Chapter 5
Izzy
By the time the bag is removed, I’m shoeless again. I tripped, stumbled, then chose to kick off my shoes on the journey from the car to the interior of some vast house. Better to do that than to break my leg. I did wonder if the size of the house is just me imagining things, but no.
I shake my head, letting my hair rearrange itself, strands slipping past my eyes. I am barefoot, lipstick smeared, and have tear-stained cheeks. My dress is mildly shredded from the knife, and I am sure my red silk coat ripped when it caught on something in the car.
However, I am determined to show Montez Flores that I don’t give a fuck.
At least, not yet. Torture might change things.
But not this. Not him sitting on a chair chewing his dinner like a cow, fork raised, with a happy sneer appearing. I straighten my shoulders as he lowers his fork to the plate. The metal clatters to the white porcelain.
This room is whiter than white, with a high, domed ceiling, and windows to one side that overlook a night-dark garden. Montez sits at a long table with a flowing haired woman on his right. She tosses that red hair and smiles at me, as if seeing a woman dragged in with a bag on her head is normal business in her universe. It probably is.
That’s sad and disturbing.
This will not end well for me, but I stiffen my back and stand evenly on my feet while Montez dabs at his mouth with a napkin. The floor’s coolness is welcome. The scent of blossoms sweetens the room air, and plants in large ivory-and-gold pots decorate the corners. Several smaller pots sit on a pair of carved tables. We’ve been halted between those tables.
Four men stand in pairs, to either side of the room, near enough to the dining table to reach their master, far enough so as not to disturb his eating, I assume. They’re dressed in casual pants, buttoned shirts, and shoulder-holstered guns. Their stares are as flat as Noah’s and yet, somehow, I’d bet on him beating them to a pulp in a fair fight.
This here is not a fair fight. He’s beside me and still cuffed. My hands are at my front, his are behind him.
“Izabella Fenway, sir,” says one of the two men from our car. The third must have remained with the vehicle.
Montez leans forward, hands palm down on the table. He is dressed in an expensive black shirt and black pants. Maybe he’s aiming for a villain-of-the-month look? “Why is Mr. Smith cuffed?”
“We found him following her, sir. He kissed her, took her into an alleyway, then came out, then went back in.” The man shrugs.
“Strange behavior, Mr. Noah Smith.” The mister is accentuated, perhaps he, too, is doubting the name. “Why did you do this?” One eyebrow rises toward his wavy black hair. The sides are shaved, his eyelids seem swollen and smudged with shadow, whether from genetics or debauchery, I can’t tell, and don’t care. The man is a pig.
“I liked her ass, Montez. So I took it.”
“You fucked her?” Montez acts shocked.
“Not yet. Your men interrupted me, and I was going to cut her up also. I feel you owe me.”
He barks out a laugh. “You were? I owe you? Ha! So you know…knew, who she is? You thought, maybe I will deliver her to Montez as a present, all bleeding and sobbing? I like that but find it hard to believe. Is she cut?”
“No, sir,” one guard answers. “Though he had a knife out. Her panties were lying in the alley.”
“Really? Show me these.”
Is Montez a panty sniffer? Something else to add to his file if I get out of here alive. I won’t though. I know this. Not unless I find a trump card to throw down. I have nothing.
Don’t panic. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Uh, Sorry, sir. We got the knife but not the underwear.”
“That is evidence of her presence. Go back and get them. Leave the knife.” Montez waits while the two guards apologize, bring my pocketknife to his table, then exit. He examines my knife.
“The odds are a little better, Dead Guy,” I murmur. How can I call him Noah? It leaves me feeling odd when I do because I’m still sure this is not really his name.
He glances my way. “I’m not your friend.”
“Why are you talking to her?” Montez drawls and picks something from his teeth. His female companion is drinking wine and looking bored, judging by the drooping of her eyelids and wandering gaze.
“I told her, I am not her friend.”
“Good, then you won’t mind killing her.”
