Chapter 44
My head throbs. It’s like it’s being crushed in a vice, my head two seconds away from exploding.
My head hangs at an uncomfortable angle, the deep ache telling me I’ve been sleeping in this position for a while. I lift my head, wincing at the stab of pain slicing through my neck.
I peel my eyes open. They’re heavy, my retinas burning from the low winter sun that streams through the window, the light scattered around the room through the moth-eaten threadbare curtains.
I don’t recognise those curtains. Or the window. Or this room.
My eyes dart around the room, my pulse spiking. The only piece of furniture aside from the chair I’m sitting on is a bed. A bare mattress lies on top of the wooden bed frame suffering a bad case of woodworm.
The peeling wallpaper is turning brown from age and mold, the discoloured paint cracking. Rough, hardwood flooring underfoot.
My stiff neck aches as I go to reach up but I can’t move. My arms are tied behind my back, my bruised shoulders throbbing in pain. I pull against my binds, desperate to be free as panic starts to set in but it’s no use.
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing this to be some scarily realistic nightmare I’ll wake up from soon. It can’t be real.
I crack open an eye and my heart sinks when it lands on those same threadbare curtains.
No…
How did I get here?
I search back through my mind to the last thing I can remember.
I remember leaving the hospital after visiting Killian and then… Nothing.
Everything after that is hazy and broken, flashes of images I’m not even sure are real.
Then I woke up here.
Oh my god…
I tug at my restraints again, getting more and more frustrated the harder I pull and still nothing happens.
“Fuck!” I hiss.
“I wouldn’t waste your time, sweetheart. Gonna need to save your strength for what I have planned for you.” The man’s deep gruff voice sends ice cold shivers skating up my spine.
I didn’t hear him come in. Or has he been there all along, watching silently while I struggled?
Who is he? What does he want from me?
Whoever he is, he shifts further into the room, the floorboards creaking under his feet. I turn rigid. If I wasn’t tied to this chair, I’d be fixed to the seat by fear alone. He moves into my periphery but I daren’t look up so I keep my eyes fixed forward.
A million things race through my mind. It’s like tiny fireworks in my brain, all going off simultaneously.
Is he going to kill me? Is he going to make me suffer?
Will it be slow or will it be fast? Oh my god, my baby!
He’s going to kill us both. Killian… What about Killian?
He’ll never meet our child. I’ll never be able to tell him how much I love him. That I forgive him.
All I know, is that whatever happens, I have to survive this, for my baby’s sake.
My eyes lift to his face as he comes to a stop in front of me.
He looks… normal. Tall, broad-shouldered and muscular.
In his younger days, I can see him being the kind of guy the girls fawn over, handsome, well put together, only age has weathered him.
Hardened him. He’s maybe, mid-to-late fifties if I had to guess.
His salt and pepper beard is unkempt, his hair thinning to the point he’s almost bald.
Everything about him is perfectly ordinary, but it’s his eyes that unnerve me.
The way he’s staring down at me, the emptiness in his gaze makes me shiver.
He’s dead inside. There’s no emotion there at all.
I swallow hard. “Who are you?” I do my best to cover the tremor in my voice, forcing myself to remain strong.
“You’ll figure it out soon enough.”
“How did I get here?”
“Picked you up outside the hospital last night. You were a little preoccupied. Looked like you needed to take a little nap.”
I recoil. “You drugged me?”
He sucks in a sharp breath. “Not exactly. Didn’t have any Rohypnol to hand. Had to improvise,” he says, rubbing his bruised knuckles.
He hit me. That explains the throbbing in my head.
I shift uncomfortably in my seat, my ass going numb. “You need to let me go. My friend will be wondering where I am. I didn’t go home last night.”
He digs into his pocket and pulls out my phone.
“Already dealt with. I shot Fi a text to say you were staying with Killian and not to worry.” He scrolls through my phone.
“She mentioned something about Killian grovelling on his knees,” he sucks in a sharp breath before grinning, “Killian is very good on his knees, isn’t he? ”
My blood runs cold.
The messages I was getting…
Oh my god.
This is Curt Naylor.
“It’s you…” I gasp.
His grin widens. “Nice to hear he still talks about me. I think about our time together often too.”
If Killian has told me anything about this man, it’s that he feeds off fear like a vampire feeds off blood.
I lift my chin, steeling myself, not giving him a single drop he can leech off of. “Your time together? You mean the times you repeatedly raped him?”
“It seems we have very different recollections of the past.” He’s a psychopath, he has to be. He doesn’t believe what he did to Killian was wrong at all.
“How could they let you out? Monsters like you should be rotting behind bars.”
“I have your daddy to thank for that.”
I still at the mention of my father. “What does he have to do with this?”
“We go way back, and I can be very persuasive when I need to be.”
Why would my father help release him from prison?
