Chapter 14
fourteen
-Serena-
For a moment, my life stops, and so does the world around me. I can’t even bring myself to think about what's happening. Everything goes silent for a few seconds, and I swear they’re the longest of my life.
I start to think my heartbeat’s the only sound left—until even that seems to vanish. But just as I reach for my phone to light the dark, a body comes flying through the air, crashing to the ground in front of me with a sickening thump.
Thank God it's not Set. It’s someone even bigger than him—maybe even a head taller. And he just flew through the air like a damn feather.
I reach for the gun, but I don't get to take it out before the guy bolts and races toward Set, slamming into him and hurling him against a wall. The blow is so strong it shakes the whole building like a bulldozer just crashed through it.
The spot where Set landed is better lit than the rest of the space, and I can see him spit a long strand of blood on the floor.
My breath hitches. My first instinct is to run to him and make sure he’s okay, but suddenly, I spot a grin crawling across his lips "Fuck yes. This’s what I'm talking about.
" Maybe he got hit in the head because he looks thrilled with the blow.
Like a kid who just walked into an amusement park.
Something unholy lights in his eyes, and he suddenly bolts toward the mountain of a man, slamming a punch into his face hard enough that I hear his teeth clatter.
He doesn’t fall, though. Trying to stay conscious, he ricochets—and slams Set with a hit that makes his head snap to the side.
Not as brutal as the one the hitman took, but way too close.
Then, as if they’re trading turns, Set slams into him again, so hard that the blow sends the guy flying across the room again.
This time, I'm ready. I aim, and fire straight at him—at least, I think I do. It's so dark that only after I empty the whole damn gun on him, I realize I only hit him in the arm.
I want to scream in fury because I wasted the bullets. But then I hear Set's voice, calm and maddeningly amused. "You're doing so good. I'm proud of you. Just don't steal all the fun just yet," he says, like he's having the time of his life.
Meanwhile, I fumble for my phone and flick on the flashlight. At least now I can see. Not sure if I'm blinding them, but if I don't have some light, I'm gonna lose my mind.
The man rises from the ground, as if the bullet was only a scratch, eyes locking on me.
"I see you brought me my paycheck," he gets to take a step in my direction before Set grabs him by the neck, and this time, slams him on the ground right in front of him. In a blink of an eye, one of his knees presses down on the guy’s chest, and he starts hitting him—over and over again, so brutally that just a few seconds later, I can't even tell what the guy used to look like.
I knew he was capable of such extreme violence, but I never imagined he was Mike Tyson kind of strong.
Now I'm starting to believe that story about Set wiping out an entire Italian mob family by himself. I’ve seen him order people to kill.
I’ve even seen him do it himself—with weapons.
But not with his bare hands. He's like a force of nature, totally unstoppable, and totally lethal. Now I get why Whiro didn’t flinch when Set walked in to face a mercenary.
By the time I manage to find a light switch, the man’s disfigured, but still breathing. And to be honest, I wish I hadn't turned on the light. The room’s even more grotesque in full light.
So many jars.
So many dead bodies—cut, labeled, stored like inventory.
I throw up instantly, trying to find a corner as far away from the jars as possible.
"Told you to stay in the car," Set mutters, dragging the almost unconscious man toward a chair.
"You want to go there now? Things are about to get messy?
" he asks way too casually, like this is a daily activity to him and things weren’t already messy enough.
Throwing the guy on the chair, he starts tying him using an electric cord he just found lying on the floor.
"No," I answer in a breath. No way in hell I'm leaving his side, especially after I've seen what he can truly do. And especially not now when I'm standing in the middle of hell.
"Might want to close your eyes for this part," he says, flipping out his knife and waving it in the hitman’s face. The guy must still have one good eye, because he flinches.
"The name of who hired you, and I'll make this quick," Set offers him a deal. But it gets a fuck you in return.
"Have it your way," Set shrugs, dragging the knife across the man's hand until his flesh purrs open from the encounter. The bastard barely flinches, like the pain doesn’t fully register, while I'm one breath from throwing up again. But I brace myself. I have to stay strong. I know Set’s torturing him to get the name out for me. I won’t be the reason he has to stop.
