Page 15

15

ELLIE

“If you scream, I will kill you.” He smirks, tracing the tip of the knife down the side of my face and arm, skipping over the rope and coming to a stop on the back of my hand.

“What about your boss? He isn’t going to want you to kill me. You said so yourself.” I keep as still as I can, clutching the arms of the vanity chair.

He sighs, digging the tip in and leaving a little dot in the center of my skin. “I don’t give a damn anymore. I’m sure he’ll forgive me. One Lynde bitch dying isn’t enough to ruin the game. You have sisters.”

“You stay the hell away from my sisters.” I slam my head forward, catching his jaw.

My head already hurt from slamming it off the nightstand when the asshole threw me on the bed, but it’s pounding harder now. I groan and lean back, still glaring at him as his hand flies to his head.

He presses his palm against the black knit, and when he pulls it away, there is crimson staining the weathered lines of his hand. “I’m going to enjoy taking my time with them.”

I bite down on the inside of my cheek, the taste of blood filling my mouth again. It’s the only thing I can do to keep from screaming threats at him that could be heard from Long Island all the way to SoHo.

He’s a dead man when I get out of this damn rope.

I shift in the chair again, leaning forward and straining against the ropes. The rough fibers dig deeper into my skin, blood trickling down my arms.

He chuckles and wipes his bloody hand down the side of my face over the place he hit me earlier. “What is your pathetic husband going to think of my mark on you when he finds your dead body?”

“If I don’t kill you first, he will.”

Though I may not have a close relationship with Sean, I know that he is a man of the mafia at heart. He would never allow someone to kill his wife and get away with it. He would hunt them down to the ends of the earth and spend his time making them pay.

There’s comfort in the thought that even if I don’t get out of this, Sean will get to him long before he or his boss can try to hurt one of my sisters.

The man laughs and shakes his head. “It’s too bad that you’re going to have so many more brands on you before the night is through. Your husband isn’t going to be able to see you without the knowledge that you belong to another man.”

“If you’re done monologuing, do whatever the hell it is you came here to do.”

He slaps my other cheek, sticky and bloody palm connecting hard, snapping my head to the other side.

Both sides of my face ache. Tears prick the corners of my eyes but I’m not going to give this man the satisfaction of my tears, even if that’s what he’s looking for.

Aiden raised me to be stronger than that.

I press my lips together, heart galloping until it feels like my chest is going to explode.

The man slices a diagonal line on the back of my right hand. I sit up taller, holding back the hiss of pain that wants to escape.

He laughs and slices another diagonal line perpendicular to the first.

Blood pools along the lines of the X but the cuts are shallow. The pain is nothing worse than a papercut, but if this is what he plans to do all over my body, it’s going to hurt more.

Don’t feel the pain. Just take a deep breath and try to get through this.

Aiden spent time training me and my siblings with torture. He used to say that it was for our own good. That we had to be able to get through whatever an enemy was going to put us through.

This is nothing. I’ve been through worse. I’ve gone through hours of questioning and broken bones.

The man in front of me is nothing compared to some of the trainers that work for Aiden.

“You know, those cuts should heal quickly.” The man moves to my left hand, slicing the skin with the same mark. “They’re going to scab over by the end of the day, and then in a week or two, there’s going to be no sign that they were ever there.”

I grind my teeth together, taking another deep breath. The ropes loosen more the longer I hold my breath in.

He walks to the other side of the room, picking up one of the gold picture frames from the bookshelf. “You and your sisters are all quite beautiful. It’s a wonder that your brother didn’t start marrying you all off.”

He throws the picture at the ground, laughing when the glass shatters.

When he picks up the pale-mauve bowl that I keep my wedding rings in, he scoffs.

“It’s a wonder that your husband is even willing to fuck you at this point.” He dumps the rings onto the ground and kicks one, sending it flying somewhere else in the room.

Please don’t let it slip into the vents.

“Sean is going to flay you when he gets his hands on you. He’s going to take one look at the way you’ve marked up my skin and he’s going to kill you. I hope he takes his time cutting into you. He’s a real bastard when he’s pissed off.”

I take another deep breath, wriggling more in the ropes as he throws the dish against the wall.

The man smirks and sweeps his arm across one of the shelves, sending my books flying to the ground.