“Why am I here? Didn’t you do enough yesterday when you tried to kill us?”
“That was me having a little fun. It would’ve been a bit anticlimactic to kill you both before Killian and I had the chance to reunite, don’t you think?”
“Look, if you’re going to kill me, just get it over with.”
“Oh, no no no…” He drops to a crouch in front of me, touching his finger to the cut to my eyebrow from the accident yesterday.
“I’m not gonna kill you. Not yet. Me and Killian have some unfinished business, and you’re gonna help me tidy up a few loose ends.
We’re gonna have some fun first while we wait for him to join us. ”
“Judging by your definition of fun, I’d rather you put me out of my misery.”
“If I do that, I can’t make him watch me kill the one person he loves the most.”
He is going to kill me. He’s just biding his time, waiting for Killian to find me before he does it.
A wave of nausea rolls through me but I hold it off, breathing in deep through my nose and out through my mouth.
“Can I… Can I have some water, please?” I ask, hoping it’s enough to stave off the nausea.
“Of course.” He leaves the room, giving me the perfect opportunity to scope the room, trying to find something, anything that can help me protect myself should I need to, or something to help me escape this place.
There’s nothing.
I wonder if the bathroom has anything. A razor blade, maybe?
The floorboards creak as he climbs the stairs, returning to the room with a glass of water.
He holds it out in front of me, tipping back the glass enough for me to take a sip, the water soothingly my dry throat.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I announce. It’s not a total lie, I do really need to pee but it will give me the perfect chance to see if there’s anything I can use.
He crosses the room, cutting my wrists from around my back held together by tape.
He then frees my feet before rebinding my wrists at my front.
He snags my left pinkie and tugs sharply, making me yelp.
“Try something stupid, we’ll start with this one and work our way across until there’s none left. Okay?”
I gulp. Nodding.
He leads me to the small bathroom next door, shoving me inside and shutting the door behind us, leaning back against it with his arms crossed.
“Y—You’re just gonna stand there and watch me?”
“Oh yes.” He smirks, like it amuses him.
My stomach clenches. Even if I could find something to help me escape, it’s impossible now with him watching me like a hawk.
It’s a struggle to pull down my jeans and panties with my hands tied but after a long humiliating minute, I managed it.
It takes me a few seconds before I can relax enough to pee under his scrutinous gaze.
Such an intimate act shouldn’t require an audience, especially when said audience is a perverted psychopath.
I close my eyes and do my best to pretend he’s not here and that this isn’t really happening, but it’s difficult.
Shame seeps through me as I’m finally able to empty my bladder, tears burning in the backs of my eyes while the heat of his gaze burns my skin. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so vulnerable and degraded in my life.
When I’m done, I have to stretch to reach the roll of toilet paper, struggling to unravel it with my still-bound hands.
“Need a hand?” Naylor asks, pushing off the wall and taking a step towards me. I don’t have to look up at him to know he’s grinning, enjoying every second of this torture.
The sick bastard.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I spit, doing my best to wipe and tug my pants and underwear back up without giving him a glimpse between my legs.
He gives me a few seconds to flush and wash my hands before he takes my upper arm and tugs me back into the bedroom. He shoves me back onto the chair, repositions my hands behind me and tapes my ankles to each chair leg, his head practically between my knees.
He brings his head up to meet my eyes, the look he gives me sends a shiver of dread through me. He could do anything to me and there’s not a single thing I could do to stop him. He outweighs me in both strength and size.
My breath locks up in my throat as his hands grip my knees and spreads my legs wider. He slides them up the outside of my thighs, stopping as his fingertips graze my panties, the waistband poking out underneath my jeans.
“Mmm…” he groans. “I can see why Killian is so taken with you. You’re a beautiful girl. It’s a shame I’m not able to fuck you properly.” He leans forward, pressing his face against the apex of my thighs, taking a deep inhale. “I haven’t had pussy in so goddamn long…”
“Get off me.” I struggle beneath them, my ass bucking up off the seat in an attempt to get him to release me, but all it does is push my pussy closer to his face.
He chuckles. “But I can still do this.”
“No!” I scream as he flicks the button on my jeans, his hand diving beneath the waistband and into my panties. “Stop!”
I’m bone dry and I cry out when he spears two long rough fingers into me.
I sit frozen in the chair, my teeth sinking into the inside of my cheek to keep my whimpers at bay, forced to endure the assault as he violates me with his fingers.
After what feels like an hour, he finally pulls his fingers out and sucks them into his mouth.
My lips curl in disgust, my stomach curdling.
“Mmm,” he moans as his eyes drift closed. “Just as sweet as I imagined.”
He pulls his fingers from his mouth with a pop before he rises to his feet, not bothering to put my clothes back in place as he heads for the door.
“I’ll be right downstairs if you need me.”