“You like it rough, bitch?” Vince says, in a mocking, singsong tone.

The chains holding my ankles and wrists locked to the wooden table rattle as I jerk my head from side to side, trying to get a glimpse of whatever Vince is doing. He’s moving, I can tell that much, and –

His belt buckle clinks as his fingers dance over it.

“You bitches are all the same. You claim you aren’t, and you claim you don’t, but we know better, don’t we, Lenny?”

I glance at Lenny, but he doesn’t make a sound. He’s just standing there with his fists clenched. I can’t tell whether he is about to join in with his master in abusing my body, or lay his master out cold with one powerful punch.

“You claim you want it soft, sweet, and sensual … but I know differently. Bitches lie. Once you see what a real man can do, you all change your tune. It’s a shame you won’t live to enjoy it …”

Real man my ass.

“Lenny, hold the bitch’s head down,” Vince orders. It sparks a wild panic inside my brain. Whatever Vince has planned, I don’t want any part of it. I know there’s no coming back from what he’s going to do to my body.

“Wait –,” I beg. Vince is standing by my ankles with his cock in his hand, and I know that I’ve only got seconds to stop him.

My eyes focus on Lenny. He hasn’t reacted to Vince’s order at all, and, other than the fact he’s shifting his weight from foot to foot at a glacial pace, you could be forgiven for thinking he’s fallen asleep. I know the things I’ve whispered into that slow, lumbering brain of his have had an effect. He’s beginning to question his master, and wonder whether life could be better for him if he wasn’t squashed under Vince’s boot.

I roll the dice one last time. Whatever the result, I know that it has to be better than letting Vince abuse me.

“You’re right,” I gasp to Vince. “We are liars.”

I close my eyes as if to pray, but really my mind’s just filled with images of Declan: the way he kisses me; the way his stubble grazes my chin; the feeling of his breath tickling my cheeks … all of it. I can’t believe that I wasted the time I had with him when I had the chance.

I should have talked to him, not stormed off in anger –

“We do want real men,” I pant. I remember how pathetic Vince was the first day I met him: willing to do anything to gain the admiration of his men. “And you –”

“You don’t need to tell me what I already know, bitch. You are thinking about me, aren’t you?”

“No…” I whisper.

“No?” There’s a bite to Vince’s tone; a threat. He knows that he’s walked onto uncertain ground, even though he doesn’t know it’s a trap that I’ve set for him on purpose.

All he knows is that he might look weak in front of Lenny, and that’s the last place that a man like him ever wants to end up.

“No,” Lenny grunts, finally breaking his silence. “She’s thinking of me.”

He tackles Vince like an NFL linebacker, and his boss trips, stumbling over the denim pooled down by his ankles. They go over in a heap, Vince’s pale cock flashing in the abandoned house’s gloom.

“Get off me, you faggot,” Vince screams. Lenny: the shorter, but bulkier, more muscular, man, climbs on top of him like a bucking bronco rider. There’s nothing Vince can do, not from the floor. Lenny overpowers him with superior strength, leaning down and picking Vince’s torso up from the floor.

He starts to squeeze, compressing Vince’s whole body in his arms. The Morello caporegime is choking now, eyes bulging, fingers scrabbling against Lenny’s popping, corded muscles.

“Fuck …” I whisper. I can barely believe it: my plan’s working, but now I’ve only got a small window to get the hell out of here. Whoever wins this fight, their blood will be fired up. That will mean bad things for me. Awful things.

I tug at the handcuff on my right wrist, pulling until its jagged metal teeth bite into my wrist and leave a white line behind. The chain rattles and jerks a couple of inches towards me; for a second I almost believe that it might break loose.

“Come on, come on …”

But it’s not that easy. It never is.

I throw a quick glimpse at the men tussling like rutting stags for the right to own my body. Vince’s eyes are bulging out of his body and Lenny … Well, the less said about Lenny’s face, the better.

“Fuckin’ die already,” Lenny grunts. Spittle flies out of his mouth and lands on Vince’s soon-to-be corpse.

Neither of them is a patch on Declan, not even close. Even after everything that’s happened between us, I only want my Irishman’s lips to be the ones kissing mine at night.

Right now, he’s all that’s on my mind. That means something: something powerful. It’s going to take something powerful to get me out of this mess.

“Anyone can become an escapologist…” A voice says, echoing out from the depths of my memory, “if they are willing to break their thumb, that is.”

