They take me to a hotel, and it’s the irony to end all ironies; for five years, my prison was hidden inside of a hotel. To find my freedom, I have to delve into another—with a monster at my side—all while wearing a black corset hidden underneath a long coat.
“Look pretty,” Mack had snarled before pressing the clothes into my hands and shoving me into the back of a van while Dante rode shotgun.
Pretty. It was Vinny’s favorite word, but would he apply it to me now? The concierge who pretends not to notice me enter the lobby doesn’t seem liable to. He averts his gaze with a practice that I figure this particular establishment has trained its employees to perfect.
Lavish wealth drapes everything from the polished marble floors to the shining oak-paneled walls with gold filigree. Once you take the elevator up to floor thirty-seven, however, that extravagant atmosphere gives way to a simpler layout of black carpeting and forest-green walls. It’s dark. Discrete. It’s the perfect place for a man to have a half-naked woman delivered to his door just as easily as he might order a bottle of wine.
I inhale sharply as we turn the corner in search of suite number eighty-eight. Dante’s silent beside me, and I know without even having to look at his face that he doesn’t appreciate my bold little sacrifice. In the same breath, it doesn’t faze him. He’ll stand by the door and wait patiently while I fuck another man for coveted information. He’ll let someone else leave their mark on my ruined flesh, and he won’t give a damn.
It’s a dizzying thought. I have to brace one hand against my chest to keep my heart there, neatly in place. Something firm nudges my fingers, and I pretend that it’s one of the ribs of my corset so that my face gives nothing away.
These men treat heroin like candy. They dole it out in pre-filled syringes with neat, clear caps and seem almost too eager to jab the poison into your veins to send you off to Neverland. The moment the van pulled up to the hotel, Mack couldn’t wait to yank a syringe from his pocket and free the needle.
“Now be a good girl and hold still,” he warned before reaching for me from the driver’s seat while Lucifer watched. Like a patient lamb, I’d waited until right before he could jab the tip into my vein. Not there, I’d protested.
After all, we wouldn’t want the buyer to know that his little bit of collateral wasn’t fully present, now would we? How could he make her scream for Vinny’s benefit? I knew of other discrete places. My legs maybe? When Mack had seemed more than willing to jab his needle there as well, I’d asked to do it myself. Rolling his eyes, he’d given me the syringe, and I’d brought it to my thigh, hissing on cue at the burning pinch.
Only God knew why he hadn’t asked for the syringe back—maybe for the first time in five years, Lucifer’s vengeful maker was finally on my side? He’d gotten me this far, after all—a room at the very end of a long hallway where a balding man in a two-sizes-too-small three-piece suit opens the door with a grin.
Mack’s buyer is at least fifty with a bulging gut, and graying black hair styled carefully around that crowning bald spot. “You wait outside,” he tells Dante before ushering me inside with a hearty chuckle.
Shock nearly roots me to the floor, and I have to swallow it down before I can move. I’d expected some faceless monster. Some stranger. But...I know this man. I met him just once before at a dinner Vinny hosted in a lavish restaurant downtown. It had been one of the few times he brought me along to his business meetings, and I had suffocated in a red dress with a collar that choked my throat and reinforced his possession.
There had been two other men there, and they all spoke in code about “kittens” that needed “new homes” and were eager and willing to be placed for “adoption.” One of the men had a funny-sounding name. Don something. Donahugh. He’d spent most of the night looking at me with long, searching glances that barely disguised the lust lurking within them. Vinny had punished me brutally for that. How dare I catch another man’s gaze—was I a lady or a whore?
The current turn of events is enough to make me snicker as I stagger into a wide suite decorated with elegant, sleek furniture. A few leather couches frame a breathtaking view of the bay. It’s a cozy yet secluded atmosphere that seems the perfect backdrop to be captured by the camera set on a tripod in the corner of the room.
“Mack said no directors,” Donahugh scoffs as he waddles over to the camera and flips a switch that I assume turns it on. “But he promised that you’ll be a good little girl. Isn’t that right?”
He returns to me and runs a meaty finger along my chin while I, like “a good little girl,” obediently shed my coat, revealing the outfit underneath.
Beady eyes hone in on my cleavage, and his cock practically bulges against his already constricting pants. He’s so different in his lust than Lucifer or even Vinny. He’s greedy and eager to fuck his pretty little toy. It doesn’t matter to him if her eyes are dead and she’s already battered; he’s too damn busy trying to pull his pants down one-handed while he steers her to a leather chaise with the other.
“Lean down,” he tells me, his breath heavy on the back of my neck.
