Page 18 of Stained In Sin (The Twisted Trilogy #1)

D & E

Evelyn

The door opens, and I jump. I can barely stay awake anymore. I feel like I am drifting away to nothing, and I may be going insane. White walls and no food will do that to you. You’re still alive. Keep fighting.

I don’t even look towards the door. I know my fate.

I’m going to be raped by a scummy man and then killed by the man that broke me—a truly happy ending to my shit show of a life.

Everything was perfect until I got adventurous.

I just wanted to feel alive. To live life on the edge.

Now, I don’t want to live at all. Yes, you do.

I hear footsteps grow closer as I shudder in fear.

A pair of gloved hands reach behind me, but his shoes are different. It’s not the black combat boots I was haunted by last time. They look like dress shoes, but I’m so out of it I could be hallucinating either from lack of sleep or the drugs that were pumping through my system.

I hear the shackles hit the floor, making me jump, and I am scooped up from the floor. I have no fight left in me. I look up, knowing my fate, but I freeze when I see who is carrying me. Lucien.

Feeling exposed, I try to cover my chest, but my arms fail me.

I try to cro ss my legs, but I can’t move them either.

They are numb from the position I was left in.

My body aches badly from being chained to the wall for so many hours, and I smell of piss.

The smell doesn’t bother me anymore. I don’t think anything would.

Lucien carries me out of the room and down a dark hallway. I can’t even hold my head up any longer. I can’t tell if I’ve been saved or if he is in on this sick twisted shit. He could have been the one to set it all up if he didn’t want me taking up Dante’s time.

He opens up a steel door to a room. Great, he’s come to torture me.

He sets me in a chair and throws a sheet in my direction.

I don’t catch it. I can barely move. There is no point in fighting anymore, either.

I think I’ve been here for several days, but I’m not sure.

He approaches me and helps to cover me. I look around the room, adjusting to the darker light.

I see three men strapped down to chairs in the center of the room.

Panic grips my chest. I still have tape over my mouth and a cloth gag shoved inside my mouth. Breathe.

The men all have burlap sacks over their heads, and they are stripped completely naked. I am scared of what Lucien is going to make me do for them.

The room is filled with muffled grunts and sobs. I know they are gagged beneath the sacks. They can’t say anything. Neither can I.

I hear the door open once more, creaking loudly, my body twitches in response.

I’m sitting in my chair, trembling, when Dante enters the room. His jaw is sharp and hard, his eyes black. He looks like a killer at this moment. I’ve never felt more afraid of him. My body stiffens as he walks closer to the men in the center of the room.

“Some people think they can take what doesn’t belong to them.” He rips off the man in the center’s burlap sack. It’s Tristan. He sits still in the chair, glaring at Dante.

“Some people think they can drug what doesn’t belong to them.” He rips off the burlap sack from the man to the right. It’s the bartender from the club. Goes to show how fucking observant I am.

“Some people are in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He rips off the remaining man’s burlap sack. I don’t recognize him.

They all stare directly at me with anger. They want to kill you. Their veins bulge from their necks, and sweat glistens on their bodies. I close my eyes, not wanting to watch what happens next.

“Ms. Blackwell,” he says, my name firmly. I press my eyes shut as hard as I can.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” He yells at me with aggression in his hoarse voice.

I look up, my eyes swelling with tears.

“Did he touch you?” He stares into my eyes, his eyes like daggers.

I shrug my shoulders. It’s the truth. I don’t know what he did to me.

“Did he undress you?”

I nod my head slowly. Sobbing even more than I was before.

He pulls out a blade and glides the dull side over Tristan’s neck, enticing a panic response from the cold metal.

“I think you know what happens when we touch something that isn’t ours.”

He walks around to the front of Tristan.

He pinches the skin of his hand and slices a piece off, throwing it on the floor in between them.

Tristan is shaking uncontrollably in his chair.

He has snot running down his face. I hold down the bile that creeps back up my throat.

My stomach turns from the sounds escaping behind his gag. He deserves this.

“I’m going to skin you alive for that. Then I’m going to leave you here to bleed out until you die.”

I feel fear crawl up my spine as he walks over to the bartender. I want to look away, but it’s like a car accident. You know you shouldn’t look, but you always do.

“You’re a piece of shit.” He spits in the bartender’s face. He then removes the gag from his mouth.

“P-please. I was just told to slip her the drugs. I didn’t know she belonged to you. I swear I didn’t know.” He speaks through his sob.

“Save it,” Dante says while he takes the knife and cuts the corners of the man’s mouth.

Leaving him unable to speak correctly. Blood starts pooling and dripping down onto his chest. The sobbing grows louder.

I squeeze my eyes shut and cover my ears, unable to take the gruesome acts. If he hurts them, he can hurt you.

“LOOK AT ME, EVELYN!”

I open my eyes. I can barely see through the tears that continue to pour out of me. I shake my head slowly. I can’t look at him. He’s a fucking murderer.

