Expelling a steady breath, I shoved all my bullshit into a corner of my mind until I had time to sort through my confusing, chaotic feelings.
The door slammed behind us, shutting me in the same room he had stitched me up in. The draft from the air conditioner was stronger in this part of the building. It made the tiny hairs on my arms rise. An ambient glow illuminated the large space.
Both the dead bodies had been removed, replaced with a man who was tied to a steel chair in the center of the room. He had a familiar black sack over his head and was dressed in the white robes of David’s followers.
Seeing him was like being doused with a bucket of cold water.
It affirmed one of the answers I was sent here to find and replaced it with another. The Savages would not be kidnapping and killing off The Order members and working with them.
“Why are you killing them off?”
“Same reason you were. Figured I could get answers and get David’s attention. Two birds, one stone.”
I nodded and took a good look around the room. One wall held an array of tools. All the others, with the exception of one, were plain. On the back wall directly ahead of us was a Leviathan cross, smeared in bold red paint, inside another inverted pentacle. There was an eye drawn above the infinity symbol and bottom bar of the cross.
This room had a sole purpose. People were brought in here to suffer and die before a symbol that destroyed the pipedream of heaven.
“Is there a reason you have the official symbol of Satan all over your house…and your body?”
He was quiet for so long I almost thought he was ignoring me.
“I thought you knew,” he eventually answered, turning his entire body towards me and giving me a look I couldn’t decipher.
His stare was so intense I took a step away from him. On a scale of small to big, it was minuscule, but he saw it. When it came to me, the man saw everything. The smile that graced his face was so sinister I had to stop myself from flinching. My breath caught, and I felt the prickling of my skin.
“You have no idea what you’re in for.”
I hadn’t the faintest idea what he meant, and he didn’t seem inclined to offer me an explanation.
I knew the inverted cross was the Savages’ symbol, but I’d always thought of it as more of a logo. I mean, I wore the same cross around my neck. I knew Romero was referred to as the devil, but I thought that was because he was a cruel and heartless asshole.
He couldn’t be the actual entity—this was fucking reality. So what was I missing? What did it have to do with the markings?
“Oh, you’re a Satanic.” I snapped my fingers and pointed at him.
Without a word, he sniggered and walked past me towards the man in the center of the room.
“Are you going to explain?” I called to his back.
He spun around and started walking backward.
“If I told you how to pass all the trials and tribulations and gave you all the answers, I’d ruin half the fun. Just stay curious and keep a smile on that pretty face.”
I crossed my arms and huffed out a breath. “So you’re spinning riddles, now? Seriously?”
He winked and turned back around.
“Come here, baby, we need to properly send off our friend.”
Hiding how much I loved hearing him call me that—how much it warmed me—I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and made my way over to the chair.
Romero pulled the sack off the man’s head and tapped his cheeks a few times to wake him up. He jolted awake, turning his head every which way. The moment he saw my face, his eyes almost popped out of their sockets.
“Calista! What have they done to you?” he gasped.
Even tied to a chair, the guy had the nerve to sound appalled when he was just as bruised as me, if not worse. I tried to find a hint of recognition somewhere in my memory, but I simply had no idea who this man was. However, he certainly knew me, which further screwed with my mentals because I had been out of The Order for years.
I looked at Romero and saw him watching me in all his intensity again. Was this one of those trials or tribulations he’d just mentioned? Finding out if I was secretly working with David?
My eyes fell to the shiny black amulet around the man’s neck.
I snorted at the sight of it. “I see David’s still preaching his made up gospel.”
Just like that, he shut down, and a tick appeared in his jaw. A tiny click brought my attention back to the gorgeous man beside me. In his hand was a smaller version of the knife he’d used the day before, outstretched in my direction.
“Take this and slit his throat.”
“Um, okay.” That was easy enough. Shrugging, I took the knife from him and slashed at the bishop’s neck. He closed his eyes and braced himself but was spared at the last second.
Confused, I looked down to where Romero gripped my wrist. “That’s not what you wanted?”
“You’re moving too fast.”
He let me go and circled behind me, gently resting his hands on my shoulders.
“I have a gun, but I rarely use it.
It hinders the creativity I would normally have with my knife. I like to kill slowly. Draw it out and watch them break, look them in the eyes as they suffer and their life fades away.”
Using one hand, he gripped my waist. The other moved my hair to one side so he could speak into my ear, using his breath to caress my skin.
“I want you to relax. Lean into me and look at him. Look at him real fucking good and then tell me what you feel.” His voice was soft and soothing, he nipped at my lower lobe.