Oh god. A continuous violin-like note whines internally. The words are a spear shoved through me, twisted, then shoved some more. I may vomit.
“I won’t mind at all. I know her name now, and she has been like a little monkey gnawing at our heels with her writing.”
“Our? Mine perhaps. You are a businessman, Noah. Why would this, her words, worry you?”
“You know I am more than that. If you profit, I do. It’s why I am arranging for you to meet Kasimir Stern. If he wins the presidency and you are aligned with him, we all profit. Business will be good.”
“If. Hmmm.” He picks up a glass, swallows some wine.
Listening to this, I can’t help but think it through to an end point. If true, if Montez and Kasimir unite, and he wins the presidency, this would be a disaster for the country. The current president has often been rumored to have links to crime, but Kasimir Stern is mired in drug-running, murder, and the sex trade. The man dodges all prosecutions with bribery and is as innocent as a shark.
With Montez in his court… I close my eyes and shudder. The election will be rigged beyond recognition, and Kasimir will surely win.
“Prove it. Prove your loyalty. I will have you kill her in a moment, but first…”
I try to steel myself, try not to think on what my death will be like, but it’s impossible. My imagination throws up visions of blood, pain, me screaming.
Montez beckons. A side door opens, and two people are dragged in, also with their heads bagged. One woman, one man. My stomach tightens as their bags are untied. I am sure I know who the woman will be.
Alice. It is she. I recognize her from the one image she sent. I set my jaw, swallow, and ignore the leaden weight of my stomach.
They are both gagged roughly with cloth. Their noises make me think something is balled up inside their mouths. Victim One and Victim Two I will call them.
“Uncuff Mr. Smith and give him this.” Montez waggles my knife. “Shoot him if he does anything except kill the man. Show me your loyalty, Noah.” He smiles. “Don’t worry about the mess.”
I want to fall to the floor. My knees wobble. The man is pushed, protesting, to the middle of the room, between where we stand and the long table. His hands freed, with knife blade casually pointing downward, Dead Guy strides to Victim One. He grabs a handful of his hair, lifts him higher, then cuts his throat. One slice, one truncated gasp. The man drops to the floor and writhes there, spilling blood—thick red, blood that pools and spreads as his body twitches.
Soon, he ceases to twitch.
Forensics would have a ball in here. It was done so casually, so without drama, that I imagine this is a regular event. The red-haired woman grimaces but only drinks more. I’m surprised she isn’t scrolling through a phone and yawning.
“Good. Very good. Now you do her.” Montez nods at me. Me? “You will kill this woman, Miss Izabella, and I will make your death easier.”
This offer…
I gape at him. These are the first words he has addressed to me. “You expect me to kill her?” I’m shaking my head. An easier death? I believe him, not one iota, not one jot. Zero, zilch.
I will make your death easier… Knowing it will happen is not the same as hearing this announcement.
Dead Guy has wiped clean the knife and strolls over, flicking it closed.
He said he was a killer.
Nevertheless, he did that so easily my mind is churning, keeping my trembling hands company. He’s a businessman?
A guard uncuffs me then steps away, returns to his post. I hug myself, sure I will never be warm again despite the room’s heat. The two of us are isolated here, in the middle, and I feel as if a spotlight is shining down. No doubt we will be easily shot if I make a fuss. Alice has been brought over to kneel near Victim One. She stares at the floor, resigned. I guess she knows she will die anyway—by my hand or theirs.
I, too, am going to die, no matter what I do.
Why should I do this? Confused, I study the closed knife lying on Dead Guy’s palm. Is he afraid I might stab him instead, in some fit of anger?
“Do it. I’ll make sure he goes by his word, though it will be a pity.”
“A pity?” I lift my head. He places the knife in my hand and folds my fingers over it. “I don’t know how to kill.”
“Yes, a pity. I was looking forward to making you come while I fucked you.”
“Ahhh. Your hobby?” I whisper. He killed so easily. Was he therefore being truthful before, in the car? Of course he was.
