Chapter 4
Damien
I’m surprised at my pet’s reaction. Her face is naturally pale to begin with, but at the word cell, it loses what little color it has. She goes white as a sheet.
The long fringes that border her eyes beat down on her light cheeks once, and then she turns her irises up to me. My breath nearly leaves me at the sight of those two pleading eyes, the deep violet swirling in them.
I realize then that the rumors of the cell must have gone beyond our circle of enemies. It’s really grown a reputation of its own.
The truth is, it’s the least scary thing about us. Just a tiny stone room with a humidity problem. Though I know it’s been embellished over time. We actively encourage the rumors, because they’re useful. Nothing like instilling fear in your enemies.
She’s not my enemy, though, and while I look forward to instilling just a touch of fear in her, this isn’t the kind I had in mind. It’s a little too violent for my pet.
I bite down on my first instinct, which is to reassure her. I do need to punish her, after all. Get the others off my back, especially Vale. And it won’t hurt to make her a little more malleable. I was not expecting her to be so rebellious. She seemed so withdrawn.
I can’t say I hate it, though. If anything, it turns me on.
The only thing I regret is that taking her to the cell means clothing her again. Having her naked in my arms has been intoxicating. Everything about her is a surprise.
More than anything, I’ve grown addicted to the way she unravels at my touch. I can read the fear in her eyes, yet her body loosens when I stroke her. She’s arched into me twice already. She has been lonely after all.
Not anymore.
Well, I’m going to have to keep her lonely for a little while longer. Until the boys are satisfied she’s been punished enough, and until her rebellious streak has been tamed.
I can’t bring her up to the apartment until I’m sure she’ll behave.
I lift her up from my lap and stand up beside her. I can’t resist dragging my hand down her back and onto the curve of her hip. She tenses again, but I don’t go further.
I begin to stroke her, my fingers rubbing her lower back in a repetitive pattern that causes her once more to relax against me. She’s been hungering for someone’s touch, I can tell. From now on, she’ll have mine, and only mine.
But not yet.
I remove my hand and hear her exhale in a needy shudder.
Biting down on a chuckle, I go to the door and grab the pile of clothes that Logan has slid under the door.
He knows me well. He knows I wouldn’t want to bring her down naked through the hallways, with all the cameras that the boys have access to.
I keep an arm around her at all times. I’m amused by the way she stays docilely beside me after her silly attempt at escape.
I won’t make fun of her, though. I’ve noticed she grows furious when I laugh at her.
She’s already visibly terrified, and that’s enough.
I won’t add anger to the list of emotions she’s currently struggling with.
Still, once she’s left the cell, I’ll have to deal with those little bursts of temper.
I pull the rough smock over her head. It’s not very nice, and it makes her look like a prisoner, which I guess she is. My prisoner.
I open the door and she walks quietly next to me, her bare feet padding on the marble floor.
I glance down with a pang as I take in their appearance, bruised and bleeding.
She must have done a lot of walking in her life, and not with the right footwear.
But the days of walking are over. From now on, she can spend her time going from one end of a locked room to the other.
We walk down the hallway, passing Vale who looks at me with an arched brow.
“Taking her to the cell,” I say hotly.
“Just kill her now,” he says in his raspy, gravelly voice. “No point in dragging it out.”
I feel her collapse slightly in my arm, and I turn a furious glare at Vale.
He merely shrugs. If she weren’t here right now, I’d punch him for that.
But I’m not letting her go. Not after that little escape attempt of hers, though in any case she wouldn’t get very far.
Both the staircase and elevator are accessible only with a code.
I walk her into the elevator. By now she seems more dead than alive and she’d probably fall if my arm wasn’t propping her up.
Sighing, I thread my fingers through her hair, and she relaxes once more.
I smile at the thought that I’ve already taught her to relax under my touch.
She won’t be very hard to train, after all.
Pretty soon she seems to forget everything but the touch of my fingers on her body.
Meanwhile I’m breathing in her soft, thick, beautifully tangled hair, the little curls mingling with long wavy strands.
I wonder when she’s brushed it last. It must have been a long time, and yet it’s clean, a faint odor of peach rising above the enticing scent of her own body.
The elevator dings. We’ve arrived, far too soon. She seems to be thinking the same thing, but I guess in her case, it’s the menace of the cell looming. Whereas I’m already aching with the loss of her, and for how long?
A week should do it; I don’t believe I could stay away longer, and the boys will be satisfied by one week, even Vale. One week will allow me to calm him down. Until then, even I can’t keep her entirely safe.
One week should be enough to break her in as well. Keep her from trying to escape again.
I unlock the heavy metal door, and she cringes away, then blinks in surprise when she finds it’s empty.
It’s a very small, very ordinary, room, entirely bare of spikes, but also of beds.
We don’t use it much, and it’s not this place people should fear, it’s the room next door, Igor’s stronghold.
That’s where our enemies go. A few days of torture, and they’re welcoming death, but they don’t go slowly, not in the room next door.
I would never put my girl there. Even leaving her in the cell is a struggle, but you don’t rise to the top of Devil by being soft. Still, I let her feel my soothing touch a moment longer before pushing her inside and twisting the key in the lock.
