by Watson, Meg
I could hear Bronson’s teeth grinding together.
“You always said—”
“I think you have work yet to do, hm?” Rafe said smoothly, his eyes cold and impersonal. His hand gestured politely toward the corpse on the table.
Turning toward me again, Rafe glanced me over as though assessing my fitness and attitude before he approached me.
“That must have been terrible for you, Julie. I can’t apologize enough,” he said in a low, controlled voice.
“Rafe, don’t you dare!” Bronson bawled from behind him, but I could only look into Rafe’s deep, bottomless eyes. He was the only certain thing in the room. The only thing that made sense and I reached out yet again for that connection. There. It was a spark, timid and remote, but it was there. I was sure of it.
“Take my hand, Julie,” he said, politely offering his arm to me. “Don’t be afraid to lean on me. But we must hurry now. We have so much to do.”
Gratefully I hooked my arm through his and leaned my shoulder against him as he led me so swiftly through the halls that I had to nearly run to keep up. We paused in the cavernous library and he released me with a small peck to the forehead. I stood there swaying like an untethered buoy for several seconds as he slid a panel back in the wall and punched the code into a keypad that opened the safe. Drawing out two large leather duffels, he glanced back at me with a reassuring smile.
“It's all going to plan, truly. Just bear with me a moment longer, won't you?"
I nodded with more confidence that I actually felt and resumed hurrying behind him as he traced a new path through parts of the house that I had never seen.
“We're… Not taking Bronson with us? Where we’re going?" I said when I had worked up the courage. I wanted to let him know that I understood that we were leaving. That I understood I was coming with him. Of course I was. Hadn't I already promised I was his?
Rafe answered me with a curt nod. He stopped abruptly in the middle of a sunlit hallway that was lined with curved windows on one side overlooking a swimming pool. Somehow I felt a twinge of remorse that we weren't going to be able to swim in the beautiful blue water of that pool. Then he nodded silently to himself as though some small puzzle had been solved, some detail had been satisfied. He resumed his swift pace down the hall and I followed doggedly behind him.
I listened intently for sounds of Bronson behind us. At any moment I expected him to arrive in the hallway, calm and completed with whatever task he had remaining to do with Rachel's body. I didn't think he was going to let us go that easily.
You have no idea what I can do. That's what he said.
I wanted to ask Rafe if he really believed Bronson would stay behind, but swallowed the words before I could get them out. Too many questions and I risked his anger. I had to trust that he knew what he was doing.
As we rounded another corner, Rafe's fingers slapped the wall, bringing a bank of overhead lights suddenly to life. We were in what looked like a warehouse or showroom but lined with large doors on one side. Apparently it was a garage, occupied with at least a half dozen gleaming, new-looking cars, some of which I didn't even recognize.
There was a Hummer and a Porsche emblem on some kind of car I had never seen before. Two blood-red sports cars sat at diagonal angles to each other. And then there was the black SUV that Rafe had been driving. My breath caught in my throat.
“Oh, how insensitive of me,” Rafe muttered as his eyes darted to the SUV and then back to me. “I'm sure you must understand, that's the best vehicle for our needs today. I will happily exchange it for something with less… attachment. As soon as possible.”
I raised my hands as if the whole thing meant nothing. I simply brushed the thought away.
“It's all right," I stammered. “Think nothing of it. Just tell me what I need to do.”
Suddenly he dropped the leather satchels to the concrete floor and swept me into his embrace. He buried his lips in my hair, holding me tightly so that I could feel his heart pounding in his chest.
“Oh, Julie,” he whispered into my hair. “You're going to make me so happy."
I nodded my agreement as he pulled away, picking up the bags again and thumbing the button on a set of keys to open the rear liftgate. He tossed the bags into the back and then swept around to the passenger side, gallantly flinging open the door and gesturing that I should sit inside the car.
