Page 27 of Vow of Vengeance (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #2)

The bolt cracks easily under the pressure of the cutters.

It's ironic, really, that he left those bolt cutters in plain sight.

She could have done that at any point, cracked into his little secret and seen what he was keeping from her.

But of course, he never had to worry about that.

He conditioned her, groomed her, had her so turned around that the thought of snooping never even occurred to her.

She didn't question any of their life together, and now she's beating herself up for it.

She still doesn't realize that it's because she was abused in one way or another, gaslit and manipulated into silence and complacency.

The attic room is wide but short. I have to stoop to avoid hitting my head on the rafters.

I don't know what I expected. A bed, maybe handcuffs and chains. Maybe a body, skeletonized.

Instead, there's only a desk with an ancient-looking computer atop it, a widescreen monitor, and a stack of shiny silver CDs waiting to be put to use.

For a moment, it looks like I've stepped back in time through some sort of time warp. Burnt CDs? There's no way that all he was hiding from Soren up here was a secret penchant for digital piracy. And who the fuck even listens to CDs anymore? New cars don't even have players inside of them anymore.

I turn, looking for anything more. The only other thing in the room is a flat screen TV on a big dresser and tucked beneath it in the front... a DVD player.

Not CDs.

DVDS.

I can guess what they're of. More of their torture, no doubt, set up so he can relive his greatest hits and get off on them all over again as he watches from the armchair. Vin was a sick fuck.

But why go to the bother of putting them on DVD instead of just watching them from the computer?

It would be ten times easier to just plug an HDMI cord to a laptop and review them that way.

And I know the files are digital, somewhere in the cloud.

If they weren't, I'd never have been able to find the images of him in the first place.

Because whatever is on those DVDs he wanted to keep off of the internet.

I don't know why, given that everything else was up there, freely available to the person who looked hard enough... me.

A glance down the stairs assures me Soren's still busy somewhere else, so I choose a DVD at random from the album set next to the TV.

They're marked with an arbitrary code, a series of numbers and then two letters.

It doesn't mean anything to me, and certainly not enough to try and crack his cypher, so I pick the first one my fingers land on and press the eject icon on the player.

When nothing happens, I assume it means I just have to put the disc up to the entrance and wait for it to do its thing, which is exactly what I do.

When I grab the remote, the TV turns on to the right input and I thank fuck I don't have to mess with it.

It is, exactly as I suspected, a home recording. But unlike all the others, the quality is less pristine, more fuzzy.

Also unlike the others, this one takes place in a bedroom.

There's a fluffy looking bed, neatly made in the frame of the camera, and I watch for a moment, waiting for something to happen as discomfort tickles the back of my neck. There's something about this video that's different than the others...

I realize it half a second before he walks into the frame with the woman slung over his shoulder.

I laid on that very bed, held that woman in it, told her I wouldn't fuck her until every trace of her husband had been driven from her mind.

It's his own fucking bedroom, and his own fucking wife. And given the way she drops where he throws her on the mattress and doesn't move, it's clear she's out of it.

Fuck.

Did Vincent drug his own fucking wife so that he could film them together?

Part of me knows I should turn this off.

I don't need to see what's about to happen.

I don't need to see my little bird so vulnerable, taken advantage of when she was entirely helpless to combat him.

And to be fair, we haven't discussed whether they had any kinks.

Maybe she was into it. Maybe she gave him the greenlight to try.

But I don't think so.

Vin walks out of the view of the camera, and I can hear rustling, movement, and... voices.

I can't make out what they're saying. The speaker that recorded this was muffled, but I can tell by the cadence that there are two voices there. Two male voices.

I grit my jaw as he walks back into the frame, shirtless this time, boxers slung low on his hips.

Except, it's not Vincent.

There's a tattoo on the back of his arm... a tattoo I've seen before.

The fucking dove.

But it's not Wes. My former college room-mate who brought me into the abyss of the human sex trade, is lighter-skinned than the man on video. So is Vin.

He shoves his boxers down his muscular legs and shows his ass to the camera a moment before climbing onto the bed, his thighs straddling Soren's unconscious body. From this angle, all I can see is the back of him as he leans down, but as his hands move, it's clear what he's doing. Undressing her.

My heart may have disappeared into another realm entirely, cause I can't even feel it beating anymore as I watch, waiting to see how far it will go.

Surely, Vin wouldn't drug his own wife so that just anybody could take advantage of her.

He was a fucking monster, but that's a special kind of sinister.

That's a level of heinous my mind won't even comprehend.

And yet, it's exactly what happens. I watch the man manipulate Soren's unconscious body, catching occasional glimpses of her arms or legs as he puts everything where he wants them.

He's going to fucking rape her.

My everything.

My fucking world, and this stranger is just going to violate her. Victimize her.

Where the fuck is Vin and why is he allowing this to go on?

The man is large, bulky and athletic. He's going to snap her in two if he's not gentle... and something tells me he isn't gentle as I watch his back straighten, shoulders arching back as he forces his way inside of her.

