Cruel Paradise (Beautifully Cruel Book 2)

by J. T. Geissinger

  He’s totally dispassionate. Emotionless. This is only a job for him. I’m nothing more than a means to an end. He probably doesn’t even see me as human.

  Behind my back, my hands shake so badly I can’t curl them to fists.

  “January twenty-eighth, nineteen-ninety-five. New York Presbyterian Hospital, Manhattan.”

  “State your mother’s maiden name and the name of your favorite childhood pet.”

  I have to use the toilet. My bladder is so full it feels like it will burst. “Elizabeth Bushnell. Pippi Longstocking.”

  The blinding white lights shift to reveal the shadow of a man behind the video camera. The camera is on a tripod. Three more men stand to one side, silently observing. I can’t see their faces, but I feel their eyes on me. I feel their focus.

  One of them has a short leather whip in his hand.

  I start to hyperventilate. Breathing in squares does nothing to help.

  Killian. I’m so sorry. I was an idiot. I was a fool.

  If I could see him right now, I’d tell him that none of it matters. His secrets, his past, his whole life—I don’t care. All I care about is how I feel when he looks into my eyes.

  All I care about is him.

  No matter who. No matter what.

  Just him.

  “Say hello to your father, Juliet.”

  My eyes are full of water. I blink rapidly to clear them. My pulse is like the roar of the ocean in my ears. I whisper hoarsely, “Addio, papa.”

  Addio is the formal way in Italian of saying goodbye to someone you believe you’ll never see again. It’s what I was trained to say in this situation if I felt that the odds of my survival weren’t good. A code to let my rescuers know they needed to hurry.

  It’s what I said to my mother’s closed casket the day they lowered her into the ground.

  All the little pieces of her they could scrape together.

  The man behind the camera steps forward. His head is shaved. He’s wearing all black. A skull tattoo covers his Adam’s apple.

  He puts a hand on my shoulder and shoves.

  I crash backward. My head hits the floor with a horrible dull thud. I gasp in pain, instinctively rolling to my side, but the man grabs my tied ankles and whips a plastic cable tie around them, binding my feet to one leg of the chair.

  I lie on my back with my feet in the air staring up into darkness, panting, convinced I’m about to die.

  But death isn’t what they’ve got planned for me. At least not yet.

  For now, it’s a little light torture.

  I hear the zizz of the whip cutting through the air a split second before it hits my flesh. The tender, unprotected flesh of the sole of my right foot, between the ball and the heel.

  The pain is worse than fire. Worse than a hot metal brand pressed against my skin. It’s searing. Stabbing. It goes through me like a spear. I jerk violently, but I don’t scream. Not then. Then I still have hope that it might be over quickly.

  The man with the whip extinguishes that hope with ruthless efficiency.

  As the camera rolls, he lashes the soles of both of my feet over and over again, until my flesh is shredded and bloody and my screams are so loud, they drown out the sound of his laughter.

  Sometime later, when I swim up into consciousness through a throbbing red sea of misery, I find myself in a room. A cramped room dug out of the earth with no windows and no doors, and only an empty metal pot for—I assume—a toilet. The ceiling is an iron grate, about twelve feet above me.

  Okay, it’s not a room. Technically, it’s a hole in the ground.

  It’s a dungeon.

  I look around, fighting panic.

  On the plus side, there will be no chance of developing a pesky case of Stockholm Syndrome, because unless one of my captors jumps down here with me for a chat and some brainwashing, it looks like I’m going to be in solitary confinement for the foreseeable future.

  On the downside…it’s a dungeon.

  I sit up, surprised to find my hands and ankles unbound. I’ve still got my clothes on, which is another plus. But judging by the state of my feet, I won’t be able to walk for a while, much less run away.

  Not that it matters in any case, because there’s no way out of here unless someone lowers a ladder.

  I peer up at the bars of the grate, wondering if they’ve sent the video to my father yet.

  Then I decide I have to pee.

