Текст книги "Return to Grace Street"

Автор книги: Ella Dominguez

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

15: Denial

Victor lay in bed for hours, restless and wrestling with what had happened in that dark alley. Giving up on the hope that he would get any rest, he dug out his case files and pored over every last detail, praying he would see the one thing he had missed.

He woke late on Sunday morning after having dozed off next to Elsa. When his eyes opened, she was seated next to him, fully dressed and watching him intensely. She had a look of distress on her face and the only sound in the room was her quick and shallow breathing.

He sat up and swung his legs off the edge of the bed. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Not likely with the half foot of snow outside,” an irritated snarl curled her lips.

“Like that’s my fault?” He stood and turned his face to the window to see a complete white out.

“You didn’t know a storm was coming?” she continued to glare at him.

For a moment, he wondered what kind of storm she was referring to. “No. Did you?”

“Who was that woman?” she abruptly changed the subject.

So that’s what this was about. Jealousy.

An unintentional smile curved his lips upward, visibly infuriating her. “The way you reacted with Emily and…

Her rage simmered. “So she is another chapter.”

“Elsa,” he leaned into her but she pulled away.

“Are you just tying up loose ends with her, too?” She stood and moved to other side of the room. “Picking up where you left off in the game with her? Making threats and promises to her?”

“Are you done?” he asked sternly before continuing his interrupted statement. “First of all: I didn’t invite her here. She showed up. I shouldn’t have to explain myself, but the way you acted the night of your birthday with that man and now finding out who that woman is… where the hell do you get off being jealous when you have a fiancé waiting for you at home? And where the fuck was he last night when you were being attacked?”

“My fiancé has nothing to do with this. And I’m not jealous,” she rebuked a little too vehemently. “Jealousy would imply that I care and I. Don’t. Care.”

Her mouth said one thing, but her body language and eyes said something completely different. He watched her closely, all her slight movements and breathing patterns; the way her eyes caressed his body…

She was falling for him again, despite the fact that she was engaged. Or maybe in spite of the fact. He hadn’t anticipated this little glitch in the game. On some level he had hoped for it, even if he couldn’t admit it before. But now faced with it, he became thrilled at the prospect of winning her heart again and stealing her away from that man.

“If not jealousy, then what?” He crossed his arms over his chest, daring her to try and deny what was obvious to him. Her eyes darted around the room nervously, only confirming what he had already concluded. “You’re falling for me,” he whispered, making her body stiffen.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

Swiftly, he stood and cut the distance between them, yanking her into his arms. Holding her tightly with one arm around her waist and the other hand firmly holding her jaw, he ghosted his lips against hers. “Tell me you love me.”

“Never,” she thrashed against him.

“Say it. Tell me, Goddamn it.” He needed to hear the words he had let slip out of his hands so easily before.

“I won’t…” her movements became more frantic and her breathing ragged.

“You said you would do anything I asked…” he growled against her ear when she turned her face away.

“Not that. I won’t do that.”

“You said it once before. What’s the difference?”

“I meant it then,” she panted. “And you threw it back in my face…” He had and every moment since then, he regretted it... “You’ll never hear me say it again, especially after what you had that man do to me last night!”

Her words and tone made him loosen his grip on her. “What did you say?”

Her face reddened and she backed away from him. “You heard me.”

The loud grinding of teeth cut through the silence in the room as she fought to even out her breathing. Confused by her hostility and statement, he took a step toward her.

“Is winning the game so important to you that you would plan out an attack on me just so you could save me to make me think you care?” Disgust and hurt lined her voice.

She had spoken so quietly, he almost didn’t hear her. He wished he hadn’t. She might as well have struck him. He wished she had. At least he knew how to respond to that kind of insult.

His voice rumbled like distant thunder when he answered her venomous accusation. “If you think for one fucking second that I would stoop so low as to put you in physical danger, then this game is over and I don’t give a shit who takes the title of winner.”

