by Ella Miles
“I don’t care if you stay or not.” It’s the truth. She’s already seen the horror. I’ve experienced it. Watching it can’t be worse than feeling it.
I turn the computer toward me so I can have a good view. And then I press play.
“I think I’ll stay,” Adela says softly, sitting next to me.
I don’t look at her. I can’t take my eyes off the completely broken version of myself lying in the room.
There is no audio. It’s a good thing, because I could probably hear my broken heart beating so weakly, if I weren’t sitting here right now I would think the woman on the video was about to die. I would have.
Dante enters with five men on his tail. All look strong and defiant. He makes a joke and they all chuckle as he kicks me hard. That part was real. Then a man with a similar build to Caspian steps forward. The man has a similar build and similar eyes. But this man is skinnier than Caspian. He’s weaker. He could pass as a distant cousin of Caspian, but he’s not him.
I watch as he kicks me and I feel the ache in my ribs. I watch as I’m dragged to the bed. It’s like I’m there, but I’m not. I’m floating in a cloud looking down at my naked and bruised body, helpless to save myself from the fate that awaits me.
I’m tied to the bed. And then the coward settles between my legs before knocking me out. He could see my need for revenge in my eyes. He knew I would come after him if I remembered what he did. So he tried to take away my memories.
But I will never forget his face. Not until I’ve killed him.
I continue watching. I watch each thrust, each grab of my breasts, each punch to the gut.
A tear escapes my eye as I watch. It’s painful and horrible, and exactly what I needed to remember Caspian isn’t much better. He wanted to do the same thing to me. He’s locking me up, keeping me from seeking my revenge.
My tears turn to flames fanning an invisible fire growing stronger as each second of the video passes. I watch each man climb on top of me and use my body like they use a piece of exercise equipment. Like I’m not human.
Finally, it’s Dante’s turn, but I don’t need to see what he does to me. I remember every second of him.
I close the computer. I’m not sure if I’m stronger or weaker for watching it.
“Stronger,” Adela says as I wipe the tears from my cheek on the back of my hand.
“What?” I whisper, my voice hoarse.
“You are strong, Gia. The strongest. No one can take that from you. That’s one of the reasons you stayed as long as you did. You were strong. You survived until we could get you out. And you’re stronger now.”
I smile weakly. “You are definitely a Conti, no matter what your last name is now. I don’t know how you guys do it, but you are always able to read my mind.”
“I’ve been watching you for a long time. I have a good idea of what you are thinking.”
I nod.
“I need something to drink,” I finally say.
She jumps up. “We have wine or whiskey or vodka or…”
“Whiskey.”
She fixes an overfilled glass and slides it to me.
“You aren’t going to join me?” I ask. It’s eight in the morning. It’s not surprising that she won’t drink with me.
“I would, but I can’t.”
“Work?”
“No.” She pauses. “Can you keep a secret?”
I shrug. “Sometimes.”
“I think you will be able to keep this one. I’m pregnant!”
“Congratulations!” I say staring down at the invisible bump under her dark grey T-shirt.
“But why is it a secret?”
“Because if I told Caspian, there is a chance he wouldn’t let me work as hard or would put me on desk detail instead of helping him. He’s never denied me the ability to do what I love before, but I’m afraid if I tell him I’m pregnant, he won’t let me continue working for him. Caspian has always trusted me with my safety. He’s let me make my own choices. He knows I can take care of myself and kick anyone’s butt when need be. He’s never told me I can’t before. That’s what is so great about our relationship: we are a perfect team working together. He’s not my boss. We work together.”
I hate it, but I respect Caspian more for treating his sister this way. My brothers were always too protective of me. Never let me do anything without security and protection. I guess they were right to worry because of where I am now, but maybe if I had had the skills Adela has, I wouldn’t be here.
“But I’m afraid when Caspian finds out I’m pregnant he won’t be able to resist keeping me away from all of this to keep me safe.”
“I won’t tell Caspian. I promise.”
“Thank you. It’s so exciting to tell someone. I’m excited to be a mom, but I love working security.” Her arms go around me before I realize it.
And I melt in her arms. This is exactly what I needed. A hug from a friend.
Caspian might be dark, but there is nothing but warmth in Adela. She loves her brother, and it’s not her fault he has an evil side. I won’t fault her for that. She’s a friend. I just don’t think I can trust her judgment of Caspian.
There is no reason he should have left me with Dante if he could have saved me. If her words are true, there is nothing he could do to ever earn my forgiveness. He might have saved me, but nothing can save him from what he’s done.
13
Caspian
Today sucks.
Worse than sucks. Today destroyed me.
It knocked me on my ass time and time again. Beat me until I have nothing left. Ripped out the tiny bit of strength I have left, leaving me weak and vulnerable.
I need today to be over. It’s gone on far too long. I’ll take a fifth of whiskey to my bedroom and drink until I pass out. Tomorrow will be better. It has to be. I know from experience.
It’s been five years since I lost my will to live. Each year on the anniversary of my life ending, I think it will get better. I plot my revenge thinking this year it will be different. This year, I will finally kill them all for taking my life from me. But instead, I realize I have a tiny bit of life left in me when another piece of it is taken.
