in his voice, either.
Disgust made her want to throw up, but she forced it back, knowing this was the only way to remain alive and untouched. Two months. Sixty-three days to be exact. That was how long she had been gone, and each day it became harder and harder to believe that Helios would be able to find her.
Pleasing Manolito had also become more difficult. There were just so many ways to make herself bleed and break her bones until she ended up killing herself. Each day, she could see the interest waning in his eyes, gradually being replaced by a chilling kind of boredom.
That lack of interest terrified her. Manolito, bored out of his mind, would not care what happened to her, and she couldn’t afford to let that happen.
Swallowing, MJ forced her hands to move, unbuttoning his pants and pulling his zipper down. Soon, his semi-erect dick sprang free, a flaccid scarred length of flesh that was almost as grotesque as Manolito’s disfigured face.
Again, the urge to throw up hit her, and again she ruthlessly forced it back.
Please God, please, please, please let me get through this.
“Wh-what are you doing?” Excitement had Manolito’s saliva hitting her face.
She kept her smile in place even as she felt his drool trail down her cheek. In many ways, Manolito Chavez was no different from James. To earn James’ approval, she had learned to do what he wanted. And for Manolito, to keep him happy and earn another day to live, she just had to stay…damaged.
“Slap me.”
His eyes widened. “W-what?”
“Slap me—” She had barely finished speaking when he slapped her, hard enough to make her head turn sideways. It hurt, but she knew the pain wouldn’t be enough for him.
“Slap me harder,” she made herself beg coyly. “Make me bleed.” The words came out of nowhere, the thought behind it borne out of her plain desire to keep living. “Wouldn’t you want me to bleed while I suck on your—”
No more words were needed.
He slapped her, repeatedly, until she lost count. And then he was pinching her nose shut, forcing her to gasp and for her mouth to fall open. He shoved his dick into her mouth, and tears pricked her eyes before they started to fall.
In her mind, she could feel the imaginary Helios coming out from the dark—
No, she screamed inside her mind. I don’t want you to see me like this.
It doesn’t matter, brat. I love you—
No, please, she begged. Please. Please. Please. Don’t look at me now. Please.
And as the specter of Helios began to fade, Manolito forced her head further down, his dick pushing at the back of her throat. In seconds, he was coming, tears, blood, and semen mi
ngling inside her mouth.
Chapter Seven
James stared with ill-disguised hatred as Manolito Chavez lovingly stroked MJ’s head, which was lying on his lap. Stupid cunt thought she had Manolito wrapped around her little finger, but not for long. He bided his time, waiting for the Sicilian millionaire to leave the room before getting up from his post and stalking towards MJ.
Pulling out the newspaper he kept stuck in his jeans’ back pocket, he threw it at MJ’s face. “Thought you’d like some morning reading,” he sneered.
MJ forced herself to open her eyes as something swatted her face. She picked it up gingerly, realizing that it was a day-old tabloid. Unfolding it, she sucked her breath in when she saw its headlines. Holding the paper between her hands, she walked to the wastebasket and it was there she tore the offensive thing into pieces. Something inside her whispered she was making a big mistake…that she was missing something here, but MJ was in too much pain to listen to the more sensible part of her.
Even with her eyes closed, the pictures on the tabloid still burned in her mind. It can’t be him, she thought feverishly. It must be an old photo, drummed out by Herod Andreadis. Or maybe it was—
A sob caught in her throat.
The photo had Helios inside the penthouse suite of a hotel, which had only been completed this month. The Christopoulos family owned the hotel, and she and Helios had been invited to attend its grand launch. Now she knew Helios was able to attend…but not with her.
No, no, no, no—
Panic waltzed back into her imagination, mockingly repeating the words MJ was screaming inside her mind.
It was only when she heard James laughing above her that MJ realized she had sunk to her knees. “It’s not true,” she whispered, but the lack of conviction in her voice made her flinch.
“It is true, you stupid cunt,” James jeered. “Want me to bring you old issues? All of them has Helios in it, with different women in his arms each week.” The misery in her face filled him with glee, and when he looked down at her, he didn’t really see MJ. It was the face of MJ’s father he saw, crumpled with pain and defeat.
Too bad Vlahos was dead. It would have been better if he had been alive. James would have sent snapshots of MJ’s injuries over the years, and this would have been his crowning glory.
“You should get up,” James said brusquely. “You wouldn’t want Manolito to see you like that, would you? He might realize that you still love Helios Andreadis, and…”
The door behind them swung open.
MJ froze, the sound of it filling her mind with terror.
“If I realize my little dear still wants her Greek lover, what would I do?”
MJ’s teeth sank into her lip as Manolito pulled her head back by the hair. Their eyes met just before Manolito’s gaze turned wild with rage. He spat at her face, and she couldn’t even react, every part of her immobilized by fright.
He wasn’t just angry, MJ thought numbly. He was livid, murderously so.
He spit at her again, and she didn’t even blink.
“You thought to string me along for the ride while you wait for your young Greek lover to rescue you?”
She started to shake her head, but this only seemed to inflame him more. The last thing she saw was Manolito’s boot-covered foot heading towards her face.
As everything went dark, imaginary Helios fell to his knees. Let me see you, brat.
Oh, how she had wanted to hear those words from him for so long. But now they meant nothing.