I obey, bracing both hands flat against the leather while he tugs at the back of my corset and unhooks the clasps within seconds. My hands fly to my chest once the garment comes undone as if to preserve what little modesty I have left.
Mr. Donahugh is not impressed. “Don’t be shy now, you little slut,” he growls into my good ear. “I saw the video you made. We’ll make a better one, eh? I’ll let you ride me too—”
It’s hard to manipulate a syringe with one hand. The movies make it look so easy, but once you turn and jab the needle into a man’s shoulder, it takes more pressure to apply to the plunger than you’d expect. The muscles resist the poison: it won’t go in.
“What the fuck?” Donahugh bats my hand away, leaving the needle sticking out of his skin, the syringe still filled with heroin. I have to throw myself at him and brace one hand against his meaty neck, but it still isn’t enough. He shoves me off, the needle comes free, and I only have seconds to aim for a new spot and jab my thumb on the end of the syringe. His hand flies to his neck, trying to snatch the needle out, but this part of him accepts the liquid easier. He’s already losing his balance as he starts to chase me across the room. I hit my hip off a leather sofa and collapse down on top of it just as he manages to wrestle a cell phone from his pocket.
“You fucking little cunt...” He fiddles with the screen, but his fingers are too sloppy. He can’t even get past the lock screen. He comes for me instead but hits the floor on his knees just feet away.
I watch him, panting. Shaking. Shocked. The success of this mad plan is a variable I can’t bother to assess right now.
Mack wanted information. He’ll get it some way. Somehow.
On my terms.
I try to hammer that point in. My terms. I’d agreed to his plan for me: to prove something to that insane hole in my chest Lucifer had rubbed open and ground salt inside. I wouldn’t let him own me unwillingly. I won’t become his burden.
So, I lied. I took initiative. I dragged him along with me without so much as a solid plan. I was reckless. I am insane.
Donahugh seems to agree as he looks up at me with glassy, marble eyes. He can’t quite get them to focus, and maybe now I understand why Dante fought so hard to keep me anchored to something while I was high—even to him. Donahugh’s far gone, at war with his own body. The hate alone isn’t strong enough. His fat lips are already fighting a stupefied smile as the heat consumes every bit of him in hungry little bites.
He doesn’t react when I slip my foot from the edge of the couch and kick him with it, but it’s not a very hard blow, to be fair—so I try again. This time, when my toes connect with his bulging stomach, he groans.
The poor man managed to get his pants halfway down, revealing the hairy tops of his legs and the part of him straining against a pair of white underwear.
Now what, Daniela? My fingers shake when I brace them on either side of me and dig into the leather. Vinny. Girls. Locations. I let those three things rise up and dissolve the revulsion at what I’ll have to do. I’m going to do it. I can. I will. I...
I feel heavy when I stand and stagger toward my discarded corset. Fear, pain, and anger are their own potent opiate. They take me away to some dark inner place inside my fractured soul as I carefully extract the small kitchen knife I’d managed to hide within the lacy lining.
It’s a familiar weight against my palm, heavy and already primed with the taste of blood. Sammy’s. Mine. Lucifer’s. I can use it to draw more. I’m ready. I’m able to look past the demented insanity of what I’ve done...and of what I will do.
I can.
The world begins to sway when I turn back to Donahugh. My vision blurs and tears slip down when I try to blink. I don’t know if it’s fear of Vinny, or Mack, or of myself that drives them to escape.
Donahugh tries to talk when I take a step toward him. His head lolls and a stream of drool dribbles down his lip, speckling his cleanly shaven chin. I keep walking. I size him up the way Lucifer scrutinized me, deciding within a second which place to strike in order to cause the most damage. Lucifer chose my heart, driving himself into the fragile organ like a nail. I choose Donahugh’s meaty left fist when I stoop down and drag the blade of my knife across the tops of his outstretched fingers. It’s not hard enough to break the skin, merely a little taste to make him flinch.
The next cut does the trick, however: a tiny nick in the flesh that draws forth a ruby smear of fresh blood. At the sight of it, memories flood back, hemorrhaging beneath my skull.
Play, Vinny had told me once as he crept into my room at night. He woke me up and made me sit groggily on the edge of my bed, with my cello between my legs and my bow in hand. Then he stripped down to nothing but his boxers and stuck his hand inside them. Play.
He watched me while I performed, stroking himself—but it wasn’t the cadence of the music or the quick, precise movements of my fingers that made his pleasure creep higher. Oh no. It had been my mistakes. With every one, his eyes would flash an alarming shade of amber that always made me tighten up in anticipation of a blow.