“Oh Christ,” I whisper under my breath. “You’re really going to have to do it …”

On the floor next to me, Vince’s struggle has been reduced to a quiet chorus of jerking wheezes. It’s clear that he doesn’t have long left. And yet …

The fingers of his right hand blindly roam the dusty floorboards beside him for a weapon. He tosses aside an old McDonald’s happy meal toy, passes through small piles of trash, until his hand closes around an empty wine bottle.

I watch it happen in horror. There’s nothing I can do to stop it. It’s not that I want Lenny to survive; I don’t. It’s just that at least with him, I have a chance.

Vince smashes the bottle against Lenny’s skull, and it connects with a painful thud, knocking the pockmarked man backward. He brings it down again, using the last reserves of his energy, and it smashes against Lenny’s forehead, knocking him out cold.

I redouble my efforts with my thumb, trying to snap it so that I can break my way out of my captivity. My body tries to stop me, nearly blinding me with pain.

But it’s Vince who stops me dead.

Through his wheezing, his bloodied face, his smashed head, and his cracked ribs, he starts to lift himself up. His voice is ragged, but black with anger.

“You’re next, bitch.”

I watch, struck still with horror as he begins to recover his strength. It’s slow, and that makes it worse. I have to watch every individual cut and scrape on his face well with blood, while his chest stops heaving as his lungs finally, agonizingly start pumping enough oxygen into his veins.

Then I see his naked cock, because his jeans are still around his ankles, begin to swell.

“Please, don’t …” I whimper. I don’t want to say it. I just know that I don’t want the last thing I see before I die to be Vince’s demonic face, covered in blood.

There’s a thud outside. I glance at the front door, and my eyes make it there only a second before the door handle explodes in a spray of splinters and shards of wood.

It’s Declan.

At least, I think it is. This is either real, or just a mirage conjured by my brain to hide me from the horror of reality.

“Get the feck away from her,” Declan growls.

“You want to start a war, boy?” Vince says mockingly, dragging himself slowly, bloodily to his feet. “Do you think I give a fuck about you? She’s –”

The pistol in Declan’s hand barks once. A short jet of flame escapes the barrel.

“You –” Vince says, looking down at his crotch as the horror begins to dawn on his face.

“Shot your tiny little cock off. It was a tricky shot, but I never miss,” Declan says without a hint of humor on his face. “Even with a target that small.”

Declan’s trigger finger twitches twice more, and Vince collapses to the floor, his knees reduced to scraps of flesh and bone. I don’t take my eyes off any of it. This feels like an initiation into my new life. The old Casey would have closed her eyes and hid from the horror. I’m not her anymore.

“Puss, puss, what have they done to you?” Declan moans, rushing towards me. He sets his pistol down on the table with a heavy, metallic thud. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

“Are you – is this?”

“Real? I’m here, Casey. I’m never letting you go again.”

“Safe word,” I mumble through dry, chapped lips. I can’t bring myself to trust that any of this is real. If it’s just my mind playing tricks on me, and I wake up still stuck in this horror … I’d rather die. “Tell me the –”

“Lipstick, the safe word is lipstick!” Declan says hurriedly, kissing me on the forehead. “I’m here, Casey. It’s me.”

“Lenny…” I croak. Exhaustion is overcoming me. My muscles feel drained of energy, and my eyelids are beginning to flicker shut.

Declan looks at me with confusion written on his face.

“The keys…”

Declan retrieves the handcuff keys from Lenny’s belt, and quickly unlocks my wrists. I hear a moan, but I ignore it.

I shouldn’t have –

“She’s mine!” Lenny roars. My head jerks to the side and sees Lenny charging towards Declan.

“No, no …” I moan. I have gotten this close. I cannot let salvation slip through my fingers: not now.

So I don’t. My hands scrabble for the gun Declan left by my side. I hope like hell the safety is off, because I don’t have the first clue of what to do if it isn’t. I push myself up, ignoring the bite of cold air on my back as I do, and lift the heavy weapon up with trembling hands.

“Declan!” I shout with a hoarse throat, “duck.”

The gun barks twice, and Lenny’s chest explodes. He looks at me with dark, hateful, accusing eyes while a patch of red spreads across his chest.

The whole world goes silent. I feel like I’m viewing it from behind a sheet of inch-thick glass, not living it. Lenny slumps to his knees in slow motion, and Declan rises slowly. He looks horrified.

“Puss…”