Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Heaven Cottage
Eden
Sluggishly, my eyes blink open. For a moment, my vision is blurry.
My head aches.
Confused, I panic.
What happened?
Where am I?
I can’t remember.
I can’t…
My head, swollen eye, and busted lip throb. There is a sharp pain in my chest every time that I breathe in a way that I recognize as a broken rib.
I’ve been beaten.
Instantly, I feel sick.
The Man and Woman must have been playing with me again.
Am I back in the Room?
Where’s my brother?
What if they’ve taken Shay, while I was unconscious and unable to distract their attention onto kicking my arse, rather than his?
“Shay.” I work to sit up.
But then, I struggle wildly when I discover that my hands have been bound with rough rope in front of me.
I growl, ineffectually trying to wrench them apart with a grunt. My skin is rubbed raw.
The ropes, however, hold firm.
My muscles are too weak, and I can’t coordinate my efforts properly.
“Hey, stop that,” a voice that isn’t Shay’s (but yet is familiar), says.
A small hand rests under my shoulder, before helping me to sit more securely with my back against the wall.
“Or you’ll break something, and that’ll be boring.
I didn’t beg my Mistress, as well as promise to buy her a new Porsche tomorrow, in order to change you out of being bound clumsily by my belt into this rope just for you to injure yourself anyway. ”
Slowly, my vision clears, as does my confusion.
I’ve been kidnapped by Blythe.
Adrenaline shoots through me at the same time as a roar of rage.
My eyes darken, but my expression remains mask-like.
My brother will come back from the arena to find me missing.
My heart clenches.
How long have I been unconscious?
Has that already happened?
It will kill Shay.
My brother will go fucking feral to get me back.
I clench my tied hands at the thought. I don’t understand how people can find enjoyment in being bound and losing control like Shay and Robyn can.
The sensation of this rope coiled around my wrists makes me want to crawl out of my skin.
I hope that D’Angelo discourages either Shay or Robyn risking themselves for me.
I can get myself out of this situation. I can save all of us from these abusers.
I have done it before. I will always do it.
I’ll prove to my new family that I may not have the same money, talent, or status that they do. But I can still care for and protect them.
I can have worth.
A pretty young man with cornflower blue eyes and wavy honey blond hair is kneeling next to me on a linoleum floor. He avoids my gaze as he leans over to check my pulse with trembling fingers.
Heine.
Heine’s black skinny jeans and blue t-shirt are crumpled and stained like he has been wearing the same outfit for at least several days. He has a matching black eye to mine.
A heavy, ugly steel collar is padlocked around his neck. It has rubbed the skin around his neck raw.
I grit my teeth, holding up my bound hands. “Red.”
Heine’s gaze shoots to mine.
He looks startled.
Uncomfortable, he turns away, picking up a glass of water with a straw in it.
He passes the glass between his hands nervously.
“Perhaps, what’s happening isn’t clear to you.
This isn’t a scene. Blythe isn’t playing and even if she was, she doesn’t listen to safewords.
I was stupid enough once to believe that was what I wanted.
Needed. A lifestyle without limits. D’Angelo warned me against it, but I didn’t listen.
Why the hell didn’t I? I think that I hurt myself after I was exiled to Germany because I couldn’t hurt him, or may because physical pain was nothing compared to how it felt to be rejected by him.
Here…” He thrusts the straw to my lips. “Drink.”
I stubbornly keep my mouth shut.
He pushes the straw more insistently against my lips. “It’s not poisoned. Hands up, I admittedly have form there.”
When I still don’t drink, Heine sighs and places down the drink. “You’ll regret that. My Mistress doesn’t always let you eat or drink. How are you feeling?”
“Shit.”
“As long as you don’t die on me.”
I tilt my head. “So, you’re not a total psychopath.”
“I’m more a sociopath.” Heine sits back, slamming the glass onto the floor with a huff. “Plus, it would simply be too boring to have to dig a grave for you.”
I see beneath his bluster.
He doesn’t want to do this. He is as trapped as I am but he either can’t admit it to himself or is too broken.
The question is whether I care.
Does he still deserve to burn with his mistress?
I surreptitiously glance around myself.
I’m sitting on the floor of a compact, neat kitchen. The cabinets and counters are oak with a Belfast sink and old-fashioned gas range beside a closed door across from me.
A solid back door stands on the opposite side of the room.
I lick my dry lips.
An oak table stands in the middle of the kitchen, which is covered in a range of newspapers. Underneath it is a large dog bed and a thin blanket.
