Page 97 of Twisted Enemy
“He made me kneel on the cold, hard floor. He asked me questions. He forced me to make a choice.”
Cole waits.
“He said he was going to hurt one of us, hurt us bad. It was Breagha or me, and I had to choose.”
Cole waits.
“I couldn’t let him hurt my sister. She was the good one. She was the one everyone loved—sweet Breagha, kind Breagha, Breagha with the lovely laugh. I was already ruined—too loud,too rude, too mean. I was the reason the Bad Men took us, because I wanted one more spin on the merry-go-round. So I chose. I told him he could hurt me.”
Still, Cole waits.
“Then I had another choice. He was going to put hishuiin me. It could be in my mouth or in my front bum or in my back bum—he poked me with his fingers so he knew I understood. I didn’t know what hishuiwas. But he smelled bad, like onions and shite, so I didn’t want him anywhere near my mouth. My front bum was private, everyone knew that. When I was a little girl and I was sick, Larissa put a thermometer up my back bum. She still did that for Breagha. So that’s what I chose. I told him he could put hishuiup my back bum.”
Impossibly, Cole still waits.
“There were more choices. He could do it that day, or the next day. If I waited, I could put off being hurt. But that meant another day in the Dark Room for Breagha, another day with Larissa, who was starting to stink. I chose that day. I chose to leave on my dress, even though it might get bloody. I chose to hand him my knickers, instead of letting him take them off. I chose to lick hishui, because it wouldn’t hurt as much if he was wet. And one last choice: I could call him Daddy or I could call him Master. I already had a Daddy, so I chose Master.”
Cole closes his eyes and he clenches his hands into fists, but he still waits.
“Tarasov wrapped my hair around his fist so I couldn’t get away. He made me ask for it:Master, will you hurt me?He folded his arm across my belly and he threw my dress over my back and he forced his way into my back bum, shoving my knickers into my mouth when my screams were loud enough to bring the Bad Men pounding on the door. He shoved my face against the floor, and that’s when the blindfold slipped. That’s when I saw dark green tile beneath me and light green tile on thewall and that’s when I saw his red, red face as he shoved hishuideep inside me. And every time he filled me, he said the same thing:Here’s your fucking choice,blyad. Who’s your Master now?”
Cole breaks.
One moment, he’s holding himself impossibly still. The only muscles twitching are the ones that control his eyelids; he’s fighting the images I’ve drawn for him, the vision of what happened to little Katie, so many years ago.
The next, his mouth stretches open. The sound that comes out of him isn’t human. It’s wild. It’s animal. It’s pure predator, ripping past his teeth. I reach for him, but he jerks away, reeling toward the door.
I clamber from my chair, hurtling after him as he veers into his office. His motions are taut; he has the precision of a hunter. He pulls open a desk drawer and emerges with an evil-looking revolver in his hand.
I call his name as he storms past me, but he’s bigger and he’s stronger and he’s more determined than I’ve ever seen him before. He takes the stairs to the basement so fast he nearly glides down the banister. I barely remember to pull the door closed as I follow.
He rips off Tarasov’s ball gag and drops it on the floor like it’s a filthy diaper. Before the Russian can gulp his first breath of unobstructed air, Cole snarls something wordless and shoves the barrel of the revolver past Tarasov’s lips.
“Stop!” I scream. “Goddammit, Cole! Don’t shoot him. He’s mine!”
38
COLE
“He’s mine!”
Kate was a goddamnchild. She waseight years old. Pyotr Fucking Tarasov forced her to make decisions like she was reading some action-adventure book. He made her part of his sickness, compelled her to be an accomplice in her own rape.
There’s no corner of the universe where that should have happened to her. Even if shewasthe evil child she thinks she was, she didn’t deserve that pain. She was a loyal daughter, a protective sister… She was good.
And she stillisgood.
She shouldn’t have anything to do with the monster hanging in my dungeon. She shouldn’t have to smell the acrid piss that’s pooled beneath his feet. She shouldn’t have to see his pale paunch, his hairy back, the flaccid worm between his legs. She shouldn’t have to hear him whimpering, his teeth chatteringagainst the steel of my Magnum, his garbled pleading as he begs for his fucking life.
I can do this for her. I can take the shot. I can get the gunshot residue on my hands and the spray of blood and brains on my face.
She deserves to have someone protect her. Someone to keep her safe. As a child, she was left to her own devices. As a young woman, she was betrayed by the family she tried to protect.
I’m her husband. Her Dom. The man who loves her. I should kill Tarasov, here, now, and be done with it. Let her set down her burden. Help her to heal. And Jesus Fucking Christ, never, ever have her call meMasteragain.
“He’s mine, Cole,” she says, and now her voice is level. “Don’t do it. Don’t take the shot. He belongs to me.”
She’s the one who suffered. She has matching ladders of scars on her thighs to prove it. She has a lifetime of nightmares barely kept at bay by a light left on while she sleeps.
