14. Demi #2
“Because there’s one thing that’s more important to the person who is determined to win.
And that’s a team. You need other people to hold you up, Demi.
You need other people to cut loose when they’re weighing you down.
And then there’s the people who have what you need to succeed, the people you use to get you to the top and then push over the side when they’ve nothing left to offer. ”
I stop fighting. My head is about to explode, and I get a macabre sense of screwed justice from the mental image of it popping like a balloon, bits of brain and body fluid and blood splattering his face and immaculate suit.
Blackness converges on the edges of my vision, seeping through the brightness like spilt ink. I cling to it the way I’d cling to debris in a stormy ocean, praying that it will get me to the other side where nothing will hurt anymore.
The last thing I hear is Enzo’s voice asking me if I’m alright. “Did they hurt you, Nyx?”
Then he releases me, and I land on my knees on the floor, clutching my throat and gulping air through my restricted airways. I can’t fill my lungs quickly enough. I roll onto my side, the carpet tickling my face, choking on the burning bile rising from my stomach.
“Breathe.”
His arms are around my chest and hauling me back onto my knees, my forehead touching the floor. He rubs my back in slow circular motions, his hand hot and heavy on my bare skin, his other arm preventing me from going anywhere.
“Deep breath in.” He demonstrates with the sound of his own breath. “And out again. Your breathing is too shallow. Keep it steady. In… two… three… out… two… three…”
I don’t want his help. I don’t want him anywhere near me, but my instincts latch onto his words like they’re all that’s standing between me and oblivion.
Maybe they are. Because gradually, my lungs take in enough oxygen for me to stop coughing and spluttering, and my surroundings start to break through the black swamping my vision.
The lights are still too bright. My chest is still heaving with the effort of pumping oxygen around my body. But what makes my blood curdle in my veins is the feel of his arm around my chest.
My naked chest.
I didn’t even feel him unwrapping the towel from around my body.
I shove his arm off me and crawl across the carpet, scanning the floor for a glimpse of fluffy white cotton. It isn’t there. Suddenly aware of his eyes on me, I turn around and curl into a ball, pressing my back against the wall in a futile attempt to make myself invisible.
“Stay away from me.” I’m hoarse, the words barely more than a whisper.
He arches a black bushy eyebrow. “Or you’ll do what exactly?”
I don’t answer. He knows there’s nothing I could do to stop him from taking what he wants.
“I won’t hurt you, Demi.” He rises with surprising grace given his stature, every part of him thick and solid. “You’re worth more to me intact.”
The word makes my flesh crawl. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“All in good time. You should be grateful that I choose to share my hospitality with you.”
“Where am I?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“What happened to Brian and Nyx?”
“So many questions.” I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who can hold an entire conversation without expressing any emotion. It’s as if he’s switched off inside. “You lost that privilege when you lied your way into my world, Demi.”
“Are they still alive?”
“You’re boring me now. I’m starting to think that you like them better than me.”
I do. But if he leaves now, I don’t know when he’ll be back, and I still have more questions.
“What about the lights?” I glance around the room and straight back to him.
“I needed the images to look professional.”
My stomach twists itself into tight little knots. “Images?” The word escapes on a raspy breath.
“Remember what I said about using people to reach the top or were you not paying attention? No matter. You’re going to make me a lot of money, Demi Payne.”
“How?” I already know the answer.
Enzo Sabatelli.
Because if he knows about me, he also knows about Enzo, and I walked straight into this little trap when I started working at JADED.
I could deny my involvement with Enzo, tell him that it was over a year ago, that I haven’t seen him or spoken to him since, and he won’t risk his entire world for a woman he no longer cares about.
But it isn’t true. Enzo and I have unfinished business, and I know deep in my heart where the ache of missing him hurts the most, that he still loves me.
If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have tried to find me.
And I wouldn’t have come back.
He comes closer and crouches in front of me, spreading my legs wide with his fat-sausage fingers and glancing down at my pussy. “Do you think you’re special, Demi?”
My throat might feel like it’s on fire, but it’s nothing compared to the loathing I have for this sadistic asshole. “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here, but you’ll never know how special I am, and that’s why you’ll never beat me.”
His pupils blow wide. I’m so mesmerized by them that I don’t see him move until his hand connects with my cheek.
I yelp, a wheezy sound like someone with asthma in desperate need of their inhaler. “Asshole,” I choke out, covering my stinging face with my hand as tears fill my eyes. “Michael Douglas was twice the man you’ll ever be.”
At first, I think I’ve touched a nerve when his eyes narrow, and a tic appears on his temple. But then, he tips his head back and laughs out loud, and I draw my legs closer to my body, shivering despite the warmth of the room.
“Is that so? Did you open your legs for him, Demi? Huh? Did you spread that pussy wide and let him fuck you with his shriveled-up cock? Did you suck his dick in the dressing room and make yourself come while you let him believe that he was the best fuck you ever had?”
“No!” I wish I’d kept my mouth shut, but now that the name is out there, I must do what I can to protect him. “It wasn’t like that. You monitored everyone. Play it back, and you’ll see that nothing ever happened.”
It feels like I’m swallowing razor blades and playing back a recording of my voice at half the regular speed. My chest is heaving with the effort of breathing and speaking with ruined vocal cords. But he’s still here. He hasn’t dismissed me yet.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“You believe me?”
“Sure.” He shrugs.
No, no, no. He conceded the point too easily, and dread congeals inside my stomach. “Where is he? Is he here? Can I see him?”
“You want to see him? I’m here, but you’re telling me to my face that you want to see him instead?”
“Yes. He wouldn’t try to kill me and then tell me to breathe after.”
He inclines his head, and I realize that I don’t even know his name. “You’ve got balls, Demi. I like that. Perhaps I’ll keep you for myself after all.”
Please don’t… I want to scream it out loud, but my voice is ghosting me, and I’ve already poked the bear once too often.
“So, can I see him?”
“Sure. It can’t hurt. There’s nothing he can do to help you now.”
A sliver of ice travels down my spine and makes me shudder. What’s that supposed to mean?
He reaches into his pocket, and for one awful moment, I think he’s going to shoot me, even though he needs me to make him a lot of money as he so eloquently told me a short while ago.
Instead, he pulls out a cell phone, unlocks it, and scrolls through his apps, the narrow scar appearing to tighten his top lip like silver cotton pulled taut.
Then he flips the device around so that the screen is facing me.
I stare at the image, unable to make sense of what I’m looking at, the cold dread in my stomach unspooling like a broken cassette tape as the shapes and colors come into focus.
It’s a body.
Or at least it was a body before someone took a chainsaw to it.
Now, it resembles a pile of Halloween body parts complete with splatters of fake blood and stringy sinew clinging to exposed bones.
The corpse’s head is in the background of the image, empty eyes staring directly at the camera as if accusing the asshole behind the lens of being a sick fucker.
I wish I didn’t recognize him.
I wish I’d never mentioned the name.
Because the massacred body is all that remains of Michael Douglas.