Her stare was cold as death and her response dripped with spite. “You did it once before. What’s the difference?” she mocked.

She was right.

Her defenses were high and seemingly impenetrable, and he was to blame. Just like Emily, his previous actions against her had made her paranoid and unable to rationalize things logically. But dropping her off at some counselor’s office to deal with the havoc he had wreaked on her life like he had done with Emily, wasn’t an option. Elsa was his responsibility and it was his job to deal with the mess he had made. He was accountable for all the lives he had fucked up, most especially Elsa’s since he had demanded she play his game again.

He stepped nearer to her, closing the space between them until he could whisper and be heard. “Tell me how I can prove to you that I would never do anything to hurt you again.”

He braced himself for the brazenness of her demand, but wasn’t prepared for her quick response.

“Tell me how you got that scar.”

16: Surrender

Elsa marched down the stairs to the living room with Victor close behind. She reached for the treasure chest of bondage equipment that now had permanent residency on the mantel, and handed it to him. He looked relieved, but bitter. She had thrown down the gauntlet. Would he accept her challenge or prove to her that Mr. Black was every bit as ruthless as she had suspected?

A little too casually, he began unclothing her, his fingers unhooking the buttons of her blouse and jeans at a painstakingly slow rate. It was obvious he was prolonging the inevitable. However, she had all the time in the world. She would even miss work the next day if she had to. The world outside had already stopped because of the crippling amount of snow and she wasn’t going anywhere.

Thrust once again into darkness, speechlessness and immobility, Elsa waited.

Sounds. Only sounds. There was nothing else to grasp onto. A current of air whistling past the window. The bark of a dog in the distance. A snow plow loudly rumbling down the street. But no words. Nothing. Only Victor’s breathing and occasional paced footsteps and a faint whiff of his cologne. The opening of the front door and coolness filling the room. The closing of the door. Silence. Minutes… The opening of the door again and frigid winter air blowing all around her and the odor of cigarette smoke.

Music. A passionate female voice was singing about salvation. Haunting lyrics… I never meant to fall for you… but I was buried underneath and all I could see was white… My Salvation… My, My…

Is this how he felt? Was this part of the game? God, she was so sick of the ceaseless, repetitive questions in her mind. She just wanted the truth from him... to trust him... She just wanted this fucking game to be over with and to be free from Mr. Black.

Her jaw began to ache and she fought the impending migraine that was jabbing at her frontal lobe. She stretched out as best she could and rolled her neck.

Warm hands on her body. A quick massage of her shoulders. A blanket around her shoulders. Manipulation of her limbs and more massaging. Victor.

An hour had passed. She knew the time because she heard the chirp of her phone in the next room reminding her to text Nick.

Another long period of time of silence interspersed with beautiful, but unfamiliar music.

More powerful lyrics… I fell in love with you long before I knew what it meant to give everything up… I was a rolling stone, rolling my way along until you came and made sense out of everything… But you couldn’t wait… I couldn’t promise you anything…

For a man who claimed to want nothing to do with love and rebuked it with every ounce of his being, why was every song he played so hopelessly romantic? It made no sense. Nothing about this situation did. When the fuck would she just stop trying to make sense of it when there was none to be made?

What little hope she had that Victor would answer question number one was dwindling fast. She wanted to believe that he had nothing to do with the attack, but the nagging voice in her brain wouldn’t let it die.

His padded footsteps were heard moving toward the kitchen, then back to her. He loosened the ball-gag and pressed a bottle of water to her lips, relieving her parched throat. She sipped slowly, enjoying the coolness of the liquid as it flowed onto her tongue and down her throat.

With the gag back in place, she leaned her head back when suddenly his fingers found the bare flesh of her pussy.

“I want you wet before I tell you what you want to know…”

His practiced fingers moved quickly, pumping in and out of her and before she knew it, her body had answered to him and she was saturated with her own arousal.

“Good girl,” he sighed as his lips moved over her breasts and up to her drool-soaked mouth. She felt his mouth near to hers but she turned her head sideways, rejecting him.

