Chapter 14
“He’s moved back in, to help with the bills…now that she’s g-gone.” Kara sniffs, rubbing at her face. With a tortured expression, she bites her lip and tries to keep her voice from warbling. Eighteen and almost alone. “He doesn’t even care that she’s gone.”
“How does that make you feel?”
Like tearing her heart out of her chest and stomping on it. Screaming until her throat is raw and scratched to pieces. Like begging him to smile at her. Like asking him to hold her in his arms so that she can pretend that he loves her and that everything is alright.
“I want- I want to make him feel as hurt as I feel. I hate him. I’m angry all the time.” Snarling, torn between fury and agony, Kara says, “All the time. Sometimes uncontrollably. I’m afraid I’m turning into him. M-mom said he was nice, once. Then, the anger came. And the indifference. What if I’m like him?”
Her psychiatrist, or rather, their psychiatrist, because the woman also sees Kara’s father, makes a small sound from between her teeth. “No, Kara. You’re not like him. He hid his nature from your mother for many years, faked it the best he could. You are a product of the environment you have grown in. You are what he has shaped you to be.”
“I don’t like feeling this way.” Nothing matters anymore, the sky will never be blue again. “I miss her. I miss how she cooked when she was trying to clear her mind. To clear her mind of him.” Kara laughs through her teary eyes in memory. “Or the way she would sit and do her makeup, so perfectly, all while telling me I didn’t need it, I was too pretty with such a fresh face. She was rather bitter about it. Why couldn’t he love her?”
“You know why.”
…Ghostly thoughts, echoing, the same reason he can’t love you …
Blowing her nose into a tissue, Kara asks sadly, “Does he talk about me? The way I talk about him?”
Her psychiatrist continues giving her that bland look that drives Kara to madness. She’s a severe woman in her early fifties, striking and distant, cold like the moon. Her gaze seems to dissect every horrid thing inside of Kara. Her voice is precise, like every word requires deep consideration. “Occasionally, Charlie will express concern that you don’t love him the way he believes you should. You understand, Kara, that his idea of love is very different from your own. He feels entitled to your affection, yet feels no urge to return it to you. As is the nature of his disorder.”
It’s painful to hear, even though Kara already suspected it.
The woman writes her a new script for mood stabilization, the same one her father takes.
“This should help with the anger.”
Like father, like daughter.
It’s Sunday and Kara’s still working through her self-disgust. It’s like trying to inhale liquid oil, the way she searches for a way to forget what she did - and with whom - the other morning. She had spent Saturday night indoors, angry, horny, replaying in her mind the way he touched her. The things he said to her. The way his body felt against hers. The way Calais set her body on fire, yet filled her veins with fear all at once.
Fear and self-loathing.
Saturday night had not only been spent indoors, but in bed, entertaining herself with sick memories and coiling arousal from the morning. Every gasp, every sound he made, echoing in her head.
His voice is rough, unpleasant on the ears. “I’m not one of your little boyfriends. I’m not interested in playing nice. I’m not interested in chocolate and flowers. I’m not interested in commitment or pretty words. I’m especially not interested in girls who play with my cock and don’t intend to finish what they start. Want to know what I am interested in?”
Ugh. Just the very memory of his lips and teeth on the nape of her neck had been enough give her shivers.
“As fun as it is to watch you writhe on my lap like a bitch in heat, I’d rather fuck you until you cry.”
The more she thought of Nicholas Havenwood-Calais, the more her body ached. His voice did things to her and his casual indifference excited and infuriated her.
His indifference. Ha! There’s a beast under that cold exterior and Kara is almost impressed that he’d held himself back from tearing into her like an animal. He’d held all the power, after all. She’d been like a little pet mouse and he the cat. The cat playing with the mouse’s tail with the laziness of a predator that knows it has its prey in its grasp.
She had tried to recreate what he did, lying on her stomach in her bed, her fingers only a small relief as she let them touch her swollen, heated flesh. Rubbing her fingers against her sensitive bundle of nerves, using her body weight to press downward. A simple press into her channel, imagining being taken from behind with ruthless indecency. The end result was a fleeting enjoyment that left her feeling unfulfilled and empty. It was simple to press her face into the sheets and groan out her climaxes, it was another thing entirely to admit that she’d lost her mind.
