by Mari Carr
“The Grand Master told me to save you.”
“Would you have taken the job if you knew you were bringing me back to be executed? The punishment for disobeying the Grand Master, for breaking the rules, is death.”
“Fair point, I would not have, but if all she wanted was you dead, there are people who specialize in that sort of work.”
Rose frowned, looking away.
“May I wash your hands?”
The frown smoothed off her face and she held out both hands, wincing as she took her arm away from her midsection.
Marek cupped her right hand in his left, turning it palm up before pouring cool, clean water over it. “You may have a broken rib or two.”
“I’ve broken ribs. It doesn’t feel that bad. Maybe they’re just cracked.”
“You must have broken and cracked ribs quite a few times to tell the difference.”
“I lead a dangerous life.”
“What do you do?”
“My broken ribs have had nothing to do with my job.”
“Hobby?”
“No.”
The way she said that single short word—wearily and bitterly—made him back off the subject. He dried the first hand.
“Your friend was killed while trying to steal something for these purists. Was your friend an active member of this group or coerced?”
“Coerced. Same hostage as me.”
“I will admit to being a bit confused as to how this relates to your current situation.” He glanced around. “Why were you kidnapped?”
“I followed the man who killed my…friend—the one who actually fired the gun—down into some tunnels. I had a gun. I shot at him, but the tunnels started to cave in. I didn’t know it, but Wes was following me. He grabbed me out from under the cave-in.”
Marek was starting to realize that this situation was far more complicated than he’d assumed.
“Why was Wes following you?” He used the same shortened name she had.
“Probably to stop me from killing someone.” She shrugged and didn’t meet his eyes.
Marek frowned. “You know him?”
“Yes and no. I knew him a long time ago. He died when I was seventeen.”
“He…died?” Marek glanced at the door at the top of the stairs.
“He looks good for a dead man, doesn’t he?” Rose asked conversationally.
Marek finished cleaning and drying her other hand. He refolded his shirt, finding a clean section and dribbling some water onto it, then handing it to her.
Her fingers brushed his as she accepted the shirt, and Marek drew in a deep breath. He’d been ignoring the way her bare skin felt against his hands, ignoring the tingle of awareness that would only be described as chemistry. Pure chemistry.
Rose wiped her face and neck with the wet cloth. When she was done, she handed him back his shirt. “It’s pretty ruined.”
“It’s just a shirt.” Marek hung it over the corner of the shelves, then he walked to the foot of the steps. “May I sit with you?”
Rose scooted over to the side of the step. Marek carefully sat, trying to keep a bit of distance between them.
That proved impossible when she leaned sideways, her arm against his. She was cold. He didn’t lean away. He even considered putting an arm around her, but that would be inappropriate. Instead he held still, letting her absorb his body heat.
“Rose, my job is to save you. That’s what the Grand Master hired me to do.”
“I thought you were bringing me back to Boston?”
“That’s part of it, but the very last thing she said was that I should save you.”
Rose shook her head. “This situation is so fucked up and messy.” Her head hung. He decided this wasn’t the right time to mention her language.
“I’d like to hear the story,” he said simply.
“What story?”
“Your story. You know Wes. You thought he was dead. You were raised by these purists, but clearly don’t believe what they do if you had to be coerced into helping them. There’s a story there, and I’d like to hear it.”
“All of it?” Her voice was little more than a whisper.
“Yes.”
“I’ve never…” She puffed out her cheeks, then exhaled. “There were nights when it was all too much and I’d tell parts of my story. Always to strangers.”
“I’m a stranger.”
“True.”
He waited. She said nothing. Did nothing—but there was a fine tremble running through her.
“You’re cold; may I put my arm around you?”
Her eyes slid closed and a tear slid down her cheek. “Yes.”
He put his arms around her, trying to give her as much of his body heat as he could.
“You ask me before you touch me,” she whispered.
“Of course.”
“Maybe that’s the best place to start.” She swiped at a second tear. “You see, people don’t ask me before they touch me. That’s who I am.”
“I don’t understand.”
She shifted a little, settling herself more firmly on the step. “I mostly grew up in a boarding school. When I was young I’d spend my breaks with my grandmother. After she died, every so often I’d get to spend time with my mother, but she traveled a lot, so most holidays and summers I spent with the Andersons.”
“The rest of your mother’s trinity?” he guessed.
“No. They were family friends, but members too—Barton, Elroy, and Victoria. They had three kids. Their house was my house. When my mother disappeared on one of her trips, they took me in.”
“Where was the rest of your mother’s trinity?”
“The Hancocks? They wanted nothing to do with me. They’re well connected and both fair. With my coloring, I couldn’t pass for their kid, so I never spent time with them. I’ve only spoken to them a handful of times. But they were friends with the Andersons.”
“A hard way to grow up.”
“Just wait, it gets worse.” She took a deep breath, let it out. “Do you know anything about BDSM?”
This had taken a rather stranger turn, but he answered her question. “Bondage, Domination, Sadism, and Masochism, but I’m afraid that’s all I know.”
“This is about the domination—about masters and submissives.”