The worst part came once he took the boxers off, freeing his cock. I’d made the most mistakes then, and he would count each one out loud as they occurred. Classical music had always been one of his passions, but he studied it to the point of obsession once I moved in. For me, he claimed. He knew the exact note of every concerto, solo, or suite I played. He memorized every variation of the tune down to the last detail if only to know when and how I made a mistake.
At the end of my little performance, he would tally up my flaws and recite them like a spoken-word poem to accompany my song. Wrong key. Too short. Very sloppy, Daniela. Sloppy.
After that, he’d finish himself off, grunting into his palm, and stain my floor with the evidence. Once he left, I’d crawl back into bed more worn-down than I felt after his beatings.
It was the one punishment he didn’t feel the need to explain fully, but I had eventually figured out its purpose. He relished watching me cling to the only outlet I had from him. The one thing that had rivaled my fear and loyalty to my dearest “friend.” The one thing that had almost taken me away from him.
He could make me play, and he could force me to relive everything he’d done to my life, over and over...and make sure I suffered for daring to choose anything over him.
If he was here, he’d find a new game to take pleasure in. A new way to watch me struggle to keep my head above the insanity. Play, Daniela, he’d tell me while my eyes scan Donahugh’s arms and legs. Play. Cut. Put on a good show, Mi Bella.
“Where are the girls?” My own voice, bitter and husky, is enough to counter Vinny, for now. I can still sense him lingering within the corners of the room, but as long as I focus he can’t quite reach me. “Where?”
I try to make my tone slow and soft, like honey. In a way, I think I’m trying to imitate the same way Lucifer spoke to me while I was high—dribbling each word into my ear like carefully dosed medication.
Donahugh doesn’t appreciate the tact. “Stupid...bitch...string you up...little cunt.”
He breaks off when my knife connects with the back of his hand and more blood bubbles up. I don’t remember flicking my wrist—making a sawing motion with the blade—but the wound is deeper this time. I think it actually hurts and pain overpowers the pleasure delivered by the heroin. Donahugh cries out.
“The girls,” I insist, making my voice a little louder. It’s a stupid mistake considering that I don’t know if he has thugs lurking nearby. Though, if he really did manage to get on the wrong side of Vinny, then there are bound to be at least some bodyguards waiting to help him from the shadows.
I should be more careful. I definitely shouldn’t cut him again, badly enough that he howls. His hand is painted by a steady stream of red now, but he still won’t talk.
And I am a fool. I laugh at the depth of my own insanity while I rock back on my heels and balance my weight on my knees. Silly little Lynn. In four days she’s become a whore, a captive, and now a torturer. She’s not even sure which hat she likes wearing more. For so long Vinny’s designed her wardrobe, deciding with sole authority which woman she was allowed to be that day.
My knife is a cherished new accessory, more beautiful than any designer shawl or priceless ring. I wield it inexpertly—I’m not used to owning my own things, after all. Maybe it’s this newfound freedom that makes me feel so strange when I start to cut the man again, earning myself yet another anguished grunt and a stream of disjointed curses. It’s madness...this heady rush of emotion that floods my head and makes it detach from my body. Maybe this is why Vinny loves playing with his toys so much, using them to carve and rip pieces out of his victims.
Madness is catching.
I’m not just hurting Donahugh when I form a fist and slam it down against his chest. I’m hurting Vinny. My fist carries the weight of all those girls trapped under his thumb. “Where are they? Tell me.”
Donahugh tries to shake his head, but he can only manage to roll to one cheek, his eyes mocking. “Dumb...bitch,” he chuckles at me. “Fuck yourself.”
During moments like this, Vinny could show the most restraint as he toyed with his victims. He relished in their insults, drawing out the worst bits of his plan until the moment the poor fool believed they still had control. He certainly wouldn’t slap Donahugh with the flat side of his knife, leaving a dark bruise across his perfectly groomed face.
“Where?”
He grunts at the pain, his eyes narrowed in hatred, but he brushes me off. I’m nothing more than a foolish little whore. He’ll bide his time until the drug wears off and he can call for backup. Then, he’ll string me up, as promised, and fuck me “pretty” for the camera. If I’m lucky, he’ll send me back to Mack in pieces.
It’s like I can read the bastard’s mind, and I snicker at what I find there. Maybe he’s correct. I don’t have the guts to butcher him the way Vinny would. I don’t have the strength. Lynn needs to discover her own method of attack. She needs...she needs help.
I stumble when I stand upright and head for the door to the suite. It’s only when cool air tickles my bare breasts that I realize I’m only wearing the lacy black bottoms that match the corset.