Yes. Yes, he was. How do I know this? Intuition? I have nothing, no facts, except…
A businessman who gives a false name to the head of a criminal organization.
A man who sat in a bar beside the real dead guy and soaked up the words we used. He grabbed the silver bracelet. He knows too much. I remember. I remember the Night of Fire and running from the burning bar. Months after, an informant told me he thought my date had a wound in his head when they stretchered him out. Why was Noah there? To kill someone? He says he kills.
Is he a hitman?
“If I tell Montez you are not you, that you kill for fun and for a living… If I yell that?—”
He leans in. “I’ll break your neck first.”
Oh my. That wild guess…confirmation acquired. He’s gifted me this.
For a long moment, he holds me with his eyes, locked down, targeted. My brain runs amok, gibbering to itself. Holy shite. I will hang onto this chance at life, teeth deep in him if I must.
And I must.
My neck is intact, so far.
“I won’t.” I stroke the back of his hand where it has remained over mine. “I can help you do so much more. Save me, and I will.”
“Save you?” The amusement shows.
I firm my voice. “You, with me, equals power. I have four million followers, a voice?—”
“I don’t want power.”
“What are you saying to her?” Montez shifts in his chair. “I’m getting bored.”
“How to kill the woman! She asks me.”
“I don’t care. Let her stick her badly. She can die slow and sloppily.”
Dead Guy grunts, dares to ignore Montez.
I glimpse a chink in his armor. He promised to help me die easier. Why? I have no idea, but I know what he likes. Killing people. But me, he promised easy. I don’t understand that.
“Power, and I’ll help you find the right victims.” Whatever that means. I suck in a breath, exhale, shakily. “I offer myself too. My body.”
“Hmmm. I have that already.” With his fist, he crushes my hand to the pocketknife’s metal. “A promise?” He smiles, then breaks the smile in the same second, but the pressure of his fist endures.
“Yes,” I hiss. “I do promise. Ow. That hurts.” My toes curl, my clit swells. Heat rushes everywhere I do not need it to be in the midst of this murderous night. But what I said, and his answer, they are fire, somehow. It’s hitting me in all the wrong, dirty, immoral ways.
“First, kill her. Same as I did, almost. Hold her hair. Don’t lift her. Draw her head back at an angle, expose the neck and cut deep.”
He lets go of me, and I jiggle my fingers, clearing the sting.
“I just don’t mean that… I mean, how do I kill a human being?” I shudder and slowly pull open the knife. “A person?”
“Ten more seconds of this, and I have you both killed,” Montez grumbles.
“How do you kill a human?” Dead Guy bellows, walking backward, arms out. “Remember that almost nobody out of all the billions out there, will give one shit when you die. Give them the same. People die, it doesn’t matter to us. Us.” He clenches his fist to his chest. He’s talking as if we are a couple? “I matter to me. You matter to you. That is all there is. Once you understand that, killing is easy.”
And then I get it, I do. I understand. Society wants us to care for everyone, to sacrifice ourselves for the good of all, but in the end, after we die, that’s it. Don’t waste your life.
Nothing of what we did will matter when we are gone. Why not just live for yourself. Huh.
I study the steel blade. I can be quick. I hold onto his notion of personal importance as I walk to her. If I protest, if I baulk, that may cause problems and will only prolong Alice’s agony.
My stomach churns, even so, and bile rises.
But I do it. I grab her hair. I ignore the pleading eyes. I pull upward and I cut deep, deep as my strength will take the knife. The sound of the knife going in and cutting into muscle and gristle…the sound of her breath leaving her, the spray of blood, I will never forget this.
Only I matter. In this moment it must be true. Then I let go, turn, and walk away, wiping my hand on my clothes.
I had to do it.
I’m still clutching the knife when someone catches up to me and takes it away. I could have used it, but I forgot to try. My hands are so cold. I breathe in, out.
I hope Dead Guy is true to his word.
I don’t want to die easily.
I want to live.
“You know,” Montez drawls. “She was not what you think she was, Miss Izabella. She was my plan all along—to draw you here with a few lies, so I could catch you. Now I have you, let us end this annoyance. Noah, kill her.”
