The Prospect tucks his softening dick back into his pants, a sheepish look on his face. Dornan thrusts his chin at him. “Don’t say we don’t treat you well here.”
“Yes, sir,” the guy says, completely straight-faced.
I look at the girl, and see her eyeing off Dornan’s lap uncomfortably.
“Dornan,” I say in between chewing and swallowing. “Come on!”
He grins at me, gesturing for the girl to come over. She doesn’t even bother getting to her feet, instead opting to crawl the short distance between dicks. Bloody hell.
Dornan doesn’t take his eyes from mine as he reaches into his pants and tugs out his stiff cock. The girl is smart - she doesn’t hesitate this time. Dornan relaxes back into the chair, the only sounds in the room her mouth slurping around his dick and me chewing as fast as I can. Utterly ludicrous.
I finish the food on my plate in record time, glaring at Dornan as he grabs the back of the girl’s head and forces her to take him deeper. She gags violently, wrenching her head away and coughing loudly, still on her hands and knees.
“You need to learn how to suck dick,” Dornan says, folding his erection back into his pants. “Both of you get the fuck out.”
The girl stops coughing, wipes at her mouth and stands quickly, practically running for the door. The Prospect opens it on cue, and the girl scurries out, followed by him.
The door shuts, and we’re alone once more.
Dornan stands and adjusts his pants, laughing when he sees the horrified expression on my face. “What?” he asks. “Too weird for the black widow? I thought you of all people would appreciate that.”
I roll my eyes.
“Though,” he says, raking his eyes down my thin frame, “You’re looking more like a praying fuckin’ mantis these days.”
“That’s generally what happens when you starve someone for three months,” I retort, feeling my face go red. He pushes all of my buttons. He makes me so fucking angry.
He’s the only person in the world who can change anything for me, and all he’s going to do is make things worse.
Not for the first time, suicide crosses my mind. I didn’t have any way to do it before, when I was tied up in the dungeon, and I wonder briefly if he’ll keep me tied up in here as well.
“What are you planning to do with me?” I ask quietly.
He kneels in front of me, a strange gesture of submission for the man who dominates my every waking moment, but the look on his face says otherwise.
He smiles, tucking a stray hair behind my ear. “I’m going to destroy you,” he says softly, that deep voice making me shake, and I don’t doubt him for a second.
He pushes off his feet, standing above me.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” he says.
My heart plummets into my stomach.
He disappears, slamming the door behind him, and I eye the door nervously. Did he lock it? I didn’t hear a key turn.
I rush to my feet, the empty breakfast plate sliding from my lap and onto the carpet with a dull thud. I reach the door just as it opens again, and I have to step back to stop it smacking me in the face.
“Miss me already?” Dornan asks, looking amused. “Sit. Down.” He points to the chair and I reluctantly make my way back to the chair, sitting my skinny ass down. I watch as he approaches, wondering what sick surprise he’s got in store for me. “Look at that,” he says, reaching down and nudging my slightly rounded stomach. “You’re showing.”
I stare up at him morosely. “I just ate breakfast,” I say dully. “I don’t believe you. I’m not pregnant. You’re just trying to fuck with my head.”
“Shut up and get on the fucking bed,” he says shortly. “Now.”
I’ve been trying to convince myself all along that he’s just fucking with me. That it’s not real. It can’t be. But when he produces one of those hand-held Doppler machines and holds it to my bare skin a few minutes later, I can practically feel my world end.
First, he squeezes cold, sticky goop on my stomach and rubs it all around. Then, he presses the tip of this plastic microphone thing to my skin and moves it around until it starts going crazy.
It sounds like horses galloping. He turns it up so loud that the noise fills the room, and I feel my own heartbeat quicken.
I narrow my eyes. “It’s my heartbeat,” I say dismissively. “Nice try, asshole.”
He smirks, grabbing my fingers and jamming them against my neck, against the spot where my own pulse flutters rapidly. But the sound being transmitted from the small machine, the sound that bounces off the walls and strangles me with its absolute certainty is completely different in pace and speed to my own fragile heart.