Dante’s face, once I get the door open and stick my head through the gap, is uncharacteristically stoic. Lucifer always displays one emotion, even if it’s rage. Now his eyes are blank, his jaw is stone, and there’s no hint of recognition when he sees me. It’s only when his eyes sweep over my breasts and Vinny’s brand that some hint of life flickers across his expression. His gaze is on fire again, smoldering for merely a second. His fingers flex as if aching to cover me—how dare I display myself to anyone but him. Then again, he might be merely reacting to the fingerprints he left around my neck. Lucifer may have a different idea of modesty than Vinny with his high collars and delicate satins—this beast displays his ownership in the bold confidence it takes to let her walk around with nothing but the knowledge that he owns her hidden beneath her skin.
He owns me. That simple fact snaps me back from the brink, and the knife falls from my fingers to clatter across the floor. It’s only then that he seems to finally notice the man in the process of crawling across the floor behind me.
“Shit.” He utters the curse quietly as he forces his way inside and manages to get the door shut with only one hand. He grabs for me with the other, using the contact to steer me forward.
“He won’t talk,” I croak by way of explanation. I sound so disappointed. My messy little experiment failed. Donahugh isn’t quite so willing to divulge the information on my terms. “I need him to talk.”
Lucifer looks at me, and if someone gave me every single shade of blue in existence, I still wouldn’t be able to recreate the color of his eyes. They flicker with a million nuanced shades as they travel slowly from me to poor Donahugh whose pants have bunched up around his ankles, and he spends more time than I would expect eyeing the man’s partially bared ass. His grip tightens. Electricity prickles from him and with one gruffly uttered statement, my devil sets the entire room on fire.
“Did...did you fuck him?”
I blink, confused. He asks a million questions at once with those four words. Did you fuck him? How? Did you like it? Would you do it again? Did you fuck? Fuck, did you FUCK?
Once again, I’m struck by the differences his web of possession holds from Vinny’s. When the former accused me, even with his eyes, of being a whore, I’d accepted the assessment without question. If a man could find pleasure in my form even when I wore a turtleneck, then it was my fault. Vinny’s shackles were a constant restraint that I always needed to adjust. Sometimes, inside my head, I might forget him. I might play the cello for a minute too long, and while the tune still lingered, I could pretend. Vinny never truly owned me, therefore, his paranoia was expected. Endured, even.
Lucifer is different. His possession is something I don’t have to think about in order to feel. He fought for me. He owns me—whether he wants to or not.
“Did you want me to?”
He doesn’t seem to understand the question. His jaw clenches. His nails dig into the flesh of my arm, though he doesn’t even seem to realize it. Slowly, he maneuvers me to stand in front of him, forcing direct eye contact. I can feel the heat of his breath all the way to my toes when he leans in, our noses brushing, every word carefully clipped and uttered with control.
“Did. You. Fuck. Him?”
“Did...did you want me to?”
I’m unprepared for the brutality with which he shoves me backward. I wind up sprawled on the couch, slouching down, my toes braced against the polished wood floor.
Lucifer advances on me like a wolf, primal and cold. There’s a predatory grace in how he leans over me, his eyes on my throat, his hands braced against the back of the couch on either side of me, caging me in. But he’s an odd predator, I’m starting to realize. He always asks for permission from his prey before sinking his teeth into their flesh. It’s been that way throughout, I think, as one of his hands shifts away from the leather upholstery and then drifts down to my throat. He hovers there, the fingers twitching...but it’s only when I tilt my head back that he finally curls them around my neck. I don’t even think he notices that brief moment of hesitation. Maybe it’s something that only matters to me. Vinny never asked for permission to enter the cage he built around me.
“Did you?” The question comes softer this time, directed solely at the lacy black panties that shield me from his gaze. His hand lowers, the stained gauze wrapped around his wounds clashing against the ebony fabric. Once again, he waits until my legs part for him before seizing the waistband and sliding his fingers underneath.
My reply rides a jagged gasp as he trails his touch over aching flesh. “Did...D-Did you want me to?”
He frowns, sliding a finger inside of me, but if he finds me wet and gaping...it’s from him. I’m still suffering from this morning. I didn’t wash. I didn’t erase his scent from my skin. I can feel his teeth if I walk too fast. I still feel the broadness of his tongue.
Lucifer tests me carefully anyway, easing his thumb through those inner parts of me only he knows how to navigate. He takes his time, seeking out any sign of another predator in his den. Any bite marks he didn’t make. Any scent apart from his own.
