But why would he do that?
Why hide the accomplishments he’s marked me with? He likes them. He calls them my jewellery. Tells me how generous he is to give me yet another strangled necklace or rope-granted bracelet.
Oh no, he’s calling me.
I don’t want to go.
I have no choice but to go.
THERE WERE MULTIPLE versions of Hell.
Most were cliché-filled and nothing more than a nuisance—overdramatised and the topic of conversation for attention wannabes. However, some versions warranted the name.
One version visited for a brief moment, tore apart a life, and left the ruins for whoever was brave enough to pick up the bloody pieces. Another version appeared especially for bastards, delivering payback for whatever atrocities they’d committed. A third acted as a hurricane, bringing destruction to all those in its path—deserving or not.
And then, there was this.
The lying, cheating form of Hell where every twitch, every vowel had to be carefully chosen and meticulously delivered, because if care wasn’t given, death wasn’t the worst punishment available.
I was in that Hell.
I’d willingly walked into a demon den, and for what?
Why the fuck am I here?
The answer dangled like a worm inside my mind. But if there was a worm inside my thoughts that meant the core of me was bad. A rotten apple slowly devoured by filth.
And it was.
For many years that was exactly what I was.
But not anymore.
Where the worm had tunnelled through my humanity and righteousness, something else had filled the holes. Something that thirsted for power, even though I already had endless amounts. Something that craved wealth, even though I already had oceans. Something that demanded I never forgot who I was at the beginning.
And who I was at the beginning wasn’t a worthwhile citizen. I was shadows and gore and screams. I’d lost my honour, my family, everything that made me human.
Losing everything meant that when I’d gained everything, the luck bestowed on me didn’t make the darkness inside me better…it made it worse.
So goddamn worse.
Not that my new host knew that.
My lips twitched as I climbed from my car and nodded at Selix. “I won’t need your services tonight.”
My bodyguard, driver, and all-a-round minion narrowed his gaze. His dark hair in a bun on top of his head sucked up the light of the early evening, his jaw clean-shaven and sharp. “Are you sure? You know what this man is. You did the research. I would advise rethinking your—”
“I would advise you stop trying to give me advice.”
We’d met in the days before I was someone. An enemy who struggled the same toils I had. When my luck had changed, I’d hauled him from the gutter with me.
After all, there was no better person to employ than an enemy.
If I could buy his loyalty and earn his friendship after we tried to kill each other, nothing could break us apart. We’d built a foundation on something so much stronger than light and happiness. We were forged from the same despicableness.
There’s weakness in that as well as strength.
And because of that, I wouldn’t stop reminding him that I might trust him with my life, but he wasn’t my conscience. Not before, not now, not ever.
I doubt I even have a conscience anymore.
According to my heritage, I was a no one. Not worthy to be called a man.
I’m fine with that.
Selix snapped his lips together. “I’ll be around the block if you need me.”
Doing up my blazer button, I nodded. “You’ll know if I do.” Dismissing him, I strolled toward the front door of the large white mansion.
White.
I sneered.
The biggest lie of all.
It gave a visitor the impression of innocence and purity. But the opposite was true. White was the colour with multiple faces. It lied about its identity, hiding its pigment while smothering others. The final blank thought before death.
My new host believed I was what I said I was. If he’d researched me as I’d researched him, he would know nothing true about me. Only the carefully laid crumbs of worthless knowledge.
He wouldn’t know my background.
He wouldn’t know my skills.
And he wouldn’t know my end agenda.
But soon, he would.
And then, my task in Hell would be complete.
TONIGHT WAS DIFFERENT.
I didn’t like different.
My stomach hurt from where he’d kicked me. My head swam from his punch. My ear stung from his teeth. And that was him being gentle.
My mother’s lessons on how to read bullies had become a full-time occupation. I knew now what made men like my master tick. I stole pieces of him every moment he looked my way or touched me.
I was the sponge to his evilness, soaking everything I could for my benefit. However, no matter the small victories I enjoyed, the tragedies far outweighed my triumphs.
Tonight wouldn’t be a triumph.
I could sense it.
What’s going to happen?
I shivered as awful answers unspooled, each one worse than the last. The house felt dangerous and strange, poised for something I couldn’t prepare for.
Leaving my doorless bedroom, I made my way downstairs. My bare feet couldn’t camouflage the black and blue shadows from him breaking my bones, nor hide the malnourished pigment of my skin. But the white skirt, as it fluttered around my legs, covered my nakedness and scars for the first time since I’d arrived in Crete.
If that was even where I was.