How filthy. How shameful. Touching herself to thoughts of that horrid swine of a man. Thinking of his large hands about her hips and how breakable he made her feel. God, what would he think if he could see her now, a wanton slut, cumming on her own fingers repeatedly with him as her object of desire?
The recreation of his actions were moments spent in futility, with Kara gently probing her slit and her tender insides, trying to get the same response from her body, but it simply hadn’t been the same. It frustrated her to no end, that he seemed to know her body more than she did. She hated that he’d left her with this need inside, this empty maw of hunger.
Goddamn bastard. It was like a door of sin and perversion had been opened inside of her, with the touch of his lips to hers. How badly she wished he were with her, his cock inside of her body and his tongue in her ear as he hissed his filth at her.
But, today is a new day and the sins of Saturday night can be forgotten for the time being. Today is Sunday and Kara has work to do. She fights down shameful arousal, because this isn’t the place, hoping her cheeks aren’t heated.
Kara stands on the sidewalk, her foul mood clear on her face. Beside her, Derrick stands, looking like he’s had better nights himself. He looks stressed and Kara imagines his home life is rather lacking at the moment, considering the situation he’s put himself in with his wife.
Broken vows can have that effect.
Derrick senses her miasma of disgruntled-ness and gives her a wide berth as they arrive at their possible witness’s apartment in the shabbier part of town. “Are you ready for this?” He’s skeptical about the results of this endeavor. There is no guarantee that this woman will be of use to the Debra Mills case.
Shrugging, Kara adjusts the collar of her shirt absently. She refrains from running a hand through her hair. “Let’s get what we came for. Hopefully this helps our case so it isn’t a waste of time.” The private investigator bills goofy fees, after all.
He nods dully, a tired smile barely touching his lips, dark circles under his eyes. Up they go, to apartment number twenty-three, knocking loudly. For a moment, there is no sound, then the door handle clicks audibly.
The woman their private investigator introduced them to, only known as ‘X’, answers the door, opening it a small crack. One dark eye peers at them through the thin gap, suspicious. Bloodshot. “Are you the lawyers?”
Derrick nods, smiles calmly, tries to look less world weary. His transformation is seamless as he puts his professional mask on for the woman. “Yes. I’m Derrick Benson and my associate is Kara Hayes. Is now still a good time for you?”
The woman sighs audibly. “It makes no difference when,” she mutters, shutting the door and undoing the chain bolt. The door opens a little wider and reveals a very tall, thin woman.
Too thin. Sallow skin. Dark circles under the empty eyes that gaze at them like a corpse. Kara tries to keep her unease off of her face, her eyes catching on the hand holding the door. Her stomach turns; the fingernails seem deformed and scabs are littering the flesh.
If the woman sees Kara’s revulsion, she makes no indication. X steps backwards and says, “Come. Sit. Don’t mind the mess. I don’t get visitors.”
The mess is an understatement. The place is a complete pigsty. Garbage is on the floor, bugs hovering on the walls, peeling wallpaper. The stench is a stale, rotting thing. Kara feels her eyes water and she swallows thickly, suddenly feeling bad for thinking her life is tough.
This place is the sign of someone who’s already given up. Their soul gone into hibernation and their body waiting to die. It isn’t an apartment; it’s a tomb.
Derrick perches against a table and Kara remains standing. X sits down on her rotting, floral couch that looks like it’s from another decade. The woman’s dark hair hangs in oily strands, thinning in places from stress and malnutrition. She might have been a good-looking woman, once, but it’s impossible to tell now.
“What do you want to hear?” Her voice is slow, like she’s drugged. Too depressed to focus on anything but sleep.
Derrick pulls out a notepad and says, “Let’s start with the Dark Mirage . Tell us about it.”