I head back upstairs, trying to scrub my eyeballs of the memory of those deep violet eyes. And more specifically, the look that was in them, not fear but rather a sad sort of acceptance, as I locked the door. Like she didn’t expect anything other than to suffer.
It’s not really the kind of reaction you’d expect from a captive.
Fear, yes. Struggling, yes, in some girls.
But acceptance? I can’t understand her, and it annoys me.
Moments ago, she tried to escape by stabbing me with a stapler.
And just as I got used to the idea that my pet has a streak of rebellion in her, she suddenly accepted her fate.
Not because that fate is inevitable, though it is. It’s more like she’s used to suffering. In a way, this is just more of the same.
Maybe the thing that made her try to escape wasn’t the thought of captivity, but the threat of my touch. Of sex.
Which is too bad, because that’s exactly what I have in mind.
-
I go up to the eleventh floor, where our offices are. The others are already gathered in the conference room.
“She’s in the cell,” I announce as I step in, and then snap my fingers at my assistant Vincent.
At once, he comes to me with a glass of whiskey and then returns shortly after with the first aid kit.
I occasionally have scruples about involving a teenager in our sordid affairs.
He’s only just turned eighteen, but he’s useful.
A zoomer who knows a lot more about tech than we ever could.
Though to be honest, it’s really his family connections that interest me.
Vale merely shrugs at my words, taking a swig from the small bottle of water in front of him.
“Happy now?” I insist, wincing in discomfort as Vincent applies antiseptic to the tiny holes left by the stapler.
Vale shrugs again, his eyes glued to the laptop screen in front of him.
“I’m going to leave her there for a week,” I continue, hating that I need to prove myself to him. I never have before. But this past year, things have gotten messy. It’s really the worst time to develop an obsession, but I can’t exactly help myself.
“We’re going to have to kill her anyway,” he comments in his gravelly voice.
I push down on the urge to beat the shit out of him. “We’ll do no such thing.”
“I don’t think we need to,” cuts in Logan quietly. At least I can still count on him. “I’m sure we’ll find another solution.”
“Yeah? Which one?” spits out Vale. “If we don’t kill her, Angel will.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Tell them not to, then, since you seem to be so close to them.”
It’s rare to see Vale lose his cool, but now he sputters in confused anger for a moment before quickly recovering.
“You can’t exactly blame Angel for wanting her dead.
The nanochip is the motive that would tie them, and us, to the murders.
They were supposed to hand it over to us, clean and easy.
We’d destroy it and no one would have to worry about it again.
They did their job, we did too. Except now, a random chick has it.
She’s probably working for some third party.
Best case scenario, a lowly criminal who wants to blackmail us. Worst case, the authorities.”
“Seems to me nothing about the Cole murders was clean and easy,” observes Logan drily. “Seeing as how Angel murdered the entire family.”
Vale ignores him, instead directing his attention to me. “Kill the girl.”
“She’s innocent,” I growl. “I won’t kill her.”
“Yeah, right. That’s not why you won’t kill her. It’s because you’re obsessed. Your obsession is going to ruin us all.”
It’s all I can do to keep my anger down. “She’s innocent.”
He smirks, noting my reaction. “If she’s innocent, Angel won’t believe it, and they’ll kill her. If she’s guilty, and we don’t kill her, we’re all fucked. Basically, there’s no future in which she doesn’t die.”
I sit up, my body rigid. Vale doesn’t realize it, but he’s just given me a way to save her.
“We have a code,” I say in a low voice. “That’s what sets us apart. We don’t kill without certainty. We’ve never risked ending the life of an innocent person before. And you’re clearly not convinced she’s guilty.”
“I’m only saying…” he grunts.
“There’s nothing to say. No one in this room has absolute proof that she knew what she was doing. Or that she even took it. We didn’t find the nanochip in her belongings. That settles it. We’ll figure out a solution to protect her, and protect ourselves, too.”
“Locking her up in the cell seems like a good start,” observes Logan.
Vale laughs bitterly. “Right, and if we keep her in captivity, she’ll go straight to the police the minute she’s freed. If she’s innocent,” he adds. “Otherwise, we’re only delaying catastrophe.”
Everest, the fifth member of Devil, lifts up his mop of curly blond hair from his own computer for the first time. “I agree with Damien.”
“Oh, so you’re joining the conversation now?” jeers Vale.
“Believe it or not, some of us actually work. Devil is a company first, remember? The killing people part comes after.”
In spite of my anger, I can’t help but exchange an amused glance with Logan.
Everest is far from correct. But he’s an everlasting softie, and he’s always struggled to come to terms with his involvement in what is really nothing other than a glorified gang of criminals.
The air of respectability that has allowed us to make powerful allies has nearly pulled the wool over his eyes too.
“Give it up, Vale, you’re outnumbered,” insists Everest, his eyes fixed once more on his screen.
“Why don’t you fuck off,” lashes out Vale, “and go suck some dick.”
An awkward silence settles over us, and even Vale seems to recognize he’s gone too far. He coughs uncomfortably and mutters, “Do whatever you want. I’m just trying to help. You’ll figure that out one day.”
Then he stands up and walks off, shutting the door with a loud bang, leaving the rest of us alone.
“So, what’s her name?” asks Everest casually.
The tension evaporates as if by magic with Vale’s departure, and I find myself laughing.
“Didn’t even think to ask.”