Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
EBONY
Atorchlight bounces around outside down the pitch-black tunnel, the shuffling of feet through dirt getting louder as whoever is out there gets closer.
The release of tension bleeds from my stiff limbs, a long shaky exhale bursting from my mouth as our saviour edges into the room.
The shock evident as his eyes fly wide and his face goes blank, his body frozen in place as his brain tries to make sense of what it’s seeing.
“Mateo,” Megan grits out, the sobbing plea lighter as she tries to shake him loose from his stupor.
“MATEO!” I growl, full of impatience, my gaze darting to the upstairs room where I can see Nathaniel pacing as he yells animatedly into his phone.
The colour returns to Mateo’s face, and he rushes over to Megan. “Fuck, Megan. What the hell is going on?” He can’t hold back his emotions as he fumbles with the ropes, falling back on his haunches and raising his arms when she winces at the contact.
“I got a call; some guy, said something about a live tracker signal. He’s on his way, but I couldn’t wait,” he explains in a rush, hurrying over to the vanity table and searching through the draws for something to cut us loose.
Wagging a parental finger their way, he glances over his shoulder at the guys.
“I’ve been searching high and low for you guys.
You are not easy to track down. Why didn’t you wait for me? ” He chuckles awkwardly.
Rushing over to remove the tape from their mouths, the hiss of discomfort held back behind pinched lips as it likely rips a layer of skin along with it. They remain silent in their precarious positions, all their energy at play keeping them balanced on the stools.
“I didn’t know there was a dress code,” Mateo chuckles as he glances down at the tight t-shirts plastered to the guys chests, the cold pinch of the fridge air defining every muscle beneath.
I had been so transfixed with the bloody mess of their faces and the fresh burns on their skin I hadn’t even noticed what they were wearing.
The slogan ‘Born to breed, bitches’ adorns Coopers chest while Caleb has ‘I got the tip wet at Percy’s 21st’, stamped across his.
“Who is Percy? And who’s the wet bitches I need to hunt down and kill?” I ask tersely, more annoyed than I should be considering I know they would never willingly be caught dead wearing those. Both Caleb and Cooper sway in their ropes to look my way. Caleb is the first to respond.
“It’s a long story for another time. There’s been no bitches - wet or otherwise, Dove. How about we concentrate on getting the fuck out of here and then we’ll have storytime later.”
Megan laughs at our exchange but it feels forced.
I hate myself for dragging her into this.
Megan fumbles with her words as he returns and kneels at her feet, relief filling her red-rimmed eyes.
“He’s fucking crazy. Please untie us.” She doesn’t know my foster father, but the level of concern in her voice is the perfect response.
Shoulders slumped in defeat, he tosses aside the nail file that is about as useful as a butter knife and tugs frantically at the ropes at her ankles.
Resting on one knee, unable to get the knot loose.
Frustrated, he pulls off his baseball cap to wipe his sweaty forehead with the back of his arm, the hearth furnace fire warming the room despite the oversized chest freezer sending out wafts of cool air.
“What happened to your hair?” Megan retorts, confusion pulling her brows together as she leans forward to try and meet his gaze. I hadn’t noticed the tufts of hair amidst the commotion, but the beach boy blond he usually sports is now a muddy brown.
“You don’t like it, baby? I thought I’d go for something a little more…natural,” he quips, that Adonis grin tilting slightly. “You know it’s not very nice to call people crazy,” he adds, and I stiffen.
A shiver courses up my spine, dread filling my belly as I watch him rest back on his haunches. His lower lip pinched between his fingers as his gaze bounces between us. Moving forward, he trails a finger up her bare thigh.
He rolls his neck as he pushes up the hem of her skirt, but the move is anything but affectionate, as though he’s sizing up a pound of meat at market to get the best price.
Light fingers teasing her skin as his darkened gaze trails up over her ample cleavage, to her lips, then finally meeting her wide sad eyes filled with tears.
Feasting on her fear. Any signs of the carefree doting boyfriend gone.
“Mateo. I don’t understand,” Megan cries out like an injured bird. An uneasy chuckle leaving her lips as panic and confusion war for dominance in her soft brutalised features.
Tucking a lose curl behind her ear, he rises, his face inches from hers. “So fucking gullible.” He grins wickedly, feeding off her emotions as Megan slumps against her restraints, the tears flowing freely now as her heart breaks. What remains of her hope in tatters on the floor at his feet.
Turning to me, I shudder at his proximity, the stench of his clove and oil aftershave making me gag as he patiently waits for the penny to drop. The dawn of realisation feels more like a sledgehammer to the gut as the world shifts on its axis.
Memories of the dark-haired boy who used to torment me carves out the hope I had been holding onto so tightly since he rushed into the room. My lungs struggle to house a full breath as panic snakes its way around my windpipe, my quickening pulse thumping in my ears.
“Nice to see you again, Ebbie; it’s been a while.
” I bristle at his use of the horrid nickname I have tried so hard to forget.