Plyboards have been nailed over the window.
Is it to stop anyone from seeing what is happening inside? Keeping Heine prisoner? Or has this house been turned into a cage ahead of time for me?
The thought makes my heart race.
It’s claustrophobic in here.
Yet I can work with a kitchen.
There are a lot of things that can be used as weapons in a kitchen.
All I need now is to wait for the right moment to act.
My shoulders relax. I rest back against the wall. I wince at the sharp pain in my chest.
I hope that the rib doesn’t puncture my lung.
Pain is nothing.
Violence is nothing.
Working out how to handle Heine and Blythe without Shay here to guide me, however, is the hardest thing. It’s not enough to sacrifice myself.
I hated Blythe at college, and she hated me.
She was able to manipulate my brother because of his need to please. She can’t manipulate me in the same way but I also can’t understand the games that she plays.
I should try to convince Heine to let me go.
Yet the words are stuck in my throat.
I have no idea how he feels. What he’s thinking.
Shay would understand him. But I’m the wrong twin once again.
Watching the way that Heine rubs at his collar with a wince, I feel a twinge of reluctant sympathy.
Why does Heine have to remind me of Shay?
My brother was stuck with me in a place without light as well.
I need to know whether Heine deserves saving.
“Where’s Blythe?” I demand.
“Shh.” Heine hushes me in alarm, glancing over his shoulder at the closed door. “Mistress is busy. It’s my job to keep you quiet.”
“I’ll just yell then.”
Heine’s eyes widen in betrayed shock. “You wouldn’t.”
“Why not? You kidnapped me.”
Heine throws himself forward, slamming his hand over my mouth.
He’s breathing fast.
This close, I realize how thin he is.
In his panic, he has crawled too close. I could grab him by the neck and snap it.
My hands twitch.
Then D’Angelo’s face comes into my mind.
D’Angelo said that Heine was once his friend in the same way that Cody is my friend. Would he be sad if this little bastard died?
I would be devastated if anything happened to Cody.
My jaw clenches, and with difficulty, I resist breaking Heine’s neck.
“You can hate me.” Heine is trembling. “But this wasn’t my idea.
I’ve been desperate to come back to America and D’Angelo but not like this.
If you want to hit me or whatever, then I’ll let you.
But don’t get me in more trouble with her than I already am.
So, I take my hand away and you don’t shout, okay? ”
I nod.
When Heine cautiously takes away his hand, our eyes meet.
I remain silent.
Heine’s shoulders slump in relief. “Thank you.”
“You’re a billionaire,” I point out, unable to look away from the collar at his neck.
It makes my stomach turn that Shay is so desperate for one like it.
Is this what being owned means to him? This fear?
I am trying to understand but I have fought for our freedom our entire lives.
How can he give it up? “You own companies. Why would you give yourself away to someone who takes away your voice?”
Heine blanches, before turning to sit next to me against the wall.
He thinks for a long moment, pulling his knees up. “I thought that it would make me feel safe. It would if D’Angelo was my Sir. Isn’t your brother the same?”
My stomach twists. “D’Angelo isn’t the same as Blythe.”
Heine plays with his hands. “He isn’t. At the start, however, Blythe didn’t make me sleep in a dog bed in the kitchen or insist that she take over my finances because I was a moron.
She didn’t write my daily schedule because I was too lazy.
To begin with, she praised how educated and refined I was.
We went out to Michelin starred restaurants and the theater.
We commiserated with each other about being abandoned.
I had no one else to talk to about it, and I felt like I’d found a friend.
When she offered to take me on as a non-romantic sub and train me, before bringing me back to show D’Angelo what a perfect sub I could be, I jumped at the chance. I didn’t know…”
I want to say bullshit.
Except, this was how Blythe conned my brother, wasn’t it?
“Did you know that the cost would be my brother being sent away? Traded to another team?” I narrow my eyes.
Heine fidgets. “As soon as the training started, Mistress changed. I fucking broke. Does that make your little heart happy? And no, she didn’t share her plans with me, at least at the start. I was only her sub there to obey and be used.”
I wince at the echo of Shay’s words.
“Where are we?” I demand.
“Heaven Cottage. This is one of my old properties, where I could hide even from my dad. It’s a tiny cottage on the coast. It’s also my favorite place in the world because I would escape here whenever I could from Dad, especially when he was in a rage, until he’d calmed down. But now, it’s my Hell.”
I’ve heard enough now. I know what I must do.