Chapter 15 Fuck Around and Find Out – Briar
FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT
brIAR
Now
Still dazed by Lorenzo’s last hit, I’m dragged through a maze of wooden shipping crates, stacked high, until we reach a small clearing, somewhere near the middle of the packed warehouse. I lift my head as they drag me forward, but there’s no sight of any of the other girls I arrived with.
There’s a random couch, ancient, by the looks of its stained, eighties-era fabric, and a folding table covered in empty beer bottles and playing cards, with a few metal chairs scattered around it.
The men carrying me drop me without warning in the middle of the freezing cement floor. A groan of pain escapes me. I recognize Mateusz sneering down at me, his nose still smeared with blood from my kick. I hope it’s broken.
The second I hit the ground, I attempt to push myself back up. But Mateusz quickly intervenes, shoving me back down roughly. “This one’s spicy.” The excitement in his tone is unnerving and I flinch away, but he grabs a fist full of my hair, keeping me in place.
While Mateusz holds me still, his friend rips my feet out from under me. I fall forward, smashing my face onto the concrete, too dazed to fight him as he ties my ankles together with rope.
“Good luck trying to kick me now,” Mateusz chirps. I still try, though it’s no use; there’s barely any give in the ropes. Fuck they hurt.
Next, the guy grabs hold of my hands, hauling me forward while pulling another zip tie from his pocket. Swiftly, he connects my already zip-tied hands to the metal grate cemented into the floor.
I let out a yelp, attempting to wrench my hands away but he’s too fast, and I only succeed at tightening the noose around my hands to the point of pain. My wrists are now slick with blood from my continued struggle to pull them free.
Satisfied, Mateusz releases my hair with a fit of laughter.
Awkwardly, I work my legs forward until I’m sitting on my knees. My tied ankles tucked underneath me. My hands, bound to the grate in front of me, keep me there. A tremble wracks through me at the vulnerability of the position—At the sight of the men circling around me.
One stares at me, grinning, all while rubbing at a bulge in his pants.
I force the vomit down as it climbs up the back of my throat.
Lorenzo steps into my field of vision, and I feel the blood drain from my face at the sight of the leather whip in his hands. I’m shaking now, out of options and fully at their mercy.
He massages the coiled dark leather as he steps closer. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, you’ll learn quick,” he laughs. “They always do.” He sneers down at me as he walks past, positioning himself at my back.
There’s nothing to do but wait. My fingers dig into my skin as I curl them into fists, willing myself not to let them break me but doubting my resolve as soon as Lorenzo lets the whip loose. The leather cracks through the air and I flinch so hard I nearly fall over, though it hasn’t touched me yet.
“Bad luck for you, you’re not a virgin,” he says somewhat empathetically. “We can sell you as-is, so what do ya say we have a little fun?”
The man standing in front of me, still rubbing the growing bulge in his jeans, grins wider. Winking at me when he notices my gaze.
My body shakes uncontrollably, anxiously awaiting Lorenzo’s first strike.
He’s no doubt dragging it out to fuck with me.
The anticipation perhaps worse than the punishment itself.
It won’t be that bad. I’m well aware that I am lying to myself.
Whatever you do, don’t scream. I repeat the words in my head: Don’t scream, don’t scream, until the next crack of the whip.
The sharp leather makes contact with a slicing sting through my shoulder blades and I fall forward with a sharp gasp, using my hands to brace myself. Tears spring from my eyes involuntarily at the sharp, searing heat of pain ripping through my back.
Fuck.
I hear the whip cut through the air before I feel it again. The pain far worse this time as it makes contact with the first wound. My arms buckle and tears stream freely, quietly soaking my cheeks, but I bite down hard on my lip. Don’t scream. Don’t scream. Don’t you dare scream!
Lorenzo brings the whip down again harder this time and I feel my skin break, warmth floods down my back.
My shirt falls down my shoulder as he shreds the fabric from my body thread by thread.
My breaths come hard and I try to focus on them, only them.
Don’t scream, don’t scream. The fourth strike follows immediately after and hits harder.
I hear Lorenzo grunt from the effort of it. Pissed off at my silence, I hope.
