Chapter 13
Hollis
I’m not very big on focusing on mistakes, but this is a very hard one to ignore, considering the thing I never should’ve done is sitting on the fucking bed in the other room.
I never should’ve taken her. I should’ve followed the other vehicles, waited until Alessio got out, and emptied my magazine into him. I think dying today would be easier to deal with than her fake fucking tears.
I hate when women cry. I used to seethe inside when my mother would do it. I would want to destroy anything and everything that would cause her pain. It took years to understand she did it because she was weak.
My hands tremble, but flexing my fingers into closed fists and reopening them in rapid succession doesn’t make the shaking stop.
I’ve paced. I’ve sat on the love seat, the only piece of living room furniture other than a small side table, for hours trying to figure out what I should do.
Hurting her the way Alessio hurt Ellie was the first thing that came to mind, but fuck if that doesn’t make my stomach churn the way it does when I pore over the case file from her murder.
I haven’t heard a sound from the room, not with the setting sun, not with the long hours of the night. The sun is starting to peek through the curtains and still nothing from the room.
I grind my back molars together, knowing it’s too fucking late, that worrying about what I’ve done won’t make it go away. Standing, I take a look at the door leading to my truck in the garage, but leaving her here tied up really isn’t an option.
I head in that direction, a sinister smile, something in complete contradiction to the recent thoughts in my head, taking over my face when she jerks her head up.
She hasn’t scooted down in the bed. Other than her head having been lulled to the side, she’s still in the exact position I put her in.
“How often do they hurt you?” I ask, not sure I want to know the answer.
She’s been too compliant, too accustomed to threats to be the righthand of an evil man like Alessio.
What I thought I saw with her raised head in public, even her smiles, have to have been because it’s what’s expected of her.
If she was as defiant as I imagined she would be, then she would’ve gotten as comfortable on the bed as she could manage.
She’d yell at me from the darkness and threaten my life with her lover’s vengeance.
I’ve gotten none of that since I took her.
The only thing she said was that she’s as good as dead, that they’ll kill her if she talks.
She honestly seems resigned, maybe even a little relieved that was her destiny.
As if dying is better than facing another day of what she’s been enduring.
It could be a ploy. The tears could’ve been as fake as I considered them being, but the sight of her, exhausted and weak on the bed makes me reconsider all of my earlier assumptions.
“How often?” I growl when she doesn’t speak.
“Anytime they got a chance,” she says, her words scratchy, making it clear her throat is dry.
She flinches when I step in closer. I have no doubt if her arms weren’t tied behind her back, she would’ve instinctively brought them up to cover her face the way she did in my truck.
I know all too well the signs of an abused woman.
“Motherfucker,” I grumble as I lean her forward and pull at the rope on her wrists.
I didn’t allow her to go to the bathroom, but it looks like she still managed not to soil herself. I didn’t offer her anything to drink or eat. It’s the only form of fucking torture I can manage.
I point to the bathroom door off to the left, feeling like a complete piece of shit when she stumbles off the bed, her pretty face marked with pain as she rolls her shoulders.
I hate her. I don’t feel like she deserves any sympathy, but I still can’t stop looking at the lipstick marking her very dry lips.
I consider my next move, but I already know what it is.
I don’t stick around in the bedroom when she closes the bathroom door.
I head out of the room and open the front door because I know it’s in the direct line of sight from inside the bedroom. I take a seat at the dining table and wait.
She’s going to escape. Any person with a lick of sense would.
I know she’s weak. I know she knows she’s weak, but she won’t be able to resist the temptation.
She’ll be closer to the open front door than I will be to her, and she’ll be willing to risk it.
In her mind, I might be able to catch up with her.
I know she’ll think she can draw enough attention to herself to be rescued.
She’s willing to take the chance that I’d kill her for her attempt, and deep down, I think a part of her is hoping it ends that way.
I’m dead either way.
The woman has lost all hope. It takes a lot for someone to get to that point. I don’t know how I didn’t see if before. Was it my anger at the Severino family that blinded me to it? Was I so hell-bent on seeking vengeance for Ellie that I couldn’t see them hurting this woman in plain sight?
The house is so small I can hear just about everything—the flush of the toilet, the water running in the bathroom sink.
It goes longer than needed to wash her hands, and I imagine her bending over and drinking from the faucet.
The door opens even though I can’t see it, but she never flashes by me.
She’s considering the likelihood that I’m setting a trap.
Instead of leaving the bedroom in a full sprint, I watch as she slowly comes into view. She isn’t looking around, trying to determine where danger is going to jump out from.
She walks with purpose to the front door, and my jaw hangs open as I watch her not only close the front door, but she locks it before turning around to face me, as if she knew exactly where I was the entire time.
“It isn’t going to happen that way,” she says.
“I’m not going to keep you here,” I tell her. “You’re free.”
She doesn’t look the slightest amount relieved with my words. Her pretty face is now void of makeup, her lips red from scrubbing, but no longer covered in lipstick.
“I’m not leaving.”
I have to be too tired to understand, because what person would stick around even half a second longer when they’re told they can leave?
“I’m not playing a trick on you, Madelene. You need to go.”
She shakes her head, sadness in her eyes.
“I will hurt you if you don’t go.”
She pulls out the only other chair at the tiny kitchen table, sitting right across from me.
“You said you’d hurt me if I didn’t talk.”
“You need to leave,” I growl.
“I can’t leave like this,” she says, leaning back and swiping her hands down her body.
“Are you fucking kidding me? You’re such a fucking princess that you’re expecting me to what? Buy you a new fucking outfit?”
She scoffs, her pretty lips once again turning down into a deep frown.
“You sure have formulated some opinions about me,” she says, and the disappointment in her voice hits me in a way I don’t even want to analyze right now. “I need you to hurt me.”
I shake my head immediately. “I’m not interested in your fucking kinks or whatever you and Alessio do.”
“Kinks? Not even close. There’s already a very good chance they’re going to kill me. I might be able to survive if you hurt me. Going back completely unharmed will bring too much suspicion. You took me. You have to hurt me.”
I stare at her in disbelief. Why would she think she has to go back? Freedom doesn’t mean just being free from me but being able to escape them as well. She could go anywhere. Why would she even consider going back to Chicago?
“You like it there, don’t you? Maybe, I was wrong about you. Maybe, you aren’t as abused as I—”
“Are you hard of hearing?” she snaps, interrupting me. She curls into herself a little a second later, regret snapping in her eyes.
I like the little spark of fire, and I hate the Severino family a little more, if that’s even possible, at the fear in her eyes right now.
“You’ll need to hurt me bad enough that I’m hospitalized,” she continues when I don’t get up from the table and punish her like I imagine she expected me to.
“That’s not going to happen.”