“No,” I croak.
“Down bitch,” he barks.
Sinking to my knees, tears fill my eyes as I lower myself to the bowl of food. I don’t look up at him, I know that he’s watching me, and I have a feeling that he’s wearing a smile on his ugly smug face.
Sticking my tongue out, I taste the chili and shiver. It’s cold. Like just dumped out of the can cold.
“You’ll earn a hot meal if you want it. Want to know how you earn things with me?”
I pinch my eyes closed, not wanting to know, not at all. I don’t want to know anything. I just want to go back to Louis. I want to be in his arms, in his bed, in his tub. Anywhere as long as I’m with him. I’ll do anything to be home again.
“On your back. That’s how,” he says before he bursts out laughing.
My entire body shakes. Tears that I’d been trying to hold back, they fall right into the cold, disgusting canned chili. If this is going to be my life without a means to escape, I want it to end. There is no way in hell I’ll live like this, because this—this isn’t living.
Chapter Twenty-Six
TULIP
I can’t stomach the food. Even warm, I don’t think that I could eat right now. Not in the situation that I’m in. I just want to curl into a ball and cry myself to sleep in hopes that I never wake up again.
“You don’t eat it now, you’ll be eating it for breakfast. We don’t waste food in this house, especially not on filth like you,” Silas hisses.
I don’t bother looking up at him. Sitting back on my knees, I tip my head down as a sign of being finished. I really don’t care if he gives it to me for breakfast, I probably won’t eat it then, either.
He reaches for me, his arm extended and I think that he’s going to punch me again, maybe choke me but instead he cups my cheek. It’s a tender move and I know that he’s playing mind games with me. I’m not that stupid, it isn’t hard to figure out.
“Why do you fight me? I’m offering you a chance at a beautiful life. Joey couldn’t ever give you what I can. Nobody can,” he practically purrs as his eyes search mine.
He’s holding me hostage, not just my body, but my eyes too. I almost tip a little toward his completely mind-fucked scale, but mentally shake my head out of the fog that he’s putting me in.
The way he’s staring at me, his touch gentle, his gaze intense, and the fact that I’m being held hostage with nowhere to run, I can understand how someone can give up and give in. But I’m not going to do that.
I’m not going to give in, not to this man, not to anyone. Louis owns my entire body, mind, heart, and soul. There is nobody else for me, but him. Even if I never see him again, no matter what, I’m his.
“Sleep, my beauty. Tomorrow the real training begins,” Silas murmurs.
Swallowing, I know without a doubt that I don’t want to learn exactly what that statement means. I don’t want tomorrow to come. And if it does, I don’t want to be here for it.
Silas stands from his seat, but I don’t make a single move, not without his instruction. That’s what he wants, he craves my subservience to him. I’ll play the game for as long as I can stomach it. Which I have a feeling will be about the time he tries to push himself on me.
There’s a noise at the front of the house, and I see lights shine in the window. “Fuck. Get your ass up in the loft,” he barks.
His tone has completely shifted from the sickly-sweet tone he was trying to manipulate me with to a hard, harsh one.
Scrambling to my feet, I don’t waste a second. I climb the ladder, more to get away from him than to hide from who or what lies on the other side of the door. Scooting close to the railing of the loft, I grip the posts and watch in anticipation of what’s to come.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and it will be someone here to hurt him. Holding my breath, I watch as the front door opens just as Silas grabs a shotgun from the small coat closet in the corner of the room, next to the bathroom.
My breath hitches when I see who waltzes in. It’s Joey. He looks dirty from a day at work. His hair is a wild mess as he scans the small space. Silas drops the gun to his side at the sight of his only child.
“What’re you doin’ here, boy? You alone?” he barks.
Joey snorts. “Heard someone I know went missing. Wondering if your obsession with her finally got the best of you. If that plan you had went into action,” he murmurs.
My stomach twists. He knew. This whole time Joey knew and he never said a word to me. Joey tilts his head to the side and I know the moment that he sees me. He arches a brow, then winks in my direction. I don’t know if that’s supposed to make me feel safe, but it doesn’t. Nothing does.
“You don’t know shit, boy,” Silas grunts.
“I know that those notes her man found in her car are your fucking handwriting. Why do you do this?” Joey asks. “The other women still aren’t enough? You need Tulip too?”
Women?
Holy shit.
“It’s because of her. The others have never compared,” he says.
I watch as he lifts the hand not holding the gun and runs his fingers through his hair, tugging on the ends as if he’s stressed out. I’m not sure why he’s the one acting on edge. He made me eat cold chili from a can on the floor. I mean, his was warm and had hot dogs in it. I love hot dogs.
“Tulip isn’t yours to have, she never was. You need to let her go along with your obsession with her.”
“You’re nothing but a pussy,” Silas barks. “You couldn’t keep her for yourself and you let her go off with that thing? What the fuck is wrong with you.”
Lifting my hand to my mouth, I gasp when Silas reaches his arm up and slaps Joey across the face with the back of his hand.
Joey’s head moves to the side, but the rest of his body stands firm. He shifts his gaze back to his father, the side of his face is red, but his eyes are narrowed and there is nothing other than pure hate coming from them and they’re pointed directly at his own father.
“Let Tulip go. I don’t care who she’s with. She’s happy and that’s all that matters. This plan of yours is done. I think one Perry has used her for quite long enough, she doesn’t need to be tortured by any others,” Joey grinds out.
Silas shakes his head slowly, his gaze shifting from Joey to me, then back to Joey again. “The others were just place holders until I was able to take her. This is where she belongs. Soon I’ll move her to the house and all will be right in the world.”
“Do you really think Mom will be okay with that?” Joey asks.
Silas lets out a humorless laugh. “Your mother is my slave. She doesn’t have a functioning brain cell in her head. She does what I say, when I say and the way that I say.”
“Not when it comes to Tulip, Dad. Mom loves her like her own child.”
Silas shrugs a shoulder. “Then the bitch can reside with the rest of them.”
My heart starts to race against my chest. I can read between the lines enough that I know without a doubt I don’t want to reside with them, whoever they are. It sounds as though they’re dead and my stomach clenches at the thought that these women died simply because they were not me.