“I’m familiar with the general idea,” he said.
“Really? You don’t seem like the type.”
He cleared his throat, a bit of heat in his cheeks. “I’m not a eunuch.”
He’d thought that would make her smile, but her expression didn’t change.
“When I was sixteen, Elroy started training me to be a submissive.”
Marek frowned. He couldn’t have heard that right. “What do you mean?”
Rose sighed, then winced—the sigh probably hurt her ribs. “I mean exactly what you think I mean. I was home for Christmas, but I was the only one there with them.”
“Where were their children?”
“One was away at college, one was…I don’t remember where he was, and the third was in the hospital, but I’ll get to that.
“The second night I was home, as I was about to go up to bed, Elroy—one of the dads—took me to this spare room I’d never been in before—the house was huge.”
Marek’s chest was getting tight with dread. He started rubbing her upper arm with his hand, offering her comfort long after it would have been helpful.
“He gave me the birds and the bees talk, but not the same one everyone else got. He told me about Dominants and submissives. Explained his theory about how every trinity needs a Dom, a submissive, and a switch. He told me that since we already knew who my trinity would be, I would be trained to be a submissive.”
“You were sixteen?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not even legal… Wait a moment, how did you know who your trinity would be? You were barely more than a child.”
“I was betrothed.”
“Betrothed?” She
was probably joking. He wasn’t one for witty banter, and that sometimes led to him playing the straight man for other people’s jokes.
“Trust me, I know how stupid it sounds, but it’s true. I was betrothed. My trinity was decided when I was three or four. It was going to be an internal consolidation of power—three powerful families united by a trinity. The way it was always meant to be.” She waved one hand dramatically, then winced and tucked her arm in against her side. “And, though the Grand Master who arranged the marriage didn’t know this, I was going to be a double agent for the purists.”
“The people you were, er, betrothed to, weren’t purists?”
“I was betrothed to Devon Asher and Juliette Adams.”
It didn’t take him more than a few heartbeats to put it together. “I met Devon, I believe, and Juliette of course. You were going to be married to the Grand Master.”
“Actually, just to the Grand Master’s sister. Juliette’s brother was meant to be Grand Master—but still, being that close to the seat of power would mean the purists could keep getting away with all their bullshit.”
There was a beat of silence, then Rose turned her head and glared. “If you tell me to watch my language I’m going to punch you in the face.”
“Violence isn’t necessary.”
Rose chuckled, and then leaned her head against his shoulder. Marek’s heart flipped over in his chest and his palms started to sweat. Uh-oh.
He cleared his throat once, then again, before saying, “How could these people, who’d essentially raised you, do that to you?”
“Expect me to be a double agent for their terrible cause? That doesn’t even make my top three in the list of terrible things they’ve done.” She was rotating her hands on her wrists, an odd, unsettling gesture, though her head still rested on his shoulder. “Elroy was sure Devon showed all the traits of being a Dom, and Juliette was so stubborn, he decided she’d be a switch. If I was going to be the perfect member of that trinity, I had to be prepared, and he had to start when I was young, because I wasn’t naturally submissive. I wasn’t what anyone would call shy or unsure. I’d been essentially taking care of myself for years.”
That didn’t surprise Marek. Even with what little he’d seen of her, she’d demonstrated herself to be poised and confident.
“When Elroy finished his little speech about how things were going to be, I had no problem telling him he was sick. Tried to storm out of the room.” Her hands stopped moving. She lifted her head from his shoulder and leaned away, speaking in a flat, grave voice, the kind newscasters used when reporting the death toll after a terrorist attack. “He grabbed a paddle, turned me over his knee, yanked down my pants and underwear, and paddled me. There was nothing sexual about it. It was about control. About pain.
“That night, we slept in that spare room—the room where he kept a little stash of toys and equipment. I slept at the foot of the bed, tied up and gagged, wearing all my clothes. I cried. I promised myself that when morning came, I’d go to the police.”
Marek pictured her—a slim teenage version of Rose, with her dark eyes and dark hair, terrified and abused. His hands curled into fists.
“When I woke up, he untied me. I bolted out of there and ran into Victoria. I was freaking out, I told her what had happened. Elroy came into the room and I hid behind her. She screamed at Elroy, but…she wasn’t mad about what he did, but about how he did it. She told Elroy he was traumatizing me. That I’d never be a good sub if I ended up with PTSD.
“I tried to run away a few more times. Once, I even made it to the airport, and when I was there I called my father—Mr. Hancock—and begged him for help. He said he’d call back and hung up. He called Elroy, who came and got me. I was so stunned that I just went with him. Not stunned…heartbroken. Up until then, I still thought my father cared about me. Elroy gave me a phone, told me to call my father, and he told me to obey Elroy and the Andersons, and do exactly what they said.”
Everyone of authority in her life had let her down.
“After a few days of sobbing and pleading, punctuated by beatings, I gave in. I accepted what they said, and I…presented myself to Elroy. On my knees, the way he told me to. In the end, I walked willingly into that room.”
“That wasn’t willing.” Marek’s voice was harder than he’d meant it to be. “Coercion and manipulation are a form of force.”
