Rumors & Whiskey (The Whiskey Women #1)

Prologue

It’s been one-hundred and twenty-two days since I’ve heard the sound of my own voice.

“Isn’t he clever, Professor?”

I don’t answer. Ignore the question. Stifle the fear that rises unwanted in the back of my throat, threatening to come out in the form of a plea or scream. Quiet is smart. If I’m anything anymore, it’s smart.

“Am I misreading things?” I want to remember who said that, but I can’t.

“Professor?” He chews, trying to get my attention. Clicking his tongue, his mouth tips up in his version of a smile—a perverse smirk laced with false emotions. “Isn’t our new friend the most clever? Aside from you, of course.”

Don’t blink. I maintain a stoic gaze and motionless, unwavering posture.

I will not speak or answer. Feigning disinterest in this disruption will make him enjoy it less.

I’m not brave. I hate him. The way he entered just now, though, is anything but usual—out of breath and seemingly disheveled.

As much as I try to keep my expression impenetrable, he knows that despite my best efforts, I’ve noticed the large body he’s dragged inside, in plain sight and not stowed inside his black leather rolling bag.

My mother would be fucking appalled knowing I’m choosing to be silent.

But she’ll never know. I blink back the blurred tears that unexpectedly swell in my eyes.

It happens every time I think about her.

I block out images of Stevie and Jo. If I allow myself to remember the last time we laughed until we cried or yelled until we laughed, I will die. If I soften, even a little, he’ll know.

He slowly sharpens his filleting knife along the rough leather hanging between the shelf and metal table.

I can see flecks of dust kick up around him from the desk lamp as he drags the smooth edges back and forth.

My chest tightens with every scrape and scratch.

It reminds me of an old park seesaw—creepy or comforting depending on the memory surrounding it.

Much like here—a small rectangular space that for some might be a luxury, but for me, it’s a nightmare.

“Professor,” he tuts like I’m being silly for being silent.

Again, he smiles, his crooked front tooth escaping just enough to show how pleased he is with my predictability.

That tooth is one of many imperfections that would otherwise seem mundane on someone’s face.

A man I would have never looked at twice.

Ordinary on the outside in every way. But inside, he’s the kind of monster I never prepared to encounter.

“You are my most prized possession, Professor. So smart and beautiful. What makes you think I’d ever let you go? ”

It's been one-hundred and twenty-nine days since he’s had me.

After the first seven of those days, I learned that he liked screaming and begging.

His pants bulged when I pleaded for him to let me go.

He smiled, petting me like I was his fucking pet.

I screamed so hard and so loud it burst a blood vessel in my eye and made my throat burn for nearly a week.

That was the last time. Above everything, I’m smart enough to recognize that my pain was fuel, a turn-on for him.

When he cut along my skin, I didn’t scream.

Instead, I bit the inside of my cheek to disperse the pain.

I clenched my fists and breathed only through my nose.

Screaming and pleading were encouragement.

He craved it, so I denied him of it. He likes to play and taunt as if I’m his special brand of entertainment.

I never liked entertaining people, that was my sisters’ and mother’s arena.

My highs came from learning and teaching.

Researching, testing, and waiting. I took comfort in being the one people underestimated but who always outperformed.

I swallow the tangy-false sweetness of my spit.

It’s a reminder that my last sip of water was nearly two and a half days ago.

It’s been just under three days since I’ve eaten the food he laces with some form of barbiturate.

Lethargic movements in exchange for not dying of hunger.

I miss the way it feels to have my belly full and pants tight.

Stop it, Wyn. I grind my molars, snapping away those feelings.

A shiver rolls up my back and through my body, anchoring my anger.

It’s the only emotion I allow myself to focus on.

Tempers are the unmistakable signature of being a Crowne.

I know I’m going to die in here, but I’m not going to make it easy.

Or rewarding. When he kills me, I will not give him what he wants.

I think only about the things I can control now.

Being quiet and obedient is my method. He doesn’t restrain me anymore, and I wonder if it’s carelessness or just that he knows I’ve accepted my fate.

Control in chemistry is about creating a baseline for the variable being tested.

I’m the control now, not the variable. Moments like this, when something ugly and evil is a glance away, I think about my favorite ways to apply what I’ve learned.

The processes that led me to my academic career.

I think about whiskey. The taste of it, yes, but also the process of making it—the head, the heart, and the tail.

Three components that came off the still, but only one worth keeping. I want to be the part worth keeping.

“You’ve wandered into something, friend, that I don’t think you quite comprehend,” he says to the still-breathing body.

“But you will.” The pitch of his voice is elevated, like he’s readying to show off.

I hate knowing that this is where I’m going to die and that his voice is the last one I’ll ever hear.

My eye catches on the blood draining from a discarded limb in the far corner.

