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“Is he alive?” Kane asks.
He means the assailant, obviously, and I nod. ‘James took him to the playroom.’ My favorite place, but with Kane’s mood, I’m not sure he’s going to let me use it tonight. Of course, he’s also the man who taught me everything I know in the art of interrogation, so if he wants to get information out of the person we brought home, he will.
The only difference between the two of us is his last lingering sliver of conscience. That and the fact he’s mouthy. People tend to have hope when you speak. They believe that with the rapport of back-and-forth, sympathy might form. Or pity. Or mercy.
It’s my silence that terrifies them. I never communicate with questions. I just hurt them until they start to sing.
Kane swipes a hand down his face, then reaches out and seizes my wrists, pulling me close. He runs his thumbs over the red marks left behind from the too-tight bonds, then lifts my right hand to his mouth and sinks his teeth in until I hiss.
“What’s done is done,” he finally mutters, soothing the ache in my skin with a swipe of his tongue.
‘You know we had to,’ I answer with the one hand I was able to free. ASL comes easier to me now than speech ever did, and I love the feeling of command because it forces my lovers to pay attention to the way my fingers move. ‘If we didn’t take her tonight, they would have. We have no idea who they are, and if we tried to stop them near her dorm…’
“The Romanos would know,” Kane finishes for me. He grips my hair painfully, yanking my head back before kissing me. “Is she drugged?”
‘It’ll wear off soon,’ I tell him. ‘She’ll be in pain and dehydrated. Better not to send me. She seemed to like James.’
Kane laughs, shaking his head at our youngest member. “Not surprised.” He kisses me again, backing me up toward the wall, and the pain of being slammed against it has my cock going fully hard. He rubs his palm over it, then shoves his nose into my neck and breathes in deeply. “I guess I’m going to be working all night. We need to find out who the fuck got past Phoenix’s eyes.”
I know that’s bothering him more than having to push the plan forward. I wait for him to pull away, and then I tug at his arm. ‘When do I get to takeherinto the room?’
Something flashes in his eyes that I don’t like, though I can’t deny it was expected. He had been obsessing over Alice the way he obsessed over Phoenix—and then me. And eventually, James. He might let me play with her, but I don’t know if he’d let me shatter her.
‘I’ll let you know,’ he signs back to me. He kisses me a final time, then gives my cheek a pat. “Go find something to do. We’ll talk in the morning.”
The dismissal would have hurt James, but all it does for me is free up my evening to find out whether or not anyone else wants to play.
* * *
Once upon a time,there was a boy who wanted to be good. But everything he’d ever done was a disappointment. He was the spitting image of his father, and in the end, because of that, he paid the price for his father’s sins.
It was the fairy tale I liked to repeat to myself when I was recovering from having my throat slit. It was the internal scream because I’d lost the ability to make a sound, and it only took a few weeks for Kane’s doctor to inform me that it was permanent. No matter what I did or how well I healed, I would be silent forever.
I used to wonder if that was the real punishment. After all, I’d been well-known for my inability to keep my tongue from vicious sarcasm, even when it was for my own good. I have scars on my back from going too far that still sting this many years later if I twist my body the wrong way. I was the boy they could never shut up.
Until someone had done it permanently.
I’ll never forget the knife dragging across my throat, spilling my blood into my lap while that bitch stood back and watched me gasp for breath. She’d been the one to shoot my father too. I think she’d asked for it. She’d been fucking my father, but she was Guido’s mistress. She was forbidden fruit, and my father was too much of a fool not to give in to the temptation.
I knew it would be his end, but he believed her when she said she would take his side if he wanted to try and overthrow Guido. I tried to warn him that she shouldn’t be trusted, but he just laughed in my face and ordered someone to whip me again for my smart mouth.
I think Vanessa enjoyed it. Thinking back, I’m fairly sure she spent most of her time provoking me into beatings because she always smiled when I’d limp back into the room with an insincere apology on my lips. Begging my father came easy because I never meant it. By the time I was eighteen, I’d long since forgotten what empathy felt like, or guilt, or regret. And I think she knew that. She could see it, looking into my eyes.
One day, she’d told me that I was going to run my mouth off at the wrong person and pay for it.
It’s why I wasn’t convinced that they actually had left me there to die. I think she knew I’d suffer in silence far more than I’d ever suffer in death.
I try to conjure up that hate now as I stand in the doorway to the cell where the Romano princess is sleeping. Or, well, unconscious since I stuffed her mouth full of a chloroform rag and let her nearly choke on it. I paid for the sins of my father, so why not make her pay for hers.
Having Guido realize that everything he ever did to torture me would be paid back with his daughter tenfold? That’s the real victory.
I hunger for it. Iachefor that revenge.
A part of me wants to walk down the steps into Alice’s cell and start now. What better way to wake up than on camera, in pain, a video sent to Guido so he could stew in his terrified juices for a while before the real fun began.
It doesn’t matter that Alice is innocent. So was I…once upon a time.
“Sleeping beauty?” a voice behind me asks.