"Still not talking, I see," he grunts, trailing the knife over the man's chest, almost splitting him open.
I jolt, seeing the blood spilling out, and this time, I do knock over a jar, which shatters against the floor.
Some kind of sticky goo splashes everywhere, the smell of formaldehyde filling my nostrils. I instantly throw up again, seeing what I think to be a spine lying at my feet.
"You okay over there? Want me to come help?" Set offers again, like he could stop mid-torture and lend me a bloody hand.
I swear, the man has no concept of normal whatsoever.
Neither does his victim—who looks more rattled by the broken jar than the gaping wound on his chest.
"Good job. Good fucking job, Serena," Set praises me, like breaking the jar was on purpose. At first, I don't even get why. But then I see him heading to the shelves, grabbing another jar and smashing it on the floor.
Then another.
And then another.
Until the man tied to the chair screams, "Stop!"
Set was right. He kept them as trophies.
I didn’t do it on purpose, but the way he praised me hit a very sensitive spot somewhere deep within me, and he might just have involuntarily unlocked a new kink.
I’m screwed. This man has way too much power over me.
"Name. Now. Or I break every last one," Set presses, and this time, he gets the guy strapped to the chair to talk.
"Okay, okay just stop breaking them!" the man pleads with what seems to be the last of his powers. Then another word slips from his lips—probably the last one he’ll ever speak. "Chen."
The name drops like a grenade. Silence takes over. I think Set already suspected him, but just needed to make sure. This is bad, and I know it.
"Serena, I need you to look away. You can even cover your ears if you want to." Set says quietly. After the horrors I've witnessed, I didn't think anything could still shock me. But if he’s warning me… this is going to be unthinkable.
I do as he says, I don’t want this burned into my memory. But I still hear the man screaming, no matter how tightly I press my hands over my ears.
It's only when the screaming stops that I dare to take my hands away, and I can’t help but glance behind me.
Set also catches me staring at the guy, who looks more like a slab of raw meat by now than anything remotely human. "This is what happens to anyone who tries to hurt you, only next time I'll take my time. He was lucky you were here… and I realized you wouldn't enjoy the view."
I shudder at the gruesome gift. But I can’t feel sorry for the guy who took the job to kill me. I’m just in a rush to get out of here. "Let's leave... please."
He nods, but he's too covered in blood to walk back into the hotel like this, so before we leave the building, he stops in what used to be a bathroom.
Now it's just a faucet and a broken sink. Set washes the blood off his hands and it feels like he’s not doing it fast enough—probably because the damn lightbulb keeps flickering on and off, making me think The Boogie Man will come out of a wall at any moment.
But I'm safe with Set. I know I'm safe with him, and he just proved it to me in the creepiest way possible.
His men arrive just as we are leaving, and he orders them to go inside and clean everything up. No one will know what happened there, or the horrors that were committed. But I’ll know. Just one more thing burned into my conscience.
Set’s still acting extra careful with me—just like he did all day, and as soon as we get back to the penthouse, he turns on the shower and cleans me of the gooey remnants that splattered on us when the jars broke.
I can’t even bring myself to look down. There’s a trembling in my limbs that I can’t shake. I've been like that for the past hour. No matter how hard I try to control myself, I just can't stop shaking.
I can barely hold back the gagging sensation each time I think of the jars. Each time I think of that place. The more my mind drifts back there, the more I realize Set might be right. He might be a killer, but what if his kills prevent innocent lives from getting lost?
He's gently washing every inch of my skin—just like he did this morning, and even if he lets a few stray kisses land on the nape of my neck as he runs the sponge over my breast, he never kisses my lips.
I've noticed he hasn’t kissed me once since I returned from Italy.
I know he said I don’t deserve him kissing me.
At first, I didn’t think much of it, but now, it’s starting to get under my skin.
Just like it bothers me that he never smiles.
Not at me, anyway. I caught him smiling when he talked to his brother.
But he never does it when I say something.
Like he's holding back on purpose to keep some kind of distance.
