Prologue - Wolfson #2
“I need information on your family.”
My pulse spikes. He sees it, his eyes darting to my throat.
“They’re dead,” I say carefully.
“You don’t know that.”
If he wants to torture me, this is how to do it.
He found me a few miles downstream from Hoss. He could’ve easily flown over our lost cabin in the hills and spotted Leo, Kody, and Frankie.
Is that where he goes when he’s not here? Does he hurt them with that scalpel?
No.
Fuck that.
Holding onto any hope that they survived would put me at his mercy. I know this and still can’t stop myself from asking, “Are they alive?”
“Answer my questions, and I’ll answer yours.”
“What questions?”
“Denver raised three boys, but only one is his biological son. Who is it?”
This is news to me, but something tells me he already knows.
“I could answer.” I wet my lips. “But I’d hate to ruin your dramatic reveal.”
“How generous of you. However, I prefer my revelations to be slow and dripping.” His gaze sharpens. “Like blood from an open wound.”
“Ah. So this is when you show off your wicked scalpel skills. Got it. Totally unnecessary, by the way. Not to mention, unhinged and—”
“Put your wrists in the shackles.”
I glance at the handcuffs hanging on the bars between us, my pulse hammering. “If I don’t?”
“I’ll feed your brothers to the wolves in pieces.”
“See, that’s just rude.” My voice shakes, but I force my expression into emptiness.
They’re not alive. They’re not alive. The twat is bluffing.
“Shackles, Wolfson.”
“Proof of life, Doc.” I cross my arms. “I need to see that all three are breathing and safe before I let you have your way with me.”
Good thing he can’t provide that proof because I’m not going anywhere near those cuffs.
He removes his phone, taps the screen, and angles it toward me.
The air flees my lungs as I scan the online news article.
The fuck?
My heart stops and restarts.
I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
No.
Fucking.
Way.
How is this possible?
“They’re safe.” He pockets the phone. “For now.”
The threat pounds in my ears, shaking me to the core.
This changes everything.
I hesitate long enough to lose feeling in my face.
Are you there, God? It’s me, your favorite atheist. Just want to say I’m sorry.
I take back everything I said about you fucking goats and eating aborted babies.
And all the other things, too. Sorry, sorry, it’s just that…
I need a teeny little favor. Get me out of this, and I’ll tattoo your face on my chest. I swear on your Pepsi-with-the-wild-cherry Mother Mary. Please?
Silence.
Yeah.
That’s the problem with talking to things that aren’t real.
Slowly, I extend my arms and slip my wrists into the cold metal restraints. The cuffs snap shut, tight and unyielding. I suppress a shudder.
“Good boy.” The doctor unlocks the gate and steps into the cage, slipping off his coat.
That’s not good.
The chains allow me to turn, and I do, facing him head-on.
His fingers trail along my forearm, deceptively gentle. Then he rips open my shirt and presses the scalpel to my bare stomach.
I clench. Everywhere.
“Now,” he murmurs, “let’s begin.”
Hours pass.
Eternal, excruciating hours.
My body twists and writhes, a pathetic attempt to escape the agony.
It doesn’t work. It never does. Pain isn’t escapable. It’s the world I live in, the reality that defines every nerve, every vein, until I’m nothing but suffering incarnate.
I see his lips moving, the crazy bitch, but whatever he says is lost to me. Doesn’t matter. Words are for mortals. Pain is for gods. And right now, I am Lord of All That Hurts.
My skull pounds, reminding me I’m still alive when every rational part of me begs for death. Each cut sends another bolt of white-hot lightning through me, igniting fresh waves of torment and blurring my vision.
How fucked up is it that I ache for Hoss right now, for those years when Denver came into my room and fucked me raw in the name of fatherly love? Good times.
A few hours with Dr. Hack-’n’-Slash, and it already feels like a lifetime in hell.
I focus on his face, memorizing the details I will one day carve away with a blade.
My jaw locks, teeth grinding against the scream clawing in my throat. Tears slip past my control, burning hot trails down my cheeks, but I don’t care. Let them fall. Let him think I’m broken. Let him think he’s won.
My back bows, muscles seizing and locking, every inch of me on fire. It’s impossible to force myself to relax. I can’t loosen an inch of this iron-clad tension, but I try. Not for him. For me. For the moment when this ends, and I still have enough strength left to breathe and plot and survive.
When he finally pockets the scalpel and frees me from the shackles, I slump to the floor.
He knows I can’t attack him. Each inhale stretches the cuts across my torso, slick with blood and gaping open. Each exhale is an assault from within, my body demanding me to surrender.
I won’t.
I’ll live just to remember this. Every second. Every slice. Every flicker of sadistic pleasure in his eyes.
When the time comes, I’ll make him feel this pain.
All of it.
Tenfold.
Slowly.
“We’ll talk again soon.” He stands, wiping bloody hands on my ripped, discarded shirt. My only shirt.
“Can’t wait.”
The overhead light clicks off, and the door shuts, plunging me into darkness. Outside, the lock gives a final clunk.
He’s gone.
Regret slithers across the floor, pausing to sniff my wounds.
I release a breath, and it feels like I’m forcing air from a punctured lung.
My heart is a raging monster in my chest, stomping so violently I can feel it in my gums. It’s not fear. It’s not rage. It’s worse. It’s more dangerous and crushing.
Hope.
They’re alive.
Leo. Kody. Frankie.
They didn’t just survive.
They escaped Hoss.
The doctor showed me more news stories on his phone, torturing me with videos of them, grainy and low-resolution, but I saw their faces.
I felt them.
A rush of static hits my bloodstream, spasming my fingers. I wanted so badly to reach through the screen and touch them.
They survived the Arctic. Frankie and my brothers are free.
Except they’re not my brothers.
The truth came in pieces. Little incisions of information carved between swipes of the scalpel.
Leo is my cousin.
Kody is my uncle.
Denver, the man who raised us, the devil we all feared, is Leo’s father and my uncle.
And my sperm donor?
I almost laugh, but the sound catches in my throat, too sharp to swallow. My lips might’ve curled into a grin if my face wasn’t so wrecked with pain.
My father is Frankie’s husband.
The cheating, two-pump-chump billionaire Monty Novak is my damn father.
I press my tongue against my teeth, biting down hard enough to taste iron.
Montgomery Strakh. That’s his real name.
My father.
I wouldn’t believe it if the doctor hadn’t played the audio clips of my family discussing it in private. I heard their voices, their validations of our DNA.
It’s too much. Too fucking much.
I want to roar. I want to laugh. I want to tear the truth out of my skin like shrapnel because what the fuck does it even mean? I spent my whole life not knowing who fathered me. How fitting that I learned the truth while being cut open during my own autopsy?
I let out a breathless, shuddering, maniacal laugh, my torso shaking and weeping blood. The pain lances through me, but it’s distant now, nothing compared to the torture of my thoughts.
The doctor told me everything he knew about my family, and I told him nothing.
I won’t be able to keep my silence next time. And there will be a next time. Many, many more.
He has terrible plans for my family and me. Delusional, mad-clown, chainsaw-massacre plans.
I don’t know what to do with this information. I don’t know how to save them.
“They escaped,” I whisper. “They survived.”
Now I must do the same.