Laughing Eyes: Bittersweet Familia (3)

by Melissa Jane

  Having none of it, his hand seized my jaw jerking my face to meet his.

  “Open,” he instructed with a low growl.

  Squeezing my eyes tighter, I refused to obey.

  “Open!” he repeated, but I simply didn’t want to see him above me. I didn’t want the visual memory in my head.

  As punishment, he smashed his pelvis against mine, his length igniting a fiery pain through my core. A sob mixed with a tortured scream erupted from my mouth, my tears seeping between his fingers and my cheeks.

  Surrendering to Nicolas’s will, I opened my eyes, his thrusting now falling back into a rhythm with my compliance.

  The hint of light from the moon flicked in his malevolent eyes.

  Like me, he was trapped. While my world only existed of nothing but hurt, his world was made for moments like these. He relished within its confines, its impenetrable walls so carefully constructed.

  He truly was a monster.

  As he moved inside me, his lips met mine. It was such a delicate kiss. An act so in contrast to his intentions.

  This time, his hand cupped my cheeks gently, his thumb working gentle circles. His words were poison “You look so much more beautiful broken!”

  ***

  An eternity passed.

  Nicolas consumed me. He took control of my body, stripping me of all dignity, banishing what little pride I had left. He revelled in it, each touch, every thrust, a painful reminder that he could do as he pleased. That he could destroy me, just like he had said he would.

  When he had finally finished, his evidence running down my thighs, his hands moved the length of my extended arms before untying the restraints. I had lost all feeling in my upper body, my lower half screaming in agony.

  Nicolas kissed the last tears from my weary, puffy eyes. How could his tenderness be so destructive? Every intimate gesture was just front lining his desire to ruin me.

  “Do you know why I did that to you, Anjo?” His husky voice was velvety smooth.

  “No,” I sounded weak, broken.

  “You lied to me.”

  “No, I didn’t.” I shook my head vehemently denying the accusation. All this over a misunderstanding? How had I lied?

  “Oh, but you did. I told you from the very start I have no tolerance for lying.”

  “I didn’t, I promise you.”

  “I asked you what my man had said.”

  “And I told you!”

  A small smirk played on his lips as everything the man had said to me on the stairs played over in my head. One line slammed into me like a boulder. Four measly words I didn’t repeat were used against me.

  “Yes, Anjo.” He confirmed as if reading my thoughts.

  He had spent the last how many hours toying with me because I didn’t tell him it was what I had heard.

  He made me live out the exact punishment I had kept to myself.

  Anna

  The water streamed from the showerhead, the pressure relaxing my constantly tense body. I had woken from an hours sleep, greeted by the orange and pink glow of the sun as it rolled over the hills. Nicolas had left me not long after and returned with a towel granting me the freedom to tidy myself up.

  Turning up the temperature, I allowed the heat to warm my chilled bones in this forever freezing house. I scrubbed my body raw, trying to erase the touch of a man who took at will.

  Rinsing myself, the water was heaven as it massaged my face. That all changed in a split second. My skin prickled, a chill running down my spine, my breathing at a standstill. I could feel him.

  Tanned arms circled my waist, a hand gently cupping my breast. I stared ahead at the textured tiles, watching the water droplets form rivers. I was too scared to move, too frightened to blink. He was fully dressed in the shower, his face unshaven, stubble against my cheek heightening my distress. To anyone watching it would have looked like a romantic gesture. To me, I knew better.

  “You are putting me through hell,” he mouthed, tracing his lips down my neck. “You have made me feel …”

  I didn’t want him to finish.

  “You’ve made me feel like a person,” For a moment he sounded tormented by his own words. “I fucking hate it!” Fisting my hair, he wrenched my face up and twisted an arm behind my back. A strangled cry escaped my lips. “You will see just what fate your lover has made for you with his persistent fucking intrusion.”

  The rapid stream of water was slamming me in the face. What had felt like a caress earlier now felt like I was being peppered with bullets. The hand on my breast squeezed hard, my nipple caught in a vice-like grip. Wincing against the pain, my hands wrapped around his offending arm in an attempt to free myself. It was futile.

  I was confused. I hadn’t done or said anything so why was he becoming violent so suddenly again? Feeling stupid, I knew the answer. He didn’t need a reason. Nicolas Blanco was a tormenter, a murderer of the sickest degree. A man like him didn’t need an excuse.

  “It’s a shame really,” he continued, his voice laced with venom. “His heroism will ultimately be his curse.”

  The shower came to an abrupt stop and just as suddenly Nicholas stepped away from me. Looking down at my throbbing breast, I watched the deep purple slowly start to fade, the blood rush slipping away. Turning to face him my cheeks aflame with humiliation, his eyes raked the length of my body. His business like attire was now saturated, his dress shirt clinging to his muscles.

  “You have thirty seconds to dry and dress.” Grabbing a towel from the rail, he threw it at me casting one last salacious look over my body. “Tick tock, Anjo.”

  ***

  I slipped my nightie back over my head and towel dried my hair. His scent was still on the fine fabric making my skin feel immediately dirty again. Nicolas was in the room stripping his clothes off, his back to me, totally unconcerned that I was there. Drying himself he changed into a crisp set of clothes similar to the last.

