Page 19

19

DORIN

“I have a job for you,” one of the guards says, catching up with me as I walk down the hall, on my way to go upstairs and feed Rex dinner.

“I have somewhere else to be.”

“You’ll want this one.”

“I’m sure I don’t.”

“It’s a full tooth-pulling job.”

“That’s Dax’s job,” I say and walk on.

Mikhail stirred up a shitstorm when Dax recently passed a full teeth extraction over to me.

Every now and then, I’ll indulge myself and let the sadist within me loose, even knowing Mikhail will have a fit, but I’m not stupid; if I do it too often, the damage I cause will outweigh my value, and I’ll be out of here.

“Not this one,” the guard counters.

“The buyer wants to see it done. Without anesthetic.”

I halt at this.

“Are you for real?”

“Yes, the buyer is here and wants it done now.”

A smile tugs at my lips.

I did enjoy pulling out all that girl’s teeth.

I could use another job like that.

It won’t take more than an hour, and Rex won’t die from getting dinner a little later than usual.

Neither will my little songbird.

“Where?” I ask.

“Upstairs. In the trainer’s lounge area.”

I frown at this.

No one ever brings girls upstairs—especially not that part of the building.

“Why not the auction room?”

“The buyer doesn’t like the basement. He prefers the view from that room.”

I scoff.

I’ve heard a lot of snobbery from buyers, but no one has ever complained about the fancy state of the auction room.

Chandeliers, expensive carpets, and priceless paintings.

You name it.

Mikhail has gotten it all to satisfy those rich fuckers and drive the price on the girls up.

But I don’t think more about it.

Many of those rich snobs have very specific requirements, and even though I haven’t heard this one before, it’s not that strange.

So I follow the guard upstairs and through the corridors, past all the trainer’s rooms—those who don’t get a private wing like Dax, Mikhail, and me—and into the living room.

In the middle of the room, a girl is bound to a chair, and some sleek idiot is lounging on the couch, nursing a glass of scotch while waiting for the show to begin.

A single set of pliers is already laid out on the shiny mahogany table beside the girl—all I need.

I go to the girl and stand behind her, grabbing the pliers.

“All teeth?” I ask, glancing at the buyer.

“Every one of them,” he confirms with a smirk that widens his mouth into a big grin but doesn’t quite conceal the nervousness in his wide eyes.

“You know, I saw this thing the other day, on the dark web,” he starts as I force the girl’s jaw open and close the pliers around the first tooth.

Her scream drowns out his words, but he’s still talking as I drop the tooth in the golden bowl on the table and the screaming turns to hyperventilation.

His blabbering is ruining the kick I usually get out of these things.

While waiting for the girl to calm somewhat, not wanting to ruin it even more by her passing out, I try to tune out his ridiculous bragging.

Something about a woman being tortured and him having paid to have her beaten up and something about him having shot a dog.

He talks like he’s a big deal with big balls, having seen all kinds of shit.

Glancing at him, I see that half of it is lies—at least the big-balls part of it.

He winces as I once again grab a tooth with the pliers and start pulling, and his face grows paler with every minute as I pull out the next three teeth.

Something’s off about this.

Needing to find out what, I try to get him to say something that might give me a few clues.

“How did you find this place?” I ask.

“Through the dark web.”

I cast him a sideways glance.

There’s no way he found this place online.

This place is well hidden, and every person who knows about it also knows not to mention anything online if they want to stay alive.

Even if that wasn’t the case, his tapping foot gives him away.

I don’t have to be Mikhail to tell that shit.

This guy is transparent as fuck.

“How did you really find it?”

“I told you, the dark web,” he says, this time adding a nervous chuckle.

I shake my head.

Even the dumbest idiot guard we have here could tell this guy is lying.

Tightening my grip on the girl's head, I grip another tooth and yank hard. Deepening my voice, I hold up the pliers with her tooth as I watch him. “How did you find this place?”

His face turns pale as a ghost as he stares from the tooth to my face, eyes blinking repeatedly. “Are you deaf?” he finally says, trying to act all tough.

With a sigh, I drop the tooth into the bowl and cross the room. The guy tries and fails to remain fully upright as I approach him. Grabbing his jaw, I apply enough pressure that his mouth pops open. Before he knows what’s hit him, I have the pliers deep in his mouth, grabbing one of his molars.

“How. Did. You. Find. This. Place.”

“Aaa iin,” he squeals, squirming on the couch and flailing his hands. The tumbler drops to the floor and shatters around my boots as I give a little pull. He squeals like a pig, almost as loud as the girl. What a pussy. I barely jostled the tooth.

Removing the pliers, I try one final time. “Where?”

