Chapter 55
Cora
On the ride back to Clyde’s house, Zane’s sick words spin in my head, tumbling around with everything else I’ve learned, and I almost forget I have to stop by Rune’s house.
I debate waiting until the morning, but know if I don’t get the papers tonight, I’ll suffer Rune’s wrath tomorrow when he finds out I never made the changes to the contract.
“Is Rune home?” I ask Conner. When he meets my eyes in the rearview, I ignore the gross feeling in my gut screaming in horror that he’s known I’ve been fucking Rune all these years.
That Zane knew. That Rune talked about it to him. Planned the way he was going to ruin me.
I hope Zane was just being vile, and that none of it was true. If it is, I can’t fathom the depth of Rune’s depravity. Violating me, hurting me, is bad enough, but the thought of him planning it? Fantasizing about it?
“He is supposed to be at dinner with Don and Linda,” Conner says. “I dropped him off a few hours ago.”
I recognize the names. Some of his lodge buddies.
“Swing by his house so I can grab some files, please,” I tell him, breaking his knowing gaze, and looking at the city in the distance. “It’ll just take a minute.”
After Conner parks in the driveway, I check the time on my phone then toss it onto the seat and hop out. When I punch in the code, I glance at the camera by the door, and wave, smiling for Rune, who’s no doubt getting the alert on his phone.
“Picking up the contract, Papa,” I say to the camera over the front door, sweat forming under my arms.
The alarm beeps and I shove the door open.
Cold, stale air blasts my face. I shut the door, enveloping me in the eerie quiet of the house.
The faint light from the sconces cast everything in a sickly yellow glow.
Goosebumps form along my arms and scalp.
I scan the foyer, slowly releasing the door handle and lean sideways to look down the hall, unease rippling in my gut.
Calm down, Cora. No one is here.
With that thought, and not wanting to be here if Rune leaves dinner early, I rush toward the office. The second I open the door, I still.
Rune looks up from behind his desk, blinking and obviously startled.
My gaze lands on his open laptop resting on the center of his desk.
Shit.
“Cora,” he says, but my name comes out hoarse. A little thready. “Come here.”
My heart thrashes, excuses rushing through my brain, but all the reasons I need to suddenly go without the papers I came for, dies on my lips when I notice the way his arm moves in his lap. Up and down. Up and down. Slowly. Rhythmically.
No.
I shrink back, the realization of what he’s doing making my stomach drop to my toes.
My god, he’s watching porn and masturbating.
His eyes drift to the laptop, and his head drops back slightly, the blue hue of the screen outlining his features, turning them sharper. He lets out a heavy groan as his arm moves faster.
“Get over here,” he says, the words a grating command. “Come play with Papa.”
My foot slides back over the threshold.
Rune’s face hardens. “Get over here.” His arm jerks faster, each upward stroke a little rough.
I shake my head again, unable to form a single word. I’ve never caught him masturbating, but I can imagine exactly how this will end. With me bent over his desk, screaming.
“I’m going to leave,” I say. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Rune shoots up from the chair, and his full body comes into view. He grips his hard dick tightly in one hand, his other holding faded red material, running it over the tip.
“Come here,” he says, hips bucking into his hand. “I won’t hurt you.”
Every breath I suck in lines my insides with a sludgy darkness. If I fight him, no one is here to stop him. Rune’s proven time and again that I can’t overpower him. He’s too strong.
“I don’t think Vincent would like that,” I whisper, knowing it’s a weak excuse. Rune gets what he wants when he wants it.
“He won’t know, sweet girl,” he grates, voice turning smooth. “I’ve been thinking about you all day. How pretty you are. How hot and tight you feel.”
I grind my teeth, avoiding looking at his dick. “I’m on my period,” I lie, knowing damn well that’s never stopped him before.
“It’s okay, I just want you to suck the tip a little.” He runs the red material over his dick again, eyes dropping to the laptop. A faint sound comes from the computer.
A groan? Moan?
Scream?
I’m not sure why the sight of Rune watching porn and fucking his hand makes me sick. More than anything I’ve experienced from him so far. Maybe it's the delight he’s taking in it. The sick gleam in his eye as he watches the screen. Or the throaty, heavy breathing that I recognize.
“Let me come on those pretty tits,” he says, stroking harder. Faster. His gaze lands on me, his fist tightening. He clenches his teeth. “Don’t make me fucking repeat myself, girl.”
Swallowing the bile that rises in my throat, I glance over my shoulder toward the front door.
“He won’t take you back,” Rune says, reading my thoughts. “He will help me bring you back inside and hold you down if I tell him to.”
Conner.
Did he lie to me?
“Get over here, Cora. Now.”
Tears prick my eyes as I try to figure out how to get out of this unscathed.
He grunts, hips jerking. “Come watch this with me.”
I take a step back, but he lets go of his dick and bolts forward.
A scream peels from my throat as I bolt for the foyer, but he grips me by my hair, yanking me backward.
My ankle twists, my heel flying off as he drags me toward his office.
I grip his hand woven in my hair, my scalp burning as I try to keep my footing.
Rune drags me through the door, and across the room, then slams me down into his chair so hard my teeth clank together.
“Fucking listen to me!” His guttural scream rips through me. He grips my chin, forcing my eyes to his. “Sit here and do not move.”