Taking the hand he offered, I climbed into the cavernous black vehicle, willing my heartbeat to slow down. My whole body seem to break out in a slippery thin sweat as he closed the door, locking me inside. I looked at the driver side window expectantly and couldn't help but breathe a small sigh of relief when his face appeared at the doorway. He knitted his brows in concentration and flung open the door, sliding gracefully into the driver seat. With a push of a button the engine sprang to life, purring like a big cat. The overhead door in front of us began to rumble as it rose.
My hands were balled into sweaty fists against the leather seat and I shoved them under my thighs so he wouldn't see. But he knew anyway.
“It's going to be all right, Julie,” he said reassuringly.
“Rafe…”
He stared at the overhead door as it rose, apparently not quickly enough for his satisfaction. Then he glanced at me and took a breath to focus his attention on me.
“Ah, yes. Your question, am I right?"
I nodded.
“I did promise you that. Ask me.”
For a few long seconds I searched for exactly the right words to say. I could see his patience crumbling to powder, and he began tapping the top of the steering wheel with his long, thick fingers.
“Rafe…”
“Yes, Julie,” he said, his irritation beginning to show. “Please ask it, please."
I reached along the connection between us, trying to feel him. I found it: the electrical buzz of the current that bounced back and forth between our eyes.
“Rafe, is it over?”
He opened his mouth as if to answer, then closed it. His chin tipped back and he narrowed his eyes, letting his breath through his nostrils in a long sigh. My heartbeat raced. Then he pursed his lips as the overhead door motor ground to a halt. He glanced out the windshield and then moved in his seat, facing his body toward the driveway. Without another word, he shifted the SUV into drive and we began to roll away.
EPILOGUE
He's not struggling. In fact, he is sleeping so peacefully that I almost don't want to wake him. His breath flutters through his chest with a low, relaxed grumbling sound.
I want him to wake up because I want him to look around, to see all this. It's not the chapel, not really. Ironically, it is a church. An old, white clapboard building with a proper steeple on a proper hillside in the middle of nowhere. I don't even know where we are. At first I didn't really think it mattered much and didn't bother to find out but soon I realized it was actually better not to even know. More discreet.
And yet it couldn't have been more perfect, to chance upon this abandoned building one day. A new sort of chapel. Almost like a gift from the heavens, if you believe in that sort of thing.
I walk around metal table, checking the locks on the rubber casters at the bottom of the gurney. This floor is wide wooden planks and so I laid several layers of clear plastic over it. That is perhaps the most unfortunate compromise. Wood where there should be porcelain, dark colors where there should be white. But overall, I find the space to be peculiarly appropriate. Satisfying.
His hands relax in the cuffs, palms up. In the strong overhead light, the tips of his fingers are almost translucent. Waxy. Tinged with crimson where the light pierces the flesh.
I never wanted it to end like this. But looking back, I should have known it was inevitable. You can't fight your nature. Not forever.
He makes a small noise, a whistling that comes through his nose and sounds almost plaintive. Almost charming. Reminds me of a sound a small animal might make. Some dependent, newborn thing just snuffl
ing in the dark, looking for something to eat or something warm to be near.
That's all right. That's nature. If he had only really understood his nature, we wouldn't have ended up on this twisted path. He wouldn’t have had to lie to me. Everything could have been easier. He thought he was so smart, arranging the ambush, setting up a house of cards he thought would crash around my ears.
But I am still here.
The world is full of people who don't know what they are. Predators who've been trained to think like prey. Who roll over and beg at the smallest sign of jeopardy. Who won't even try to take what's rightfully theirs. And prey who think they're predators. They don't even know: they're just food.
There is a chapter in the Tao te Ching about an ox butcher. When he first began, he sharpened his cleaver once a month. After 10 years, he sharpened his cleaver once a week. And after 50 years, a lifetime, and thousands upon thousands of oxen, he never had to sharpen his blade again. He was so attuned to the nature of his work and his own ability and needs that his blade simply slipped through the animal as though it was following a lighted trail.