The colourless polo neck gripped my throat with cotton fingers, making me fidget and pull at the obstruction.
Lately, he’d had a tendency to use collars and ropes, keeping me bound in awful positions. Normally, that position ended up strangling me as he finished. It terrified me while it was happening, but it’d also stained the times when he wasn’t. Whenever he touched my neck now, tears instantly brimmed. No matter how strong I was, he’d turned that part of my body into a trigger for terror.
And now, he’d dressed me in clothes that suffocated me on his behalf.
Gulping my rising panic, I stopped midway down the steps.
I can’t do this.
Turning around, I bolted back up.
You don’t have a choice.
I paused on the landing with my face in my hands, sobs threatening to undo every rib. I hated my sudden fear. Unknowns did this—they rattled my fragile strength—ready to unleash the detonation building inside me.
Over the past two years, I’d developed a security system that ensured I breathed another day even when some days I wanted to die. Others, I wanted to scream. Most, I wanted to slaughter him.
It was thoughts of slaughtering him that kept me going.
And I evolved.
Before, he’d force me to kneel, and I would stand to disobey. He’d crunch my face into the floor, and I’d spring up in defiance. For my troubles, I was hurt over and over.
Now, I bowed because it made him believe I respected him, all while my heart sharpened the daggers I wanted to plunge. I kneeled because it gave him power, and when he had power, he didn’t assert it as often.
He was a coward with a vicious, sadistic drive. But I played him the best I could. I got into his head. I couldn’t avoid his daily ferocity, but I could avoid utter excruciation by being smart.
However, being smart and subservient came with a price. My actions of survival made me live and breathe the existence of a slave, and occasionally, just occasionally, my constant fear and unhappiness won.
As it was winning now.
The sobs swelled until my skin begged for relief from the tight clothing. I wanted to strip and disappear.
You’re running out of time.
Move.
If I didn’t go willingly, he’d come for me. He’d hurt me. I’d been hurt e
nough today.
I’m strong enough to obey.
That sentence had become a war cry, a lullaby, a prayer. I reminded myself constantly that it was true. It didn’t matter if some days it was a lie…I was still here. In a strange way, I’d won.
Sucking back tears, I did my best to straighten a spine that’d long since bowed beneath domination and pain and trudged down the steps.
Slowly.
So slowly.
But not slowly enough.
My toes reached the bottom floor before I’d had time to wipe away the droplet on my cheek. My throat constricted as I inched around the corridor to the lounge. The polo latching on my neck clung tight, turning my fear into something thick and cloying.
I was two seconds from tearing off the offending items when I saw Master A’s guest for the first time.
My first thought was…run.
His eyes matched those of the men surrounding him.
The eyes of a killer, pain-deliverer, and user.
But my second thought was…run to him.
He didn’t know me.
Master A didn’t rule him. He could finally be the one to set me free.
Or kill me.
Either conclusion would do because for the first time in such a long time, I remembered what it was like to see a stranger. To feel hope instead of forcing myself to remain strong.
My knees wobbled as his attention remained on the usual gang of assholes who took advantage of me at Master A’s discretion.
He hadn’t seen me, hovering ghost-quiet against the wall.
The interloper sat tightly wound like a sword waiting to leap from its sheath, glaring at the three men on the opposite couch.
Master A had never fully introduced me to the animals who’d abused me, but I knew their names. I knew their barbarous tastes. And I knew they were as bad as the rest.
Darryl, Monty, and Tony all discounted me the second they sneered in my direction. I was nothing to them. Just like the crystal chandelier above the dining room table was nothing or the vase on the sideboard in the entrance hall.
They saw me, might even appreciate me for a brief moment, but then I was unimportant.
I just wished I were unimportant enough not to entice sexual interest when alcohol flowed, and Master A gave the order to do whatever the hell they wanted.
The sick prick got off on his friends hurting me three at a time. He sat there masturbating while they—
Stop!
I stuffed each awful memory deep, deep inside. It was the only way I could endure more on top of a mountain already scaled.
Besides, it doesn’t matter.
I was far more interested in this foreigner in my nightmare midst.
Who is he?
My fingers twined in the ugly skirt, seeking refuge from their cold fragility. It’d been so long since I’d been dressed; I’d forgotten how comforting a simple covering could be.
Not that it protected my body.
Every part of me was still visible, just…shadowed. The white material didn’t hide my nipples through the tightness, and the skirt hinted at secret, violated places between my legs.
I vaguely remembered my mother saying sometimes clothes were more provocative than downright nakedness. Maybe that was what this was? A tease? A reverse strip show?