A flurry of movement and flashing lights from the video flickering in the corner of my eye, snags my focus for a heartbeat, but he moves closer, his dick inches from my face. I keep my gaze fixed on Rune’s mouth, my heart pounding so hard I can barely breathe past it.
“Fucking watch,” he says, taking his dick in hand, wrapping it with the red material, stroking the length hard and slow. “We’re almost at the best part.”
My gaze fixes on the red silk he’s running over his dick, and an inkiness skitters over my skin. The material is faded. Torn. The delicate lace, nearly in shreds. It looks old. And dirty.
I grind my teeth, fighting the urge to vomit. He’s jerking off with old, dirty panties.
“I made this just for you,” he groans, gripping my hair and twisting my head toward the screen. “So you could see how perfect it was. How perfectly I executed my plan.”
Horror wraps around my throat as my focus lands on the USB drive stuck into the side of the laptop.
The one from his desk drawer.
The one under the hunting knife.
My fingers curl into a fist.
Bile burns my throat, Zane’s words ripping a hole in my chest.
Please tell me he didn’t record raping me.
Rune groans, his dick bobbing up and down inches from my face. I close my eyes and breathe through the fear. My fingers creep up along the bottom of the desk, toward the slightly open drawer.
“Turn up the volume,” he grates. “I want to hear her scream.”
I freeze, my fingers brushing along the cold handle of the drawer.
Her.
A tremble moves through my hand, horror traveling up my arm to my shoulders. I squeeze my eyes shut.
Did he hurt Delilah?
Tears stab my eyes. I keep them pressed closed, not wanting to know. Not wanting to see.
She would have told me, wouldn’t she? Did she lie, or is it some other girl Rune’s hurt?
He likes them young.
“Turn it up!” he screams. He shakes my head so hard my teeth rattle.
“Okay,” I breathe, choking on a sob.
Slowly, my body unfreezes, eyelids opening. I lock them on my trembling hand as my fingers trail along his desk, over the keyboard, and I hit the silver button, keeping my eyes on my hand so I don’t have to see a young girl being hurt the way I was.
From the laptop, a loud thudding sound, made tinny by the small speakers, hits my ears. Then harsh breathing.
Rune grips my head and snaps it back. I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Fucking look!”
Heat from his hard dick hits my cheek. Pre-cum mixes with my tears.
The fabric of the underwear rubs my face, and I gag, trying my best to swallow down the terror.
A faint whimper from the laptop makes my chest heave.
I recognize the sound. It’s the anguished cry of defeat as your will and choice are taken.
“Please,” I beg, tears bursting free. “I don’t want to see.”
“Open your fucking eyes and look!”
A loud scream echoes through the speakers. Something familiar tingles at the back of my brain. Tears blur my eyes, but I open them, and for a minute, I’m not sure what I’m looking at.
Woods?
My vision swims, but I can make out tall pine trees and gnarled branches. Daylight streams through the canopy overhead. In the distance, a large wooden building appears, but then the camera pans out and drops, moving in quickly like whoever is recording is too excited to stand still.
“Let me see.” My blood chills when I hear his voice. I heard it so many times when I was younger, muffled by the closet door.
“Watch,” Rune grates out.
The camera turns upright, and bright sky and emerald green leaves fill the screen, but then it adjusts and centers on two forms, blurring for a moment then focusing.
Two figures I recognize.
“No,” I breathe, frozen, unable to look away.
NO. NO. NO.
“This is what happens when you betray me.” Rune’s voice is far away, barely threading into my thoughts.
The camera zooms in more, capturing the scene fully, then pans over the two bodies tangled together on the forest floor.
Rune. But younger.
Fifteen years, to be exact.
Rune’s jerky strokes match the brutal pumps of the younger version of him.
The one driving wildly into the body beneath him, the camera catching every horrid detail.
The dirt on his clothes. The pale gleam of her skin as she claws at his bare back.
The red hair fanning out over the forest floor, no longer vibrant like mine, but matted and dirty.
The camera swings, and then her face comes into view. I shake my head, my hand flying to my mouth to keep in my scream.
The camera zooms in on the knife, held brutally against pale skin. A thin trail of blood leaks to the ground.
When the knife digs deeper, sliding across her neck, she screams.
Wet heat hits my face.
I shove back, my ass slipping from the chair. I hit the floor. Her scream cuts off. Turns garbled and wet. I scramble backward, swiping Rune’s cum from my cheek, trying to get as far away from him as possible.
Away from the sick video and his throaty laugh.
My heel slips as I stand, and I catch myself on the edge of the desk. I don’t hear what he says. Barely see as I run from the room. There’s just noise in my head mixed with her garbled choking and his mocking laugh. I choke on a sob, then fling the door open.
Cool night air hits my face, and I rush down the stairs, the concrete drive scraping my bare feet.
My hands clamp down over my ears, trying to block out the sound, but it’s all I hear. Hear her screaming so loud, I feel it in my own throat, ripping out of me raw.
Rune killed my mother.
He slit her throat as he raped her. The day she went to his lodge, excited and energized. The last day I ever saw her. One of the few days she was ever nice to me.
He killed her for calling a hit out on his wife.
And he had Zane record it.