My heart is already numb. I think, maybe, I don’t care what Alice was? I just don’t.
Fuck this.
I turn with a snarl when Dead Guy reaches me, and I lash out with my fist then my knee.
He dodges the knee, deflects it to his thigh, catches my arm, and hauls me to the nearest table where he holds me against the narrower side, squashed facedown to the shiny woodgrain. I splutter, flail my free arm. Dead Guy sweeps aside the pots of flowers. They crash to the floor, cracking open and spilling dirt.
I keep struggling and try to rise but he’s locked back my arm. I kick backward and he rams me into the table using his body.
“Behave!” He grunts then speaks softly. “I need to make you look tasty.” My hands are painstakingly caught then drawn to my front.
What does tasty mean? To convince Montez to keep me alive? Please let it be that. How easily he holds my wrists in one of his larger hands.
“Cut her throat,” Montez instructs. “Though you can stick her a few times before. Some screams, first.”
“Now, we begin,” he says quietly. Then louder, “I want to fuck with her and destroy her slowly. Not over a day. A week, a few days? I want to end with skinning her alive while she is fucked in every hole. Do you like this proposal, Montez?”
“You are trying to wriggle out of killing her, it seems. Fuck her now but kill her after.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Montez watching me intently. I show my teeth.
“Bitch.” Dead Guy wrenches my head up, exposing my neck. I squirm but am locked down tight. “She deserves a harder death, not an easy one.”
God, I hope he doesn’t really mean all this. But how he has me balanced, with my front partly off the table and my back arched, my clit is being smooshed against the table. His cock pushes into the split of my ass. Though my hands stay trapped in his, my hair is released, and he searches below, drags my clothes higher. I’m already panty-less. Once he has the dress and coat gathered at my waist, he kicks apart my feet then unzips and introduces the head of his erection to my pussy.
My throat closes in. I feel myself slowly swallow that part of him, unwillingly, but I’m struck dumb, my mind blanking.
Then he fists my hair again and hauls at it until my spine bows, my breasts leave the table, and I’m painfully arched. He shoves himself further in, and I gasp.
I’m transfixed by the abruptness of this possession. The way I can feel myself adjusting around him, clasping at his cock as he shunts in, pushes. Sensations bloom and spread. My thighs shake. He carves his way into me with what feels like a very hard, huge cock.
Maybe it’s because I’m not ready for this. Maybe.
I stifle a whimper as he forces himself further, and I hear a squelch. His fingers twist my hair around them, tight. Pains prickle my scalp.
His cock advances another inch, two, the girth filling me beautifully, and I’m making stupid sounds of pleasure but cannot stop myself. He thrusts full depth, and I grunt. Fuck. I thought the alley was crazy. I blink and see the men are all watching, absorbing every movement. One of them starts to stroke his dick through his pants.
The table moves and my feet have to adjust as a forceful drive slams in. Dead Guy says something I don’t catch. A curse maybe.
“Next time, something painfully big in your asshole,” he whispers, as he fucks himself in, hard. “And your mouth.”
Montez shifts in his chair, his eyes drilling into me. This is turning him on. Even his woman seems curious. She says something to him. “Carmilla and I enjoy this shaming of her. Play with her then, fuck her, then kill. Jesus, I wish we could film this.”
“So limited, Montez,” Dead Guy says teasingly. “I can show you a whole other world of pleasure mixed with torture. We can film her once you’re back home.”
Montez laughs. “The filming is simple, as long as no one else gets their hands on it, like the cops. Tempting though. Has your business branched out? If you fail to impress me, you know the penalty.”
“Here is the next step.” His hold on my wrists tightens. Horrified, I see he has bought the knife forward and poises it above my flattened left hand. He lowers the knife, pricks my skin, then drives it fully down. The tip punches into the back of my hand.
He hammers it home.
Through my hand.
And into the fucking table.
I screech at the pain, strive to pull away. Now I’m panicking.