Chapter 26
Lauren
If he comes back at me with soft shit like he did when he brought me to Mission, I’ll lose my fucking mind.
I’m barely holding on to my sanity right now as it is.
Instead of striking me, a slow smile spreads across his face, his teeth marked with his blood from where I bit him.
I can’t determine which guy he is.
Is he the man he was in El Salvador, the one that whimpered when I stuck my hand in his jeans and stroked him?
Or is he the man that just fucked me while tied up with no regard to what I went through recently?
Is he a combination of both?
Does he want to kiss me or does he think that’s what I need? Is it a way to show his own remorse?
I don’t want any of it. I don’t want his compassion or guilt. I don’t want to be responsible for his feelings on any level.
I have to look away from him, and for some reason, this time, he allows it.
I hate myself almost as much as I hate him right now.
Despite my pain, despite the ache in all of my muscles, despite knowing I was drugged and abused, he knows just how to fuck me.
Maybe I should feel my own form of guilt over that, but I can’t seem to muster it right now.
Long ago, I stopped worrying about how I go about getting what I want. It doesn’t matter to anyone else how I punish or pleasure myself, nor how those two things most often go hand in hand.
I accepted my fucked-upness long ago, and concerning myself for how others perceive me isn’t part of who I am.
“Let me go,” I tell him in a flat tone when he pulls back and slips his cock back into his pants.
He doesn’t listen to me. Rather, he situates me back on the bed, taking his time and chuckling again when I fight him, as he ties my hands back to the bed. I have almost no strength in my arms or legs, and it makes me wonder how high the doses of the sedatives were that he gave me.
The IV bag, still hanging by the bed, is plain with nothing written on it so it doesn’t provide any clues as to what those drugs were. I don’t ask because I know he won’t tell me. He likes to torture me with the unknown.
I hiss when his fingers pinch at my nipple, just barely managing not to clamp my legs together.
I don’t want him to know he left me needy.
I nearly died of embarrassment when he cleaned me on the toilet.
It gives him too much power, too much control.
Not that I think he really cares how I’m left—wanting, hurting, begging.
So long as he gets his pleasure from my body, the other shit doesn’t matter.
He bought me with the lives of the three men who were holding me captive. He owns me. At least that’s how he sees it.
I want him to go into detail about their deaths and how in the hell he even found me, but I doubt he’d give me that information.
Then I remember him telling me about my termination from the FBI.
“Did you tell them where I was?” I ask, more fearful that they’ll come and take me away than wanting them to find and rescue me.
It says a lot about who I feel is the real villain in my world, but I can’t focus on that right now.
He scoffs. “They’re dead.”
“Not the men who took me. The FBI. Do they know where I am?”
His eyes search mine, and I have no fucking clue what the man is looking for. “I didn’t tell them shit.”
“Where the fuck are you going?” I ask when he stands from the bed and leaves the room.
I scream out a million frustrations, to the point my throat is on fire by the time the door opens again a short while later.
“I won’t fight you if you just let me go,” I barter when he walks back into the room.
“I like when you fight,” he says, the wickedness in his eyes sparking something inside of me.
I should be freaking out. I should be begging, pleading, asking for him to release me, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.
Deep down, I don’t know if that’s what I even want.
The man terrifies me, but there’s a certain thrill, a sense of excitement in trying to figure out what he’ll do next.
Before he showed up in Tamaulipas, I was ready to die. The fight had left me, and only when I decided I would seek my vengeance on this man was that spark relit. I can’t satisfy those goals tied to his fucking bed.
I struggle against the ropes, re-aggravating the rope burns on my wrists.
“Stop,” he says, but there’s no urgency in his voice.
It’s as if he really doesn’t care but saying the word is expected of him.
“Don’t,” I whisper when he looks up at me, his face full of sadness and concern.
I’d rather be hurt all day, every day than face whatever this man feels the need to get off his chest.
His split fucking personalities, the one wanting the soft kiss after fucking me without permission, is making my damn head spin.
“Don’t get soft on me now,” I taunt. “Don’t turn into a pussy.”
His eyes drop to his hands, and I pray this is just another one of his games, a way to throw me off by preventing me from getting a real read on him.
“I’ll let you go.”
Instead of joy, I feel disappointed.
“On one condition.” He lifts his eyes to mine. “You have to promise you’ll stop putting yourself in danger.”
I think most people would rush to agree even if it was a lie, but I keep my mouth closed, my eyes narrowed on him, my brain struggling to figure out what his endgame is going to be.
“You no longer have a job with the FBI, so there’s no point in doing it.”
I know I made confessions to him. I know I explained as best I could while drunk why I do what I do.
He has to know that until I take my last breath, I can’t stop.
The punishment and pain are deserved. I’ve earned it by not seeing what was happening with Liana sooner.
I earned it with not following her to the bathroom when she said she was going to shower.
I earned it for not being enough for our father to split the punishments so that maybe we would both be just a little fucked up rather than her being dead and me being a complete lunatic.
But I don’t get to change the past. Just like I can’t alter the path of my future.
I don’t know how to tell him I don’t want to leave, and there’s no way I can tell him how this last time was different, that I regretted what I did.
I also know that despite the pain it caused, both mentally and physically, I’ll never do it again.
There’s something about him and the memories of him that made what I was doing wrong. I’ve always known it was a bad plan, but knowing and being able to stop myself are two different things.
I know that when there’s any amount of distance and time between the two of us, I’m going to go right back to old habits.
I have no idea how to tell him that I feel like I need him, that I feel like our fucked-up souls need each other.
Needing is a weakness, one I’ve shoved down my entire life. I have no idea why I’m clinging to it now.
“I can still get work done without the support of the FBI,” I say, instead of agreeing to his terms. “I can help women. There are not enough people helping. What I do is important.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” he says with very little emotion, as if he’s just stating a fact rather than actually caring.
The man makes my fucking head spin.
“I might be able to save more women and kids before that happens.”
“You sound resigned to it, like you have no control over what happens to you.”
I have to look away from him. I’ve always known how things would end for me, and honestly, it’s taking a lot longer than I had originally planned for.
“Why do you even care?”
“I don’t,” he answers quickly, and I’m unable to hide the wince from his truth.
He doesn’t look pleased at my reaction to his insult.
Hell, I don’t even know why it has the power to hurt me. People not caring for me hasn’t been a problem in the past.
The FBI didn’t give a shit if I completed a mission, past them worrying that getting myself killed would’ve been a waste of federal resources, since a lot of money and time has gone into training me.
Maybe that’s his game, making me wish for things, want things even subconsciously, only to remind me that I’m worthless.
It’s the type of pain I feed on, the shit I need more of.
I’m worthless, useless, undeserving.
It’s why I like to be dominated, controlled, degraded, insulted. If it’s a bad thing, I love it. If it physically hurts, even better.
“The next captor is likely to kill you.”
He’s said this already, and despite his declaration, it proves that he does in fact care.
My heart sings with it, all the while also hating him a little for it.
“Maybe the next guy will be the one to finally put me out of my misery,” I mutter.
“The misery you feel because you couldn’t save your sister, or the regret that Daddy didn’t love you enough to fuck you like he did her?”
I fucking lose it, fighting against my restraints and screaming at him to eat shit and die.
All I get from him is a smile as he backs out of the room.