  I discover quickly that being unable to walk is a big hindrance to going to the bathroom. Or using a pee pot, as it were.

  When I’m done rolling around in the dirt and cursing, I spend several horrified minutes wondering what the hell I’m going to do when I have to go number two. I can’t crouch, and there’s no toilet paper. Things are going to get ugly, fast.

  I get distracted by the sound of shuffling from above.

  “Head’s up.”

  It’s the one who whipped me.

  I sit silently against the wall with my legs folded to one side, staring up at him. I’m careful to keep my expression neutral and not glare. I don’t want a follow-up performance of his whipping technique.

  He lifts a small square in the grate and lowers a red plastic bucket attached to a rope.

  When it comes in contact with the dirt floor of the cell, he jiggles the rope, releasing the bucket. He retracts the rope, closes the grate, and leaves without another word.

  I crawl over to the bucket. In it, I find two bottles of water, aspirin, a protein bar, a banana, and a thin wool blanket folded into a square. There’s also a pack of baby wipes, a tube of antibiotic ointment, and a pair of white athletic socks.

  I’m not stupid or stubborn enough to refuse these gifts. I know I need to keep up my energy, so I scarf down the power bar and the banana. I pop four aspirin and guzzle a bottle of water. Wincing and gritting my teeth, I clean the bottoms of my lacerated feet with the baby wipes, then apply the ointment.

  Then I put on the socks and sit back against the wall.

  If I thought jail was good for serious thinking, a hole in the ground is a thousand times better. And it all keeps coming back to Killian.

  The possibility that I might never see him again is far more agonizing than my feet.

  I must fall asleep, because I wake up with a jerk in total darkness. For a moment of sheer, blinding panic, I think I’m dead. But then I smell cigarette smoke and look up.

  Someone sits smoking in darkness above me.

  I stay silent. He told me not to speak unless spoken to: this could be a test.

  After what seems an eternity, he says, “You did good. No crying. No begging. They always cry and beg. Even the men.”

  It’s pitch black, so I feel safe flipping him the bird with both hands while baring my teeth. But I keep my tone mild when I answer.

  “Thank you.”

  His voice drops an octave. “I like the way you scream.”

  Inhale for four counts. Hold it for four counts. Exhale for four counts. Hold it for four counts. Start over again.

  After another long pause, he says, “Your father’s a hard man to get a hold of.”

  Oh shit. My mind goes a million miles an hour, scrambling for anything to offer him. He’s clearly telling me they haven’t been able to make contact with my father yet. He hasn’t seen the video yet.

  They don’t have their money yet, or whatever it is they’re after.

  And the longer they can’t contact him, the longer I rot in this hole.

  “It’s August. He’s probably on his yacht.”

  Silence. He smokes, waiting.

  “He takes three weeks every August to sail around the islands of Croatia. The name of the yacht is Penetrator.”

  He snorts in derision.

  I agree. My father is many things, but he’s not a romantic.

  I hear a creak above me, like my captor is leaning forward in his chair. If he’s even in a chair. Maybe those are the bolts in his neck making the noise.

  “Okay. We find this
yacht of daddy’s, you can come up out of the hole. We find out you told me a lie, we fill up the hole with dirt.”

  He leaves me alone with only darkness and my own growing fear for company.

  For the longest time, I hear nothing. No one comes to tell me anything. I’m so hungry my stomach starts nibbling at itself around the edges. I’ve finished the other bottle of water, and there’s nothing left to eat.

  They still don’t come. For hours and hours. Maybe days. I have no idea how long I’ve been in this dark hole, only that no training I had as a child prepared me for this.

  For the possibility that I’d be left so utterly alone.

  I’ll die down here. I’ll starve to death. No—first I’ll die of dehydration.

  And no one will ever find my body. Nobody knows where I am.

  Killian. I would give anything to see your face one last time.

  That thought is what finally makes me break down and cry.

