Page 5 of Sadist (The Triarchy Collection #1)

THEO

I t’s an odd place to be—contemplating the moral ethics of fucking your captive. Yet here I am.

You can’t develop Stockholm syndrome in three days of solitude…right? Because that was lust that I had seen written clearly across her face. Anger as well. But I’d take a little hatefucking from Octavia if it gave me the chance to get my hands on her.

I watched her sit on that little stool, her cheeks still flushed from the barely contained rage as she read the note I had rewritten for her, but my mind was fixed on the way her pupils had blown at my words. One sentence that had glitched her for a moment too long to miss.

I knew you could be a good girl for me.

How good would you be for me, Octavia? I wonder if you could take my particular brand of twisted.

O’Malley grunted in satisfaction as he played back the recording through the small screen of the camera.

“Satisfactory?” I asked, though my attention hadn’t left Octavia. She was looking at my workspace set up on the far wall, my dual monitors glowing softly with screensavers.

“It’ll do,” he replied, packing away the tripod. “I’ll have the encoded cut sent.”

I nodded, my hands clasped loosely behind my back as I waited for them both to leave. I felt Zichen’s glare on me until the door clicked closed, my skin prickling with awareness. That man was going to become an issue.

“Hungry?” I asked once we were alone.

Octavia looked at me with an amusing mix of confusion and indignation.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Go on then,” I said softly, raising a brow at her. “Beg.”

She opened her mouth and shut it again, indignation winning the war as she simply glared at me for a long moment.

“What the actual fuck? Am I…hungry?”

I shrugged, turning and strolling to the kitchen.

“I’m hungry. I assumed you would be too, considering most of your food is spread around the walls of cell three.” I contemplated my neatly organized cupboards for a moment before grabbing a couple cans of soup and eyeing her over my shoulder. She hadn’t moved. “No?”

“I don’t want your food,” she hissed. “I want out of whatever bullshit my father has gotten involved in.”

I hummed noncommittally, searching for a can opener.

“I can’t help with that one, Sweets.”

“You could let me go,” she said, her tone changing.

I glanced at her with a raised brow as I dumped the congealed mess of soup into a pot.

“Could I?”

“Yes.” She got up from her stool, eyeing me with more than a little calculation as she crossed the space between us.

Leaning against the counter, I folded my arms and waited.

“You’re not like them,” she said, her eyes searching mine for what I assumed was any sign of leniency.

“You wouldn’t let them hurt me. Let me go—you know this is wrong, Theo.

I never wanted to be caught up in his drama.

I won’t say anything…or even let William know I have escaped.

You can do whatever you need to do with him, and I will just disappear… ”

I let the silence stretch between us, chewing my lip as I eyed her.

“Please,” she murmured, those pretty eyes of hers widening a touch. “I’ll be so good. No one will know. I’ll leave the country today.”

Oh yes, she would beg beautifully given the chance.

“Octavia…I can’t. Even if I wanted to.”

“Yes, you can,” she pushed, reaching to rest a hand on my arm. “Just leave and don’t lock the door.”

“And tell my employer I let you slip through my fingers?” I countered.

“No one has to know,” she pushed. “You could tell them I couldn’t take the stress, and I ended myself…You got rid of my body.”

I let my gaze rest on that warm touch for a moment.

The heat of it slowly seeped into my skin and I forced myself not to drop my arms, though it was an effort.

The intimacy of touch was something I was never comfortable with, even when it was being inflicted on me by something as pretty as her.

“I think Daddy Vanguard would guess very quickly we no longer had you in our possession,” I said quietly.

She scoffed. “He won’t know.”

“No?” I studied her face.

“N—” She cut off suddenly, her gaze sharpening as her hand fell away from my arm.

I gave her a slow smile.

“It’s not that he doesn’t believe the validity of your capture, is it, Sweets?” I asked softly.

Her lips pressed into a thin line.

“What is it?” I pushed. “Your mother wanted her inroad to the Vanguard fortune? A little security deposit in the form of an oopsie baby? Does daddy not love you like he should, Octavia?”

“Oh, get fucked,” she hissed.

“Are you offering?” I let my gaze run appreciatively down her body as the soup began to bubble behind me, ignored.

“Are you psychotic?”

“Sadistic,” I offered. “Want to find out how?”

Her hand whipped out, snatching at the pot handle, and I had her wrist before she even got halfway there, squeezing hard enough to feel the delicate bones in her wrist creak under my grip. There was no reaction from her as she glared at me.

“Be nice,” I crooned. “We don’t play with our food out here. Not that kind anyway.” I tilted my head, watching the erratic thump of her pulse at her throat. “So…What is William Vanguard’s weakness if it’s not his daughter?” I mused.

Her jaw clenched at his name, ever so slightly, but it was there. As was the near-imperceptible tightening across her shoulders that I had noticed more than once now. But she stayed stubbornly silent as I reached behind myself to turn off the stovetop.

“Fortune over family,” I guessed. “I’m guessing William didn’t spoil you much as a child, then? That explains the underlying daddy issues I’m sensing.”

Not a flicker from her.

I hummed, reaching with my free hand to pick up the pot, never letting go of her wrist as I took both fuming woman and steaming soup through to the clean cell two I had prepped for her.

“What, no cuffs this time?” she spat at me as I pushed her into the simple chair by the bolted-down table in the room.

“Good behavior gets rewards,” I said simply, pushing the pot to the far end of the table as she eyed it again. I pointed to the toilet at the far side of the room. “See. It even flushes. And if you ask me nicely, you can have a pillow.”

“No, wait.” She made to jump up, and I pushed her firmly back into the seat.

“I’m going to go now.” I said. “Eat your dinner, get some sleep, and if you behave, you can have another hot shower in the morning after I have done a little more research.”

I left her gaping at me in fury, the sound of the pot clanging off the door a second after I closed it, chuckling softly to myself at the stream of truly admirable obscene language that followed.

Pulling out my phone, I flicked through the contacts as I let myself back through the doors and set about warming the other can of soup for myself. O’Malley answered with a grunt.

“Watchu’ want, Lancaster? I ain’t even started it yet.”

“I want a copy of that video uploaded to social media,” I said by way of greeting. “Send it to Vanguard as well, but don’t expect an answer.”

“You what?” O’Malley asked, sounding more confused than his usual baseline.

“Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, all of them.” I enunciated each word clearly. “The full cut. Up the contrast so the bruise on her face is visible as well. Just the file, no context. And make sure you tag Vanguard Technology and their executive team in each.”

“Don’t we want the feds out of this?”

“Not this time,” I said. “I took her myself. The pickup was clean, and there’s no risk of her being traced back. The only one who knows who is pulling the strings is Vanguard, and he will want them involved even less than we do.”

There was a long pause.

“What name do I upload it under?”

“I don’t know O’Malley,” I sighed. “Maybe Angus Lachlan O’Malley, if you feel like taking a long holiday in a concrete box? Use those last two brain cells, rub them together, and figure it out. Send me the link when it’s live.”

“Oka—”

I ended the call and flicked to the next contact. Erryn picked up on the third ring with her signature, “Loxley.”

“What connections do you have to the press?”

There was an even longer pause than O’Malley had given me.

“Why?” Her tone was as cold as ice.

I grinned as I pulled my own steaming soup off the element and took it across to my picnic table, knowing I was about to throw a fox into the organized hencoop that was Erryn Loxley.

“Because I’m sending you a link that I need to go viral.”