“There’s no need to be cruel, Elsa. You’ll get what you want,” he spoke in an agonized whisper.

The weight of his body was felt next to her as he sunk down onto the couch.

“Have you ever wondered what makes people tick? Like really tick? What makes them the way they are? What experiences in their lives have formed their personalities?” he chuckled humorlessly under his breath. “I guess that was a stupid question.” A heavy sigh. “I used to wonder what made my mom do the things she did; why she hated me so Goddamn much. I stopped wondering a long time ago. When she got sick. It wasn’t until then that I simply accepted her for what she was – a cruel, fucking, bitch and taskmaster.” His body jerked. “When she was dying, I took care of her because she had no one else, only me. Even in death, she still couldn’t show me one, motherfucking ounce of kindness.”

Elsa willed herself not to cry. The image of this strong, fierce man caring for his dying mother was gut wrenching. After all that she had put him through, he had still taken care of her when most people wouldn’t. Including herself. How could he be so blind as to not see the compassion within himself and the empathy that resided within his heart? Why did he insist on denying that he could be a kind man?

His voice lowered and the change happened in the blink of an eye. “After all the years I cleaned up after her and covered for her, after all the shit she put me through – not one. Single. Fucking. Measure of compassion. I was nothing but a little bitch in her eyes; her own personal slave.” The grinding of teeth and a deep growl. “Cleaning up her filth… Mopping up her vomit…Nothing but a little bitch. And you,” he gripped her chin harshly and shook her face. “You’re no better. You made me feel things for you all the while you were lying to me. You made me trust you while you were snooping around in my shit and judging me,” he poked her in the chest. “And now this bullshit. You make up some ludicrous idea in your head and make me tell you the worst memory of my life just to appease you…” His voice deepened. “Nothing but a little bitch. That’s all I am to you, isn’t it? A fucking, weak-ass bitch.”

His hand twisted in her hair at the crown of her head and he pulled hard, dragging her off the couch and making her fall to her knees.

“Now who’s the bitch, Elsa?” His voice was rough, deep, and filled with arrogant demand.

It wasn’t Victor saying those things. She knew that, but her tears came anyway, soaking the blindfold.

“That’s it….” he snarled. “Cry for me, you demanding cunt.”

What had she done? Again… she had asked too much of him. He hadn’t even told her yet and already Mr. Black had clawed his way out to make her pay for doubting Victor’s integrity and honesty.

Silence. Coldness.

Minutes passed before strong hands on her shoulders gently guided her back to the couch and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Victor. He was back. She bit hard into the gag to stifle a cry of joy. He was keeping his promises. All of them.

“My sixteenth birthday was a hot Goddamn mess, to say the least. It started out well enough,” his soft spoken voice lulled her back to a sense of security. “I had friends over. My mom was semi-sober. There were gifts. Girls. Yeah… girls. Jesus, I was such an asshole. I didn’t even know how to talk to them. All I could do was stare at them and stutter.” He cleared his throat and moved behind the couch. “I digress. She ended up drinking too much at the party and getting some of my friends drunk. I found her in my bedroom sucking off one of my classmates. He was drunk, too. What a nightmare. After I kicked everyone out, she went into a rage…”

The lifeless tone his voice had taken on was upsetting.

“She was pissed that I interrupted her fun, I guess. I don’t know. I never knew the reasons for her anger.” He swallowed a couple of times before continuing. “That was the night she told me about who my real father was. She’d always led me to believe my dad was some military hero who had died in an aerial training accident. That old bitch was a good liar. She had me believing that bullshit my whole life.”

The smell of cigarette smoke filled the room following a momentary pause. He was smoking in the house… something he never did. He was anxious. She could hear it in the sound of his breathing, even though his voice sounded robotic and stripped of emotion.

