Chapter
23

She dressed me in finery.

After they hosed their cum off me.

After they slicked me down with spring-fresh soap and then dried me, slathered on expensive lotions, and dabbed perfume at my pulse points.

After she had my hair and makeup done.

I looked like Caesar’s prized bitch, just like Dahlia wanted me to.

My hair fell around my shoulders in a dark wave of glossy curls, and my makeup was nude, except for the dramatic, black-smoke eyes. She’d even put flesh-tone color on my lips to blend them and make my eyes pop. Then she draped me in a Valentino Georgette Cloak dress in a nude tone as well. The modest neckline, with a small eyelet opening where it buttoned in the back, was demure and sexy at the same time. It fit me like second skin over my breasts and hips, but extra material hung around my arms so it looked like I’d worn a shawl. The drive to my next destination had only taken an hour at most.

If I weren’t so dead inside, I’d say Caesar would have loved the dress.

But I was dead inside.

I didn’t say a word as she’d fussed over the fabric here and there before she finished dressing me. She’d forced my aching feet into black, open-toe stiletto heels with a satin bow that crisscrossed over the top of my foot and tied into a bow behind my ankle. The dress alone cost several thousand dollars, and the heels—Versace, she’d told me—put a dent in the bank, too. With my hair styled, makeup in place, and clothing on, Gleeson’s son wouldn’t realize that just hours before I stood before him I’d been ripped apart. That they’d had to put a few stiches in my anus to close a tear.

No, Dahlia would be long gone, and perhaps dead by then—if Sean were to be believed. His plan hadn’t happened fast enough. Gleeson’s son would have killed me or used me hard enough to make me wish I’d been killed long time ago. I read the anger in his eyes. Unlike his father, who’d appeared Middle Eastern, Gleeson’s son had sandy-blond hair and wide, green eyes. A muscle worked in his jaw as he stared at me.

“This bitch? He killed my Da for her?” he asked, his accent a touch of Irish.

“Yes, Lorcan,” Dahlia said. “I was going to purchase her for my stable that evening, but things got out of hand. Caesar gave her to your father and then became enraged when he saw your father touching her, as I explained to you before.”

Bitch.

Lorcan sucked his teeth before he sighed. “He wants a war, he got one.”

“Our deal still stands, then?” Dahlia questioned.

“Aye. Gleeson may have knocked me mammy up and left her behind, but he still was me Da. For your service, my men will use your girls and send you trade when we come ‘cross it. Not all, but ye will not hurt for it.”

Dahlia clapped her hands and smiled broadly. “Then my work here is done. You let me know what you need, and I’ll get it over to you.”

Lorcan did nothing but nod, and Dahlia spun around on her heels. Her guards, who I couldn’t look in the face, snickered as they followed her out. I glanced around Lorcan’s home. Unlike Caesar’s stylish penthouse in the center of star-studded Miami, Lorcan opted for the citadel feel of brick and mortar. Outside of Miami, I wasn’t sure where we’d travel, but I knew it had taken several hours north of Miami to reach our destination. His home was designed slate and wood. He sat in a heavy chair with a high back, almost a throne, in the rear of the receiving room, with his guards flanked at his sides. I couldn’t see their guns, but I knew they were there. They watched me with hate and rage in their gazes, but I couldn’t muster up the fear to care.

“How long he have you?” Lorcan asked, and my gaze swung to his.

“What?”

He sighed and stood up in measured movements, taking his time approaching me until he stood toe to toe with me. He lifted his hand, and his slap took me to the floor. I cried out as my exposed knees grated against the hardwood, my eye throbbing.

“I don’t like to repeat myself.”

“I’m not sure,” I answered.

“Yer not sure?”

“Time passed oddly with Caesar. I didn’t look at a calendar,” I told him truthfully.

Lorcan hunkered down. That close, I could make out a faint scar on his bottom lip that traced down over his chin. “I’ve been around Caesar not even a year ago, and you were nowhere to be found. He had another cunt bouncing on him.”