What dulled the blade was the butcher’s struggle. When the blade met the bone the wrong way, it blunted it. But as the butcher grew to understand the interior of the beast, he stripped away all obstruction. His act became perfection.
Which is not to say that simply acknowledging your role or your nature is perfection. Perfection means practice. It requires thoughtful action, knowing and recognizing obstructions and removing them one by one. Eliminating the gristle that threatens to blunt your blade from your life.
But I digress.
I take a deep breath, letting out out slowly, feeling my weight settle into my core and balancing everything along my midline. I don't want anything to go wrong with what's to come.
Slowly, relishing the sound of the small casters against the plastic sheeting, I draw the table closer to the gurney. I pick up the clear IV bag and loop it over the stand, smiling when the light refracts through the liquid and splits into a halo, into a rainbow.
The needle is silent as I push it through the small bluish bulge at the crook of his elbow. I snip off 4 inches of white medical tape and secure the plastic tubing against his forearm, then click open the gate and let the fluid begin to flow.
I can hardly stand it. I can't wait to see his face.
I didn't cover his eyes. I didn't gag him either. I wouldn't want to miss a word that he had to say, and I want to see the look in his eyes when he opens them for the first time.
After a few seconds his breath turns to a groan. He inhales sharply and then scowls at what was probably a jab of pain to his ribs. I feel badly about that and I have can't help but glance at the spreading purple stain, bigger than a handprint, that stretches across his rib cage.
He's getting very close now. I can see his jaw going little slack, and the line between his lips darkening as he tries to pry them apart. His eyes move under his closed lids, back and forth, back and forth.
I can hardly stand it. I want to say something but I don't want to break the silence. I want him to do it.
He can't move his head under the band that stretches tightly across his forehead. Instead of opening his eyes, he closes them even tighter for a few seconds. His mouth opens and closes and the corners twist downward.
His body is coming back to life, I know it. I know this feeling. But he knows I'm here. He knows I'm watching him and he's trying not to let me enjoy it.
Let me. Open your eyes.
His heels begin to drum against the stainless steel surface. I can't even glance that way because I am completely fascinated by his face. His cheeks puff slightly as his breath quickens. His skin gleams softly as small beads of sweat gather on his upper lip.
I lean closer.
Finally his eyelids flutter. His lashes unstick themselves from where they lay so long against his cheeks. Immediately his eyes are rolling, rolling, scanning the room frantically. I wait. I breathe deeply. After long seconds, he finally looks right at me. He looks at me for a long time.
“Rafe,” he says, his voice a gravelly, dusty noise.
“Yes,” I say, nodding. I push the sweaty auburn ringlets back from his brow and try to smile, just a little. Not too much. “He'll be here soon, don't you worry. But for now, why don't we just have a little chat? I have so much to say to you.”
Thank you so much for reading HIS CAPTIVE. I hope you will consider leaving a review? As an indie writer I really appreciate all the support you show us!
As a special thanks, please turn the page to continue reading the bonus book “Her Stepbrother’s Demands” for free! Thank you!
BONUS BOOK
HER STEPBROTHER’S DEMANDS
Her Dark Desires, Book 1
Meg Watson
I HUDDLED CLOSE BEHIND Gabbie and Riley, inching up slowly every time they allowed someone behind the velvet rope. A bouncer balanced a clipboard on top of his broad belly and looked every group up and down with arched, derisive eyebrows and a pursed-lip scowl before allowing them to enter.
Gabbie and Riley continued chattering incessantly about which partners at our law firm they were just about to sleep with. Each story sounded more implausible than the one before it, like it was an extended game of slutty one-upmanship. I let my breath out noisily with my cheeks puffed out.
“It’s almost us,” I ventured, gesturing at the velvet rope that hung between us and the club entrance.
Gabbie broke off a story about Trent, the recently promoted head of New Business and his dreamy blue eyes and glanced back at me, then up to the bouncer.
