Chapter Ninete en

Jacob

She was fucking weak. Completely and utterly weak. Why? Because she gave up. On us. On me. After everything we’d shared. Where was the Alana who’d gripped my skull and kissed me with Dad bleeding like a stuck pig between us? Where was the girl who’d thanked me for freeing her but stayed with me the whole way to make sure my sperm donor got his just desserts? Or the girl who had taught me how to love?

Hell, where was Nila, the one who’d torn Jonathan apart?

Neither was there, and it pissed me off. Royally. I couldn’t take her home or make a life with a woman I had to train all over again. She had to be in there somewhere. And I had to find a better clue than locking her in a cage I knew she despised. That was her kryptonite. Thinking, I turned in a slow circle, looking around. What had I missed? What wasn’t I understanding?

I tore through the warehouse, looking through rooms and her belongings. Everything appeared exactly as it had before and didn’t help me a fucking bit. I ran the pass again, taking it slower this time. Looking under crawl spaces, through her fridge, in the overhead walkways—everywhere I could—until my eyes rested on the car. Maybe that’s where I would find more about Alana. I made a beeline for her vehicle and was thankful she’d left the doors unlocked. No reason to worry about a break-in here. She had brown file boxes in the back seat.

“Heavy sons of bitches.” I knew why the minute I opened the lids. There were many folders, each having a name labeled on them. Jonathan Ross’s name stood out, and I picked up his file.

“Well, lookie here.” It looked like copied versions of patient notes.

“Jonathan Ross, forty-year-old white male, divorced, who currently lives alone in the North Lawndale area of Chicago. Mr. Ross is a new patient in our office for evaluation of threat due to past history of sexual violence against women. Recently paroled and deemed safe from prison psychiatrist. Mr. Ross was interviewed about his past, and his reliability therein is considered fair.”

I scanned the document, noting where he was listed to have sexual deviance under rape and incest. He was also listed under delusions to have a sense of absolute right to the women he raped. Believing every single one of them had enticed him, begged him for it, and their fighting back was only a way to spice up the consensual sex.

“What a fucking idiot.”

I dropped his folder and looked through others. Most of the names I didn’t recognize, but a couple I did. I’d seen some of them on the news about their disappearances over the last few years.

“My, my, my. Alana has been busy.”

I wondered how long she’d been taking men off the street and punishing them, and maybe what punishment she thought I deserved. Every man in her file had either kidnapped, raped, or brutalized teens or women younger than twenty-five. Physically, the types some of these men preferred didn’t look like Alana, but the needs they had, the perversions, were close enough to what she’d been through.

“There it is. I think I may have found the switch. But can I make you face it?”

I hefted the heavy boxes back into the killing room and thought of what to do. I wanted to know more about what Alana was doing here. Having her share her secret would only bring us closer together. The more in her life I was, the harder it would be to get me out of it. And that was most important.

Needing to make sure she was amenable to my questions, I went to her workstation and looked for a blade. Finding one, I placed it on the slab, within reach of the strapping chair, and got ready. I moved the straps from the legs of the chair so they were higher, and looped rope around them so I could stretch the tying further. A quick jaunt to the kitchen area and my hands were cleaned, my shirt was off, and I was ready to play with my toy.

When I opened the cage hatch and dragged her out by the pole connected to her neck, her eyes shot fire at me but she remained stubbornly mute. She was at a full stand outside of the cage before she looked around. When her eyes landed on the knife, they widened for a moment, but then her face was back in the determined mask. If I wasn’t looking right at her I may have missed the moment of fear. But it was there, and I was watching.

She’s afraid. No matter how strong she gets, she is still afraid.

And she shouldn’t have been. My girl should welcome the pain. Love it. Trust me to take her to the ends of the earth if I had to, but it would all be for the pleasure she could find there. Even if it killed her. Shit, especially if it killed her. She would die a happy fucking woman.

“It’s time to answer some questions, Alana.”

She still said nothing, but she would soon enough. I sat her down in the chair and looped ties around the pole holding her collar so her head was forced back and up. I could see the pinpricks from the needles pressing into her throat and the throb of her heartbeat covered in dried blood. I liked blood on her. Once I had her in place, I strapped her arms down. When I went for her legs, she lifted her hips and kicked me in the shin.

“Bad girl.”

My punishment was swift and sure. I punched the inside of her thigh, right in the center. She grunted, breathing through the pain. I hit her again in the same spot. Her muscles clenched in a spasm. Her wrists were white as she strained against the ties holding her down. Her neck bled where she forced her head against the spikes, trying to free herself.

“I am going to kill you,” she promised. Her voice throbbed with hatred, but there was something else. An emotion I would explore soon enough.

“Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t. Until then? You’re going to do whatever the fuck I tell you.”

I tied her ankles to the slab, using the ropes looped around it so she was open and spread for my inspection. I secured her knees to the legs of the chair, forcing to keep them open.