****
James gazed down at the check he held in his hands. One million dollars. It was his. And it was all thanks to Vlahos and Madeline’s brat. Shoving it back into his shirt’s breast pocket, he shrugged into his leather jacket and grabbed his overnight bag from the bed. It was time to go. He knew how things worked in Manolito’s world. Regular deposits into his bank account meant Manolito would keep MJ around until she broke. But a one-time payment like this? He doubted she would last more than a week.
When he got to the airport, James decided to take a flight to Nassau on a whim. He used to go there for vacation between races, and back in the day, the parties there had been wild. It had been years since he had been there. Surely someone would recognize him still? Anyone who did, James thought magnanimously, would be treated like a king by him.
As he paid for his ticket over the counter, James was completely unaware of eyes that followed his every move. He was just as oblivious when a stewardess took his photo from behind the liquor cart, too lost in his fantasies of reclaiming his glory days as a celebrated race car driver.
Unfortunately for him, his dreams were doomed to stay unrealized.
The moment he stepped out of the airport, a pair of casually dressed men cornered him, trapping James in between their hulking bodies. He opened his mouth to protest but fell silent when he felt the butt of a gun pressed to his side. They didn’t tell him to come with them quietly after that. They knew they didn’t have to. Someone like James was sure to know the rules.
They pushed him inside the backseat of a nondescript-looking car, and again James was kept between his two captors. In front of him were two other men, both of them sporting Hawaiian shirts, and they would have looked no different from ordinary tourists if not for the guns tucked under their shirts.
The reality of his situation became a lot clearer when the man on his left began to tie his wrists. “Where are you taking me? What do you want?” His blood chilled as a thought occurred to him. “Are you working for Chavez? It’s not my fault he’s—”
“You talk too much,” the man on his right said quietly. When he took off his dark glasses, his face appeared vaguely familiar to James. A second later, he realized it was one of the friends of the Greek biker MJ had hooked up with in college.
Before he could even think of protesting his innocence, the younger man had knocked him out cold.
Yuri gazed reflectively on the bruise of his fist. “If I had hit him any harder,” he murmured, “I might have killed him.”
“Good thing you didn’t then,” Andreus grunted from the other side of James. “We can take turns after Helios has questioned him.”
Helios was waiting for them at the boathouse, his face stoic as he watched the other officers of Afxisi unload James from the backseat. The older man remained unconscious even as they tied him by the ankles and hung him upside down from a hook. At his nod, Andreus began reeling him up and stopped when James was at eye level with Helios.
Helios cracked his fists. Only common sense and sheer worry over MJ had kept him in the boathouse, waiting for the others to bring to him the man who had tortured his woman almost every year of her life. With them so close to finding clues about Manolito Chavez’s whereabouts, Helios knew he had to take greater care and not let Gracie suspect him. Right now, Gracie and the whole world was not even aware that MJ existed, much less the havoc her abduction had created in his life. But that could change any moment. All it took, Helios knew, was one stupid mistake, and it could cost him MJ’s life.
He took the lighter from the desk and clicking it open, he calmly held it close to James Cartwright’s arms. In seconds, James screamed himself awake at the smell and feel of his burning skin. He found himself staring straight into Helios’ eyes, the world around him upside down. It took another second of blazing agony for James to understand he was the one hanging upside down.
“Do you know who I am?” Helios asked.
James only glared at him, knowing there was no point in asking for mercy.
“I can see in your eyes that you do.” Helios bared his teeth in a smile. “Then you will understand if I do this to you, won’t you?”
James’ eyes shot up, following the movement of the man’s hand. His eyes widened in alarm when he saw where it was heading. “Fuck you,” he bellowed. But his words ended in a moan of excruciating pain as Helios Andreadis roughly cut his pants open and set his dick on fire.
Helios only tossed the lighter away when the
flesh of James’ manhood had turned a different color. The man was likely in the most hellish throes of pain right now, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted James Cartwright to suffer the kind of life-threatening fear he had subjected MJ to every damn day of her life. He wanted to watch as rapists violated James the way James had sold MJ to be violated, wanted to watch the light go out of the man’s eyes as Helios slowly crushed his windpipe—
Kellion clasped Helios’ shoulder in warning. “Whatever you’re thinking, President, it’s not worth it. We need answers, and we’re running out of time.”
The words washed over him like a bucket of cold water, and Helios fought hard to rein his emotions in. In front of him, James was still screaming in between hurling invectives at him and MJ. But the man’s protests died when Helios crouched down to pick up the lighter.
“If you don’t want me to keep burning your dick until it falls off, you’re going to answer my questions clearly and completely.”
Kellion grabbed a steel bat lying in wait and used it to lightly “tap” the side of James’ head, just enough to have blood run down the side of his temple. “Understand that, asshole?”
James tried to spit at him, but Kellion took a swift step back.
Andreus walked over and used the butt of his gun to tap the other side of James’ temple. Again, blood ran down the side of his head. “Do you understand what our President said? We’ll keep hitting you until you get it right, you know.”
“Yes,” he forced himself to say, knowing he wouldn’t survive if his captors kept hitting him on the head. Pain from his burned skin and dick made his head even woozier. He began to hallucinate, feeling like a hundred MJs were going around him in circles. And all of them were laughing at him.
Damn you, stupid cunt.
Every one of the one hundred MJs didn’t answer, they just kept on laughing as if he wasn’t worth wasting their voices for.