“My friend,” he gushes. “He-he told me he knew this place wh-where they do all kinds of crazy shit to women. He had gotten this deal. Some guy named Jan. He couldn’t come here himself so soon, so he offered me the deal. If he would…”

I don’t stay to hear what kind of deal his friend made. I’m bolting the moment I hear Jan’s name fall over his lips. That little shithead; I should have killed him . I run as fast as I can, through the castle, down the basement stairs, and through the halls, until I reach cell one. It seems to take forever for the scanner to register my finger, and I’m sweating and panting as I shove the door open and barge into her cell, ready to kill. But no one’s there. It’s empty.

For a second, I just stand there, flitting my eyes across the room as if I could find her in one of the crevices of the padded walls.

Then I’m running again. Down the hall, barking at the first guard I see. “Where’s Jan?”

“No idea.”

“Fucking find him.”

I rip the door open to the first whipping room in the next corridor. Empty. I try the next door to find a guy fucking a tied-up girl.

“Find Jan,” I demand and rush on. I open every door in the corridor and bark orders at two more guards before I reach the next hall. Then I open all the cell doors there, but all I find are cowering or screaming girls. My songbird and Jan are nowhere to be found. I’m halfway through the cells in the third corridor when I remember the unused rooms in the derelict halls.

My boots pound against the ground as I run there, my heart beating even harder. My vision blurs with a potent mix of rage and terror as I rip the first door open with a force that has the old door falling half off its hinges. I nearly slam my fist into it when I find the cell empty, but a scream stops me. I halt and listen, not wanting to waste a second more on empty rooms.

There it is again, pained and hers. I can recognize her voice anytime, anywhere. It’s coming from across the hall. A few cells down. I bolt in that direction and rip a new door open. And there, in the old, dingy room, I see the worst thing I’ve witnessed in all of my brutal life.

My sweet songbird, bruised and bound, face drawn tight in agony. Angry red stripes cover her thighs, her breasts, and what little of her ass I can see. Blue bruises are already forming around them, and blood trickles down her milky white skin in several places.

But the marks don’t even compare to the horror of the situation I’ve walked in on. The caning is already over, the instrument discarded on the floor.And Jan is deep inside her ass, fucking her. Taking what belongs to me.

Time slows to an agonizing slow motion as the fucker turns his head and says with a wide grin, “She’s so deliciously tight. It’s a shame you didn’t get to break in the whore yourself.”

Tunnel vision narrows my focus, anger reddening my sight.

I cross the room, grab his neck, and snap it.

It happens so quickly the shock barely registers on his face before he’s dead.

His cock falls out of her as he drops to the ground.

She has gone silent, swaying in the ropes, eyes staring straight ahead as if she were dead. For a moment, I almost think she is.

“Lavinia,” I demand, grabbing her face. “Look at me. It’s me, Dorin. You’re safe now.”

She blinks but doesn’t focus on me.

It’s reassurance enough. I need to get her down, then I can get her back to me.

I grab the switchblade in my pocket and slice through the ropes keeping her restrained to the ceiling hook, cursing at the sight of blood lacing the rough material that is wound way too tight around her wrists. With a hand around her waist, I catch her weight as she collapses, limp and boneless, devoid of hope.

Carefully, I lower her to the floor and cut the ropes from her wrists and legs. Then I hurriedly move to sit beside her and stroke the blonde tresses from her sweat-streaked face.

“Please do that to...” Her words fade into a murmur I can’t discern.

Leaning down, I place my ear close to her mouth. “Say that again.”

She clears her throat and says in a raspy voice, “Will you please do that to me too?”

Leaning back, I watch her with a frown. “What, my pretty songbird? What do you need me to do?”

“Snap my neck,” she says with more power, coughing as the effort strains her tired throat.

I almost ask her to repeat the words, not wanting to believe what I just heard. But the words were loud and clear. There’s no doubt she said what I think she did. I shouldn’t be surprised after the way I initially found her, but still, everything inside me crumbles. I glance behind her, at the dead man sprawled on the floor, his limp dick sticking out of his pants. Anger swells, and I wish I could breathe life into him so I could kill him again—in a much more painful way.

“No,” I say in a firm voice.

She reaches out for me, her small hand trembling as she tries to grab onto my jeans. “Please, Dorin, I—”

“No,” I cut her off and push up, away from her. The anger keeps coiling, twisting, and turning, expanding and breathing fury into my muscles. I want to snap her neck just for asking that. I’m afraid I’ll actually do it if I stay and she repeats those words. So I leave. I walk out of the room, slam the door, and pace halfway down the derelict corridor as if the door isn’t enough to block the sound of her frail voice.

Rubbing my hand against my scalp, I stare down the empty hall, listening to the empty silence.