When he doesn’t find it, he slowly withdraws, though he can’t seem to stop himself from bringing his hand to his mouth, snatching my taste from his fingers with his tongue, just to be sure. A pitiful whine breaks loose from between my lips. He thinks it’s out of pain and he recoils, dragging his hand from his lips, his eyes dark.
My own mouth twitches, aching to throw out more questions than I have the energy to ask. Did he want me to go along with Mack’s plans and “fuck” someone like Donahugh? Did he expect me to? While Lucifer differed from Vinny in some ways, I would have thought that all monsters were united in the terms of their possession: they didn’t like to share their toys. Was Lucifer a different breed?
Looking at him I can’t be sure. He’s tasted my answer, but he’s not benevolent enough to reveal whether it satisfies him or not. And suddenly, I need to know. Curiosity burns a trail through my body and makes me bold in a way I could never be around Vinny.
“Did you want me to fuck him?”
Lucifer flinches. His eyes drift down to his hand, the fingers glistening. He makes me wait for forty-four seconds before finally giving me an answer. “No.” His frown deepens as he removes his free hand from my neck and catches the bottom of my chin with the pads of his fingers. He tilts my head back, forcing my gaze to meet his again. I can’t read the emotion I find lurking there. A part of me really doesn’t want to. Mystery and Lucifer go hand-in-hand, anyway. “No,” he says. “I didn’t.”
I should leave it at that. He didn’t want me to be used by Donahugh, not even to further his own plan. A good captive might take some kind of comfort in that. I think deep down...I’m insulted.
Lucifer doesn’t react when I reach for his hand with one of my own—but it’s a trained sort of stillness. He’s the cautious wolf who learned not to pounce at the slightest movement, but he watches me warily, his fangs at the ready. One wrong move, and he won’t hesitate to kill me.
I’m careful as I grip his wrist and raise his hand to my lips. I smell hell on his fingers. Blood and violence and sex and need and...me. He watches me with a question in his eyes as I use my other hand to ease his thumb away from the rest. I aim it toward my mouth like a bullseye and let my tongue shoot out to lick the damp tip. He stiffens, but if I’m not mistaken his thumb jerks, and suddenly more of it is between my lips, seeking out my tongue. We’re a sordid, acquired taste—his blood and my essence mingled together.
Maintaining eye contact, I swipe my tongue along his thumb again, a little bit more greedily than the first time. A man owned by no one makes his promises in blood. A woman devoid of any possessions makes hers with this: sweat, and liquid lust. It’s all I have left to offer him...
But my loyalty is a gift that not even Vinny could possess—at least not since the morning he made me wake up an orphan. Lucifer accepts it without any hint of acknowledgment. He merely pulls his hand away. The moment is broken when he turns, spotting Donahugh who cackles on the floor. He watched our entire little exchange. Grinning, he winks at me.
“I tried to make him talk,” I say, my voice rough. “He wouldn’t.”
Only now does Lucifer seem to comprehend what I mean. His eyes slowly rove over to the empty syringe resting a few feet away, and I can almost hear him putting the pieces together in his mind. Once they click, the grin he flashes is wicked. All teeth and curled lips.
“You volunteered to get the information,” he says as if he only now understands the literal interpretation of those words: I never told Mack I’d sleep with the man. Lucifer’s amusement is gradually replaced by something else that makes his eyes gleam. He holds out his hand, flexing the fingers expectantly. “Get the knife.”
I hasten to obey, crossing the room and bending down to fish my weapon from the floor. Donahugh finally has the nerve to look afraid when I approach Dante and place the blade on his empty palm.
“Make sure the doors are locked,” Dante tells me, his voice cold. Once again, I do so without question. I test the latch on the door to the suite and tug once just to make sure.
“It’s locked,” I call back.
“Good.” He jerks his head and waits until I appear dutifully at his shoulder. He stands tall, holding the knife loosely within the fingers of his left hand—the same one that sports my cut. He makes sure that Donahugh sees him clearly—the darkness in his eyes—but he doesn’t react when I take a step forward and sink down into a crouch, allowing the poor man to make eye contact with me instead. This is my game, and like any good participant, the devil is willing to let me go first.
“Where are the girls?” I ask while my hands reach for the buttons of his shirt. I undo them swiftly, freeing a chest covered in greasy, graying black hair. Biting back disgust, I run my finger along his sternum as if imagining the perfect place to cut and I dig my nail in hard enough to make him flinch. Then I glance back at Dante and attempt to mimic the devil’s low, steady tone. “Tell us where they are. Every last one.”