Chapter 3 Elena
CHAPTER 3
ELENA
Elena woke up to the smell of cappuccino breath. Her eyes shot open, and she stared into Pedro’s blotchy red face. He was hovering over her bed, his arms placed on either side of her pillow.
She tried to scramble up, but he grabbed her by the throat and held her down.
“Get out of my room,” she hissed. “If Lorenzo—”
He laughed. “My big brother isn’t here anymore, remember?”
Right…
She’d forgotten. A mistake that could cost her dearly. Stupid, stupid. In her defense, it was only the second week she had woken up to a world without Lorenzo in it. Why hadn’t she locked her door? Because she hadn’t needed to before; not once had Lorenzo visited her bedroom.
Pedro grabbed her by the collar of her shirt, and Elena stilled. Part of her had always known this day would come. The day Pedro would no longer hide his true self and cross that line.
She slowly moved her hand underneath her pillow.
“Where is she? Where’s your daughter?”
Vicky was where she belonged. “You know me better than this, Pedro. I will never tell you.”
This earned her a smack in the face. Pain exploded through her skull. She could taste blood but refused to show him her pain or the anxiety crawling up her belly. Men like Pedro got off on fear. They reveled in it, thinking it made them strong. All that it did was make her sick.
“You will tell me everything I want.” His eyes roamed over her body as if it belonged to him.
Never. There had only been one man who had ever owned her body and her soul, and losing him had nearly destroyed her. A man like Pedro couldn’t fathom what it was like to give yourself to one person completely. To bask in the light they brought you, or the darkness they pulled you into.
He grabbed her breast. “You will give me everything I want.”
She cringed when he twisted her nipple.
Her hand slid another inch under the pillow. And another one. Until it grabbed onto her knife.
Leaving all pretense behind, Pedro jumped on top of her, grinding against her. A blanket of sour sweat and stale wine coated her, clinging to her like the filth he was.
She tried to pull her arm away, but he grabbed her and pushed her into the mattress, using his body to hold her down.
Flashbacks of her childhood came back, projecting into her mind like a twisted black-and-white silent film. That time her brother had to pull one of his junkie friends off her. Or the time he had almost been too late. That time, she had stared at the cracked tile in the bathroom while his dealer had felt her up.
Then she remembered her mother’s dying words.
Be a lion, Elena.
Pedro ripped away her top, exposing her breasts. Her eyes went to the lion pendant. And she decided to fucking roar.
The second his hands went to her breasts, pressing his lips on them, she struck.
Like the pig he was, he screeched. A hand went to his neck, and he jumped off her. But not before his other hand entangled in her hair, dragging her to the floor.
Over and over he kicked her. The carpet burned her face as she desperately tried to crawl away. She made herself small, trying to hide from his beating as much as possible. It didn’t work. On the floor, she was exposed. By the time he stopped, she felt like a wrecking ball had hit her. There wasn’t a part of her that didn’t ache.
He lifted her from the floor by pulling her hair.
“You stupid bitch. I will fucking break you. And when I find your bastardo, I will break her too.”
She spat in his face. “You will never find her.”
There were two things she knew about Viking: he hated her more than anyone in this world, and he would give his life for his child.
Pedro wrapped his hands around her throat and started to squeeze. The last thing on her mind before darkness clouded her vision was that her daughter was safe.
This time, fate was on her side, because she had made it so.
***
When Elena woke up, she was chained to a wall in the basement. Her clothes were gone, and she lay on a floor of filth. Pain wracked her body and she winced when she felt her split lip.
She crawled back against the wall, trying to hide from the men who were standing before her—Pedro and Toni, her former bodyguard. Toni’s eyes roamed over her body just as Pedro’s had, and it felt like a punch to the gut. She had known the big man wasn’t fond of her, but through all these years he had escorted her, he had never shown any disrespect. Somehow, his being here was more of a betrayal than Pedro’s treatment of her.
Pedro grabbed her ankle and pulled her close. She fought him every inch of the way, but she was no match against him.
“You filthy pig!” she spat.
He grabbed her breast and squeezed, hard. Elena refused to yell, refused to shed a single tear, no matter how much it hurt. Her tears were not meant for him.
Toni grabbed her wrists, holding her down, while Pedro took his place between her legs.
Panic blurred her vision, and she looked past him to the ceiling. Her mind couldn’t process what was happening. It refused to accept it.
I have promised him.
No other than you, Vik. No other.
Pedro pinched a nipple to the point of almost unbearable pain, and then his hand went lower. He jammed a finger inside her, making her want to throw up.
“That’s right, bitch,” he snarled, his breath hot on her ear. “This is only the beginning. I’m not just gonna give you my cock, I’m going to make you beg for it. When I find little Vicky, I’m gonna fuck her too. Unless you keep me happy, right?”
“No… no...”
He kept on saying monstrous things of what he was going to do to her little girl, all the while feeling her up from the inside, breaching her, hurting her. Then, finally, he pulled his finger out.
It was all she could do not to vomit. She refused to. Spewing all over his expensive loafers would show him her distress. It would make her look weak. She didn’t have time for weak.
He got back on his feet, and Toni let go of the hold he had on her arms. Her body was defeated, rendered completely defenseless, at his mercy, but her mind was still as strong as a vault, refusing to crack or break. And inside her belly, the flame of hatred grew from tiny sparks into a full-blown inferno.
Pedro smoothed his hair and looked down on her.
“Tomorrow, you will call Vicky and get her to come here. If you don’t, Toni is going to fuck you. Then the rest of my men. Every fucking day. You hear me? Every single day they will use you up until there’s nothing left. You have twenty-four hours to decide.”
The floor beneath her froze her back, paralyzing her limbs. Every part of her felt broken and dirty, and still, she couldn’t let him leave like this.
Lions don’t surrender, Lena.
They roar.
“No, Pedro, you hear me. I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, but I will make you pay for this. I’ve lived with only half a soul for sixteen years. If I have to sell the rest of it to the devil to come back to haunt you, then that’s what I’ll do. If I have to choose between the pearly gates of heaven or torment your dark soul for eternity, I will choose fucking torture.”
Being chained up in a cold basement was nothing. Just another bump in the road she’d chosen a long time ago. It was just another dent in the armor she’d surrounded herself with.
She had survived worse. She had inflicted pain on the man she loved the most, only to be forced to live with the man she hated the most. Every day since then, she had died a little. The only thing that had kept her alive was her daughter. Vicky was the single, most beautiful thing she had ever created. She was kind, smart, and amazing. Hell would freeze over before she let Pedro get his filthy hands on her.