Chapter 14
Fourteen
Laila
I don’t wake until it’s almost three in the afternoon.
“Fuck.” I sit up in the middle of the bed and grip the sheet to my chest. The bed on either side looks long since abandoned. I reach my hand out and sure enough, the sheets are cold.
I fall back and sigh. To my side a piece of paper flutters.
Con’s familiar script handwriting cuts the eggshell-colored paper in half with black ink from his favorite fountain pen. My phone is beside it as are a pair of what I think are earrings. I turn the silver roses that look very much like the anal plug used on me yesterday over.
“Wait.” I hold them up and realize what they are with a smile.
Holding them in one hand, I sit up with the note in the other.
Will return tonight. 7 p.m. Stay inside the Society where you are safe. We’ve left protection in your purse until we can be with you. We had the driver retrieve our clothes from the plane. We hope you like the gift. We think you will love them for this evening. Can’t wait to play — Love Con
Me too! My heart pounds heavily with excitement.
But in the meantime, the silence around me is…nice. They actually left me alone? It has to be important to take all three of them away. I stretch and enjoy a little of my alone time. I love them. I do. But men, ya know.
A mischievous smile moves over my lips.
I fall back into the sheets again, this time with a plan. I put the silver roses in place over my nipples. The shock of electricity they deliver to my libido is alluring. I can’t wait to have them on tonight and have their hands playing with me at the same time.
I grab my phone, snap a pic of my new gift, and send it off.
I count the seconds until all three send back notes of dark promises awaiting me after sundown.
“Until then boys.”
I remove the nipple clamps and quickly shower. I find the suitcases and dress in leather pants and a blood-red silk top that barely extends far enough to cover my bust.
I turn in the mirror. “Dante will lose it when he sees me.” None of them will be able to keep their hands to themselves. I contemplate clamping on the nipple jewels and wearing them for a while, but I opt to wait for them.
I dry my hair and pull it into a high ponytail and do my usual light makeup—mascara, powder, and tinted gloss. I slip on a pair of ankle boots with low wedge heels and step outside my room.
I stop and go back for my purse. Inside is a small snub-nosed revolver. The Society and a gun? I don’t think so.
I lock the door behind me sliding the key into my pocket.
On the lower level of The Society, everything is much louder than on the fourth floor. The rooms must be soundproof because I know for a fact sex is loud.
I leave the lobby where the front windows allow pedestrians to see into the establishment. Beyond that part of the Society, walls block off the rest of the Society from outsiders. In here, where the walls are dark, and the lighting is low the sensuality is instant the second you enter.
Members mingle amongst themselves. There doesn’t seem to be a dress code either. As in, you can have them on or off. A busty blonde with thick falsies and nude lips wears latex stripes woven into an intricate design that strategically covers all the essentials but leaves the rest on display. She’s talking with another woman when she spots me.
A perfectly tweezed brow angles up at me as Busty leaves the settee she’s perched on and crosses the room in my direction.
“You’re new, beautiful. Don’t mind my frankness, but we’re looking for a third woman to join us on stage and those nipples tell me you might be interested?” I look down and sure enough, my girls are hard enough to cut glass. Her voice is smoky and rough like she’s puffed on that cigar in her hand all day. For the right person, she would check off a lot of boxes. But for me, she makes me wish Dante was here to sweep me into his arms and tell her I belong to him. Or Con to growl at her and stake his claim like a caveman. Bastian would simply level a hard look at her and that is all it would take to send his message.
I move in close until our nipples are almost touching. Not for the arousal but to let her know I’m not afraid of another hot chick. “Flattered, baby. But I’m waiting for my men.”
Her gaze drapes over me sensually and I won’t lie. I appreciate the love.
“Aren’t we all? Lemme know if you change your mind. We perform In the Mirror Room after Belle and her SEALs four nights a week.”
I take the card she offers and head deeper into the Society. There’s a lounge past the Mirror Room my new friend told me about. The door is black and beside the name is number two on it. As in Room Two? Hmm…I quietly slip inside and see a beautiful blonde being shared between three men and it makes me crave my men again. Gasps and moans filter over the light sounds of low-fi beats and a heavy base.