Fuck.
I gasp. Tears fill my eyes. He smiles triumphantly, pressing the little plastic receiver harder into my stomach, and the sound gets even clearer.
He’s not making this up. This is really happening.
Again.
How could I have been so stupid to let this happen after everything I went through the first time six years ago?
The room starts to spin, and I can’t breathe. The galloping sound, the heartbeat of a baby, is so loud it’s overwhelming. I sit up and swipe at the machine, getting it away from me, kicking and screaming as Dornan pins me easily with his brute strength.
“Stop,” he says, that glint in his eye telling me he’s getting off on this.
I don’t stop. I keep kicking and screaming until I feel a sharp prick in my arm, and warmth floods my body. My body stills, and I feel so fucking relieved.
Dornan leans over, tracing my lips with his fingertip, making me shiver despite the warm sunshine in my veins.
“Hooked already,” he chuckles. “Just like your momma.”
***
A while later—how long, I have no idea—I hear someone shift beside me, and push myself up into a sitting position, rubbing my eyes.
Dornan is sitting beside the bed, having pulled up one of the white wicker chairs, and when he sees me he grins, reaching for a glass of water.
“Here.” He hands me the glass of water and I take it, thirsty complicit little slave I’ve become. I’m too drug-fucked to even care he’s gained total control over me in such a short time. I’m just empty. Done. A broken shell carrying a product borne of vengeance and hate.
Oh, Jesus. The sound of the fetal monitor dances in my head again and I take a deep gulp of water.
“Take these,” Dornan says, holding out two brown pills that look like they’re made for a goddamn horse.
“What are they?” I ask, taking them slowly.
“Vitamins, baby girl. It’s a little late, but we want our boy to be strong, don’t we?”
I scowl at him as I take the tablets one at a time. Fucking asshole. If I had anything left inside me to throw up, I would, but breakfast must have been a while ago, because my stomach is growling again.
I’m still reeling from the apparent confirmation of our little bundle of horror so much, I barely even notice when The Prospect walks in, rapping twice on the open door as he enters hurriedly.
“What?” Dornan barks.
“Boss, we got an issue.” He looks worried.
“Well spit it out, ése. I’m busy with my baby mama.” He laughs, glancing at me. I keep my face impassive as I stare at the floor.
I see The Prospect glance at me in my peripheral vision before he turns his attention back to Dornan. “It’s the nurse lady, boss. Violetta found her this morning. She’s dead.”
It takes me a moment to understand he’s talking about my mother.
Dornan chuckles. “Well, what’d you do? Feed her to the pigs?”
The prospect shifts uneasily on his feet. “Jason took her to the funeral home, sir,” he replies. “The one you usually use in Tijuana.”
Dornan swats at the air dismissively, and The Prospect leaves quickly, closing the door behind him.
Dornan looks at me with a satisfied smirk. “Aww, did you hear that? Your stu
pid mother finally took too much. I’m amazed she lasted this long, the old dog.” He chuckles. “Sad, baby girl?”
I laugh. “Hardly.”
I see surprise flicker across his face before he returns to his customary smirk. “Well, if I didn’t know better, and if you didn’t look so much like your fucking father, I’d say you were my daughter.”
I can’t stop the disgusted look on my face at the thought that Dornan could ever be related to me, and I thank my lucky stars for inheriting John Portland’s features amid my mother’s eyes and hair.
Dornan shrugs. “It’s all semantics, anyway. I’ve owned you the moment the nurse handed you to me after your stupid mother had you.”
I glare at him, furious at the thought that even that moment of my life was overshadowed by Dornan fucking Ross.
“You know, I’m confused,” I say, my brain slightly clearer now that the heroin high has tapered a little. “You say I’m pregnant, but what kind of father shoots his baby up with enough drugs to kill it? You know, it’s going to be born an addict, if it even survives everything you’ve done to me.”