X blinks in a strange manner, slow and delayed. Like a reptile. It gives Kara the creeps. “Not much to tell,” the woman says. She kind of mumbles when she speaks, showing no teeth. “The club is a place for those who are bored and rich. Some are lonely, others have their fetishes, like being watched, like swapping wives, like being slapped, whatever gets the job done. The main floor is pretty standard, but not a good place for those who are shy. The upper floor, which is private, is far more sexualized, has different rooms for play. Fetishes can be met within if desired. Pricey party drugs. Standard fare for a high-class sex club.”
She continues, picking at the disgusting scabs on her hands. “I’m one of those people that enjoys extreme submission. I wanted to be a slave, my own brand of fetishism. My fees were paid by a man that I played slave to, until he got bored of me and passed me off to one of his friends. I found I didn’t quite care, so long as I could feel something. I was never put in true danger in the club, to be honest. I’d had some trouble in my own life. I’d lost my job, my sister had been killed in a car accident, my parents wouldn’t have anything to do with me per my past drug issues. I’m an on and off addict. I was at rock bottom when I heard that there was a place for me to face the extremes of my desire, which couldn’t be met at the Dark Mirage . The man I was with didn’t have the taste for what I needed or wanted. I started asking around for something more.”
There’s a long pause as X stares at the floor, as if remembering something. “One of those hosts told me, a woman. She told me it wouldn’t cost me anything, if I was looking for true suffering. She knew of a place called The Room. I don’t know her name or face, so don’t bother asking.”
Trying to pull the conversation back to the case, Derrick asks her about the opposition, to see if there is a connection. “Are you aware of a man named Max Dotaire?”
There’s that slow, lizard-like blink. Then X frowns. “I’ve heard the name. But. Only at the Dark Mirage . Not at The Room. He’s one of the gentlemen that works on level forty-one.” She shrugs in slow motion. “A Dom, one who plays a bit rough. Nothing too shocking in my opinion. He was popular, or so I heard. I never engaged with him there. He was pricey and I couldn’t afford his attention.”
Kara frowns at that. This was almost beginning to sound like a dead end. “Was he ever at The Room?”
A sigh. “I really couldn’t say. I don’t know his voice. I had sensory deprivation goggles on the whole time I was there; I couldn’t see anyone. I could only feel what they did to me.” X shudders in a manner that looks like she’s sinking into herself, shriveling into nothing. “I doubt he was involved. I don’t think anyone who works at the club engages with The Room. It’s a well-kept secret. Perhaps the woman who referred me is the type that looks for those who are vulnerable and refers them to The Room. Perhaps she gets a commission of sorts.”
Derrick has his brow furrowed, thinking through the information. “Tell me about the NDA you signed. Also, the sum of money that appeared in your account.”
“When I started going to the second level regularly, I signed it. I was told to not talk about the things that happened in the club. I really haven’t broken that…but The Room isn’t part of the club, so I don’t think it extends. The money? It appeared oddly when I got back from The Room. When I was set loose. I never questioned where it came from. I spent it all on heroin and meth to try and forget.”
Unease snaps into place and Kara gives Derrick a glance; it’s hard to work with info from a drug addict, especially one like this. What are they doing here?! “Tell us about The Room, then,” Derrick says coolly. “I want to know how it’s connected to the club. Where is it? Do you have an address?”
X shakes her head. “No idea where it is, but I’m sure someone pays the taxes on the space. On the night I was to go to The Room, I was given instructions from a burner phone number, to wait blindfolded in the park, where I would be picked up.” She sighs long and slow. “I never saw the place. But it smelled like chemicals. Dust. Rot and blood, hidden under cleaning supplies. The floor was sticky on my knees. My hands were handcuffed behind my back and the goggles they put on me blocked everything else.”
“What happened, X?”
Her fingers scrabbled at one of her scabs, causing it to bleed, red streaming down her arm. X doesn’t seem to notice. “They tortured me. And, I don’t mean like a BDSM dungeon. I mean torture, like a horror movie. For days on end I was there, suffering, begging to go home. Every day, after they were through doing whatever depravity they had in their minds, they would ask me, ‘Do you still want to be here?’” She gives a harsh, freaky little laugh.
