Chapter 10
CADE
Costa Rica
A stench of wet earth and rust burns my nostrils.
The old dilapidated shack is even worse up close. Wood that’s warped and weeping, swollen from years of rot and rain. The front window is shattered. The other two are boarded up. Fuzzy gray mold creeps up the splintered walls and crooked beams in thick veins of velvet.
Roman lets out a dry hack as he steps in. He shuts the door, sealing off the world behind us with a low, final thud.
Inside, there’s almost nothing.
A single folding table with a laptop open on its surface. The screen black and lifeless.
An old easel—its frame cracked and sagging—stands in the center of the room. On it, crookedly leans a blank canvas. Mocking me with its emptiness. Below the easel, lies a neat little row of oil paint tubes all organized by color.
Sitting alone on the second table is a leather-bound sketch book. A graphite pencil lying perfectly horizontal across the cover.
That’s all.
Lex scoffs. “What the hell is this—”
He clamps his mouth shut when the screen flickers to life.
“Bella,” I breathe.
She’s in her room, free from her chains and restraints. She’s just standing there as still as a statue. A black silk nightgown hangs loose around her frame, dripping just off her shoulder. It shimmers faintly under the overhead light like oil on water.
There’s a bandage on her arm now. A stark white against all that black. But otherwise, she looks okay. No visible bruises or fresh cuts. The wound on her hairline has nearly healed. It’s like she’s just been living there untouched.
DING.
“Fuck,” Lex mutters, shoulders tense as he yanks out his phone. “Here we go.”
@LucaWasHere
Welcome boys, please step inside.
Where art is born and the truth won’t hide.
Before your eyes, two paths appear.
Choose once, my dear. For there’s no reverse here.
I crave a gallery, intimate and true.
My family captured by the hands of you.
Each trial, a choice. Each choice a scar.
No stepping back once you decide who you are.
So tell me now, don’t waste my time.
A painter’s soul or a sketcher’s line?
Choose with care. This is the start.
Tick-tock, Whitmore. Go pick your art.
Silence drops heavily in the room.
I tentatively creep toward the canvas.
“Don’t touch it, Cade!” Nate’s voice rings in my ear. He’s watching through the button camera he attached to my shirt. “Check for any type of trap or sensor first.”
I slow my steps, eyes sweeping the floor, the easel, and the color wheel of paints beneath it.
“You should have let me go in there,” Laing’s smug voice carries through. “This reeks of a kill box.”
“I don’t see anything,” I say into my mic, moving toward the russet leather sketchbook. Same thing. Cold leather binding. Heavy paper with a lonely sharpened pencil waiting on top.
“Clock’s ticking, baby,” Luca’s intimate voice croons over the speakers. “Don’t make her pay for your delay.”
“Just pick one, babe,” Lex orders.
I reach down and snatch up the sketchbook. The moment my fingers brush the leather, the hinge of Bella’s door groans and a long shadow stretches across the floorboards.
“What is going on?” Lex asks, his eyes closing in on the screen as Zeke steps into the light.
“Z-Zeke?” Bella stutters, taking a step back. “What are you doing here?”
“Get on the bed, Bells,” Zeke orders as his hands reach for the hem of his shirt. He pulls it off in one swift motion.
“Jesus Christ,” Roman mumbles, leaning against the table. “What did he do to him?”
I gape in horror at the road map of violence painted across Zeke’s back. A crisscrossing web of thick plum-colored scars. High on his left shoulder there’s a puckered starburst from where a bullet once tore through his flesh.
The front must be a grisly echo of his back because Bella’s eyes widen as she tracks the damage in stunned silence.
“My God, what happened to you?” she croaks.
Zeke crosses the room in two long strides. “I said.” He closes the last bit of space between them, unbuckling his belt. “Get on the bed.”
“No chance in hell,” she spits. Her hand flashes out and cracks him right across the cheek.
“That’s our girl,” Lex says. “Kick his ass, baby.”
“Stubborn as ever,” Zeke laughs, tilting his head. “Guess we’re doin’ this the hard way.” He lifts her with one muscular arm and throws her on to the bed.
Lex flies off the handle beside me. “What the fuck is he doing?!”
The bed creaks under their weight as he climbs up on top of her. She claws at his arms and face, drawing blood.
It doesn’t faze him.
He grabs her by the forearm and pins her back down. She buckles under him, a sharp wail escaping her as he grips tighter.
“Stop fucking fighting it, Bells.”
“If I were you, Whitmore,” Luca’s voice bleeds through. “I’d get to sketching. He’s been instructed not to stop until I’m satisfied with your work.”
I freeze, watching Zeke pull up the white silk sheet around them.
“Fucking go, Cade!” Lex shouts. “DRAW!”
“I… I’m supposed to sketch him, but he’s…” My voice falters. “Lex, I can’t.”
“Just do it!” Roman roars.
“Zeke, please!” Bella screams again as he lowers himself onto her. “No!”
I rip open the sketchbook, shaking so hard the pencil nearly slips out of my hand. Tears blur everything as the first line hits the page.
???
BELLA
Day 12 in Eden.
“Zeke, please! NO!” I scream, the headboard rattling behind me as he pins me down.
Zeke’s hand slams next to my head. His warm breath grazing my ears.