Maybe I should go back to the room and get ready for this evening. I could tease the men with dirty pictures until they arrive.
My phone vibrates and I immediately pick it up.
“Con? Dante? Bastian? Are you on your way?”
Silence.
I pull the phone away to see the screen turn black. Call dropped.
I step out of the Mirror Room and head down the hall. Carpet muffles my footsteps and back this far I don’t see any other Society key bearers. I turn the corner and see a bank of elevators. I pick up my pace, focused on the green up button. Dante must be trying to call the room by now. They’ll be worried, drop their business and come rushing for no reason. There must be no service this far in. I’m so focused on getting upstairs, I don’t notice the moving blur coming from my right until it’s too late. All I can do is brace for impact.
My trajectory changes from dead ahead to a hard right, giving my neck a hard jerk. But what hurts is the plank of wood breaking my fall. A door to my left crashes open with the bulk of my weight being thrown into it. I land on my ass before rolling.
I would scream, but the air has been knocked out of my lungs and I can’t seem to make my vocal cords work while I am also trying to gasp for air.
The stench of cigarettes and whiskey hit me first. I shake my head to clear the fog of pain.
“You thought I wouldn’t find you, cunt?” It’s the knuckles against the cheekbone that always hurt the most. I learned that through my mother’s pain. My stepfather never hurt me with his fists. No, he liked punishing me in other ways and the aftermath was ugly.
I stop my thoughts from reversing into the past and force myself to stay in the here and now. I slap a hand on the floor and push to my knees. Salt and pepper hair comes into view as a bulky man looms over me. I strike out, but he anticipates my blow and dodges it easily enough.
“Stupid, useless cunt. Just like your worthless mother.” I quickly take in my surroundings, but I can’t take my eyes off the snake in front of me. Not ever for a second.
I spit on the ground at his feet. “Fuck you, Vincent.”
He’s baiting me, but I’m not the weak fourteen-year-old he abused anymore.
I drive to my feet and sink the heel of my palm into the underside of his nose. The blood gushing down his face is oddly soothing. “Get the fuck away from me!” I try for the door, but his arms come around me and squeeze until I can’t breathe and then I’m on the floor again.
I flip around and put as much distance between us by shuffling across the floor. Fucker is strong for his age. I don’t dare take my eyes off him, but I think we are in a plush bathroom. Someone is bound to walk in, right? And call security?
Beady black eyes blink in surprise. Probably stunned, I dared lash out. But as good as it feels to have made him see his own blood for once, I think I only angered the beast.
“You’re coming with me. And when I get you home, you’ll pay for what you’ve made me do.”
“No!” I roar and fight off the hard grip on my upper arm. It’s no use though. He’s twice my size and the anger in him always defeats mine. Like a black hole absorbing the energy around it. Maybe he really is the devil’s spawn.
Those cruel fingers shift to my throat, and I am being pulled off the floor.
I gasp for air but it’s no use. I pound and resist against the unforgiving clutch to my windpipe but I’m not getting anywhere.
For once, I would like to have the upper hand. I brace myself as the old fears come rushing back over me and grip my muscles. I’m locked in fear and when his hot, putrid breath hits my ear I stop breathing altogether.
“I didn’t spend years grooming for nothing. I’m going to breed an heir out of you and get a Romano heir if I have to tie you in the basement and fuck you morning, noon, and night until you’re round with my baby.”
Instinct drives me to put my hands over my womb, but I resist. If he finds out I am already pregnant I might not make it out of this bathroom.
The wet feel of his tongue up the side of my face has me shivering with disgust. Blood wells beneath my touch when I dig my nails into the flesh of his wrist.
“Fight me. I love it when you fight me.” Spittle flies out and hits my face. My head swivels back and forth but there’s no escaping his grip on me. Those black eyes nearly suck the life from me when his gaze hooks mine.
For once I do exactly as he says and fight. Using the flat of my sole on the wall, I push forward and send us both flying across the wide bathroom. Behind him is a round seated area for members to gather themselves, I imagine. But tonight, it is going to help me escape.
The back of his knees catches on the edge of the seat and buckle. A death-like grip digs into my throat, and I am taken down with him.