I slam my front door, not caring if I startle Michi. He’s used to me coming home angry. He knows not to linger today. He’ll be hidden away in his room. I’m sure he made dinner and left it warming in the oven as always, along with a new bottle of whiskey.
I head to the kitchen. I don’t care about the food, but I need the whiskey.
I exhale when I see the bottle of whiskey on the counter. If I didn’t have the bottle, I wouldn’t survive another second. I smell the chicken warming in the oven, but it makes my stomach churn at the thought of food.
I snatch the bottle off the counter as I stomp to my bedroom, loosening my tie as I walk. In a few more minutes, today will be over. I’ll have drunk enough to wash my memories into oblivion. And I won’t wake until the sun has risen.
I throw my bedroom door open as I kick off my shoes. All I can think about is getting the bottle of whiskey into me as fast as possible. I unscrew the top and lift the smooth bottle to my lips, tilt the bottle up, and begin gulping the liquid, feeling it burn down my throat and welcoming the feeling.
When I lower the bottle though, the pain is still there. I glance at the amount of liquid I drank. Almost a fourth of the bottle. It’s going to be a long night if that amount did nothing to make me numb.
I take a step forward and stub my toe on the corner of my bed.
“Fuck,” I curse, as I toss the bottle of liquid against the wall without thinking.
The bottle shatters as the liquid sprays everywhere in the dark room.
“Caspian?” a tiny voice asks gently from the bathroom.
I close my eyes and grab my head. I forgot Gia was here. Usually, she is all I think about when I’m working. Her breasts bobbing up and down as I push inside her. Her swollen lips begging for me. Her raspy voice as she comes at my command. I can’t get
her out of my head on a normal day.
But today is different. Today, Gia didn’t even exist.
I can’t handle her today. Not today.
I should call Adela and have her take Gia to her house. Or tell Michi to take her to a hotel. I need Gia anywhere but here.
I walk to my ensuite. The door is cracked, and the light peeks through the bottom of the door into the dark bedroom. I never bothered to flip the lights on.
I open the door and step from the darkness into the light of the bathroom. Gia is sunk into the tub with bubbles dancing on the surface, hiding her gorgeous body from me. A candle is lit sitting on the ledge near the tub, along with a glass of red wine and a book.
My mind goes back to the first time I bathed her in the tub. And for a split second, I think I want to join her in the tub and then fuck away the dark memories clouding my mind. It won’t work though. The memories will remain.
When Gia looks up at me, she doesn’t look afraid. Her eyes are big, but more out of concern than fear.
“What happened? I heard a loud crash,” she asks her voice calm.
I ignore her question. She doesn’t need to know I just threw away my only hope at getting any relief tonight. Hopefully, Michi stocked the liquor cabinet well, and I can find another bottle to drink.
“You need to leave,” I say, staring down at her nipples piercing through the bubbles.
She narrows her eyes as she takes the glass of wine off the shelf and brings it to her lips slowly.
“Leave?” she asks calmly.
Her calmness is annoying me. I’m not calm. I know she can feel the rage emanating from me. Her eyes tell me she knows exactly what I’m thinking. She always knows what I’m thinking. It’s the weird connection between us I can’t understand. Like we’ve known each other for a lot longer than the few weeks she’s been here.
“Yes, leave.” I snatch the towel off the hanger and hold it out to her, assuming she will stand and take it from me.
Instead, she flicks her big toe up, playing casually in the bubbles.
“What happened?”
“I need you to leave, Gia. You can sleep in Michi’s room. I’ll get him a hotel room for tonight. I need you away from me.”
She nods, and I think she will agree. “I’ll leave after I finish my bath. I just got in. I was planning on soaking for about an hour while I read my book and finish my wine.”
“No.” I can’t handle her defiance. Not even for a second.
“Then, talk. What. Happened?”
“No.”
I grab her arm and pull her up, shoving the towel around her body.
“Out. Now.” I growl.
She smirks, and her eyes gleam with her defiance. Her dark eyes scan my body looking for a clue to what happened. Her mouth falls open when she finds it.
“Oh my god! You’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing,” I say, although I know it needs stitches. Adela only let me go after I promised I would go to the hospital. But I can’t go to a hospital today. I’ll put a bandage on and go in the morning.
“Out, Gia,” my voice rings out its final warning. I can’t handle being near her for one more second.
She ignores me as her hands pull the buttons of my shirt apart. Her hands go to my wounds, and she carefully examines it.
“You were shot,” she says calmly. Her eyes slowly moving back up from the wound to my eyes.
I don’t answer her. She didn’t question me anyway. She’s been around enough bullet wounds to know the answer without me explaining.
She sees whatever she is searching for in my eyes, and then she steps out of the tub brushing past me and disappearing out of the bathroom. Finally listening to my command.
It’s what I wanted, but I’m left in the cold, empty bathroom by myself, and I suddenly wish she would have continued to disobey me. At least it would give me something to focus on.
“Sit,” her voice rings through the bathroom as she places a first aid kit on the counter.
I sink onto the edge of the tub. I don’t know why I listen to her. Probably because I have no fight left in me.