Letting out a shaky breath, I stared down at the man in front of me. A bead of sweat rolled from his graying temple to his chin. He did his best to keep a blank face, but the look in his brown eyes conveyed the panic he was trying to hide.
It took me a minute to block out everything but the safe embrace of the man behind me and solely focus on the one in front of me.
As I looked at him—really looked at him—my cold prison cell of memories began to bustle with activity. His robes, his transparent loyalty, and the way my stomach began to turn with every passing second of him being in my sight brought everything back to the forefront of my mind.
I never intentionally faced my past. I’d always looked to the future for the day I could make them suffer like I did. This, though, made me realize how unprepared I was. This was the closest to it I’d ever been.
When I snuck into the church where my uncle preached his bullshit to his delegates, he was always in the front. I hid as far away from him as I possibly could, waiting for the perfect opportunity to drag one of his mindless bitches off to dismember. His voice alone was enough to make my skin break out in a cold sweat.
I started to see them all again—smell them and taste them, their voices in my ear, their breath on my neck, the way they took turns fucking me in both holes until I bled.
Shaking my head back and forth, I clutched at the arm wrapped around my waist, suddenly feeling as if my chest was going to cave in.
“Uhn-uh, no.” My voice quaked, and I loathed myself for showing a sign of weakness.
Ignoring the way I was clawing at his arm, Romero brought a hand up and gently clasped it around my throat. He kissed my temple and started speaking softly in my ear. “Easy breaths. I got you, babe. I’m right here. He can’t fucking touch you.”
He gripped my waist tighter, purposely squeezing my wound. Whimpering, I pushed back against him, taking comfort in his security and drawing it from my pain.
“Look at him, Pixie. How do you feel?”
Focusing back on the bishop, I leveled him with a fevered stare. With a heaving chest, I could only muster up one emotion to feel.
Hatred.
I hated him.
I didn’t know him from a hole in the wall, but I truly fucking hated him. I hated what he represented, I hated the way he made my blood freeze over, and I hated what they did, hated that they’d siphoned every bit of my innocence with their pedophile cocks.
I hated him for everything they took away from me and the irreversible damage they caused. I wasn’t sure how he got caught, and I didn’t care—he was a parasite that needed to be terminated.
“I…I hate him.” I spat in a scathing tone.
“Good girl.” Romero breathed his praise in my ear. “Hold onto that hatred, baby. Make him bleed.”
It was like being put in a trance. Stepping forward, I zeroed in on the bishop in the chair and turned the knife’s handle in my hands, tightening my grip.
I reached down and roughly grabbed him by the hair, making sure he couldn’t turn his head as I plunged the thin silver knife into his left ear.
He started to scream, but it wasn’t loud enough. I ground my teeth together and continued to push in, passing the pinna, twisting through the canal, and rupturing his eardrum.
The knife was like a bottle opener. The instant I pulled it out, blood spurted as if a cork had been popped off, hitting my shirt, running down his earlobe, and landing on his white garment. His skin turned a dark cherry red as he began to weep. He was in obvious pain, but he wasn’t close to dying…yet.
I ran my bloody fingertips down his face and used his tears to clean them off. He choked and gagged from the intensity of his sobs, rocking so hard the chair almost tipped over.
I loved seeing this man helpless, bawling his eyes out as blood dripped freely. The only thing that could make this moment more perfect was if he was begging for forgiveness at my feet.
With the palm of my hand, I pushed his head back until he was staring up at the ceiling. “You’re looking mighty pathetic, Mr. Bishop.” Straddling his lap, I glanced back at Romero and gave him a shy smile. “Will you hold him still for me, please?”
Without a sound of protest, he circled back around the chair and took a firm hold of the bishop by his graying hair.
I placed the tip of the knife at the base of his throat and slowly twisted it in. The bishop let out a low wail between his sobs.
“Aw, does it hurt really bad?” I cooed, poking out my lower lip.
With a forceful shove, I broke through the skin, inserting the blade directly where his trachea was.
His brown eyes widened as he was forced to gargle his own blood. Removing the knife, I squeezed the slippery handle and began blindly driving it home anywhere I could penetrate, finally getting a reaction that was worthwhile.
His dying, garbled screams echoed inside the room and urged me on. The serrated blade sliced into his flesh with minimal ease. I didn’t stop until my chest was heaving and his neck looked like a crimson dipped honeycomb.
I felt his blood on my face, in my hair, and saw it all over my hands up to my elbows. There wasn’t a mirror in the room so I could only imagine what I looked like. The bishop’s hair was no longer gray, and his head hung at an odd angle. Licking my lips, my tongue swiped up the sweet metallic taste of a sufferer’s blood.