As usual, nausea rolls through my sweat-slicked body.

I never met its owner. Not officially, at least. She looked a lot like me.

Similar build, the same color hair, cropped short like mine had been when he first took me.

I hated that haircut the moment I watched the stylist start drying it.

I cycle through the things that comfort me.

The smell of burning oak. The first taste of whiskey when it’s ready.

The way charcoal smooths out its bite and how barrels can change the chemistry completely, helping it become something new, something better.

I mix up the order sometimes, but I think through each process and dissect what could be done to bend “the rules.” As soon as my mind drifts to who taught me, I redirect.

I can’t allow that—it’ll have me unraveling.

Instead, I shift course. Frozen honeydew melon balls in pink lemonade make me think of summer.

Summer rolls into the picking of a banjo.

It’s a Pavlovian thought that tricks my mouth, making me salivate, picturing smoked meats and tangy barbecue.

I stifle my instant curiosity about what it feels like outside right now.

I clear my mind again as he parades a new person into the snug space.

It’s the second person he’s brought here—wherever “here” might be.

The first, I thought, was only here to scare me.

To show me what he planned to do to me next, but it was like he wanted to impress me.

I recognized the act of it—the posturing and flaunting.

My experience was only with intellectual sophomores with overzealous five-year plans in my chemistry lab, or a cocky graduate student who cared more about hearing himself speak than the response he garnered.

Someone finding my opinion of them important always felt strange.

But this is entirely different—watching the inner workings of a monster unfold and trying to remain unaffected.

Other people’s opinions of me had always mattered—maybe too much.

It’s the only part of him that I can relate to—caring how someone else sees your accomplishments or lack thereof.

My indifference now, however, is a performance that I’m banking my life on.

He won’t see approval from me, or disgust. The moment he sees it, he’ll have won.

I won’t give him that satisfaction. Ever.

Regardless of how many ways he enjoys toying with me—the way he cut parts of me and then sometimes ate them, I never got sick over it. I play over and over in my head the one thing my mother always said to me when life got sticky: “You’re a Crowne, Wyn. Start acting like it.”

A sliver of light catches my attention as it bleeds beneath the pull-down metal door. That’s new. A foot above it, the lever that locks the door is perpendicular to the floor. It’s not locked.

He made a mistake.

His shoes make a scuffing noise—the only warning to look away from his error as he turns toward me.

I shift my focus straight ahead at the same crack along the dark-gray cinderblock eye level from where I sit and to the right of the metal door.

As he opens the small, rectangular case from his bag, I can see the pleased-with-himself smile he has plastered on his long, thin face.

I keep my tongue resting on the roof of my mouth and take measured breaths in and out of my nose.

I ignore how he grows more and more amused, rubbing his hand along the bulge in his pants just as he turns toward his newest “guest” with a scalpel.

“There’s something so pretty about decolletage, don’t you think, Professor? ”

I don’t answer. I don’t look. The last “guest” he brought in here, he had slowly sliced the skin that rested along her collarbone.

He said, “It’s just like peeling an apple, Professor.

” When I didn’t answer and tried to keep my eyes from watering, he asked, “Did none of your students ever bring you an apple?” As if that was why I struggled to keep tears from falling and not the meticulous violence playing out in front of me.

He tsks, like I’ve given him a response. “I hadn’t planned for it, but when the world decides to deliver,” he pauses, “you take.”

A grunting sound echoes, deeper in cadence than what I’ve become accustomed to hearing. It instantly registers that his newest guest is not another woman.

I glance over just as he says, “I’ve always admired men who grew too quickly. That’s all that makes up an Adam’s apple—rushing to grow bigger than the body is ready. But it’s lovely when it protrudes like this.” He smiles at me, knowing he’s got my attention.

I messed up because I catch him smiling.

I shift forward and look at the sliver of light again. I messed up . . . but so did he.

The latch isn’t pulled closed. The door is not locked. He isn’t this careless. His guest hadn’t been planned. It was reactionary.

Within the same handful of seconds of realizing this, a loud thump echoes off the wall, and the crunch of bone rings out as two bodies hit the floor.

The monster and his newest, quite large and very much still alive, guest. Grunts and yells steal my attention back to what’s happening just feet away from where I sit.

My hands shake as I glance at the sliver of light again, and then back to the chaos of both men wrestling for purchase on the floor.

But it’s the gruff voice that cuts through the chaos and knocks the smarts back into me.

“Go!” he yells as he pins the monster.

I stand, my legs barely holding me upright, heart pounding so fast it makes me dizzy.

There’s another grunt and the sound of flesh being ripped.

My mind made up, I shuffle forward, bend over, and grip the latch. Be brave. Pulling up the door, bright white light blinds me. I squeeze my eyes shut just as a deep voice bellows, “Go! Wyn. Runnnnn!”