Chapter Twenty-Five
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Henri
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SHIT.
Shit.
Shit.
How the fuck was I supposed to get out of this one? What lies could I spin? What forgery could I commit so I didn’t have to hurt Ily and could maintain my cover long enough to get those fucking GPS coordinates to Q?
I’d come here, despite being shackled with a dark handicap and completely na?ve, and tried to fight on the side of good.
But the world was against me.
Fate forsaking me.
That was the only explanation for the spate of bad luck and horrible fucking timing. Then again, perhaps fate had been looking out for us. If Victor had been working late in his office and caught me waltzing inside uninvited at three a.m., I might not have been able to explain quite so easily.
Then again, I didn’t have a clue if he believed me.
I’d tried to lie but come on...it’d been flimsy at best and utterly laughable at worst.
But...did it really matter?
He might call this a game, but it wasn’t. It was yet another test. A motherfucking test that if I failed, I had no doubt he’d kill me on the spot—just as he’d no doubt killed everything else in this godforsaken room.
The insidious feeling that I was on my own returned, whispering that perhaps my stranger of a brother was eerily similar to Victor.
He might’ve given me thirty million euros and fake credentials to get into this playground, but...
maybe he was heartless enough to sentence me to death now I’d stepped inside it.
Turning back the way we came, I locked eyes with Ily as she stumbled over the threshold, pulled forward by Peter. The moment she noticed what was on the walls, her entire body went rigid.
Her eyes gleamed with tears; red finger marks marred her cheeks.
Rage erupted.
What the hell happened out there?
What did he do to her?
Narrowing my gaze on Peter, I tried to rewind time and see through walls to know what that cocksucker had done.
Ily swallowed hard at Victor’s decoration choice, her shoulders rolling with sorrow.
It fucked me off that I couldn’t protect her. That I’d let her convince me to bring her with me. I should’ve left her in my room. I’d come here knowing I might have to pay a price—but if that price was her...?
Fuck.
My hand went to my knife in my pocket. Perhaps I could stab Victor and dash to his office. I could use his own computer to send a damn email. Q could use the IP address and find us that way.
Enough with this cloak-and-dagger bullshit.
The sooner I murdered Victor and ended this farce, the better.
Footsteps scraped on stone as the door closed with a soft snick behind me.
Looking over my shoulder, the urge to laugh twisted my stomach.
Guards.
Four of them.
Slipping into all four corners of the sick and twisted room as if Victor knew what I planned and ensured I had no way of killing him without being killed myself.
Glancing away as if the guards meant nothing, I grinned at Victor.
He smiled back before looking at Peter. “Go kneel over there, my pets. We’ll begin soon. Rest for a moment. It’s late, after all.”
“Yes, Sir V.” With his head bowed and obedience in every step, Peter took Ily to the only carpet draped over the stone flooring.
Decadent ivory puddled like a cloud, glittering with strands of gold from the ostentatious chandelier above.
It would’ve been a pretty carpet...if it wasn’t for the lakes of red, splashes of rust, and far, far too many spots of blood.
Real or just part of the design?
Had jewels dripped on it or had the threads been dyed to look that way?
Swallowing hard, I tore my gaze from Ily as Peter made her kneel beside him and bow her chin like a good little slave.
Victor marched toward a wet bar and switched on a row of lights that twinkled like stars, bouncing off cut crystal. Bottles upon bottles of aged, expensive liquor sparkled, ready to be savoured.
“What do you think of my private parlour, Henri?” Unscrewing a bottle of whiskey, he splashed far too much into one glass and barely a snifter into another.
Forcing myself to inspect the large, intimidating room, I hid my true reaction.
I stood in a dead zoo.
Zebras, tigers, lions, gorillas, rhinos, and cheetahs.
Every exotic animal had been hunted, shot, stuffed, and preserved, hanging on sweeping high walls.
A thousand pairs of glass eyes watched us with judgement.
Birds hung in perpetual flight above. Pelicans, flamingos, ibis, and eagles.
Their wings mutilated with wire; their feathers dull with dust. The massive chandelier twinkled garishly over their haunted expressions.
Ignoring the twisting in my gut, I turned slowly and focused on the other wall.
An entire world of cabinets, their contents gleaming with a million beetles, spiders, ants, butterflies, moths, and dragonflies. Stabbed with pins and forever trapped under blinding spotlights.
Fuck’s sake, is anything alive in here?
Looking at the final wall, I promptly wanted to turn back around and go hug a fucking zebra because I’d rather play with a dead zoo than with whatever tools waited on the ancient, pockmarked table.