She opens the first aid kit and starts digging through it. She sighs and pulls a few items out of it.
“The hydrogen peroxide is expired, and there is nothing to stitch the wound closed. Let me clean it for you, and I think I can use these band-aids and gauze to at least stop the bleeding until Michi can get us some better supplies.”
My eyes stay on her body, only a towel covering her naked body. Her hair is pulled up in a bun on top of her head, but a few curls hang down dripping water down onto her chest. The only part of her hair that got wet when she took a bath.
I don’t say anything, and neither does she, as she kneels next to my body so she can examine the wound on my stomach. She pushes my shirt open, and I let it fall off my body.
She takes out the expired peroxide and some gauze.
“This is going to sting,” she warns. Her big eyes fill with something I wasn’t expecting to see. Kindness.
I don’t move as she pours the liquid onto my wound. It doesn’t sting. Maybe on another day, I would feel the burn, but not today. Today I’m too overwhelmed with my grief to feel something as minute as a tiny sting.
Gia bites her lip as she works. Her careful fingers work quickly as she uses the band-aids like a stitch pulling my wound closed. She then takes the gauze and places it with a larger wrapping to protect the wound.
When she finishes, she sits back examining it, but I know she did a good job. The bleeding has slowed and will eventually stop. She did so well I may not even need stitches to keep the wound closed.
She doesn’t ask me what happened. She doesn’t ask how I ended up with a bullet wound.
And I don’t ask how she knows how to heal a wound so well.
We both come from the same world. We know. We both deal with evil every day. We create it and harness it. I don’t have to explain what happened. But the bullet isn’t what is causing my despair. On any other day, I would be angry. I don’t like having my life, or any of my employees’ lives, threatened. But today, it was just a blip on the never-ending pain I feel.
I didn’t even realize I had been shot until Adela pointed it out to me and made me promise I would go to the hospital. At least now that Gia has fixed me up I won’t bleed to death tonight.
We both sit on the edge of the bath for a while, neither speaking or looking at each other. Occasionally she glances at me in the mirror out of the corner of her eye. She wants to say more. I can see it, but she knows I won’t answer.
I can’t answer even if I wanted to.
Slowly Gia stands. She licks her lips, turning to me with a wicked gleam in her eyes.
Any other day I would revel in that look. I would do almost anything to see it. But tonight it does nothing for me.
She drops the towel. I watch as it puddles on the floor.
She clears her throat, and my gaze travels upward over her thin legs that used to be scattered with heavy bruises. Now the bruises have lightened to the point of almost disappearing. The red cuts have turned to thin scars.
My eyes hover for a second over her pussy that appears to already be swollen and dripping. I don’t allow my eyes to linger. If I had sex with her right now, I would destroy her. But as my eyes travel further up over her perky breasts and her red lips, I’m lost to my own darkness.
I couldn’t get my revenge tonight, but I’m desperate to take it out on her. I can’t drink the whiskey, but maybe if I drink her, I’ll be able to forget. If only for a few minutes. Or I’ll pass out afterward from the ecstasy.
“Use me,” she says, her voice strong and determined.
Her words are exactly what I want to hear, but I know if I give in, I won’t be able to hold back. I will ruin her. Destroy her. She will hate me more than she hates Dante.
“No.” My voice rolls through the room bouncing off the walls. It took everything inside me to say it, and I don’t have the str
ength to repeat it. But my voice tells her that. If she doesn’t leave, I will demolish her.
She swallows hard, considering my unsaid words with every breath.
“I want to see your monster.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t think you are one.”
“Last chance.” My voice is heavy with my final warning.
“Show me the darkest part of you. Show me the worst. Show me how bad you truly are.”
She’s testing me. Trying to release me, thinking if the worst part of me is out, then when my best returns, I’ll let her go. It’s a horrible plan because she won’t survive the night.
I grab her smooth, slippery body and force her against the bathroom wall.
She gasps, her mouth wide and open as her head hits the wall roughly bouncing off.
I know it hurt, but the darkness doesn’t care. I like the pain, the suffering, the agony. It matches my own and stops me from feeling alone.
“Your darkness doesn’t scare me.”
“It should.”
I squeeze her neck tightly, watching the tiniest bit of panic in her eyes. But she doesn’t struggle against me. She lets me suck the oxygen from her throat. I squeeze until she is on the verge of panicking. I’ve seen the look in her eyes before.
I saw it the first time she was with Dante. She didn’t fight because it turned him on, but her eyes said she was defiant. She would survive.
She’s wearing the same look now.
An idea forms in my head. A dark and dangerous one.
“Stand here and don’t move.” I turn and walk out of the bathroom, heading to my living room. I pull a security camera from a box I keep under the coffee table and carry it back to the bedroom. I flick the light on but don’t actually turn it on. Gia won’t know that though.
Then, I start gathering everything. A whip, rope, candles, and a knife. I lay them out on the bed so she will see them all when she enters. She wants the worst. She’s about to get it.
“Come here, Gia.”
My voice is loud and dominating, but I don’t yell. And I know Gia will comply. She wants me to hurt her, so she can use it against me to get me to give her up later. She won’t fight me tonight. She wants the worst.