“She met my father at a bar. I mean… of course she met him at a bar. They fucked out back next to a dumpster. Go figure. Both of them pieces of trash…” he sucked hard against the cigarette and exhaled loudly. “She didn’t know his name at the time. It was just a one-time thing. It wasn’t until after he was arrested for all those murders that found out who he was. By then I was a little older so she just kept up the lie.” Inhale. Exhale. “I fucking digress. She rampaged for days after my birthday. I couldn’t do anything right. It was like she had been released from the burden of telling me who my father was, and she was free to take out her anger on me. Her hatred seemed to intensify after that night. She began to beat on me for no Goddamn reason; slap me, hit me, scratch me; like I was just a piece of shit there to take her abuse. And I took it too, because I was fucking stubborn and I wasn't gonna let her know she had broken me.” His mocking laugh oozed disdain. “Rules. She started writing out these ridiculous rules for me to follow. Pages after fucking pages of them…”

His voice finally revealed emotion, but it was the kind of emotion that hooked her in the chest. Rules. He had made himself into his mother.

“You think you got me figured out, right?” A thin thread of mania laced his voice as he laughed. Mr. Black. “She was the original creator of the game. But I honed it. Perfected it. Made it into something better. See, my rules have purpose. I help people.” A note of triumph edged his voice. “My mom just fucked with me.” Inhale. Exhale. Lips being moistened. “The very last rule she ever tried to enforce led to this scar.”

Finally. He had been talking for half an hour, pacing his words slowly, and now he was getting to the point. The air in the room congealed like old blood, and the silence seemed deafening. He had gone completely still; even his breathing seemed to have stopped.

“Pleasure her…” his softly spoken words thickened with anger from across the room.

Elsa shrunk into the couch and tried to make herself small. The storm was coming…

“She wanted me. Jesus fucking Christ, what a disgusting whore. I was only sixteen but I was a man in her eyes. And she fucking wanted me to pleasure her…” Hatred and disgust swirled in the dark cadence of his voice. “Those were her exact words. I remember reading the rule and not knowing what the hell she meant. But she was quick to educate me and she demonstrated. Touching herself, groping her tits and fingering…” he swallowed loudly.

Elsa’s stomach rumbled with nausea, and she felt the bitter backwash of bile rise in her throat. She took it back. She didn’t want to know the reason for the scar. He could keep his secrets.

“God, her smell... I was fucking sixteen. It made no difference. But I was strong then and there was no fucking way I was doing that with her. When she forced herself on me, things got violent. I shoved her hard, knocking her against the television. She hit the back of her head and it knocked her senseless for a few minutes. I remember thinking I had killed her and feeling a sense of relief. I wasn’t that lucky though. When she came to, she backed off. I thought that was the end of it…” Another cigarette lit and the smell of smoke. The dip of the sofa next to her. “Do you like pain, Elsa?”

His silky menacing tone scared the hell out of her and she thrashed her head no.

“I’m not asking for much. Just a little repayment for everything you’re demanding…” Elsa pressed her body into the couch and tried to back away. “It’ll only hurt for a minute…”

Inhale. The crackle of the cherry on his cigarette. Exhale. Movement…

Elsa braced herself for Mr. Black’s brutality. The sensation of heat near her skin made her body jerk and she wailed against the gag. God, no… He had just ghosted his lit cigarette past her thigh, the one scarred from her hot coffee accident, but he stopped just shy of burning her.

“Fine.” A deep, slightly aggravated sigh. “No pain. But you will repay me.”

She had no doubt she would.

He stood and moved away and a wave of adrenaline made her body quiver uncontrollably. Where was Victor? He was in there… he had been the one to stop Mr. Black.

“I was eating dinner when it happened. She had made herself scarce all damned night. It was nice not seeing her and worrying about what the hell she was planning next. But that’s exactly what she had been doing; hiding and planning her attack. When she came into the room, I just ignored her, hoping we would pretend like it never happened. She moved behind me, reached for something…” His voice lowered to a creepy, shiver inducing whisper. “It was cold and sharp. I knew right away what it was. If I hadn’t moved, she would’ve killed me; cut my fucking jugular, but I was quick and she missed…”

The pounding of blood through her veins threatened to drown out the sound of his agonized voice. She swallowed an upsurge of sobs and hid her face in the soft fabric of the sofa.