Gleaming on a red velvet cloth, a multitude of tools waited.
And not just any tools, but things that looked like the head of the Gestapo would use in interrogations.
Pinchers, blades, clamps, some weird corkscrew-looking thing. Every rusty, tarnished device sent my balls seeking refuge deep inside me.
Fucking hell.
And that wasn’t even the worst part.
That title was reserved for the X-shaped cross waiting at the top of the white blood-speckled carpet. A human sized cross with hooks on the arms and throat for already manacled wrists and necks and leather straps on each leg for unfettered ankles.
Hoping my acting skills were believable, I turned to face Victor with an awed smirk. “Impressive. Very, very impressive.” Marching toward a tiny ibex with sharp horns and a fake black nose, I patted its dead hide. “Did you hunt everything yourself?”
“No.” Gathering both glasses, he padded toward me in his ridiculous slippers and passed me the overflowing one.
“My guests like to help me decorate. They have other pursuits outside of visiting my humble abode and enjoy displaying their trophies.” He chuckled.
“Some have homes with wives and children so they can’t house their keepsakes there. ”
“Of course.” I nodded.
No one wanted their wife to see she married a psychopath.
I accepted the drink with a low chuckle. “I appreciate the whiskey, Victor, but you’re forgetting I don’t drink to excess. You’ve poured enough in here to tranq an elephant.”
He sipped his drink with a knowing glint in his blue eyes. “Oh, I remember.” Tapping my glass with manicured fingernails, he shrugged. “But tonight is a special occasion. So...bottom’s up.”
I swallowed a reluctant mouthful, cursing the full-bodied burn on my tongue. Looking around, I tried to find a place to put the rest down that wasn’t a bear hide or tiger head. “I’ll savour the—”
“You’ll swallow that whole glass if you know what’s good for you.” Victor’s calm, gentille persona vanished in a flash.
“Excuse me?” I arched an eyebrow, flicking a look at the guards who very subtly placed their hands on hips where no doubt guns waited.
“You heard me.” Victor took another mouthful. “Drink it. All of it. And then you will drink another. And possibly a third and fourth, depending on how well you handle your liquor.”
I scowled. “And make me throw up on your gorgeous rug? Isn’t that defeating the purpose of a fun night?”
“Ah, Henri.” He slithered an arm around my shoulders.
I hated that we were similar in height. I loathed that he could make me feel both small and horribly equal.
“Tonight is going to end in one of two ways. Either you snap those chains binding you so tightly, or...I’ll snap your neck and mount your head on my trophy wall. ”
I coughed explosively.
He patted me on the back. “There, there. It’s nothing to be concerned about.
I’m merely trying to help you. That’s what friends do, you see.
You want this. You didn’t lie. You were honest when you said you want blood.
Completely truthful with how much you crave pain, degradation, and the desire to become a god.
It hurts me to see you refusing to let that part of yourself out to play.
You’re too used to hiding and lying, so...
I’m going to give you a teeny tiny push. ”
“I appreciate your concern, Victor, but I’m fine. I’ll do what I want in my own time—”
“And that time is now.”
“But—”
“Drink up.” Guiding me forward, he didn’t stop until we towered over Ily and Peter.
I struggled to catch a breath as I drank her in.
Peter stayed resolutely still, but Ily...she shivered and shrank away. Her hands balled on her thighs, her teeth chattered, her entire body flushed and feverish.
My knees creaked as I went to duck to make sure she was alright.
I stopped myself before I fucked everything up.
Toeing her with my bare foot, I snapped, “What’s wrong with you?”
Cringing away from me, she bowed over her knees, rocking with a quiet moan.
What the hell?
Ily.
Look at me.
Fuck’s sake, look at me!
She didn’t.
She just hugged herself harder as sweat glittered on her temples and her black hair turned lank around her shoulders.
“What’s wrong with Ily, my sweetling?” Victor asked Peter. “She seemed right as rain when we came in.”
“Eh, she doesn’t do well with death, Sir V.” Peter kept his head down. “S-She senses them, you see.”
“Senses them?” Victor reared back. “My, my. A little empath as well as a gemmologist. Whatever shall we uncover next?” Ducking to his haunches, he grabbed Ily’s chin and forced her to look at him.
It took every-fucking-part of me not to club him around the head with my whiskey glass.
“Do you need a drink too, my pet? Take the edge off whatever you can feel?” He ran his thumb over her cheek. “You know, I actually understand what you’re feeling. There’s a certain kind of energy in this room. I sense it too.”