  I lean against the dirt wall with the thin blanket wrapped around my shoulders, shivering like a dog, tears streaming down my face, and let myself sob. I let it all out. All the pain and confusion, all the regret and despair, all the dashed hopes and lost dreams.

  I cry for Max and Fin, who’ll never know what happened to me. I cry for the life I could’ve lived, for all the warm summer nights and glorious winter sunrises and dinners with friends I’ll miss. For all the years I had ahead of me.

  Years I might have spent with a man. Raising a family. Being in love.

  Being loved.

  I cry until I’m empty. Until I’m as hollow as a shell.

  Then I wipe my face on the blanket, blow out a hard breath, and stand. On my heels, because that’s the only way I can do it without collapsing from pain. I take one of the empty plastic water bottles and use the uncapped end to start digging footholds into the dirt wall.

  Because of all the things I am, a fucking quitter isn’t one of them.

  I’ve only been digging for maybe five minutes when an explosion nearby knocks me onto my ass.

  There’s an abrupt change in the air pressure, followed by a shower of dirt clods raining down onto my head. That explosion is followed quickly by several smaller ones. Then I hear bursts of automatic gunfire and the sound of men screaming. There’s more gunfire, closer, then an enraged, unearthly roar, like nothing I’ve ever heard. It comes again, raising all the hair on my arms.

  It’s a scream of fury. Of vengeance. The scream of a demon thirsty for blood, its frenzied bellows echoing down the tunnels.

  But it’s not a demon. It’s a man.

  It’s my man, and somehow, he found me. He came for me.

  And from the sound of it, he’s kicking some serious ass.

  My heart takes off like a rocket. I scramble to my knees, craning my neck up toward the grate, toward the flickering orange light and the billowing smoke.

  At the top of my lungs, I scream, “Killian! I’m here!”

  Footsteps pound on dirt. Closer and closer they come, until a figure appears to one side of the grate and skids to a stop, looking down at me.

  He looks like something out of a doomsday movie. He’s a soldier after the apocalypse, combing the ashes of the world for his lost love.

  Clad in a military-style camouflage combat uniform, he’s wearing night vision goggles, heavy boots, kneepads, and a black helmet that Darth Vader would approve of. It covers his entire head and face. On his back is a tactical rucksack. The belt around his waist carries a huge knife in a sheath and several sidearms in holders. His chest is covered by a vest that has Velcro pockets stuffed with ammunition cartridges and grenades. Gripped in his gloved hands is an enormous black rifle with an infrared scope on the end.

  I can’t even see his face because of the helmet, but I know it’s him.

  I’d know that man anywhere.

  I gaze up at him, my heart expanding inside my chest. With a hitch in my voice, I say, “Hi, honey. What took you so long?”

  30

  Jules

  Killian lowers a metal ladder, slides down it like a fireman on a pole, grabs me, throws me over his shoulder, and climbs out of the dungeon with swift, silent efficiency. He doesn’t even jostle me on the way up.

  I get the feeling he’s done this sort of thing before.

  When we reach the top, he flips me over into his arms. He carries me through the wreckage of a building, navigating easily around smoking piles of rubble, stepping over bodies like they’re planks of wood.

  The bald guy with the skull tattoo on his Adam’s apple lies on his back with his eyes wide open, a gaping wound in the side of his head where his brains were blown out.

  I bury my face in Killian’s tactical vest and close my eyes.

  He carefully loads me into the back of an SUV and throws a heavy blanket over me. We drive in silence broken only by the sound of the tires spitting gravel when he takes a curve in the country road too fast.

  We park in a deserted field. Then there’s a helicopter ride.

  Killian is the pilot, because of course he would be.

  I’m behind the pilot’s chair strapped onto a stretcher, wondering how soon is too soon to ask for a shot of tequila.

  We land on the roof of a hospital. A team of doctors and nurses sprint out to the helipad to greet us. I’m loaded onto another stretcher and whisked inside.

  No one pays any attention to my insistence that I’m fine with the exception of my feet, which might need a Band-Aid or two and a few squirts of Bactine.

