The cafeteria and most of the main house had cleared out. A lot of girls were at the pool now for a late evening swim. It was still warm enough out for that, and the pool was heated. A few were at the gym. A few were with various trainers. Julie thought she’d glimpsed one of the girls go to one of the training rooms with Gabe. She’d caught the brief play of light against sun-kissed blond hair and felt the chill in the air from his presence.
Otherwise things were pretty deserted. Julie was about to sit down at the piano when a hand clamped over her mouth, and she was dragged down the narrow dark hallway and down to the dungeons.
It had happened so fast. Within minutes, Julie found herself strapped down to a metal chair in one of the dungeons, Brian grinning down at her.
“I’ve waited so long for this,” he murmured against her hair. “Since you rebuffed our boy, Gabe, I’ve been waiting for the right moment to… fix you.” He’d rolled a chair up to her side and now leaned back, taking in his prize.
Beside her was a metal tray table that she kept trying not to look at. He’d laid out some kind of white paper that looked like something you’d see in a dentist’s office. And on top of it lay his “tools”. It looked like every torture scene in every movie she’d ever watched through the spaces of her fingers.
He rested a hand gently on her knee. “You’re trembling, Julie,” he said, clearly satisfied by this reaction.
Was she? She barely felt real. How had this happened? She’d been so careful to avoid him. Every time she passed him in a hallway, every time their eyes locked, she knew he was waiting to hurt her. By now, she knew that look in a man’s eyes.
Mina was away from the house on some kind of business Brian had sent her on. He’d never pull this shit with Mina here. At the same time, whatever happened, when Mina found out about it, Julie knew she’d side with Brian. She had to. He was her first loyalty, and she would never betray him.
She might act to divert Brian’s attention and stop him from hurting people, but she wouldn’t get in his direct way or argue with him over what he’d already done. The two of them were an unbreakable pair, even if Julie would never understand how Mina could love and submit to such a monster. Whatever was between them ran so deep, whatever he’d done for her… the way he treated her… that no one else could ever hope to come between it.
Finally, Julie found her voice. “Please... don’t do this... you can’t. G-Gabe is my master.” She couldn’t believe those words were coming out of her mouth, but what else could possibly stop Brian but a former claim by another trainer in the house? Even if they both knew it was a lie. Everybody in the house knew it was a lie.
Brian laughed, a crazy maniacal sound that filled up the space of the cell. The laugh bounced off the walls in a chaotic rip of noise that felt as though it could tear her head off if it were to make direct contact with her.
“Oh, that’s rich. Gabe is your master. I’ve seen no indication of that. You two don’t even talk anymore. But clearly you know that’s the only real protection from me. A collar around that pretty little throat that doesn’t have my name on it. It’s really the only deterrent I’ll listen to. But you knew that. That’s why you avoid me and try to stay in groups. It was a hell of a thing finding you alone with no witnesses around.” He smiled. “Gabe is your master. That’s adorable.”
He picked up a gleaming metal clamp and slowly, calmly, started to unbutton her blouse. Somewhere in her head, she’d thought simply saying Gabe was her master would work like a magic incantation, that it would stun him so she could escape. Despite how obviously untrue it was.
Anyone in the house could see they were avoiding each other. Gabe probably hated her by now. Every indication she could see said as much. She used every ounce of energy to stop her endlessly swirling thoughts. She had to focus and find a way out of this.
She couldn’t let Brian drag her back into mental hell. This couldn’t become Dmitri’s house Part Two. She’d heard too much about what went on down here. Whatever it took, she had to stop this from happening. Julie struggled and pulled at the bonds, panic rising higher, threatening to choke her. She’d made so much progress. She’d started to feel at least a little safe. She couldn’t lose that now.
“Please! Please! Gabe is my master. I swear it.” Her voice came out shrill as the tears began to slide down her cheeks.
Brian still looked amused, but he put down the clamp. “All right. Let’s find out. You better pray he confirms your side of things. If he doesn’t, nothing will stop me from the sadistic nightmare I will rain down upon you. And it will only be worse for this lie insulting my intelligence. Given these facts, do you want to alter your story?” He said all this in a normal tone with a smile on his face as if he were ordering a burger and fries at the drive thru.
Julie shook her head. Staying down here with Brian for a supposedly lesser form of horror wasn’t an option. Gabe had to get her out of this. He would, right?
Brian pulled a phone from his pocket and dialed a number from the contact list. “Gabe!” he said, “It’s your friendly resident psychopath.”
Julie couldn’t hear what was said on the other end, but whatever it was made Brian laugh. “Tell me, is Julie yours?”
More speech she couldn’t hear. Though she took Brian’s advice. She was praying, praying that Gabe didn’t contradict her story, praying that he’d go along with it this one time. Even if he hated her now, he couldn’t hate her this much could he? If any part of him had ever cared a tiny bit about her, he had to just confirm the story. If he got her out of this chair, she would be even more careful to avoid Brian from now on.
“You know what I mean,” Brian said. “Is she your slave? She tells me you’re her master. She’s begging and pleading and swearing to it so I won’t hurt her. And I wanted to know if... okay, very well.”
Brian clicked the phone off and set it on the metal table before sitting back in his own chair and pinning her with a glare. “He’s coming down.”
Julie let out a long, slow, shuddering breath. She wasn’t out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot, but he was coming at least. She had a chance. Surely he would stop this. She’d come to believe he cared about her, so he couldn’t possibly let this go on. If he’d pay half a million dollars to Dmitri to rescue her, and he’d punched Anton that first night for calling her a whore, surely it would be nothing to him to stop Brian now, even with the current stalemate between them.
Less than five minutes later, Gabe’s large, intimidating presence filled the doorway. He wasn’t fucking crazy like Brian. Or if he was, it was a different brand of crazy. But he still scared the shit out of her sometimes.
His arms were crossed over his chest, a hard look in his eyes. But that look was directed at her, not Brian. Oh shit. Could he be the kind of man who would let someone like Brian hurt her simply for saying no? If he would, he was as big a monster as any she’d encountered at Dmitri’s house, and everything he’d tried to portray to her about himself was nothing more than a carefully crafted lie. Of course she’d already hurled that insult his way, so it might not hit its mark if she attempted it a second time.