I blinked and looked away from him, realizing Romero was no longer behind the chair. He had taken a few steps back to watch me.
That seemed to be a habit of his—watching everything I did like he was analyzing me for something.
Peering up at him through lowered lashes, I offered him another shy smile, feeling a bit self-conscious.
“Whoops, sorry. I got a little carried away.”
“Come here.” There was no change in his vocal inflection; I couldn’t read his mood. Wiping my bloody palms on my ruined shirt, I went to him without hesitation.
The second I was within reaching distance, he had a hand knotted in my hair, slightly tilting my head back so that I was looking up at him.
“Tell me how you feel.”
“I feel…better.”
“Beautiful.” He gave me the smile I was quickly coming to adore and dropped his mouth to mine, slipping his hand from my hair to the back of my neck.
He kissed me hard and deep, speaking to me without saying a word. I felt like I’d known him for a thousand lifetimes.
Walking us backward, we got all the way to the other side of the room without detaching from one another. Without warning, he spun me around and I found myself bent over the metal table he’d stitched me up on.
His leg came between mine and spread them apart. The unmistakable sound of his zipper going down had my body elated with anticipation. I hummed my approval when he slid the smooth head of his cock up and down my lips, gathering my arousal.
“You’re a dirty little bitch. Fuck, Cali your pussy is drooling all over my dick.”
“I’m only dirty for you, Rome.” I moaned and pushed myself at him, trying to slide him inside me on my own.
It was apparently the right thing to say. With a growl, he grabbed a handful of my hair and drove his dick into me.
My pussy gripped his thick length like a vise. I spread my legs a little further and gripped the edge of the table to keep me grounded as he hammered into me.
“Your pussy feels so fucking good,” he ground out. “Put your hands between your legs, baby. Touch yourself.”
I eagerly responded to his command. Snaking one hand between my thighs, I fondled my already sensitive clit, no longer recognizing myself. Dirty talk had never made me wet before; killing someone had never given me such a lust-filled rush. As the blood sprayed, my arousal spiked. I needed to be fucked—hard—and Romero gave me exactly what I wanted.
He fisted my hair with one hand and brought the other one to my waist, pushing down on my wound. My legs almost buckled from underneath me.
“You like that?”
“Yes! Don’t stop!” I pleaded, bucking against him.
“Tell me what you need.” His demand was rhetorical. This man knew what I needed before I did but I was so delirious I would have recited the alphabet if he asked me to.
“I need you, Rome. Fuck me—hurt me.”
With another growl that sounded much more beast than man, he gave me exactly what I asked for.
He wrenched my head back to the point I could barely swallow, pressed his palm down, and bit my shoulder just hard enough for my endorphins to go crazy from the pain. The table tilted and fell from the force of our bodies repeatedly thrusting against it, hitting the floor with a loud bang.
“Rome!” His name spilled from my lungs and echoed around the room. I came on a soundless scream, clenching around him as my eyes rolled to the back of my head.
He cursed and pulled out before I could fully come down.
“Knees,” he rasped, spinning me around by the hair. Immediately dropping down, I let out a soft hiss as my knees hit the concrete.
“Mouth.”
As soon as my lips parted, his slippery dick was hitting the back of my throat. Gagging, I gripped his thighs and let him fuck my mouth, taking him as deep as I could, sucking my juices and come off him.
His cock jerked twice. He let out an almost inaudible groan as I hungrily swallowed every drop of come that shot into my mouth, swirling my tongue around the tip to make sure I got all of the salty fluid off.
When he pulled away I rolled my lips together. Clasping my hands together in my lap, I gazed up at him as he tucked himself away, all the while looking down at me. Both of us fought to keep our chests of heaving breaths quiet.
Holding my hands out in front of me, I stared at the blood coating them and thought how terribly wrong Tito was when he said I wasn’t afraid of anything. I remembered my father saying I would be eaten alive by my sins.
I hated that one was wrong and one was right.
This—whatever this feeling was between us—was terrifying. It was growing at a disturbingly rapid rate. Was it possible to fall this fast? Could I stop it? Did I even want to?
It felt instinctive, like breathing. It was completely unexpected and unexplainable. He made me feel so much inside my chest, feel things that were indefinable.
I was hurtling head over heels—obsessively, addictively, stupidly, over-emotionally hurtling. This would be about the time it was smart to run away from him as fast as I could, but like a suicidal moth to an eternal flame, I moved closer.
His clean hands covered my filthy ones and he helped me up. When he touched his forehead to mine, I knew I was doomed.
Romero was an inferno of tantalizing sin, and I wanted him branded on every inch of my skin.