“I…I know you’re right. I mean intellectually, I know. That I could have kept fighting them, could have done something more. This went on for six months—when I was at their house, I’d go to bed, wait a few hours, then present myself to him in the spare room. It wasn’t sexual at first, but after a month or so, he started raping me too.”
Marek couldn’t stand it any longer. He scooped her up and lifted her onto his lap. He wanted to hold her, protect her.
She was tense, but didn’t protest or push away.
Think about what you just did.
He’d just touched her without permission, handled her as if she were an object rather than a person. Disgusted with himself, he eased her off his lap.
“Rose, I’m so sorry. I meant to comfort you.”
She didn’t react, either to his action or his words. He wasn’t sure what else he could, or should, do or say. There were several moments of silence. Finally, she blew out a long, slow breath and went on with her story, still in that grim, quiet voice.
“Just after I’d turned seventeen, I…we…found out it wasn’t just me.” Those words lingered in the air, cold and heavy. “I’d come home for the summer. I was dreading it, but hadn’t been able to arrange for somewhere else to go. Looking back, I think they made sure I didn’t get accepted at any of the summer programs or jobs I’d applied for. I was at the house alone with them for a week or so before the oldest brother came home.”
A small smile curved her lips. “Here is where I admit that I had a ridiculous crush on him. We’d been…fooling around for years—kid stuff. Kissing, sometimes with tongues, which seemed very scandalous.”
Marek chuckled softly in response to her wry words.
“Saying it was a crush isn’t right. I was stupidly in love with him. I imagined myself as this tragic heroine from literature, in love with one man but promised to marry another. It was all very dramatic.”
“In point of fact, that is very dramatic.”
“I guess so, but once I…once they started training me, I knew I’d never be with him.”
Her voice was weary with old sadness.
“You didn’t tell him?” Marek asked softly.
“Tell him that I was being raped, beaten, and trained by his father?” Her voice dripped scorn. “No. People act like it’s so easy to tell others, but it’s not. Abuse is complicated.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry, Rose.”
“You don’t need to hear this.” She pushed off the steps, keeping her arm wrapped around her ribs.
Marek braced the heels of his hands on the step on either side of his hips, pressing his fingers into the riser of the step below. He felt helpless, and Marek hated that feeling—it was one of the reasons he did what he did. He wanted to help, to fix.
He’d completely mishandled this situation. Mishandled her. He wasn’t entirely to blame. What had seemed like a simple kidnapping recovery mission had turned into something much more. Referring to any kidnapping as simple was perhaps a misnomer, but usually it was a relatively self-contained incident. This was not. Since the time she’d been little more than a child, Rose had been treated as less than. The kidnapping seemed to be just the most recent iteration of that.
“Rose, I’d like to hear the rest. I want to know your story.”
If he was going to save Rose, he had to understand her first.
“No one wants to hear this story.”
“Perhaps ‘want’ is the wrong word. I understand if you’d rather not.”
Rose looked at him, then shook her head. “What is it about you that makes me want to tell you things?�
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Marek didn’t reply. He watched her steadily and calmly. He wouldn’t demand, only ask.
Rose started pacing, walking on the outside edges of her feet. “We were in the kitchen and Elroy walked in. He looked at me, frowned, and then pointed down.” Rose’s breathing was just a bit too fast, an unconscious sign of agitation.
Or remembered fear.
“That was the signal to kneel. When Elroy did that, it meant it was time for me to submit. I froze, looked at…looked at the boy I loved… I’ll never forget it. He wasn’t confused—he was surprised. I realized he knew exactly what that gesture meant. He looked at me, and…”
Rose stopped pacing. She stood eerily still—spine straight, shoulders back—staring into middle distance.
“He knew, which meant he was one of them. I slid off the counter and knelt on the floor. That was the worst moment, because he was supposed to be my knight, the brave prince, but he wasn’t.”
Marek hadn’t thought the ball of dread in his stomach or the ache of sorrow in his heart could grow, but they did. With a terrible certainty, he knew that the story of Rose wouldn’t get better.
“I started crying as I took off my clothes. The boy I loved stormed out of the room. He left me there, with him.”
The hand not supporting her ribs was curling and uncurling in an anxious motion. Part of Marek wanted to tell her to stop—for both their sakes.
“Elroy made me bend over the counter, then tied my hands behind my back, looped rope around my throat and tied it so if I tried to stand up and get away, I’d choke myself. Elroy ordered me to be silent, so when the first lash of his cane opened the skin on the back of my thighs, I bit the inside of my cheek so hard it bled. But I was silent.”
Marek now understood why Rose knew the difference between broken and cracked ribs.
“I looked up and saw the boy I loved standing in the doorway. He was watching his father hurt me.
“The third blow broke me. I couldn’t keep quiet. My mouth was full of blood—I’d bitten my lip and cheek. I remember seeing my own blood on the counter when the pain made me start to gag and I spat out all that blood, all over the pristine counter. I begged Elroy’s forgiveness for disobeying, begged for a few minutes to compose myself. The pain made it impossible to think, to behave the way he’d trained me.”