And all I want now is to be close to him—to feel anything rather than the fear and horror clawing around within me.
And, as if he hears my thoughts…
"Look at me," I hear him whisper, cupping my face in his palms, tilting my chin up to meet his gaze.
I don't know why, but I love it when he does that.
Like he'll make everything around us disappear, and it’d be just the two of us.
"It's over. He's dead, he's not hurting anyone. And as for what you saw there, it might’ve been grotesque, but those weren't all good people. He was a mercenary."
"Like your brother?" I ask.
"Whiro’s… different. He can't be controlled. He doesn't care about keeping balances. So yeah—kind of like my brother," he says, turning off the water and wrapping a large towel around me.
This time, he doesn't go back to my room to grab something for me to sleep in, just takes one of his own T-shirts and pulls it over my head.
And even though I like the oversized T-shirts I usually wear around the house, nothing compares to wearing his clothes.
Nothing compares to being wrapped in his scent—belonging to him.
I'm getting ready to go to bed when I see him heading toward the door. "You won't be able to sleep right now," he says, waiting for me to join him. "Let's watch a movie or something, get your mind off what happened."
I look at him with disbelief. He's been so nice to me today, I'm starting to think he’s secretly auditioning for the role of boyfriend.
Not that he is my boyfriend. I really don't know what he is these days. My captor or the man of my dreams?
Right now, he's competing for the second option.
"Do you want something to eat?" he asks—not imposes—as he usually does with his commands like Eat! Or Sleep!... or Open those pretty legs!
Hmmm, maybe that could snap me out of this trance, because when it comes to eating, my stomach still refuses the thought after all I’ve seen today.
I tell him that, and for once, he doesn’t argue.
But he does seem to come up with a plan B and goes to the kitchen only to return with his arms full of all sorts of chips, snacks, a bottle of red wine, and two glasses.
We settle onto the oversized couch, and he turns on Netflix so we can find something to watch. "Take your pick," he says, scrolling through the latest releases.
Since I'm not in the mood for the true crime section, and the “You” series hits way too close to home, I say. "Romantic comedy."
"Sure, why not torture me?" he mutters, but still goes to the comedy section and makes me pick a movie from there.
I chose Mr. & Mrs. Smith. It's an oldie, but goodie, and at least it has some action so that Set won't want to shoot himself in the head halfway through. Besides, it kind of feels like we’ve just returned from a mission ourselves, so the shoe fits.
Turns out Set was right, I do manage to get my mind off everything that happened, especially after a couple of glasses of wine and, like, three bags of chips. I might not want food, but I always want comfort snacks.
He throws a blanket over us, and aside from cuddling me in his arms, he's on his best behavior. I know he's doing it on purpose to irritate me, but honestly, I don't think I could’ve handled him right now anyway.
I don’t even make it halfway through the movie before I pass out. I feel him moving us at one point, though it's not to go to the bedroom. He just arranges us on the couch, and we fall asleep like that—with me curled in his arms.
Suddenly, I'm back in the factory again, sweat beading on my forehead. The formaldehyde smell is everywhere. I want to scream, but I can’t, no matter how hard I open my mouth to do it.
Before I can bolt, a hand grabs me, and I start kicking and fighting.
"Shush, shhh," I hear Set say, and I feel his hand comforting the top of my head.
I'm still on the couch. It was just a bad dream.
I must've jolted it in his arms because even though he's not fully awake, he keeps kissing the top of my head, his hand drifting over my body down to my ass.
"You're safe. I've got you," he whispers in a sleepy voice, pulling my body even closer to him, like he’s trying to cocoon me against the world, just so I’d feel protected.
It helps, but as soon as I calm down, I also start feeling annoyingly turned on.
The shape of his hard cock is pressing right against my core as he raises on one of my legs over his hip, trapping me between his body and the couch like a damn safety blanket with benefits.
Maybe I’d be okay with that, if I couldn't feel his damn piercing teasing me through those thin-ass shorts he’s wearing.
And there goes my sleep for at least a couple of hours as I manage to turn my mind from the horrible memories into some vivid wet dreams.
Damn this man.