It’s here I start to lose my resolve. The whip comes down so hard, snapping across the previous wounds, cutting from another angle, and while I don’t scream, the tiniest cry of pain escapes me.
Gun shots ring out behind me and the circle descends into chaos.
I dive forward, dropping down as low as I can, unable to use my hands to cover my head, so instead I watch as a masked man, dressed all in black, appears seemingly out of the shadows between the crates.
His gun is fixed on Lorenzo and he quickly fires two shots into him in quick succession.
A second masked man appears behind the first, his gun pointed over my head before it fires. I track the shot, watching the man who was in front of me—the one holding his cock—hit the ground. His eyes frozen open, only a trickle of blood spilling from the small, circular wound in his forehead.
Another one of Lorenzo’s men goes down, screaming out while clutching his leg, dropping his gun. I watch it slide across the floor to me, my heart dropping when it skids to a stop just outside of my reach.
More shots rain down and it’s chaos as Lorenzo’s men struggle to defend themselves, the shots seem to be coming from all directions now.
When no one in the small clearing is left standing, the gunfire pauses. Still alive and shaking uncontrollably, I push up on my elbows, stealing a glance behind me just in time to see the two masked men I saw earlier fully enter the clearing.
Lorenzo wails on the ground between us, clutching his knee. Blood covers his hand and I can’t help but feel a dark sense of satisfaction at the sight of him writhing in pain. More gunfire rings out from the far back of the warehouse but I keep my eyes on the two masked men coming toward me.
They’re tall, dressed in black, and my heart drops when I realize they’re not police. They wear bulletproof vests, dark tactical pants and hoodies, with balaclavas obscuring their faces.
Lorenzo lets out another howl of pain at their feet.
One of the men steps forward, his gun trained on Lorenzo’s forehead. His eyes, the only part of him visible through his mask, glimmer with a dark rage when he finally steps into the light.
“Tie him up,” he growls before walking past to crouch down beside me.
His gloved fingertips reach for me, but I flinch away. Uncertain of his intentions, I keep my eye on him despite the gunfire still ringing out around us. Though, the shots are fewer and far between now.
More masked men step into the clearing, and together two of them heave Lorenzo up, throwing him into one of the metal chairs while he curses at them.
My eyes flicker between the masked man in front of me and the chaos happening at his back as his men make quick work of tying down a flailing Lorenzo.
My masked man’s gaze stays fixed on me, trusting the men at his back to follow orders.
As I draw further away from him, reaching the max range the zip ties will allow, he holds up both of his gloved hands so I can see them.
My eyes instantly fall to the gun he’s holding in his left one.
Tracking my gaze and moving slowly, ever-so-slowly, he holsters the gun at his waist, showing me his now empty hands.
He pauses for a moment as if to gauge my reaction before he reaches for me again. Not having anywhere else to go, I quietly tremble as he unties the ropes binding my ankles.
He levels me another look before drawing out a wicked-looking knife from somewhere at his side, swiftly cutting through the zip ties on my wrists.
Flinching after he’s already cut me loose, the knife disappears nearly as quickly as it appeared and he looks me over.
His eyes darken as they trail over my back.
I’m hyper-aware of the state of my top, one thread away from falling apart entirely, and my hands come up protectively over my chest.
He stands, removing his bullet proof vest before wrenching his hoodie up and over his head before crouching down in front of me again, though not quite as close as he was before. Free of the grate, I inch away, putting a couple more inches of space between us.
“Here.” He leans forward, closing the gap again, dragging the soft fabric over my head.
It’s still warm from his body, bringing awareness to just how cold I am.
The hoodie is too big for me, but once it’s on, its warmth and size brings me an odd sense of comfort.
I inhale deep, trying to calm my still panicked breathing.
The scent of him surrounds me, a dark citrus, triggering an overwhelming sense of familiarity.
My gaze shoots up, he’s watching me with a dark intensity. Only his eyes are visible under that dark mask. And those eyes… a green fading into dark shadow at the edges, framed by lashes no man should have.
“You…” I whisper, my voice barely audible, but he hears it, the faintest flash of surprise in his eyes. Fractured eyes, as familiar as they are foreign…
“It’s you.”