I lifted the blade and waved it in front of her face. “Rule number one, I like my toys nice and bare. You’ve grown a patch down there, and I don’t like it. I want to see everything I do to my pussy. Rule number two, it hurts when you don’t do what I want. It’s bloody when I want it to be, and doing what I want won’t stop the pain, but it will make sure it doesn’t get worse. Tell me you understand.”

Stubborn bitch didn’t say a thing.

“So be it.”

I pressed the flat of the knife between her breasts and dragged it over the slope of her stomach. As it reached far enough, I flipped the knife and the tip bit into her skin. Like butter, her skin gave way. I was so good with the knife. So fucking good. She should have remembered that.

“I’ll take my pound of flesh now.”

I saw the knowledge in her eyes as she shook her head. “No, Jacob. Don’t.”

I didn’t listen. Instead, I pressed the knife edge against her skin, at the fleshy part of her stomach. Slowly, centimeter by centimeter, I removed one layer. She screamed as the blood flowed, and I smiled. I could do this all day. I’d learned this skill for her, and now she’d taste it. Time and death, it’s what I always could give her.

“Don’t make me ask again, Alana. Tell me you understand.”

“Fuck. You.”

“Oh, fighting only makes me hotter.”

That connection between us blossomed. Through the anger and the rage, it pulsed in the room. I could smell her blood, and I wanted to taste it, take her into my being and combine us. Her hands gripped the edge of the chair until her knuckles were white, and she bit her lip, but she didn’t scream anymore. She dared me to cut her again. Willed my hand to give her more pain, and that’s what I did. This time under her breast. That thick swell that was so pretty. So perfect. My knife cut through it. I was only taking small layers, sections that would bleed but heal in no time, but the pain wasn’t any less. Her back bowed, her mouth opened in a silent wail, her eyes were wide with fright, but she took it. Held it. It was like fucking sex. We were trapped together, chasing that elusive orgasm but knowing it was around the corner.

“I understand!” she finally screamed.

“Good girl. Now you’re going to answer some questions.”

She panted, her breasts quivering with each breath. She was magnificent as I ducked under her leg and got between her and the medical table. Cocooned between her legs, I couldn’t help stiffening. I palmed it through my pants and groaned. Alana changed. She froze at the sound, her eyes pressing down to the bottom of her sockets to see me.

“Do you like it?” Her hips shifted, and I looked down between her legs. Wet. Her thighs gleamed in the light.

My fucking nasty girl.

“You like it.” It was a statement this time as she closed her eyes against my words.

“No.”

I slapped the inside of her already bruising thigh with the flat of the knife. “Don’t lie to me.”

She remained silent. Fuck it. I watched carefully as I shaved her, dragging the knife and cutting her hair with precision. She held her breath, her body rigid, as I got close to her lips. I could barely hear her breathing, but she didn’t fight, didn’t try to get away. She minded my rules, and it made me so fucking hard. She was so perfect. So sweet. I let go of myself long enough to hold open her lips and remove the rest of her hair. She was so hot inside, like an inferno against my fingertips. Her labia got red and engorged, and her clit peeked from its hood.

“You want me. You won’t deny it. Tell me about your patients. Why you have those notes, and how many you’ve already killed.”

“I’m a psychologist, I always have patient notes,” was her answer. It was a fucking lie. It soured the air and pissed me off.

“Wrong move.”

I moved the knife away from her body but kept my other hand pressed against her. I played with her folds. Using my thumb and forefinger, I pushed the hood of her clit back and exposed that sensitive bundle of nerves.

“Lying to me only makes it hurt more.” And then I pinched her. Tried to fucking make my fingers touch.

“No!” Her back bowing again, she strained against the collar, and her legs locked. I held on, never letting up the pressure. Leaning forward, over her breast, I nuzzled the flesh above her nipple.

I was alive for the first time in eight years. With her, joined by pain, we were pulled together by a connection she could never deny. Because even as I brutalized her clit, she was leaking against my hand. I groaned and released her clit. Her pale skin was flush with a red blush, and she shook in her bonds. Her eyes followed my every move. I didn’t let her see my hands. Instead, I kept them out of her limited sight.

That was part of the fun. She would never know what was coming.

“The patients, Alana. Why do you have their records with you?”

“Because I study them.”

It was the truth, I knew it, but it wasn’t the answer I wanted. She knew it. But she had answered my questions, so punishment wasn’t in order. Unless I decided to say fuck it.

“There are twenty-six bones in the foot and ankle, Alana. That’s a quarter of what’s in your body. There are thirty-three joints, over a hundred ligaments, muscles, and tendons. Do you know why I’m telling you this, Alana? Because there are so many I could break, dislocate, and cut, and you’d still live. Such delicious pain to make you wetter, and you’d answer every question I have.”

She watched me with wild eyes, like a brand-new colt unsure of the world and terrified of every sound.

“Confess your sins unto me, Alana Masters. I’m your sin eater, and the only way to absolution is through me.”

She closed her eyes, breathing roughly. “You’ll kill me anyway.”

“No, Alana, I won’t kill you. I’ll do something so much worse. I’ll keep you, and I’ll make sure you love me for doing it.”

She opened her eyes and glared at me. “Never.”

Said the woman whose pussy just quivered.