“Iz… shit, I mean Bells,” he hisses, his deep voice sharp with urgency. “Jesus Christ, I’m not going to fuck you.”
My whole body trembles under his. “W-w-what?” I sob, confusion and fear tangling together with a fit of rage. “Zeke, what are you—”
“Shh,” he cuts me off, mouth barely moving as he grinds his hips against me. “He’s watching. Just shut up and listen for once in your life.”
I open my mouth again, but he shoots me that look. The same look he used to give me when I was sixteen and about to mouth off to him on a mission.
“Do what I say,” he growls. “Exactly when I say it.”
I manage a jerky nod.
“Scream at me to quit.”
My throat tightens, but I do. “Zeke! STOP!”
He shackles my wrists with his hands, shoving them up against my head. His fingers vibrate against my skin in a frantic and uneven movement he can’t seem to stop.
I wince as the skin on my forearm stretches. “Watch it.”
“I’m going to get us out of here. I promise,” he whispers, shifting lower to block my face from the camera planted up in the corner of my ceiling. “Sorry about this one.”
He slams his hips into mine. The bed jerks and my skull bangs against the headboard.
“Ouch,” I yelp. “That fucking hurt.”
“Yell at me again and make it convincing,” he whispers as he lowers himself back down, rolling his hips in a cruel, slow rhythm.
“Anytime now,” he grits against the skin of my neck.
He keeps moving on top of me. Putting on a show for the sick fucker watching from God knows where in this nightmare of a house.
“Please s-s-stop!” I cry, the words burn coming out.
He grunts and grabs my throat tight enough to tilt my chin and hide the angle of his mouth. Zeke dips his head and ghosts his lips against my jaw. “Now push me off.”
I press against his chest, legs kicking weakly beneath him. He viciously shoves me back with one hand.
“I hate this,” I whisper.
“I know,” he breathes. “But he has to buy it. They all do.”
“They?” I ask.
“Shh,” he whispers.
He gives another thrust mixed with a nasty moan he doesn’t mean. Another scream I force from deep in my lungs.
“How are we going to get out of here?” I whisper under his weight.
“Working on it,” he admits, lips brushing close to mine. “Do you trust me?”
I nod as a tear runs down my cheek. He catches it.
“Scream.”
“Zeke!” I wail. “Stooooop!”
“Nicely done,” he whispers. He lets the sheet fall halfway down his back before picking up his pace, revealing just enough of his skin to make this shit look disgustingly real. “I’ll be back. We’ll figure this out.”
I search his face.
“You never…” I say through a sniffle. “You never left me, did you?”
“Never.” He winks.
“I missed you.”
“Scream one last time.”
I obey.
He glances down at me with glassy eyes. “I missed you too, sis.”
“Very good, Zeke,” Luca’s voice reverberates through the room. “That’s enough fun for now.”
Zeke freezes, his mask falling back into place. He slowly lifts off of me, gripping my wrist before he stands. His fingers gently squeeze our brother’s name inked on my skin.
“I’ll be back when I can,” he whispers. “Promise.”
???
CADE
Costa Rica
12 days since Bella’s kidnapping.
“Cade!” Lex roars behind me, but I barely hear him.
All I can hear is the scratch of graphite on paper mixed with the echo of Bella’s scream bouncing off the inside of my skull.
My fingers are still smudged, stained, and trembling as I stare down at the sketch. The lines feel foreign. Like someone else carved her pain onto this page with my hands.
But I can’t stop staring at Zeke’s body curved into hers, or the shadows knotted at their hips. Her leg is slung over his. His mouth is at her throat.
My hand did that. Every inch of it. Every line and every contour.
I blink through the burn in my eyes and trace the shape of her shoulder. The arch of her back. The dip of her waist. The way his fingers grip her like she’s his.
And she’s not.
She’s not.
My stomach turns.
“…could you tell where she was?” Briggs’s low voice pierces through the room.
Roman answers, something low and clipped.
Another message pings on the laptop. From him. The others read it, their words blurring into a low static behind the pounding in my ears.
I don’t look at it. I can’t.
I can’t pull my eyes from my sketch.
Her face.
His lips.
Their bodies.
I let it slip from my grasp. The paper flutters down like ash and lands beside my foot.
I stumble through the door, hands gripping the rails as I lunge down the stairs.
My legs give out and my knees smash into the wet grass with a dull thump.
My stomach lurches. It empties itself onto the ground in a bitter and violent rush.
The sour burn claws at my throat as my chest seizes, ribs aching from the strain.
It won’t stop.
I can still see it. The paper. Her skin. The way the pencil dug into the page, the pressure of graphite vibrating between my fingers.
I gag again, but nothing comes out. There’s nothing left inside me but air and pain.
A hand slams down on my back. “Cade,” Lex breathes.
I can’t look at him, not yet. Not when I’m the one who put that image out into the world.
He collapses to his knees behind me, his arms banding around my chest. “I’m here,” he rasps against my neck, his deep voice breaking on the final word. “I’ve got you.”
I can’t stop my body from shaking. Can’t slow my ragged breathing no matter how hard I try.
“I’ve got you, babe,” he says again, gripping me tighter. “Fuck, I’ve got you.”