Dornan scowls, but I can tell my argument hits him somewhere. “Well, you were born an addict, and look how you turned out?”
“Bullshit.” He’s lying.
“Mmm-Hmm. Your stupid cunt of a mother couldn’t stay off the juice for a day, let alone nine months. You were in the hospital for weeks! Crying and fucking performing. You weren’t even signed out to her when you finally left.” He grins as he delivers his final blow. “You were signed out to me. I brought you home. Celia fucking took care of you until you detoxed, while your mother didn’t even miss a beat. Went back to the club the very next day.”
My cheeks burn. I’m angry because I know he’s probably telling the truth.
“My father would never let that happen.”
“Your father was in prison,” Dornan says. “Six months in Sing Sing. And your mother came back to me, just like always.” He smiles, as if the memory is a fond one, and brushes his knuckle against my cheek. I shrink back from his touch, and he laughs again.
“Oh, baby girl,” he says. “In years to come, you’ll be begging me to touch you. Because this is it for you. Me and you and this room. I hope you enjoyed the last twenty-one years. Because until you take your last breath, the only person you’ll ever see again is me.”
He leaves the room then, slamming the door for effect behind him. As soon as I hear his footsteps retreat down the hallway, I scramble off the bed, tiptoeing toward the French doors that lead to the balcony. Everything appears to have been repaired since one of the bombs I planted exploded right below this room, as it tore a gaping big hole on the side of the mansion. I peer out of the glass, glimpsing several armed guards at various points around the property, and in the distance, the smoggy lights that mark the border separating the US from Mexico.
I don’t know how I’d even get past the guards. How I’d get down to the ground floor from the second floor balcony. How I’d not freeze in this stupid little dress that’s totally unsuitable for winter.
But I’ve got to do something.
I put my hand on the curved brass door handle, which is cold and heavy. My breath catches when I push it down…and it gives. No resistance. Excitedly, I push the doors open, but the sight that greets me isn’t the one I expected.
I squeal, stepping back just in time to avoid falling through the non-existent balcony to the hard tiles that adorn the ground-floor verandah.
My heart racing, I step back into the safety of the room, realizing that the repairs aren’t, in fact, complete. There’s a huge fucking piece of the balcony missing that almost swallowed me up whole and left me smashed on the ground in a tangle of broken limbs and blood.
The wind from outside rushes in, cold and sweet after three months of stale air. I feel my loose hair fly wildly around my face as the door behind me crashes open and Dornan rushes over to me, hands fisting in my hair as he tugs me back violently.
“Oww!” I cry, as he uses the momentum of tugging my hair to throw me past him and back onto the bed. I land face down, but before I can crawl away he is on me.
“Shut up!” he roars, digging his fingers painfully into my arm as he flips me onto my back. Before I can get away, he’s looped something around my wrists, and secured them to the bedhead.
I struggle briefly before going limp. We’ve done this dance before and the guy knows how to tie his knots. I’m stuck.
I glare at him derisively. “You gonna make me come before you stab me this time?” I ask sarcastically, remembering the night he made my entire body shudder to life before he sank his knife into my thigh.
He smirks. “Only good girls get to come. You’re not a good girl, are you, baby?”
He takes something from the drawer beside the bed and I crane my neck to see what it is. An iPod with headphones already plugged into it.
Strange.
The smirk doesn’t leave his face as he shoves the ear buds into my ears. “I’ll be back in a few days,” he says, winking at me. “But don’t worry. I made sure this is on repeat.”
He presses something on the iPod and tosses it onto my chest, just as someone that sounds like Sepultura starts screaming in my ears about hate and blood. Really fucking loud.
I glare at Dornan as he blows me a kiss and slams the door shut behind him, while a dude screams into my eardrums.
It’s so fucking loud, I feel like my ears are going to start bleeding. I wiggle my head forcefully, but those headphones are shoved deep into my ears, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting them out without the use of my hands.
And it doesn’t stop. For fucking hours. I listen to the entire, ear-shattering, vomit-inducing album, which might be fine at a regular volume—if you love death metal, which I do not—but at full volume it makes me wish I were already dead.