  Killian runs alongside my stretcher. He’s removed the Darth Vader helmet, but is still loaded with weapons. He scares the shit out of everyone we pass in the halls. I gaze up at him, deeply impressed.

  And crazier about him than ever.

  We burst through the swinging doors of a room so brightly lit my eyes water. A doctor starts shouting instructions at people in scrubs. They scurry around, turning on machines. I’m parked near a wall bristling with medical instruments.

  In full badass mode, Killian stands to one side of the doors with his arms folded over his broad chest and his tree trunk legs braced apart, watching all the activity with laser focus.

  His jaw is tight. His nostrils are flared. His eyes threaten murder on anyone who so much as glances at him and takes their attention away from me.

  “Hey. Gangster.”

  He turns his mutant laser beam eyes to me.

  “Is this a bad time to tell you that I’m in love with you?”

  Someone is sticking a needle into my arm, but I’m barely aware of it.

  Killian’s gaze has turned to fire. It scorches straight through me, the same way it has since the moment we met.

  I say, “Because I am. I mean, I have been, but I only realized it recently.”

  Nurses run back and forth around the bed, hooking me up to various machines and talking to each other in medical shorthand. I know this is all because of him. All the frenzy of activity and attention. I’m not just another patient.

  I’m a patient brought in by the mysterious and powerful Mr. Black.

  Obviously, everyone else is as impressed with him as I am.

  Actually, the nurses seem impressed, but the doctor looks downright terrified.

  I say, “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. You were right: I was scared. I’m not anymore, though. And I promise I’ll make it up to you. Just as soon as all these people quit poking me with needles.”

  Killian unfolds his arms, takes two steps forward, and booms, “Everybody out.”

  His command rolls through the room like thunder. All the activity comes to a screeching halt.

  When he shoots the doctor a threatening look like, Don’t make me have to say it again, the guy waves his arm in the air, saying briskly, “You heard the man. Everybody out.”

  He ushers his staff out, letting the doors swing shut behind them.

  Then it’s only me and my superhero gangster, staring at each other across the cold hospital emergency suite. My heartbeat monitor
sounds like a malfunctioning smoke alarm.

  I say, “I’m not dying. Just thirsty. I could use a burger, too. Maybe some fries.”

  He takes a step toward me, his gaze darting all over my body and face. He’s searching me for injuries.

  “Thank you for arranging all this, but I think I’d rather just go to your bat cave to recuperate, if that’s okay with you.”

  His voice is a low rasp. “You’re hurt.”

  “Nothing that can’t be easily fixed.”

  “You need medical attention.”

  “I need you.”

  He takes another hesitant step forward, like he wants to keep away but can’t help himself. I can tell by the look in his eyes that he wants nothing more than to rush over and crush his mouth to mine, to throw himself on top of me and kiss me until we’re both breathless, but he thinks he’ll injure me. He thinks I’m too fragile for that right now.

  He doesn’t know that the only thing hurting me is the distance between us.

  I say crossly, “I’m dehydrated and hungry. The soles of my feet have seen better days. But otherwise I’m fine, and I’m perfectly lucid, and I really, really need to have you touch me right now, before I lose my freaking mind. Like right now. So step on it.”

  It must be the sass that does it. The man can’t resist my sass.

  He reaches me in a few quick, long strides, leans down, and takes me into his arms.

  He holds me so tightly against his chest I have a hard time breathing.

  I turn my face to his neck and inhale deeply, sucking in his scent and clinging to him. Or, rather, to something that feels like it could be a grenade.

  His voices comes near my ear as a harsh whisper. “I’ll never forgive myself.”

  For not preventing my kidnapping, he means. For being in Prague when he should have been with me. Or maybe for not finding me sooner. Or all of the above.

  “Don’t be silly, honey. You saved my life. Again. Also, I think you kind of glossed over the more important development since we last saw each other.”

  He pulls away slightly, staring into my face with dark, burning eyes. I gaze at him, feeling better than I have in years.