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‘I’m picking you up for work, sweetie,’ he drawled, with a saccharine sweetness that made me want to puke in my mouth. His eyes were brighter than ever this morning, his demeanour terrifying. ‘And I know everything, remember?’
‘Where’s Dornan?’ I asked, almost at the kitchen counter. Almost at the knife block. I glanced behind me. Just a few more steps —
I’d looked away for less than a second, and he’d used my inattention to pounce, grabbing my wrists and throwing me up against the counter with a ferocity that frightened me. I braced myself on the lip of the sink behind me and struggled to think of how I could get out of this. Jesus! I was so stupid. It could have been anyone standing out there! Someone coming to hurt me. Someone coming to kill me. Somebody coming to rape me. Murphy, who looked like he wanted to do all three.
‘Your big bad biker got called away,’ he said, his voice dripping with mockery. He might have been dying to fuck me, but he hated me, I realised. Hated me because I wouldn’t willingly give him what he wanted.
‘Emilio will expect me,’ I blurted out.
He crowded over me, forcing my top half to bend backwards uncomfortably until the back of my head was almost dipping into the cloudy dishwater I’d used to wash up earlier.
‘He’s with the big bad biker,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders as he grinned wickedly.
No. NO. If he was telling the truth, I was alone. With him. In an apartment I couldn’t get out of.
And nobody was coming to save me.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
EMILIO
He’d beaten Bella almost to death, but the bitch was stubborn. She was still protesting her innocence, even after Emilio had had Mariana’s figures checked and double-checked by his associates. The girl had done well. She’d picked up in three hours what Emilio had been trying to figure out for months: where his money was going. And there had been a lot of fucking money going.
He stood above the thieving little cunt, watching her bleed from her latest wound, a jagged slice in her forehead that was dripping blood into her eyes.
He’d already sliced a pretty patchwork of designs over her naked form, but she was strong-willed. She still hadn’t broken down. The little bitch blinked rapidly, her eyelashes fluttering as blood pooled under her eyes. She was a brunette, but her pretty brown locks were almost entirely red now, coated in her own blood.
‘Tell me why,’ Emilio asked, holding the knife close to her eyeball, so close the metal was almost scratching at the white of her eye.
She gulped, trying to pull back, but her head was locked tight in his other hand, his fist gripping a handful of hair at the base of her skull.
‘Why does anyone steal?’ she’d answered him finally, after a day of torture and starvation. A day of being fed nothing but cock and straight liquor and being beaten black and blue. In a sick way, he admired her ability to hold out. ‘Because I wanted pretty things. Because I wanted a better life.’
The bitch was strong.
Bitch was a thief, too. He reminded himself of that when he was cutting into her skin while she screamed. She had been diabolical, manipulative, and all the diamonds in the world couldn’t save her now.
That gave him pause. Yes. She could choke on her own greed. He wanted to watch her struggle as she fought to breathe, as sharp, precious rocks crowded her airway. It would be a fitting death, and afterwards he would cut her open and extract the jewels, and hope to recoup at least some of the funds she’d channelled into fake accounts over the two years she’d been cooking their books.
But she hadn’t quite suffered enough yet.
‘If you let me go, I’ll tell you where the money is,’ she pleaded.
He grinned.
‘If you tell me where the money is, I’ll let you go.’
The last shred of hope died in her eyes. Emilio Ross didn’t let people go once they’d crossed him, no matter how slight their mis-step. Bella had witnessed enough deaths in the few short years she’d worked for them to understand her fate.
He sauntered over to the small table he’d had Jimmy drag into the dank little room. On it were a variety of makeshift torture devices, but there was one that he hadn’t used yet, but wanted to. The bite gag. He smiled, selected the crude device from the pile, and set the long butcher’s knife down.
He approached Bella, who was hanging from the ceiling naked, secured by her wrists, covered in blood and blooming bruises that had painted her skin various shades of black and blue and purple. Emilio noticed new bruises where he’d dug his fingers into her tits. Her pink nipples were hard from the cold and he pinched one, making her groan painfully. She was only a few colours short of a fucking rainbow, he surmised as he released her nipple and used both hands to wrap the contraption around her face.
She attempted to whip her head from side to side, but screamed as soon as she did. Emilio smiled, taking the opportunity to shove the rubber gag bit into her mouth and press it into her cheeks, forcing her mouth open into a perfect O. One clip at the back, and it was secured. Now, if she tried to bite down, she’d bite through her own cheeks before anything else.
He smiled as fear replaced the dazed look on her face.
‘I knew you’d be hard to break,’ Emilio said, sticking his finger into the perfect open hole that went all the way down to her throat. She gagged as he hit the back of her throat, and he withdrew before she vomited. He didn’t want her stomach contents anywhere near him.