His voice as he held me down in the dirt and called me a whore all those years ago as clear in my head now as it was that day.
The day he helped himself to a part of me that wasn’t his to take.
The Turner men were big on keeping their sadistic proclivities in the family. Seems nothing’s changed there.
“How’s the scar, unicorn bitch?” I seethe, refusing to give him the fear he’s searching for. I’m not a little girl anymore, and these men would do well to remember that. It does as intended and bristles at the moniker. His body tensing as his eyes turn to slits with irritation.
I want to kick myself for not trusting my gut, for not noticing all the similarities earlier. So many times, I convinced myself it was my trauma trying to push people away to keep myself safe, but instead, I practically welcomed my abusers back into my life.
“The strawberries, the daisies…” The words are barely a whisper, but he catches them regardless. He had been taunting me this entire time, and I was just too stupid to see it.
“Always with the strawberries. Such a sweet tooth,” he coos, brushing my cheek.
I cower from his touch, swallowing back the impulse to yack all over his shoes as his wicked grin grows.
The first day I had met the neighbour boy, son of the lead detective of the local police, he had ripped a handful of Mrs Turner’s daisies from her window planter.
That kindness was short-lived. The second time he brought me flowers, I was so close to death, I had visions I was at my own funeral—at least I wished I was.
“You…you know each other?” Megan stutters with a slack jaw, and I hate that this is how she will find out the truth about my past.
“Unfortunately,” I sigh. “Although he’s had some work done.
Is this back-alley glow-up and dye job for my benefit?
” I sneer, answering Megan but keeping my eyes trained on him.
Mateo Trent and Matthew Turner are one and the same—son to a rapist, nephew to a sadist, and building quite a reputation for himself it seems. I had hoped I’d never have to see him again.
The universe clearly thought one more fucked-up blast from the past couldn’t hurt.
I gulp back the fear I can see he is searching for as his sleazy gaze travels south to where my shirt hugs my heaving chest.
He pulls the hunting knife out of its sheath and turns it over in his hand, teasing the fabric, trailing the tip of it down between my breasts before he applies pressure. I cry out as he slices my skin, his heated gaze widening as a crimson patch blooms and soaks through.
“Six years isn’t long enough, you twisted fuck. I see torturing girls half your size is still your go-to weekend extracurricular. How proud your mother must be,” I hiss, grinning when I see a red mist creep up his neck, his fists tensing in frustration around the blade handle.
“Shut it, bitch, before I hollow out your guts and make you watch as I paint the floor with them.”
Playing the dead mother card is a cheap shot, but it does as intended. A part of me wants to goad him enough that he will actually follow through with his threat. It can’t be worse than what Nathaniel has in mind when he murders everyone I hold dear and steals me away.
“Your father never had much restraint either if I remember correctly. Are you always the last one who gets to play with Daddy’s toys?”
I block out the intrusion of the memory of Hells Haven’s decorated lead police detective as he held me down with his boot against my throat and talked his seventeen-year-old son through what I think was his first attempt at rape.
“Our small-dicked captor here revels in his moral decay, taking perverse pleasure in the depravity of breaking down someone weaker than him. Wickedness isn’t his flaw; it’s his peculiarity. A true sadomasochist at his rotting core.”
Turning on his heels, frustration with my antics telling in the way his tense shoulders rise and fall rapidly as he rakes his free hand through his hair.
He’s unravelling, and I’m not going to lie—it’s a display of pure visual poetry.
If I have any chance of getting us out of here, it will be using this monster when he least expects it.
He is the weak link, and I need to hurry this along before they up their numbers and Silas joins the party.
The devil has nothing on Detective Turner, and of the three of them, he is the one I’ve never been able to hide my fear from; the darkness in him running too deep to contend with.
“You are a dead man, Turner,” Matthew doesn’t even acknowledge Caleb’s threat.
“Did you get hard when I twisted the plastic into your gut? It certainly made me fucking smile.” I laugh heartily, and he lunges for me. Thin fingers gripping my chin, he pushes my lips together, teasing the steel of the blade in his shaking hand against my cheek.
“Maybe I should start with them.” He nods towards the brothers, and my eyes dart across to follow the motion.
I stiffen beneath him. “I feel like that might make you a little more responsive and a little less…combative,” he finishes with a flourish of his weapon in the air as though he was searching for the perfect word.
“I would happily tear you up right now, ripping that tongue from your dirty little mouth and reenacting the time we last played, but my uncle has plans for you,” he taunts, a twisted sense of levity in his tone that has my fingers twitching to gouge his eyes out; fucker wouldn’t be so cool, calm, and certifiable then, I bet.
I laugh aloud at the thought of him flailing around on the floor.
The hissing whip of his hand through the air has the laugh dying on my lips, his ring slicing my cheek as he backhands me.
“You’re going to pay for that, Turner; what limb should I start with? I can’t remember the last time I got to play a good game of Operation,” Cooper snaps, but Matthew pays him no mind, his eyes tracking the subtle movement of my lips as blood seeps from my mouth.