“Yep,” she sighed impatiently, and I could hear that I was dismissed. She leaned her blonde head toward Riley to continue comparing notes on their coital fairy tales where they both got the promise of some Prince Charming, each more passionate and committed than the one before.
It was always the same story with those two. They had their hungry eyes fixed on whomever looked to be the fastest rising star at the firm. They each considered themselves to be the superior prize, but they didn’t seem to realize they hadn’t won anything. The partners were only too happy to make them whatever phony promises they needed to unlock their panties, but nothing more.
Since I was in IT, I was invisible. I slipped in and out of offices, overhearing the other side of each of these stories. In fact Trent had just been telling Wilkes about Gabbie’s sloppy, ineffectual blowjob style this afternoon while I was under his desk, restarting his wireless hotspot. Wilkes still professed to be open to letting Gabbie go down on him, though he had no interest in her after that. I bet that wasn’t what he was going to tell her.
Sometimes I wondered if I should let them know what the partners really thought of them, but every time I got close I remembered what they thought of me. I was just the nerd they let hang out with them in case they needed a sober ride home or an alibi. I had enough dirt on both of them, they probably felt like they had to keep me close just to keep me quiet.
The fact that my stepfather owned the firm probably had something to do with their phony friendship too, though they let it be painfully clear that they were mystified I even had a job. What they didn’t realize was that it wasn’t my family’s money, it was his. My mother married into it but started telling me when I was 15 that I wasn’t entitled to a penny. Truth be told, that was fine with me. I liked working and considered myself lucky to have found a sweet position with a reputable private company right out of high school. Even if it was my stepfather’s company.
But that didn’t make the social landscape at the law firm any easier for me. Their disdain was transparent and pervasive, like a foul odor. Gabbie seemed to always speak to me with a sneer in her voice, and Riley rolled her eyes so much it was a wonder she didn’t give herself whiplash.
I was going to be left behind again, I just knew it. If I was lucky I would make it past the velvet rope with them, but once we got to the door, they would find a way to ditch me. It happened all t
he time.
The air was still warm, but not stifling. It was a nice, comfortable September night and it looked like every yuppie for miles had turned out to wait in line. I scanned the queue for faces I knew in case I needed a ride home or a convenient bit of conversation. There was not a familiar face in the lot. Shiny yuppie expressions with shiny yuppie hair stared back at me without recognition, just like at the office.
I am the invisible girl. Don’t mind me. I turned back around, sighing.
The bass from the sound system poured out the door like honey every time someone opened it. Sexy house music vibrated my belly and the chain straps around my ankles. I found my hips swivelling in time, and then tried to keep still.
Riley shot me a look. “Easy there, Madonna,” she chuckled. “Don’t give them the whole show for free.”
I shrugged. It was her longstanding joke: that I was some kind of refugee from a nerdy high school musical. I couldn’t help it that I was taller and curvier than she was, or that I enjoyed the music. She looked like a tennis player, all shoulder muscles and fried hair.
Gabbie rolled her eyes, mirror image. They dressed nearly alike in pencil skirts and tanktops with a slit cut in the cleavage. Still, eventually some guy would find them attractive, or at least available, and offer to give them the attention they knew they were owed by some divine right.
I guess being ditched wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. When I really thought about it, I hated them right back.
A flash of blue caught my eye, and I watched a man stride confidently along the crowd to the bouncer, who gave him a nod of recognition. He wore a tight one-button jacket and narrowly tailored trousers. His silvery shirt looked soft and fluttery in the light of the streetlamps as he walked. When he leaned his head toward the bouncer, I bit my lip in surprise.
It was William Dacosta. As in Dacosta and Dacosta. That William Dacosta.
My mouth fell open and I snapped it closed, craning my neck for another look. Could that really be him? His hair was pushed back in a softly shining wave of dark blonde curls. As I watched, he tucked a strand behind his ear. I knew that gesture, those hands. That was William.