Page 14 of Savage Captor (Deadly Devotion #1)

Grey

S he gazes at me with her green, green eyes, the color of a vibrant forest canopy, which are red rimmed and slightly swollen.

Shivers course through her body. I could offer her a blanket, but I have no particular urge to be nice to her.

Scarlett’s actions and decisions led her here, to this moment; I’m not going to save her from the consequences.

She’ll be dead soon enough, anyways, so does it really matter if she stays warm between now and then?

“You don’t have to stay.” She pauses to cough. “I’m thoroughly humiliated and tormented. If you want to make me suffer more, leave the food and go. Lifting my arms feels like a herculean task right now.”

Her resistance only makes me more determined to stay. She wants me gone? Tough shit. I want my brother back. Neither of us are going to get what we want.

I hold out a spoonful to her. She gazes down at it with a slight frown, but nevertheless, obediently parts her lips.

Good girl . The words almost slip out before I temper and berate myself; I shouldn’t have any positive sentiments for this siren. She’s not good. Not at all. She might have some impressive strength of spirit, but that doesn’t negate her deeds. It certainly doesn’t bring my brother back to life .

She eats the bite I offer her in silence, accepting the food without protest. After about half the bowl is gone, she turns her head to the side. “I’m full.”

I frown down at the bowl. “You’ll die if you don’t eat properly.”

“Isn’t that your goal?” she asks drily. “Who cares if it happens sooner rather than later?”

“I care.” The strength of my words surprise even me, and I quickly backpedal. “Your life is mine to take. I’ll kill you when it’s time. I won’t let starvation speed up the process.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ll throw up if I try to eat any more. Since this place already smells like shit, I’d rather avoid that if it’s all the same for you.”

I should leave right now. If she wants to starve, that’s her choice. But, for some reason, I’m compelled to stay. “I’ll wait.”

“Suit yourself.” Scarlett’s breathing is heavy, and every few seconds, she grimaces and coughs.

I remember my own experiences with being waterboarded; a few times were training for Nighthawks, and then there was the time when I was caught and tortured on an op.

Each time was a goddamn nightmare, and I coughed for days after.

Scarlett’s taking it better than I did, and despite myself, my admiration for her deepens.

She tilts her head to the side as she examines me. “You know, I don’t even know your name. I feel like we should be on a first-name basis at this point.”

I blink slowly, a vague curiosity unfolding in my chest. She wants to know my name. She wants to know about the man who’s tortured her. I don’t know why that strikes a chord in me, but it does.

“What does it matter?” I ask, genuinely curious. Knowing my name isn’t going to change the outcome of her fate.

“If I’m going to die here, I may as well know my killer a bit,” she says wryly. Her voice is wobbly and her lips are cracked. She gazes at me with open fear, but her fear doesn’t deter her or cripple her. She sits with it, lets it in, and looks into her killer’s eyes without flinching.

There is something remarkable about this girl.

For the first time since we met, I feel a flash of hesitance at the thought of ending her life.

Whether or not she’s her father’s spawn, she has admirable traits.

A respectable fight in her. This is a woman who’s danced with her demons and let them in.

They don’t control her—they don’t handicap her. I think they might be her pets .

Maybe…

I cut off the thought before it can manifest. She’s a lying bitch; nothing more, nothing less.

Lying bitch or not, though, she’s not a complete daddy’s girl.

She’s held her own. She’s someone with qualities that I both admire and respect…

which takes away some of my active wish to see her dead.

It doesn’t change anything; I’ll still kill her, and I won’t lose a wink of sleep over it, but I’m not looking forward to it as much as I should be.

Damnit, she’s dangerous. More dangerous than I previously assumed. I set the bowl of food on the floor in front of her and stand. “Finish up on your own.”

Her eyes brighten at the prospect of me leaving her alone, and it almost makes me want to stay—just to remind her that I don’t give a shit about her desires. Almost, but not quite. My need to get away from her before she grabs hold of me is overwhelming.

I turn and stride to the door. Once I’m out of the room, I hit the kill switch on the lights for good measure. If she’s so eager to be rid of me, she can eat fucking blind.

* * *

A week passes. I visit Scarlett every other day for two purposes; to torture her and just to stare at her.

