Chapter 28 #2
“Did you get anything from her yet?” Marianne’s cool voice seeps into the room. Kellan smirks.
“We were just about to get started.”
They want information. Wonderful.
My stepmother’s heels click annoyingly against the concrete floor as she steps toward us. She quirks a well-manicured eyebrow when she steps into view.
“And she has to be naked for this?”
Kellan, the psychopath, shrugs. “More of a canvas to work with. Plus, a pleasure to look at.” Marianne grunts her disagreement and waves her hand dismissively.
“Well, get to it, then.”
I can’t help but give a low laugh. My throat is still fucked up from smooshed nose choking me. “My father is going to kill you so, so slowly,” I taunt her. “He hates traitors.”
She chuckles mirthlessly, her lips tipping up scornfully.
“Who do you think your father will believe?” She cocks her head to the side.
“You, the daughter he just met? Or me, his loving wife? Even if you managed to get out of here alive, he’ll never believe you over me. Just like he didn’t believe Katherine.”
“You forged that note, didn’t you?” I shake my head in disgust. “You’re the one who turned her in to Elias after she escaped.”
Marianne drags in a short, contempt-filled laugh, her tongue dancing along her upper teeth. “Your dear mother wrote that note all on her own,” Marianne admits gleefully. “All I had to do was threaten to slit his throat in their bed. Easy peasy. She would have done anything for Liam.”
“You convinced her not to tell him what happened in the first place.” I know the answers to these questions already. Most of them. But I need to hear them out loud. I need to hear it from the mouth of the monster who took away everything my mother cared about.
“That was a little harder, I must admit.” She shrugs. “But victims’ shame is such a powerful thing.”
My heart breaks for my mother. Shattering into tiny pieces like it has done so many times before when I’ve dug through her past. The more I learn, the more I hate the world she was forced into. This is someone she trusted. She treated Marianne like a sister without even knowing their connection.
“Why did you—”
“Enough with the questions,” Kellan spouts. “We’re the ones who will be asking them from now on. And how you answer will dictate how much suffering you go through.”
Marianne tightens her jaw and steps back. Watching from the shadows. Is she relishing in what is about to happen? In my pain? Had she done the same to my mother?
“Good girl.” He praises my silence as he drags the tip of the knife over my uninjured breast before circling my nipple. “I want to know where the compound is, Mrs. Dashkova.”
Kellan uses the feminine version of my last name. Adding the extra syllable. It is a common practice in Russian culture, but I have found that very few of Matthias’s people adhere to that rule. Especially once I became Pakhan.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell him calmly. “I’ve never heard about a compound.”
Kellan smiles cruelly. “I think you’re lying.” He licks his lips. “Remember, little one, I can make you suffer in ways that Christian could never dream of. If you think your time with him was painful, just wait until I’m done with you.”
Try me.
“I don’t know anything about a compound,” I repeat firmly. “I was leader in name only. Vas ran the business in my stead.”
The blunt edge of the knife taps against my nipple, causing my body to jerk unexpectedly. “Now,” Kellan frown, “I think you’re lying, and I hate liars.”
And he shows me just how much that statement is true. With every lie comes a punch, a slap, a nick of the knife. My stomach is covered in a mix of shallow and deep cuts, my blood smeared across my body like a Picasso painting.
When the knife doesn’t work, he turns to needles. Digging them into the most excruciating places he can find. A few on my feet, so that if I flex them, I cry out as they dig further into my body. A line of them up my belly. The inside of my elbows.
By the time he is out of needles, I am a ball of excruciating pain, and I want it to end.
After a few hours, I am unable to answer him at all.
Not that he seems to care. It doesn’t stop him from removing one needle to move it somewhere different.
At least he hasn’t removed my fingernails or tried to shove the needles beneath them.
I have read about that in some Yakuza mafia book somewhere, and it sounds worse than death.
My stomach feels like an empty pit by the time Kellan is finished with me. Marianne left the room once he started cutting into my skin. Her face was pale, eyes glassy. Guess she can’t stomach it.
Weak-ass bitch.
The psychopath lifts the needles from my skin one by one, placing a soft kiss against the skin he has abused, murmuring about how he doesn’t want to hurt me and I should just give in.
Yeah, sure, buddy. I’ll give in when you’re hanging out the window by your entrails.
Jesus, I need so much therapy.
“Don’t worry, little one,” he coos at me once he has removed the last needle. “I’ll make you feel better.”
I am so out of it that my mind barely registers the feeling of his fingertips brushing along the seam of my cunt. He won’t find anything down there. It is as dry as sandpaper. The only pain I crave is the pain Matthias gives me. Erotic. Steamy. Consensual.
This fucker doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
I wince when he digs his fingers inside me. He has spit on them first. Racked with pain, my body hardly acknowledges the intrusion.
But my mind does.
And it doesn’t like what he is doing.
“Stop,” I whimper, tears leaking from my eyes. Who knows if I have any of those left. “Stop.”
He shushes me, his eyes roaming over my bruised and battered body. I am once again struck by how loving his gaze is. Does he honestly believe I am his? Is he that delusional, or is this part of a game to trick me into falling for his scheme?
“It’s all right, Ava,” he soothes. “Soon—”
An explosion from above rocks the room. Kellan pulls his fingers from inside me and jumps to his feet.
“We’ve got a problem, boss.” The guard outside the door is frantic. “They’re calling for you upstairs. We need to go.”
“Dammit,” he curses. “Stay outside this door. Kill anyone you don’t recognize and make sure she doesn’t leave.
” The guard nods and takes up his post. Kellan turns to me and smirks.
“Don’t think this is over, little one. I’m going to enjoy fucking you like a bitch in heat while your husband watches.
Then I’ll slit his fucking throat, and you can watch him bleed out while I make you orgasm. ”
I snicker, suddenly feeling oddly renewed. “As if you could make me orgasm.”
Kellan growls but says nothing, choosing instead to stride from the room, slamming the door harshly behind him.
Matthias has come for me, and God help anyone who gets in his way.
They are going to need it.