Page 122 of To Catch a Sub

“You thought you were dealing with a black market art smuggler and auctioneer,” Landon said softly. “Not slavers. A different level of dangerous.”

She paused there, and Landon’s stupid fucking brain popped up a vision in bright technicolor—Colette bleeding and woozy from a blow to the head, naked and defenseless as she begged the man who held her down not to hurt her.

Silence stretched, Colette’s choppy breathing the only sound. Landon didn’t know what to do. How to comfort her. If he even had the right to comfort her. He’d hurt her too. He’d had her helpless, willingly helpless thanks to her submission, but still helpless. And he’d used that against her.

“Why does Damien call you his wife?” Rolf asked, the question leapfrogging over the next moments in her story. Landon nodded at the other man, acknowledging and thanking him for giving her the option to skip past whatever had been done to her in the moments after her she’d been beaten badly enough she slipped up and dropped her cover identity.

“Because he thought…” Colette shook her head.

“What did he think?” Landon asked softly.

She looked up, meeting his gaze. Her smile was soft and a little sad. “I should tell it in order.”

His stomach clenched, but he nodded, a calm encouragement.

She cleared her throat, her tone businesslike. “Damien took me to a bedroom and cuffed my wrists to the bed. He asked me why my accent had changed, but he didn’t really seem to care. I made something up about growing up in both Dublin and Paris.”

Colette took a few steadying breaths, and her next words were flat, almost matter of fact.

“He…examined me. Declared I was so tight I must be a virgin.”

The arms of the chair creaked, the wood frame beneath the leather groaning under Landon’s grip as he fought not to go to her.

“I was about to tell him I wasn’t a virgin, thinking maybe he would let me go. But then he declared that since I was a virgin he’d wait to fuck me until we were married.”

Landon jerked. He thought he knew how this story would go, but that shocked him.

“Ah,” Rolf said. “So in his mind, you’re married. Or at least engaged.”

Colette’s smile was cold. “He kept me chained to that bed for days. An odd way to treat a wife.”

Silence fell after her words. Landon’s hands were shaking with rage…and a little relief that it hadn’t been worse. He flexed his fingers, which hurt from how hard he’d been gripping the chair.

He’d kill Damien. It was no longer a question of if, only when. Morality and the law be damned.

“I’m not trying to make you relive the trauma, but if he had you chained to the bed for days, and wasn’t raping you, what was he doing?” Andrei’s matter of fact question made Landon wince, but Colette’s lips twitched.

“Why, we were planning our wedding, of course.”

What the actual fuck?

Landon stared at her, trying to decide if she was kidding. Nope, despite the teasing smile, he didn’t think she was lying.

“At first it was other things. He would just stand there and stare at me, and I was sure that if I didn’t do something he’d change his mind about raping me.

“I tried talking to him about a million different things, looking for the right angle. Eventually I started discussing weddings, and that’s what worked. The first time I said something about it he sat down and started describing his perfect wedding. The next day, he stopped cuffing me to the bed, and instead I got a chain around my ankle, like a dog that’s tied up. At least I could move.”

“How long were you there?” Rolf asked.

“By the time I escaped it had been sixteen days since I first arrived at the estate. The first four I was working. Days five through fifteen I was with Damien.”

* * *

Eleven days suffering mental and physical abuse. Then she’d come to him for help and he’d been an asshole to her. Landon felt sick.

“Long enough the bruises from the first beating faded,” she said. “I was worried we’d run out of wedding planning topics, so on I think day eight or nine I offered to assess other pieces of art or jewelry. I told him I missed looking at beautiful things. He liked that. He liked…” Colette shook her head, but this time her expression was puzzled. “He liked educational lectures.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Andrei asked.