Page 24 of Lucian

Jordyn had been waiting for this day for years.

All the while, Will continued his mostly unintelligible rant, shouting and muttering things Jordyn couldn’t understand. With one final hit from the belt landing on already tender and abused spots, she heard the item hit the floor.

Was that the end of it? Was that all he planned to do?

She didn’t trust herself to give even a sigh of relief.

“Turn on the stove,” she heard Will demand.

What did that mean? Jordyn choked on her words, tasting the metallic tang of blood in her mouth. Even with the pain, she rolled to her back. “No, don’t.”

“Turn it on, hold her down!”

Someone kicked the coffee table out of the way. Arms barricaded a fighting Jordyn down. And fight she did. Kicking, bucking, and tossing out fists. Anything she thought might help, but it didn’t.

Faintly, Jordyn could smell what she thought was the propane of her stove and heated metal. Panic seared through her insides.

“Don’t! Don’t you touch me!” she screamed.

“Cut it off,” Will ordered.

What?

The shirt Jordyn wore was ripped from her body. The ice-like sensation returned to her body with a vengeance, freezing her in place. Will’s frame was clouding her vision then, a grizzly sneer taking over his features. It only made him look more evil than everybody already knew he was.

Just to frighten her more, he held up a knife at least two inches in width. All at once, Jordyn now understood completely why he wanted her stove turned on and the smell from earlier. The metal blade glowed from having been sat in the propane flame, but it looked like it was starting to cool off.

That wouldn’t help, she knew. The smell of propane was still strong. Will would just keep heating the knife up over and over until he was done with his job.

“This tattoo does nothing for you, Jordyn. It means nothing to me. It doesn’t protect you, or keep you safe anymore. So you know what I’m going to do now?”

Oh, God. No.

Jordyn’s bottom lip quivered, and her eyes filled with tears, but she refused to let them flow again. “Go to hell, Will.”

He smiled. “Shoulda just done this to your mother like I wanted to, you know. Held the bitch down and made her what she was supposed to be. She wouldn’t give it and I shoulda took it. Bitch gave it to everybody else, though. Just like you, a good for nothing whore.”

With that, the hot metal of the blade laid flat over Jordyn’s hip bone, directly on top of the tattoo of Gabe’s name.

If the pain from the beating was bad, this was indescribable. For the briefest moment, there was nothing, and then it scorched like acid was being poured on her flesh, with skin burning right off the goddamn bone. Out of instinct, her body reacted to the pain, trying to buck away from the knife and hands holding her down. Nothing helped. The scream Jordyn released was muffled by a folded up belt being shoved into her mouth.

It tasted disgusting like Will was. Dirty and sweaty. Old and used.

Jordyn wasn’t sure how much time passed before the knife was lifted, literally taking with it a strip of her burnt flesh, and without a break, a new one was passed. Again, she vomited, choking on the bile.

“Be thankful I don’t take the rest of them off, too, babe.”

The process was repeated over and over. With every burn, Gabe was gone.

Maybe it was her high threshold for pain, but Jordyn managed not to pass out.

Finally, the knives were dropped, too.

Will stood, nodding at the men who then let Jordyn go. She didn’t move, only stayed on the floor gasping for air with the taste of vomit in her mouth. There was absolutely nothing she could do.

“Club Property, Jordyn. That’s what you are now. I expect you to act like it,” Will stated uncaringly. The cruel glint in his gaze burned worse than the belt and the burn. “Clean yourself up. You’ve got one week and then I expect you back at the club on a fucking pole like you should be. Make sure to cover those bruises, too.”

No other words were spoken. None of the other men had stepped in to say a thing, either.