We roll and I kick him off me enough that I can get to my feet. My phone is on the ground a couple of feet away from me. While he’s gripping the back of his head and cursing my existence, I dive for the cell phone and punch in a number and hit call. He’s on me before anyone picks up and my phone is sailing across the room and cracks.
No!
I clench my teeth and swing my arms, but he locks them at my sides in a crushing bear hug.
Our noses touch as he walks us backward.
“You think I don’t know whose bed you are in? Do you think I don’t have eyes everywhere? You’ve been giving my cunt out to the fuckers who are trying to take over my territory.” His voice dips low with deadly intent. I don’t usually like an arm used against my throat like a crowbar, but I’ll take it over the bite of his fingers trying to rip out my larynx.
We are almost in the same position now with me against the wall and every inch of his filthy body holding me in place. Only the door to the bathroom is at my back instead of a wall. Too bad it only swings one way.
“They’re going to die for touching what is mine. Now that I have everything in place, they won’t see the sunrise.”
He presses a leg between mine and shoves his knee into my crouch. I whimper through the pain and claw at his face.
Stiff fingers jerk at the button to my pants. “Maybe I’ll let them watch me take you raw before slitting their throats.”
The thought of their bodies slumped over, cold with death because of me makes me nauseous.
Those sickening words are all it takes to knock me out of my frozen state. My child needs me. Our child. Dante, Con, and Bastian. The innocent life inside me has no one else but me right now and I have to be enough.
I look around for some kind of weapon. Anything.
Think. I can’t outmatch his strength, but I know what he wants even more than me with my legs spread wide open.
I hope my men can forgive me.
“You don’t want me. You want money and power. Having me was nothing more than you showing you had all the power. What good is an heir if you don’t have what you need to back it up?” My voice is raw, and it hurts to speak. The bruising is already forming from the inside out. If I survive this there will be no stopping the men from burying him alive and watching him slowly die.
“Shut the fuck up. If I can’t have you, I will bury you where even the cadaver dogs can’t find your rotting body.”
His chest moves against mine with his heavy breathing. All those years of cigarettes are catching up. But still not soon enough.
I hold my chin a degree higher. “Tell me I’m wrong,” I challenge with raging fear. There’s no getting rid of it or wishing it away. But I don’t let it control me. Not any longer.
“I can get you both. I have information that will put you ahead of Con and his partners.”
The rings of his pupils bleed into his irises, turning them pitch black. “What could you possibly know?”
“They’re uniting with the Northern Alliance. The men of Genesis. You want what they have, and I can get it for you.” Don’t oversell it. Keep cool.
His fingers are back at my throat. “Where do you have this information?” His eyes are wild.
“In a safe with the ma?tre d’.”
“Meet me here in twenty minutes. That gives you time to get what you have and get there.” A card is shoved into my hands. “You have what you say you have, I won’t kill them. But you’ll still be coming with me. You’re lying and I’ll kill all of you.”
I’m not stupid enough to believe he will not kill my men. Murder lives in his soul and the thirst for blood shines in his black eyes.
He releases me and picks up the cracked phone. I watch him dump it in the wash basin and turn on the automatic water spout.
Shit.
“Run, little prey. Twenty minutes is all you have.”
I edge against the wall and bust out of the bathroom only to run into three bodyguards. One looks dirtier than the next and I’m not talking actual dirt and grime. If there is something lower than snakes, then the freezing death vibes coming off these three are that.
I dash into the nearest elevator and check that I’m not being followed. I get off on the second level and run back down the stairs to the first floor.
I check the hallways and wait until there are no members in sight before falling out the back door and into a dark alleyway. It’s cleaner than you’d think with only a few dumpsters dotting the yards of cement between me and either end. Fuck it feels like the crossroads are miles away.
Plan A. “A taxi. Then Club Genesis and sanctuary.”
There is no plan b. There’s a light at either end of the alleyway and another one directly over me. Surprisingly it doesn’t offer enough glow to reach much past the tips of my boots. It’s not the darkness I’m afraid of anymore. It’s what it hides that scares the shit out of me.
And the glow of a cigarette.
The shadow lumbers in my direction. “Did you really think I’m that stupid?”
“I’d hoped, you deranged piece of shit,” I spit out.
And then a gun goes off and it’s not mine.