There’s nothing I can do to escape the noise, until eventually it feels like the screaming and the notes become a part of me, trapped like waspish, screaming, vengeful ghosts in the darkest recesses of my mind.
Finally, after what seems like days but what is probably just a few hours, I feel warm fingers at my ears. My eyes fly open and I see The Prospect standing above me, holding one of the ear buds up to his ear to see what I’ve been listening to.
“Damn,” he says, shaking his head. “That shit is terrible.”
Tears of relief burn my eyes and I blink them away impatiently, hardly able to hear him through the music which still seems to be bouncing around in my head. I feel like it’ll be there forever, and the thought makes my stomach turn.
“Thank you,” I say quietly, and he smiles in response.
“I told you I was a nice guy,” he whispers. “You want something to eat?”
I nod enthusiastically, starving and on a wicked comedown from that last dose of heroin, and wait as patiently as I can while he undoes the scarf around my wrists. He helps me to sit up and I massage my numb wrists as he does.
He places a paper bag in front of me. McDonalds. My eyes light up as I imagine the fat and grease that might be in the bag. I look at him for approval and he gestures, smiling.
“Gee,” he says, as I snatch up a cardboard box of fries and start stuffing them into my mouth. “I’ve never seen a girl get so turned on by fast food.”
I ignore him until I’m done, first the fries, then a cheeseburger that practically melts in my mouth. In less than five minutes, there’s not a crumb left. As soon as I’ve finished the food he hands me a Coke—cold and icy—and I sip on the sugary drink like it’s liquid gold.
When I’m finished, I wipe my mouth with a napkin and crunch the rubbish into a ball. “Thank you,” I say, and I really am so fucking thankful it hurts.
The events that happened last time I saw him slam into me, and I frown, remembering poor Violetta on her knees.
“You made that poor girl suck your dick,” I say to him.
He frowns. “Dornan made that poor girl suck my di
ck.” He corrects me. “It wasn’t exactly a turn-on, or didn’t you notice?”
I nod reluctantly. “Dornan makes people do a lot of things they don’t want to do.”
He lets me use the bathroom and drink some water before he leaves. He looks at the bed uneasily, but I’m lying on my back before he can even ask, my arms stretched above me.
Obedient little slave I am. I disgust myself.
He looks relieved at my cooperation as he re-knots the silk scarf around my wrists, tugging it to make sure it’s tight. I’m fine, until he places the iPod back on my chest and moves the ear buds toward my ears.
He must see the look of horror on my face because he pauses, patting my shoulder awkwardly.
“I have to put it back on,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”
I nod bravely, but I start crying. A concerned expression flickers across his face.
“Hang in there. I’ll turn it down a little,” he whispers in my ear, so faintly I can barely hear it. “It’ll all be over soon.”
He leans back and I stare at him, hardly daring to believe what he’s saying.
“What?” I mouth, barely above a whisper. He shakes his head, pointing to his ear and then to the door. I know exactly what he’s getting at. It’s exactly the same thing Jase tried to tell me when he was in here. Someone is outside the room, and they’re listening. They both seemed comfortable to gesture though, which tells me there are no cameras in the room.
The Prospect pats my shoulder again affectionately, and the small gesture makes me burst into tears. Looking like he’s handing me a death sentence, he gently nestles the ear buds back into my ears and presses play.
This time, the music takes me on a journey. First, I cry. Get rid of every tear that’s still inside of me. Then, I seethe; my anger only helped along by the lyrics in the death metal songs that blast at my eardrums. More than once, I imagine my eardrums have burst and splattered blood everywhere. But it’s just my imagination playing tricks on me.
After what I estimate to be a few hours, I come to a point of acceptance. Staring at the pressed ceiling above me, I can finally separate myself from the thrashing music, can finally decipher my own thoughts. The heroin has worn off too, and no doubt the sugary cola has given my brain a bit of a boost.
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