She didn’t want to hear anymore… She was sorry for making him admit this…

“Mine to do with what I want…” A softer, more ominous tone. “Those were her words just before she put the knife to my throat.”

“I totally forgot she said that… How could I forget that? How could I have said the same thing and not remember that she fucking said that?” His voice caught in his throat in a horrified whisper.

With darkness all around her and only the sound of Victor’s ragged breathing, Elsa was left to imagine what the expression on his face was. The pain of what he had told her was closing in on her along with the silence and blackness. The weight of his admission crushed her and she could only imagine how he felt.

Suddenly, he ripped the blindfold off her eyes. Squinting from the light, her eyes came into quick focus on his face only inches from hers. The corners of his beautiful mouth tugged downward as he stared at her. His clear, green eyes had turned black and he had the same murderous and hateful look on his face as the man in the alley had.

Victor was gone and she feared he would never return.

As he knelt in front of her, she leaned as far back as the couch would permit to put distance between them.

“Look at it,” he hissed as he lifted his chin, baring the scar she had so often wondered about. “This is who I am; an abused piece of shit whose mother thought him unworthy of love; an insignificant animal whose father abandoned him…”

Elsa’s eyes filled with tears but she refused to let them fall. How could he say that about himself? Didn’t he see in himself what she saw? A brilliant man who sought justice against criminals? A man who, when his defenses were down, could be kind and gentle? A man who had defended her life?

“I know that look,” he growled when he looked into her eyes. “Pity. That’s what you feel for me, isn’t it?” his lips twisted into a ghastly frown. With the ball-gag still in place, she shook her head no. It wasn’t pity that she was feeling. It was regret for the childhood he was made to suffer through. It was sorrow that he never felt loved.

Most of all, she was fearful of what Mr. Black might do to her… but there was no pity in her heart. Never pity.

“Liar,” he stood and widened his stance as if ready to fight. Again, she shook her head, only more violently this time, trying to convince him. When he looked unconvinced and a deep vibration rumbled in his throat, she mumbled no as a ribbon of drool pooled out of her mouth.

“I don’t want your Goddamn pity. I don’t need your fucking compassion. All this bullshit…” he paced in front of her like a lion on the hunt, the anger visibly building within him. “Why did you make me tell you that?” his voice suddenly roared. “You just had to have your fucking information, didn’t you, you Goddamn bitch!”

Without warning, he lunged forward and before Elsa could process what was happening, his hand rose in the air as he backhanded her across her right cheek.

Elsa grunted and fell to her side. Too stunned to feel anything except shock, she righted herself to stare up at Mr. Black in bewildered silence, her eyes wide with fear and hurt. Heat slowly began to radiate down her jaw and a single tear escaped and rolled down her cheek.

Mr. Black retreated in an instant and Victor stumbled backwards until he fell to his knees. He crawled to her, gripped her by the shoulders and pulled her close as he eyed the damage, clearly horrified with his actions.

“Oh, Jesus…” he whispered as he grazed his fingertips over her face. “I… I didn’t…” he stammered and choked. “Elsa…”

All the color had drained from his face. Shaking his head, he bit his bottom lip so harshly a drop of blood surfaced on his lower lip.

Quickly, he removed her wrist cuffs, then gag. Sitting on his knees in front of her, he relaxed back onto his haunches and stared at her without speaking, as if waiting for her to respond, but she had nothing to say. He had struck her out of anger. Again. What was there to say? But the look on his face… eyes glassy, pained expression, eyebrows furrowed…. His expression was clearly decipherable this time – regretful. His eyes flicked from her eyes to her cheek to her mouth and back. Slowly his irises drifted to his own hands as they sat in his lap.

When he spoke, his husky voice trembled. “Get your things. The game is over. You’re free to leave.”