Kara can’t look away from her, even though the more the woman talks, the more Kara wants to bolt out the front door. This sounds…like a crime. Like something far worse than they imagined. At least her boss is keeping his cool in the face of this. Derrick gives X that calm look that always soothes people, like he is completely empathizing with them and knows all their troubles in life. “What did you say to them?”
Her sallow skin is sickly and her oily hair falls over her face. “I said, ‘no’. It went so far beyond what I had imagined. I wanted to disappear, not to feel my body every waking moment, to feel the burn and sting of agonies. My soul wanted to leave, but they were anchoring it with pain to my flesh.”
There are scabs on her arms that she won’t leave alone, some looking infected, as if she has been ripping at them for far too long, neglecting to care. Kara feels the distinct urge to shower.
“They branded me; I could smell my flesh burning. It’s an odd smell, you can’t get it out of your head. Especially not when you’re already hungry.” X blinks again, staring hard at a cockroach crawling across her floor. “My fingernails, one by one. My toenails, gone. They never grew back normal again, actually. Every time I look at them, I remember the needles going under my nails, or the way it felt to have them torn off. God, I’ve never screamed like I did when I was there. I nearly lost my voice, once. They weren’t too pleased with that, they said they needed the screams. Silence is bad for business, apparently.”
Kara tries to keep the utter horror off her face, vaguely feels her stomach turning. She’s going to vomit, but she holds it in, swallows the bile crawling up onto her tongue. Her fingers and toes ache with a phantom pain, in sympathy as her mind runs wild.
“Sometimes, they used me. Frankly, I found that to be tame compared to the physical tortures. I’d be handcuffed to a wall, naked, all the time, and someone would just come in. Eventually, I became numb to it.”
“One day,” X continues with a dull tone, “I finally said, ‘yes’. That I wanted to be there. I’d finally hit the end, I think. My mind had left with the tattered remains of my body. Suddenly, I had become this cut up blob of flesh. I was gone. I wasn’t me. They had remade me.” She frowns. “After I said yes, they let me go. I was…disappointed. I thought they would truly end it if I said yes.”
Derrick is trying to hide his revulsion, Kara can tell. He’s a little pale and his jaw is tight, bothered. “Do you think Paxton Brooker is aware of this place? Or Max Dotaire?”
“Perhaps Max knows of it, perhaps not. I couldn’t say. Paxton owns the Dark Mirage ; I imagine he has to have some idea of The Room.” Her shoulders do a strange shrug. “The sessions were video-taped, I can remember hearing people talk about setting up the tri-pods. They would turn on heavy metal songs and blast them for hours, along with scream tracks when I lost my voice. I imagine clips of me were sold on the dark web. There are those who pay to watch people be tortured, you know. Very lucrative. What happened to me wasn’t exactly personal…it was business.”
Derrick looks floored, absolutely floored. “They filmed it?”
She nods. “Yes. You likely won’t find any proof though. That’s expensive material, that is. Snuff and torture films are risky to make, as I’m sure you understand. Most people die, but this group seems to stick with drawn out torture. They let people leave afterwards, from what I understand. No killing, so long as you never see their faces. I never did.”
Holy shit.
They are going to have to tell the police, Kara knows it, Derrick surely knows it. This is far beyond anything they imagined.
X bites at one of her fingertips, frowning. “Is that all? Not sure it was helpful. But I suppose someone should know that there is an underground torture ring with a hook into the club. Not sure any of your perps are responsible, but…perhaps they have looked the other way.”
“Would you be able to testify?” Derrick asks carefully.
If X is distraught by the request, there is no emotion on her face to see. “If I must. But I doubt I’m credible. I was a drug addict, once. Still. I’m sure you know how that will go.”
Kara frowns. “Have you ever gone to the cops about what happened to you?”
The other woman gives her a terrifyingly empty look. “I frankly didn’t care if I lived or died by the time I was sent home. Talking to the cops was the last thing on my mind. I wanted to die and forget that place existed. The folder of money and the drugs helped.”
So, no.