“Let me ask you something, Evelyn. Do you care about these men?”

I shake my head no quickly, not wanting to end up being next on his hit list.

“Did these men touch you or hurt you?”

I nod my head slowly, trembling as I wrap my hands around myself. The cold room is making me shiver.

“Then they deserve nothing less than death. You need to see what happens when someone touches what’s mine, princess.”

He walks over to the last man, and he stares at him. I don’t dare take my eyes off Dante. He moves with ease, as if he has done this a million times before. He probably has.

“You know what happens when we turn a blind eye?”

The man starts shaking his head no as fast as he can.

“We lose them.” Dante proceeds to carve out the man’s eyes from his head. The man convulses in his chair. Muffled screams can be heard from all three men. The room feels like Hell, and Dante is the Devil. I continue to shake, sobbing beneath my gag, wondering how the Hell I ended up here.

“I think I have a better plan for all of you.”

“I am going to remove all of your skin. Piece by Piece. Then I am going to bring in the dogs.”

“Don’t worry. They like to take their time when they eat,” he flashes an evil smile at Lucien, who nods back, approving of his decision.

* * *

Dante

My little princess didn’t know how cruel I could be until now.

I glance over at her occasionally as I continue skinning these men alive.

Pathetic. They didn’t have but three security guards, all of whom took one shot to kill.

I could have let them suffer, but I needed to ensure she was safe.

Lucien always supports my decisions because he knows if he doesn’t, I’ll do the same to him.

I watch her as she tries to hold back vomit. She is still trembling. I didn’t want her to have to watch this entire process, but I think it’s the only way to make my point clear. I own her. She is mine, now and forever. If anyone touches her, they will suffer the same fate at my hand.

I don’t think she feels bad for the assholes I killed. I think she has a weak stomach when it comes to violent acts, which surprises me. She reads enough thriller books, so I thought she might be curious about what those murders look like in real life.

The life I live is dangerous, but not for me, just for anyone who gets in my way.

* * *

Evely n

It feels like an eternity that I’ve been sitting here watching him slowly remove their skin.

The need to vomit has worn off. I feel numb to it.

You aren’t numb. You understand him. He cares about you.

I have been watching how he does it. He doesn’t cut deep.

He removes the smaller, top layer, and my best guess is that it is to keep them from bleeding out and dying too quickly.

I watch him carve and throw, and carve and throw, until there is nothing left.

I will never be able to get the screams out of my head.

They will haunt me day and night. I fear that many things will haunt me about this.

The darkness that surrounded me in the room.

The helpless feeling. The thought of dying.

It felt appealing at one point. I think that if I had any say in it, I would erase the last month and start fresh.

No, you wouldn’t. He makes you feel alive.

I would have never engaged with Dante, but it seems as if now, it’s too late.

The damage is done. He will kill for me. He proved that much at least.

He steps over to the sink and cleans his hands.

He wasn’t wearing gloves. He takes the blade of his knife and runs it under the faucet.

I watch the water slowly turn clear, washing away the sin.

He puts the blade away and approaches me.

He rips the tape from my mouth. It comes off easily from all of the spit and tears behind it.

I can’t cry. I don’t feel anything. He scoops me out of the chair, and my body settles against his muscular chest. He carries me out of the room.

I still don’t know where I am, and unfortunately, I’m in too much shock to pay attention to my surroundings.

The next thing I recognize is his car. He slides me into the passenger seat and buckles me in.

I slowly drift off into sleep, feeling like no one could hurt me anymore. The Devil will kill them if they try.

* * *

Dant e

I pull up to my house and park inside the garage. She passed out about fifteen minutes into the drive. They had taken her two hours outside of town. I know the place well, considering the Cross’s work for my family. Or at least did.

I would have tracked her location, but the signal stopped at the bar. I recovered all of her belongings in the storage room at the facility. Tristan didn’t rape her. I know he didn’t.

The bastard would have made sure I was there to watch. That or he would have filmed it. Sick prick. She’s lucky I got there when I did. Otherwise, this could have had a much different ending.

I get out of the car and retrieve her from the passenger side.

She looks like she’s been beaten to Hell.

It makes me fucking livid. Four fucking days.

Lucien didn’t call me because he knew I would leave the job immediately.

He thought he would be able to figure it out himself, but that’s where he was wrong.

I am the one who tracks people down. I am the hunter.

He focuses on logistics and planning. He had no fucking right to withhold that information from me.

I carry her inside the house and bring her to the master bedroom.

She slowly opens her eyes and stares blankly at me.

I plant a kiss on her forehead. Even though I want way more than that right now.

I have to wait. She’s in a fragile state right now.

As much as I want to ruin her, it’ll have to wait until she is whole first. I want to be the only thing she is thinking about when I do that.

“You saved me.” She whispers.

Instead of answering her, I lay her on the bed as I start a bath to wash away her pain.