“This isn’t her home,” I bite out as I lurch away from his touch and jerk my hands, shaking the rope above me.
“Ah, ah,” he taunts, pulling a large hunting knife out from behind his back. I freeze, watching him as he takes a deliberate step toward me and a fresh wave of terror blooms in my chest. I jerk again, the need to flee overwhelming my common sense. When he reaches me, he kneels down and moves the knife toward my legs. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to picture this morning when I was in bed with Chance or last night as he made love to me, anything to get me through what comes next. The swoosh of the knife cutting through something fills the air and when the pain doesn’t follow, I open my eyes.
One leg is free of the ropes binding it to the chair and Julian moves to the other, slicing through the rope with ease. I frown. Why would he free my legs? Licking my lips, I study him as he stands and moves behind me, my belly quivering as I twist in my seat. When he gets to the wall, he stops and smiles as he unties the rope from a hook and jerks it down, pulling me into a standing position as I scream in pain.
“God,” he groans, doing it again as pain lances through my body. My toes barely touch the floor and the constant pain in my shoulders is making me woozy. “I love that sound.”
My stomach rolls as I drop my head and suck in a breath. I didn’t understand, not until this very moment, just how deranged Julian is. But I could see it on his face as I screamed… it turned him on. He’s a sadist in the purest form of the word. With a gleam in his eyes, he ties the rope back around the hook and stalks toward me, holding the knife in front of his face.
“There,” he whispers, inching closer to me. “Now we can talk.”
My gaze flicks over to the knife, hovering inches away from my face as light glints off the flat part of the blade. “Okay, let’s talk.”
“You took something from me,” he accuses as he tilts his head to the side and narrows his eyes.
“Ivy is not a thing and she left; I didn’t take her.”
His lip curls back in a snarl and his nostrils flare. “She wouldn’t have left. I made sure of that.”
“No, what you did is exactly what drove her away,” I snap and he rushes forward, wrapping a hand around my throat as he presses the tip of the knife to my cheek.
“She knew the consequences for leaving and if she doesn’t come back to me, it will cost you your life.”
A chill blankets me and my chest tingles as I raise my head and meet his eyes. “Go ahead and kill me. It will be worth it as long as she’s free.”
He throws his head back and laughs, releasing my throat as he takes a step back and pulls the knife away.
“Sweet, innocent, Carly,” he muses, tapping the spine of the knife against his hands. “We’re not going to kill you.”
We?
“Who’s we?”
His lips stretch into a grin that makes my heart stop. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Don’t worry, you’ll find out very soon.”
“Fuck you,” I spit. I’m done with these games. His smile grows and he steps closer, reaching up and dragging his fingers down my arm.
“So beautiful when you’re angry. I can almost see the appeal.”
“Get your hands off me,” I hiss, my skin growing clammy as memories rush back, things I’ve never remembered before about that night twelve years ago and I squeeze my eyes shut like I can somehow stop them.
The boys circling me…
Their taunts as they closed in around me…
Austin smiling as he pulls out his phone…
“I won’t hurt you, Carly. As long as your sister comes back to me,” Julian assures, his voice cutting through my memories. I shake my head and open my eyes.
“She won’t.”
“Oh, I think she will. You are the one person in the world she would do absolutely anything for and I’m counting on that.”
Without thinking, I grab the rope above my head and grit my teeth as I pull myself up enough to kick my legs out in front of me. I hit Julian in the knee and he roars as he goes down, the knife clattering to the floor next to me.
Fuck.
Now what?
He howls in pain, clutching his knee but recovers faster than I thought he would. I jerk back as he lunges to his feet and lands a fist to my belly. As I gasp for breath, he wraps his fingers around my throat.
“You stupid little bitch,” he snarls, his fingers constricting more. His face is flushed and his nostrils flare as he stares me down. I can see the ideas churning in his gaze, all the things he wants to do to me and I start to tremble. “You’ll regret that.”
Releasing me, he leans down and grabs the knife before placing the tip against my chest. I close my eyes and he pulls down, cutting open my t-shirt as I suck in a breath, my eyes watering.
Oh, God.
No.
No.
No.
My lip wobbles and I gulp in air, trying to focus on anything other than what he’s about to do to me when white hot pain blooms from my chest. Crying out, my eyes fly open and I glance down, watching the blood stain my shirt. The cut isn’t deep, not enough to worry about but just enough to burn like hell and stain my shirt red.
“Such a gorgeous sound,” he rasps, reaching down to adjust his cock and my stomach rolls. “Do it for me again, sweetheart.”
He drags the knife over my skin again and I whimper as I bite down on my lip in an act of defiance. I won’t give him what he wants. Dropping the knife on the floor, he frowns and grabs my face.
“Why do you have to be so difficult, Carly? Just give me what I want.”
A few tears slip down my cheek and he grins before leaning forward and licking them off my skin. My stomach rolls again and I gag. Releasing my cheeks, he trails his hand down my face and neck until he gets to the first incision. He drags his finger along the side of it and I bite back another scream as it burns. When his gaze meets mine again, he growls.
“So fucking stubborn but we’ll break you eventually.”
“No.” I shake my head and he laughs, stepping away from me.
“Yes, we will, Carly, and I, for one, can’t fucking wait.”
Without another word, he picks up his knife and walks over to the far wall before light floods into the room. There’s a staircase just past the door but other than that, I can’t see anything. As soon as the door shuts and the lock clinks into place, my shoulders sag and a sob rips through my throat as pain radiates through my body and my stomach rolls.
I’m in Hell.
* * * *
Time doesn’t exist down here in the musty darkness, except to torture me with the awful possibilities of my immediate future. Seconds bleed into hours and it could be minutes or days since Julian left me all alone. Each sound that manages to pierce the black nothingness of my surroundings sends me out of my skin and the pain is so intense I’m not entirely sure I’ve remained conscious the entire time I’ve been locked away. My t-shirt is drenched with sweat and blood and my legs are growing weak from standing on my toes, waiting for the devil to return. I can only hope Ivy’s smart enough to stay away.
Before today, before I woke up in this… dungeon, for lack of a better word, I thought I had experienced the worst thing humanity had to offer. I was so consumed with my own pain and I thought no one could ever hurt me the way they had but it only took ten minutes with Julian to make me realize how wrong I’d been. I would go back and relive that night a hundred times if it got me out of here now.