Pushing away from the grimy table, Derrick asks, “Can we speak to them about this? We are going to want them to take a look at properties owned by Paxton Brooker to see if he pays taxes on anything odd. Our private investigator will look as well, but the authorities should know. These people need to be stopped.”
X shrugs. “Why not? I have nothing else to do these days. I’ll speak to the cops if they come by.”
Kara isn’t sure she has come across anyone that acts already dead. It’s disturbing.
They all stand and say their goodbyes. Derrick is out the front door quickly, seemingly distraught.
Kara pauses on the way out, staring at this broken creature that must have been a woman once, bright with life. The question that has been dying to creep out of her mouth this whole meeting comes forth. “Why did you do it? Why did you choose to go to The Room?”
X gives her the thousand-mile stare that seems to see straight through Kara, disturbingly. “I wanted to disappear. And some people enjoy making others shells without souls.” As she speaks, she gives a strange little grimace, exposing the fact that her teeth are jagged and shattered in some places.
The urge to flee finally pushes Kara away, chasing after Derrick.
Outside, Kara goes to stand beside him, feeling ill. His shoulders are tense and his face is tight, eyes dark. “I don’t think this has anything to do with Max Dotaire and the rape.”
Kara gasps in disbelief. “Well, maybe not but what about Paxton Brooker and gross negligence at the club, allowing criminals to be hired, bringing in abusers, and hiring people who push others towards a secret torture ring?”
Derrick shakes his head. “We can check his properties to see if anything strange pops up that fits the bill, but frankly this sounds like something for the police. I don’t think we can use her for anything, but the police might be able to.”
Frowning, Kara can’t believe what he’s saying. “So, this is a dead end? Derrick, that woman was tortured! And filmed!”
He goes to his car, carefully examining the door to make sure no one keyed him while in the less than lovely neighborhood. “That’s why the cops are needed. If the operation is connected to the club, we are in business, but if it’s just a bad egg in the club, we are out of luck.”
An idea comes to Kara in that moment, like a lightbulb going off. “I know someone in the precinct that I can reach out to. Might get this on their radar fast.”
He nods. “Alright. Work that angle. I think this is too long a shot for Max Dotaire though. We are close to closing on the case, maybe a few weeks out. It’s up to the jury now to say if they want him to go down for rape or something less severe.”
Great. Even Derrick is having his doubts about the case. As he drives away, Kara fishes for her keys in her purse, feeling down. X is a train wreck in human form.
As she drives, it begins to rain outside. Kara sighs and wonders distantly if Calais will still back Paxton Brooker if the nightmare room is connected to Brooker after all. A cold feeling sits in her chest at the thought. What if he knows about it?
She dials Detective Ray Wellis. “Hey. Ah. It’s me, Kara. Kara Hayes. Can we meet?”
He sounds surprised, pleasantly so, and offers up one of the popular hipster coffee spots. Kara agrees, though she secretly hopes to see not a single man-bun while drinking her coffee. Turning her car wipers on, she changes her route to meet him.
The place is cozy, filled with people on their laptops, with their sketchpads, some just reading their books with their headphones on. A few token man-buns appear and Kara shivers a bit out of principal. Nope, nope, not her thing.
She sits and waits, twiddling her thumbs when the front door jingles. Detective Ray Wellis steps in, bringing in rainwater with him, dressed in his beige trench coat that makes him look like he’s ready to solve crime. He turns his midnight eyes in her direction and heads to her table.
“Has something happened?” He’s soaking wet, trench coat dripping with water, three-day scruff growing on his face, circles under his eyes, and still he’s looking at her like he’d jump in front of a gun to save her life. “Is anyone bothering you from that night?”
A warm feeling grows in her chest, but Kara pushes it away. Why can’t he drop it?
“It’s not about that,” she says carefully. “You already know how I feel about you bringing up things that didn’t actually happen to me.”
Ray gives her a strange look, dark eyes disappointed. Then, he sighs, as if accepting Kara intends to be a stubborn ass until the end of her days. “Alright, if this isn’t about you, what is it about?”