Rage floods my veins, as he hikes her leg higher and grunts in satisfaction. I don't linger to watch him fuck her.

Instead, I look at the album, positively stuffed with these discs, and select another from near the back.

The camera set up is a bit different, offering me a better view of Soren unconscious on the bed before the man comes into the video.

There's no tattoo on this one, and he's scrawnier, but still vile.

I watch him flip her body onto her stomach, chuckling when he has to turn her head so it's not pressed into the covers.

It allows me to see her face. Her gorgeous face, so completely blank, devoid of emotion because she's drugged to hell and back.

She has zero idea of what's going on, and thank fucking god for that because I hear the creep say he prefers the snug fit of an ass, moments before he lifts her hips.

Her small body is practically dead as he folds her in half, and it lurches forward as he eases in. I hear something about lube, and I assume it's Vin offering it to him. "It'll be easier once she starts bleeding. She'll open for me. I can't be the first one who's taken her ass?"

I've never wanted to murder anyone so badly as I do right now.

I don't even know who I'd try to kill, given that Vin is dead.

I suppose I could run this fucker's face through my software and hunt him down.

I have no idea how to get away with murder, but I bet I can do it if I find the right people.

I've already got the police in my pocket.

I'm considering how I'm going to kill this fucking piece of shit when he grunts and collapses against her like a true fucking minute man. Pathetic, but I'm grateful. I'm grateful it didn't last long, that out of all the abuse that must take place in this album, that one was brief.

I don't reach for another disc. I'm actually about to pop it out when the camera shifts and the formerly black screen blooms to life with a new video. It's no longer set up stationary- someone's holding it, panning it over Soren's gorgeous naked body.

She's still passed out, on her back and spread eagle, posed for the camera to view all of her intimate angles. And then it pans quickly to the man stepping toward her, his face, the anxiety clearly written there.

"She's out out, right? No chance she'll wake?"

"I've done this hundreds of times. She's not waking up anytime soon, and certainly not when you've got your dick in her."

The man who's clearly there to rape her looks like he's having second thoughts, but his eyes traipse over her longingly, and it's clear. No matter how wrong he knows it is, he won't be stopping before he has his fun.

"Go on," Vin chuckles. "Fuck her. I know you've always wanted to. She can't stop you. And she'll never have to know."

His tongue darts out over his lips and he glances at the camera, at the man holding it, like he's seeking permission. He must get it, because he grips her thigh and drops onto the bed, still wearing his boxers. I watch him bury his face in her pussy and hear Vin laugh.

"You paid me five hundred bucks just to eat out my wife? Fuck, Khan, I'd have let you do it for free. Ren wouldn't have, though."

I freeze, my mind trying to grapple with what I've just heard. Surely it was a misunderstanding. I heard it wrong.

The man's nose is buried between her thighs, which he spreads to grant himself deeper access to her. It impedes his grunted response as Vin pans the camera in close on the side of the man's face.

I don't want to watch this, but I stare, transfixed, waiting for a close-up, proof to reinforce the belief that's taking shape in my mind, the realization.

And it comes when he finally lets her free with a smacking sound and turns to the camera, his chin and lips shining with her juices and his spit.

"How's my wife taste, buddy?"

"Delicious." Khan smirks. "And like she'll never fucking know about this, right?"

I can see the determination in his eyes, the lust that's overtaken his own sense of morality.

"Fuck no." Vin laughs. "You think I'd tell her I drugged her and let her best friend fuck her for money? Not a fucking chance. She'd leave me if she knew. This is just our secret. She's always wanted us to bond, right?"

"Right." Khan nods.

And then he reaches into his boxers and grips his dick. He forces it into her swiftly, thanks to his prep work.

I'm waiting for him to decide this is fucked.

I'm waiting for him to decide he can't do this.

But I decide it first.

I can't watch two of the people she trusted more than anyone violate her so fucking thoroughly.

Khan raped her. His best friend.

I hold down the fast forward button, watching him switch positions, switch her position, pulling out and then dipping back in.

It lasts an impossible amount of time. He's either got the restraint of a saint unable to keep himself from coming so soon, or he took something to help him last. The thought makes my stomach twist.

When he finally begins to thrust into her at a pace I can tell is a point of no return, I let off the forward... just in time to see him collapse over top of her, sweaty and exhausted, laughing.

Fucking laughing .

He lifts his head first, staying buried inside her, and appraises her face, like he's just making sure she's still entirely out of it. He must get the confirmation he needs, because he leans down and kisses her.

He kisses her like she's his. Like he's in love. Like they just shared something special and cosmic, like what he did is anything less than the vile fucking thing that it was.

The need to kill is still burning through my veins, stronger than ever. At least one good thing came from watching the video.

I just found my victim.

I’m putting the disc away, trying to decide where to hide this shit until I can come back and destroy every trace of its existence, when I hear the crash.

My blood runs cold, but not as cold as it does when I hear her scream.