  Discarding the towel, a hand circled my upper arm pulling me through the door.

  “You don’t want to be late do you?” His tone chilled me to the bone. He wasn’t revealing anything that was happening. I gathered it had something to do with Danny and I fought back the sob that threatened to destroy my resolve.

  Downstairs had a handful of men dressed in full black carrying a range of Glocks and sniper guns. They went about their hurried business, barely noticing Nicolas and I.

  The bald man appeared from the kitchen, a concerned expression masking his typically bland face.

  “It’s a no go,” he said not elaborating on the point. Whatever he was referring to, Nicolas understood. He looked to me, his irritation clear.

  “Are we set for everything else?” His eyes hadn’t left mine as he asked, full blame of the situation placed squarely on me.

  “It is, and very soon,” was all bald man said in response. I didn’t understand their cryptic conversation. They were holding back from revealing the truth to me.

  Nicolas’s grip tightened on my arm and when I flinched a slight smile pulled at his lips.

  “Take her back up to the room,” he ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” His man took my arm and led me back the way we came. From what had just transpired I gathered that not everything was running to Nicolas’s plan. It was a strange sense of hope I was willing to hold on to.

  “I suggest you keep your head down,” he said quietly.

  “What is happening?”

  All that hope I built up was suddenly dashed. He looked at me, a glimmer of pity in his eyes.

  “Just stay low. You will understand why.”

  With that he left me, locking the door behind him.

  ***

  I sat slumped on the ground next to the bed looking out into the distance at the freedom I craved. It was a beautiful day and the sun was already set high in the sky. It had been hours since I last heard anything. I didn’t quite know what I was expecting to happen or if it was in the process of happening.

  My thoughts were
soon interrupted, gunshots piercing the silence. They were loud and close and I knew then that I needed to heed the bald man’s warning and keep low. Flattening myself on the ground, I held my arms over my head. I listened for a long time to the sporadic sprays of machine guns and the yelling in both Spanish and English. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest it hurt. Somewhere in the house windows smashed one after another, this time followed by screams of agony.

  The floor beneath me shook, an explosion causing a terrified scream of my own. I started to pray to whoever would listen that it would soon be over.

  Two shiny shoes stopped before me, but I had nowhere to scurry to.

  “Get up,” Nicolas’s voice instructed. Grabbing my hand he pulled me to my feet, a smear of blood running down his temple.

  “What’s happening?”

  “The moment we have all been waiting for.”

  His hand snaked around my throat holding me close, his dead eyes frightening. A snarl twisted his face before his lips smashed on to mine. The force of it hurt, the taste of blood on my tongue, yet I could feel the desperation behind it.

  The violence of the outside world was coming closer, the noise almost deafening. Forcing me onto the bed, Nicolas sat behind me, his hand still gripping my neck. He was waiting for something, someone. I was too petrified to move, the involuntary shake rippling through me.

  I could feel his warm breath on my cheek as he inched closer.

  “There is something about destroying you that gets me off.”

  Danny

  “Aiden, come in. Can you hear me?”

  Nothing, the line was dead. Not for the first time in the last two days, panic tore through me. Not much got under my skin, except for now with the realization that things were beginning to spiral out of control.

  Taking a gamble, I approached the house which up until ten minutes ago, had been teeming with armed guards. The first level was in complete disarray. Glass lay shattered over the floor, violent splatters of blood staining the broken furniture. Bodies lay slumped over makeshift barricades, victims of my own bullets.

  Upstairs, a woman’s cry and a man’s raised voice sounded my alarm. My stomach was betraying me, the dreaded thought of what I would find twisting my insides.

  It all came down to now.

  To complete the mission, end the savagery cultivated by one man and ensure Anna made it home safe.

  I took the stairs two at a time, my Glock poised, ready, and expecting. Muffled cries of desperation filtered down the hall like an attack on the senses, a slightly ajar door my main focus. Stopping in my tracks, I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply. The small voice pleading and begging behind the wall was breaking my heart. I knew it was Anna. I knew she had been hurt. It was an awful gut-wrenching feeling that perhaps I was too late.

  “Peters!” A deep male voice, one full of self-righteous pride called out, pulling me from my vengeful thoughts.

  “Come in and claim your beautiful prize.”

  ***

  Nudging the heavy door with my boot, it creaked open making my presence known. Nicolas knew I was here. He had a fucking scent like a wolf. Over the last day my mind had imagined a lot. I was guilty of possibly imagining the worst at times, preparing me for what I would find courtesy of a sadist. But nothing compared to this. Nothing could set the fear running through one’s veins quite like this.

  “Danny!” Anna’s petrified voice shook all my nerve. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she clawed desperately at the arm wrapped around her neck. El Leon looked a picture of evil, his sharp as fuck hunting knife drawing a path of blood just under her ear.

  A pained sob broke free from her sweet mouth, my world coming to a crashing halt. In that very moment, all color drained from my face, my palms sweaty.

  For all it was worth, my gun was trained at his smug face. He was playing it clever, carefully concealing himself behind Anna, knowing that the first chance I had he would be wearing one or more of my bullets.