To watch and examine her. Since she still refuses to give up the truth, I try to see if I can read any signs of deception on her face or in her body language.

There’s none that I can find, though. The only things I see when I look at her are exhaustion and deterioration.

Her face is sunken, and her previously well-fitting clothes have started to drown her.

Her thigh is red and swollen—either healing poorly or infected.

Surprisingly, though, she never complains.

She never confesses. She sleeps a lot—sometimes, she falls asleep right at the table when I leave to bring her food.

I remind her regularly that her time on this earth is coming to an end, but she doesn’t seem to care as much as she once did.

Her voice grows weaker, as do her movements.

Eventually, she has to crawl to the chair.

The torture becomes lest satisfying. Less like revenge and more like… hurting a young woman. Her vibrancy trickles out of her, one drip at a time.

Boyce summons me and Cain two more times for progress updates.

He maintains that Scarlett’s lying, and while I was inclined to believe him at first, even I begin to have my doubts.

Cain doesn’t bother to hide his doubt, but he doesn’t defy orders, either.

I know he’s planning something, and I’m starting to get the sense that Scarlett factors into his plans somehow, but he doesn’t divulge any specifics to me.

He also doesn’t take it easy during his sessions with her; by the end of Scarlett’s tenth day here, she doesn’t have any fingernails or toenails left.

No matter how weak her body gets, though, her gaze remains sharp. She’s present in mind, though not so much in body. She makes no move to hide her fear, but it never dims her spark. It only accompanies it.

On her eleventh day here, it’s my turn with her.

I know she only has a matter of days left before Boyce gives the order to kill her painfully, and I’m no longer as eager to get to the finale as I once was.

I have too much respect for her spine, for her ability to bend without breaking.

It almost seems a shame to waste her life—she would’ve made an excellent operative.

Someone who doesn’t break after ten days of intensive torture is a rare gem in our world.

That doesn’t change the fact that she led my brother to his death. It doesn’t change anything at all.

I let her eat on her own on her eleventh day.

I don’t know if it’s a reward or punishment, but at the very least, her steel has earned her the barest amount of agency.

Her movements are dull and she lists to the side in her chair, but she manages to bring the spoon of shitty porridge to her lips again and again, until the bowl’s halfway empty.

I should probably leave her to it—staying here won’t do any good for either of us—but I don’t move.

I stay in my seat across from the metal table and observe her.

“Greyson.” I don’t know why I tell her my name. She hasn’t asked since that first time, but I feel like she deserves to know who I am. The name of her killer.

She pauses with her spoon halfway to her lips.

Her fingers fumble, and the plastic spoon clinks to the ground.

Porridge splatters over the concrete floor.

She gazes down at the spoon and sighs, but doesn’t make a move to pick it up.

I don’t make any move to help, either; she doesn’t deserve my help. She’s the reason Sam is dead .

“Greyson,” she repeats, staring at the spoon instead of me. “Hmm. I think I’ll keep calling you Monster.”

I’ve heard her refer to me by that title a few times, though I wasn’t aware it was her official nickname for me. I don’t think I like it very much, but it’s a fair evaluation. I am a monster; I’m the monster who’s abused her with professional tactics and no morsel of empathy or guilt.

“As you wish.”

She smiles a little. “Princess Bride. Love that movie.” Her smile falters, possibly as she realizes that she’ll never watch that movie again. She’ll never watch any movie again—she’s not leaving this cell alive. “How much longer?” she asks me.

I don’t bother hiding my surprise. She’s asking how much longer until I kill her. Most people wouldn’t want to know, they’d want to avoid the cold truth, but not Scarlett. She faces up to the most terrifying things in this world instead of avoiding them.

“Not long,” I say vaguely. Boyce could give the order any minute now. We’re swiftly approaching the two-week mark, and Scarlett hasn’t broken, which means she probably won’t break.

She nods quietly. The gesture makes her tilt to the side, and she clutches the table to avoid falling out of her chair. Fuck , she’s weak. If she were anyone else, I’d have the urge to wrap her in a blanket and hug her tight. She looks so damn vulnerable.

I clear the thoughts from my head before they can take root. I can’t empathize with her—not with her . Not with a murderess who took my only family from me. I shouldn’t even be sitting in this room with her.