Kara sits back in her seat. “It’s about the Dark Mirage case. Derrick Benson and I found a potential witness who used to frequent the club. She was referred to a place called ‘The Room’, as she no longer found her needs met at the club.”
The man across from her furrows his brows. He looks like he doesn’t get where she’s going with the story. “Uhuh…” He gestures for her to continue.
“Detective Wellis-”
“Kara, just call me Ray.”
She sighs and starts again. “Ray. The place is a torture chamber. And I don’t mean like a BDSM dungeon meant for play. This place…they torture people within an inch of their life and videotape it for profit.”
Ray goes still, his back straightening. “Tell me everything.”
Her stomach turns sickly, remembering, but she replays the conversation as clearly as she can, leaving nothing out. Ray is quite stoic through it all, because no doubt this is just another day in the office to him. Another horrid crime to haunt him in his dreams at night. He takes out a small notepad, making notes as she speaks.
Kara can practically see his mind racing miles per minute, turning over this information. “Per what you just told me, it sounds like we have an underground torture ring operating in the city.”
She nods. “It sounds organized. And, in regards to the case and the Dark Mirage -”
His lips go thin, shaking his head absently. “To be honest, the Dark Mirage might have nothing to do with this. It could be an individual within the club that looks for vulnerable people who would be easy to entrap. I wouldn’t get too spun up on hooking this into Paxton Brooker or Max Dotaire. The woman…X…said another woman reeled her in.”
Innocent until proven guilty.
Her coffee is getting lukewarm and Kara makes a face as she sips from it. She prefers it scalding hot. Disappoint. “I just wanted to pass this on to you. Are you able to look into properties that Paxton Brooker owns? That should be public record, right? This might have nothing to do with Max Dotaire, but Paxton Brooker owns the place, dammit. He can’t just be ignored in all this.”
Ray downs his coffee and wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “I can make a few inquiries about properties. Can’t go in without a warrant, but can look at public records. It may just be a different case for my team to get involved in, as you can’t actually prove either man was involved yet.” He sits back in his seat, dark eyes serious. “I’ve heard the Max Dotaire case isn’t going in your favor. Debra Mills certainly has a risqué past with him. The jury is going to balk at pinning him with rape.”
Not him, too! “How do you know?”
He shrugs, looking like a world-weary detective. “I just do. That’s how these go. I’ve seen a lot of perps…and I’ve seen a lot of false accusations. People are getting nervous about it. If you can’t find another credible person to say Max Dotaire is a rapist, you are shit out of luck, my gal.”
Great. Kara feels her face fall.
He places both hands on the table and wraps up their conversation as his pager starts going off. He gives her a regret filled looked, muttering something about duty calling. He must see her disappointment over the find possibly not being of any use to her case, because he tries to throw her a bone.
“Thanks for bringing this to me, Kara. I’ll have to talk to my Captain about this and see if any of our other divisions have been working on an underground film ring. I can’t imagine no one has come across this.” He pats her on the shoulder fondly. “Not sure it pertains to your case, but we can certainly investigate this little tidbit against the Dark Mirage .”
“Ray,” she says as he goes to walk out the front door. He turns and looks at her, dark eyes curious and intent. Kara smiles at him. “Thank you for caring. And…for asking how I am. When you came in. It was nice of you.”
He smiles, a flash of white teeth and a shift of the dark scruff on his jawline. “Don’t sweat it. You know it’s my job.” As he’s walking away, getting ready to light one of his cigarettes, he says, “Don’t be a stranger.”
Despite the smile on her face, Kara can’t help but feel darker thoughts take over her mind as she wonders if any members of the club know about The Room. Specifically, one member.
A member that likes aggression as much as Kara does.
You’re a sick bitch, love.
Kara rubs her eyes miserably and hopes she isn’t having depraved fantasies about a man that is involved with a torture film group.
As if she couldn’t sink any lower.
Because even if she were to assume Nicholas Havenwood-Calais is involved, her heart still beats a little faster and her gut heats with arousal. Her body clearly doesn’t care one way or another, no matter how horrified her brain is.
Please don’t let him be that sort of monster. My sanity can’t take it.