He rips my laptop off the desk and drops it to the ground before slamming the heel of his boot into it. The crunch fills the room, the laptop caving in on itself with the impact.

When he turns back to me, there’s a dangerous glint in his eyes. “How did you and the man who slaughtered your father end up together? My boss thinks that there’s something about the entire situation that seems off.”

“We fell in love.” I keep my tone steady and even, my attempts to get free slowing as he turns his full attention to me. “He came into the clinic one day and we got to talking, and then one thing led to another.”

The man stabs his knife into one of the paintings on the wall, dragging it through the canvas, the ripping sound making me feel sick to my stomach.

It was one of my favorite paintings and now he’s destroyed it.

There isn’t a purpose to destroying my belongings, other than upsetting me and showing Sean what he was able to do when nobody was watching over me.

I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to get a moment alone after this.

The man moves closer to me again, clicking his tongue. “I don’t fully believe that. Rumor is that Aiden is pissed you married Sean, even though the two are known to be friendly.”

“Not anymore.” I try to make it sound like I’m upset at the thought of Aiden and Sean not getting along, even though that’s exactly what I spent years wishing for when I was younger. “Aiden was keeping Sean in his back pocket, but he was never loyal to them.”

“And then?” He stops in front of me, his foot pressing down over mine. He’s not pressing hard enough to break anything, but I’m starting to lose the feeling in my foot from the compression.

At least part of me will be numb when he continues with whatever the hell this sick torture is.

“And then when he found out that we were getting married, he said that he was going to kill Sean. They got into a bad fight. I had to beg him not to kill Sean. He told me that if I married him, he wouldn’t speak to either of us again.”

The man makes a noise in the back of his throat.

I can’t tell if he believes me or not, but it’s the story that’s been told to everyone in our lives.

Even the people who were at the wedding were fed that story.

I watch him as he heads to the terrace doors, looking out over the yard.

The way his body stiffens makes me think that somebody is out there. Now would be the time to scream, but I haven’t forgotten about the gun tucked into his waistband.

He could kill me before anyone could get up here to save me.

With his attention off me, I keep writhing against the ropes, but they still don’t seem to be getting looser, even with the blood they’re starting to absorb from cutting through my skin.

He turns back to me. “They have no clue that I’m up here with you.”

“I know.”

His chuckle sends another shiver down my spine. “Your husband really must not care that much for you if he’s away in the middle of the night and doesn’t have security stationed in the house for you.”

“I don’t see why you care about Sean in the first place. You’re here for me, aren’t you?”

He shrugs, placing the edge of the knife against my throat, pushing against the vein until I start to feel lightheaded. Stars are just starting to dance across my vision when he pulls the knife away.

The man keeps his face away from me as he leans down, drawing another X on my thigh. “I think it’s interesting that you would start a fight with your brother when your family is on the verge of a war.”

He places another X on my other thigh before dragging the knife up my arm. He nicks the rope, but it’s nowhere near enough to cut through them.

When his leather-covered fingers grip my shoulder, holding me in place, bile rises in my throat.

“Who the hell do you think you’re going to save?” he asks as the knife slips beneath the thin straps of my camisole, cutting them free.

“You’re going to die for this.”

He laughs, the tip of the knife digging so deep into my shoulder that I can’t help but yelp with pain. “You’re going to be branded for the rest of your life, Ellie. These cuts aren’t going to go away like the others. You’re going to wear Noah’s initials for the rest of your damn life.”

The knife drags into my skin, carving NR into my skin.

My head spins, the stars back in my vision. I strain, trying to get away from the knife, but he keeps me there, carving the letters a second time.

The blood runs down my back, sticky and hot.

Tears roll down my cheeks as I bite down so hard against the pain that I’m sure I’m going to break a tooth.

It’s only when he steps away that I take a ragged breath, but this is a kind of pain I haven’t experienced in years.

I barely register what he’s doing as he cuts away the ropes.

He takes my chin in his hand. “Tell your husband that Noah is going to kill him too.”

The man leaves as I slump from the chair to the floor. The pain in my shoulder feels like fire coursing through my body as I drag myself to the bathroom.

As I slump against the cool tub, reaching for a towel to dab at the blood, I know that there is no point in trying to find my phone to call Sean.

I’m on my own in this house and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I have to be the one to save myself.