He twisted his fingers into my hair and jerked me hard toward him. My knobby knees pressed into the floor, the thin skin over my kneecaps turning to fire. Any moment, my flesh would rip and I’d be a mess all over his floor. I gritted my teeth and gripped his wrist to balance myself.

“It doesn’t matter,” he told me, his alcohol-scented breath wafting over my face. “You won’t be nearly as pretty when I finish with ye. And, at the end, when it’s all over, I’m going to kill you in front of him before I take his fecking head.”

Lorcan stood slowly, dragging me up by my hair as he went until we were both on our feet in the center of the room. He pulled me closer to his body, the hard planes of his chest pressing into the aching muscles of mine. He was built and powerful, broader than Caesar. No, Lorcan was built to destroy, power pulsing through his veins, his muscles bunching and flexing as he gripped me to him. He lifted me easily from the floor by my hair, and I swallowed a cry. Chunks of my hair pulled taut and then separated, snapping under the pressure. Something ripped, pain swimming over my nerve endings as warm blood tricked down my head.

“I’m going to break ye, from the top to the bottom. No use wasting time on what can be covered up. And it’ll be a game. He’ll know just who you’re with, but he won’t know how to find you. The longer he can’t get to you and come for his death, the longer you will hurt.”

I trembled in his grip. My throat went dry and I didn’t know how to fight, how to hold back the tears, so I didn’t. They slid down my cheeks, dripping into the seam of my lips. Bitterness and salt swam over my tongue.

“Take her to the factory.”

He tossed me away from him, and I stumbled on my heels into one of his guards.

“Will do.”

The guard lifted me up and a second one grabbed my ankles. They hauled me out of the room into the darkness before they dumped me on the concrete ground. I groaned and fell over, but they didn’t leave me there for long.

Fade. Fade. Fade.

I prayed to nothing as they duct-taped my ankles and wrists together before placing another piece over my mouth. Hog-tied, they tossed me into the cramped trunk of a car and slammed it down, trapping me in a tight, dark space. I couldn’t breathe. The walls closed in around me, and my chest felt weighted.

“No!”

My cry was muffled against the tape as I swallowed the sound. I couldn’t be trapped with no light, no air.

“Caesar!”

Where are you? Why haven’t you come? You told me no one would hurt me but you. No one. But they have me. They’ve hurt me. They will break me.

The scratchy fabric under my face dampened with tears, but it didn’t go away. The car jerked into motion and I shifted, the abrasive material scraping my face. I couldn’t breathe. Every bump in the road brought the walls closer until I was suffocating. I gasped, but oxygen felt filtered in through a coffee stir straw, and my lungs labored to get a full breath.

“We’re going to play a game, Ashlyn. A very simple game,” Jason told me. I trembled on the bed. The things he did to me never stopped hurting. He’d been teaching me how to love a man properly for a year, and I still couldn’t stomach the pain. I still cried and stayed dry, and he hated it.

Hated me.

“What’s the game?” I asked, my voice small and weak. Just like me. But I knew he’d expect an answer, and I didn’t want to see what happen if I didn’t.

“You’re going to hide in the box for as long as I want you to. The longer you stay in there without crying, the less you’ll have to do when you come out.”

He smiled that cruel smile that told me he lied. He always lied. When he put me in the box, he knew I’d be a mess of tears when he brought me back out. That was how it always happened. And then he’d punish me for crying, for being a bad girl. My lungs restricted and my vision dimmed. He taught me to fear the box, to fear enclosed spaces, when once upon a time they’d made me feel safe and secure. He’d taught me to fear anything I used to love. As I watched him pull out the pine box with the lock on the outside, my skin shrank until it itched. I fidgeted and held back my tears. But when he lifted me up and placed me inside, I couldn’t hold back my screams.

“Oh, Ash. Now you’ll be there for twenty-four hours. And when you come out, you’re going to be my dirty little slut.”

Please, God, let me be dead long before then.