  But I couldn’t shoot.

  The terrified plea in the beautiful pair of eyes before me had me rendered useless. He wanted me to shoot. He wanted me to miss and hit Anna. I stared back, pleading my own message to her. I wanted to say everything would be ok. I wanted her to believe she would survive this, that we would have a future together.

  “You don’t look happy to see her?” El Leon’s voice was hard, mocking, his eyes taunting me, knowing he had the upper hand.

  “Let her go,” my finger twitched on the trigger.

  “You are quite the marksman, Peters. I could use a man like you on my side.”

  “What do you want?” Somehow I knew it wasn’t about recruiting me into his death squad. I looked to Anna and my heart constricted, her fear drowning all hope. She was trying desperately to stay strong, but her whimpers betrayed her.

  With her being used as a shield, a knife to her throat, I couldn’t take the chance. The window of opportunity was slim to none.

  “It’s a little too late to ask what I want, isn’t it Peters? What I wanted was for you to fuck off out of my business.”

  “This is my job, don’t take it personally.”

  “And arms production is my job, soldier, and I just so happen to take every bit serious. Including the part when an exquisite young woman such as this walks into my presence,” he pressed the knife into Anna’s neck, leaving her begging for mercy.

  I had lost my breath. Somewhere it was lodged in my chest refusing to expel.

  “Hurting Anna isn’t going to change things!”

  He considered my words for the briefest moment, a sly smile creeping onto his face. “I happen to think it’s going to change things a great deal, don’t you? I think you are forgetting just how much you owe me. You’ve destroyed all I have worked for. If I weren’t the one it was happening to, I would congratulate you on your efforts. Fact of the matter is, I am your target, and therefore you have become mine.”

  “This has nothing to do with Anna,” I knew my reasoning was falling on deaf ears. I was stalling, knowing that he was edging closer to the punch line.

  Nicolas sighed heavily, his face slipping into a dreamlike state. “I’ve grown rather fond of her, you know.” The knife slid further causing another rivulet of blood, his other hand out of sight. Anna winced, her teeth bared, skin glistening with sweat. “Her taste, the way she feels around me,” This time, his taunting eyes looked to mine, “She knows just what to do to satisfy my…particular needs.”

  His sickening words cut to the bone and were only reinforced by the fresh new tears gliding down Anna’s cheeks.

  What had he put her through?

  His words ate away at my raw nerves, Anna’s distress ripping me further apart. “You fucker!” the words escaped as a low growl.

  Anna squirmed as Nicolas leaned in mouthing something in her ear, his cold blue eyes trained on me the whole time.

  “Don’t, please,” she begged to the man who only pulled her in tighter, an urgent warning to me flashing across her pained face.

  In a moment of confusion, two gun shots exploded in the room. Ducking to the side, I was too late. The impact of Nicolas’s bullets pierced my shoulder, my gun falling on impact, Anna’s desperate screams echoing with the blast. A fiery heat assaulted my body, blood running down the length of my arm, dripping onto the plush cream carpet.

  “Don’t even!” he hissed as I moved to collect my Glock, “Kick it.”

  I hesitated in doing something that would leave me completely defenceless. With a knife to Anna’s throat and a gun pointed straight at me, I had little choice and it destroyed me on the inside knowing that I was falling short of the game.

  He cocked an amused brow, “You’re not in a position to argue, marine. Kick your fucking gun!”

  The muscle in my jaw twitched uncontrollably, the desire to destroy this man in the worse possible way filled my soul. Doing as he ordered, I watched as my weapon landed just shy of his feet. Nicolas’s eyes were exactly as the gypsies h
ad described.

  Cold.

  Empty.

  Dangerous.

  Yet what I saw creep into them in that very second of my surrender chilled me to the core. Nothingness was replaced by something far worse.

  Laughter.

  El Leon, known as the emotionless monster, was laughing.

  Anna

  Danny had come for me after all.

  He was going to save me from Nicolas and take us away from a place that was close to destroying everything we believed in.

  But that wouldn’t be the case. I could see it etched on his face, his eyes bearing the heavy weight of sadness and fear.

  The knife pressed harder against my neck, skin tearing beneath its blade, the pain unbearable.

  When I winced, so did Danny. As tears fell down my cheeks in what seemed like an endless stream, he swallowed the heavy lump in his throat just to take another breath.

  I had known Danny for less than a month, but I loved him. I loved everything about the man who had risked his own life to save me. In a flash I was taken back to the first moment we met, caught in a derelict house not knowing the fight Nicolas has in store for us. The vulnerable man who now stood before me, I planned to spend my life with.

  It wasn’t meant to be.

  Fate was not smiling at us from above. It had long since abandoned this hell, leaving two love struck beings to bear the hurt of being torn apart.

  I knew it.

  Danny knew it!

  Danny

  The obnoxious mocking laugh filled the room, trapping us within its taunts. Using his fist, El Leon pushed Anna’s face to meet his, holding her head in an awkward embrace, his mouth possessively claiming hers in a vile display of dominance. He pulled away, a self-righteous smirk gloating his win before he whispered again into her ear.