People always say the silence comes before the storm, but no one talks about the silence that comes after the storm. The gut-wrenching grief and the lonely anger that threatens to dredge up new whirlwinds and crackling thunder. It keeps building, simmering, and churning, quiet and deadly.

I clench and unclench my hand at my side until something within me snaps. Spinning on my heel, I raise my fist and slam it into the nearest door. My blood buzzes with the need to go find a motherfucker to take my rage out on. Maybe the arrogant prick upstairs. Or Mikhail for not letting me kill Jan in the first place.

I stare from the gaping hole in the thick wooden door to my bleeding knuckles, then down the hall from where I came. Suddenly, I don’t want to hit something or someone. I want to hold. Her.

As I trudge back, the livid energy dissipates. In its stead comes a heavy defeat that settles upon my back like a hundred-ton boulder. Suddenly, I feel tired to the bone. I just want to lie down and take my little songbird in my arms, kiss away her pain, and rock us both to sleep.

But as I enter the room, a new burst of adrenaline shoots through me.

My quiet songbird, who was deadly still when I left her, is now banging the back of her head against the unforgiving stone floor.

“Stop!” I bark, rushing to her and shoving my hand under her head to block the impact. The force of her movement is startling. If my knuckles weren’t already bloody, they would be now.

Lifting her head again, she angles it away from my hand and slams it down again, aiming for the hard ground.

“No, no, no, what are you doing?” I say with horror as I move my hand in to soften the blow. With my other hand on her forehead, I block her head from moving as she tries to lift it again.

Tears gather in her unfocused eyes. “Just let me die,” she says in a broken voice so full of sorrow and defeat that it burns my heart.

“No,” I say with a force that gives rise to a surge of anger in her.

Throwing her hands up, she shoves at my arm and starts writhing. When she can’t get her head free, she starts clawing at her own skin, drawing new bloody trails across her stomach.

“Stop it,” I demand, moving my hand out from under her head to grab her hands. As I restrain her arms, she starts kicking and scraping her feet against the rough ground instead. “Stop!” I demand as I climb on top of her, but she keeps going, hurting herself as much as she possibly can.

This girl truly wants to die. The merciful thing to do would be to snap her neck. But I don’t do merciful. I’m selfish and ruthless. So I flip her onto her stomach, crawl on top of her, and trap her arms under her as I lower my weight onto her. With my feet pressed to her legs, I stop her kicking, and with an arm banded around her chest and a hand under her forehead, I block her head from moving.

She gives a few more jerks, but I have her fully immobilized, and soon, her fight drains, and grief overcomes her. Hollow sobs rack through her, making her shake beneath me, and tears trickle down her cheeks, dripping onto the stony floor.

“I’ve got you,” I reassure, kissing the wet trails and rocking her as much as I can in the awkward position. “Jan can’t harm you anymore. He’s dead.”

My words only seem to spur her grief. Her sobs grow more anguished, her breathing more labored.

“Just kill me,” she repeats in a voice devoid of hope. “Please”—she shudders as she tries to inhale—“kill me.”

“No.” I glance to the side to see a bundle of ropes on the floor. It’s only a few feet away. If I can just get her arms and legs tied, I can get her back to her cell safely. But as I try to reach for it, she somehow wrests her arm free and starts clawing at her skin again. If only she would scratch at me instead, I wouldn’t care, but seeing her hurt herself like this has me perplexed, furious, and feeling helpless in a way I never have before.

“Stop!” I yell and grab her tightly again, realizing I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. But I need to get her back to her cell—under thick blankets on a soft surface. Her skin is cold, and the floor must be scraping her skin each time she jerks against me. So when I hear footfalls in the distance, I roar for whoever it is to come down here.

“Get me a tranquilizer. Now!” I add as a guard appears at the door.

The guard rushes off, and within two minutes, he returns, handing me a syringe. Wasting no time, I bite the plastic cap off and jab the syringe into her neck. The few seconds it takes for the sedative to kick in are too long. Any amount of time seeing my songbird in such agony is too long.

“That’s it,” I croon into her ear as she goes slack beneath me.

“Please kill me,” she whispers one more time before the drug drags her down.

Carefully, I lift her to sit, supporting her listless body against me as I check the back of her head. An angry wound has me clenching my teeth. I’ll need to make a stop at Dax’s office to have him check on her before taking her back to her cell.

“Clean this up,” I order, gesturing toward Jan’s dead body. The guard is still standing in the doorway, scurrying to the side like a scared squirrel as I lift my songbird into my arms and head for the door. I pause three steps down the hall and turn. “On second thought, drag him into the main hall and let him lie there for a couple of days as a reminder of what will happen to anyone who touches my girl.”