Master A noticed me, striding from the kitchen with a glass of champagne. He didn’t drink it often, and I almost backed away in surprise as he passed the delicate stemmed flute to me.
Kissing my cheek, he looked at the stranger before hissing in my ear. “Our guest isn’t aware of our little games okay, my sweet Pim? And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t give him any reason to find out.”
Facing away from his guest, he subtly drew a line over his throat in a threat.
I didn’t know if that meant he’d kill the newcomer or me.
Stealing the champagne from my fingers without a single drop splashing my tongue, he wrapped an arm around me and carted me toward the man.
The closer we drew, the more intrigued I became.
Unlike Master A and his similar blond counterparts, this man was a black stain in the middle of European fair complexions.
His hair was blacker than black, looking like an ink spill on the death of a perfect night. His gaze matched the coal depths, hiding so much but taking everything in.
I guessed he’d given up adolescence a while ago and bordered late twenties, early thirties. He was what my mother used to call ‘confused ethnicity.’ He wasn’t like me, who could track her roots back to Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. He was a mismatch of origins—enticingly exotic.
He was handsome and staring right at me.
Staring as if he didn’t expect a girl to be here; a slave who’d well and truly forgotten the outside world.
I dropped my gaze, encouraging a sheet of hair to obscure the remnants of bruising on my cheekbone.
I hadn’t been anywhere or seen anything new in two years.
Until this man.
Stopping before the stranger as he stood stiffly from the couch, Master A grunted, “I thought I’d add one more to our dinner arrangement if you don’t mind.” Digging his fingernails into my elbow, he smiled cordially. “This is my girlfriend, Pimlico.”
The man raised an eyebrow, drawing my attention from his hair and eyes to the rest of his symmetrically masculine face. His nose held just enough authority without being too big. His chin was square enough to expose every clench of his teeth, and his throat powerful enough to reveal every swallow, rippling with sinew and muscle.
My eyes followed his neck, following the contours of his flawless skin until it disappeared beneath a dark grey shirt with the collar unbuttoned. He wore a casual black blazer as if he’d shrugged into it at the last minute while shopping at Armani or Gucci, and his long legs put him half a head taller than Master A, who already towered over my shorter frame.
Only, where Master A made me feel small and defenceless, this new man…didn’t.
I couldn’t describe it.
I’d often heard my high school friends mentioning some sort of kismet reaction when they met their boyfriends, but I’d never felt it.
My heart turned traitor as the man tilted his head, his eyes never leaving mine. He moved like liquid as if he held the power to drown everyone with a mere drop or eradicate entire landscapes with a tsunami.
I couldn’t breathe as he bent forward in a slight bow, holding out his hand. Every motion was oiled and perfected, sex appeal surrounding him like a fine mist.
I flinched.
Why did he look at me as if I was worth something? Couldn’t he see he’d get me into trouble if Master A deemed I’d received gifts I wasn’t due?
My shoulders rolled as I glanced at the white tiles beneath my feet.
Master A crushed me to his side with a warning squeeze. “Shake Mr. Prest’s hand, Pim.”
Shake it?
I’d forgotten such social niceties. For two years, an outstretched palm meant incoming pain, not a common introduction.
What the hell is going on?
If I hadn’t played Master A’s games for so long, I might’ve bowed to his wishes, hoping that tonight would have a happier outcome than other times. But I couldn’t deny I’d been his for too many years and no longer believed in hope.
I couldn’t avoid pain.
No matter what I did.
So why should I do anything at all? He might want me to shake so he could scream at me for touching another man against his wishes. Or he could berate me for not obeying.
Either way, the consequences were the same.
I won’t do it.
Cocking my head, I locked eyes with Mr. Prest.
And crossed my arms.
Darryl, Monty, and Tony snickered on the couch, knowing what I did—that I would be hurt. Badly. Once this interloper had left.
Tony cackled. “Aww, shit, you’re gonna get—”
“Enough!” Master A snapped, silencing th
eir potential slip. His face blanched, matching the blond strands on his head.
Interesting.
It wasn’t a charade; he truly didn’t want this man to know.
My heart did its best to shrug off its death shroud and find hope once again. For so long, it’d packed up its stepladder and parachute, settling in for guerrilla warfare as I stayed alive by following fucked-up rules. But now, it shook off dust and battle debris, glowing with tentative crimson.
If I remembered how to use my voice, I might’ve informed this mysterious Mr. Prest that he’d just walked into a sex prison. He willingly made friends with these animals who shared and hurt and gave no thought to the soul screaming silently inside me.
But two years was a long time.
And a blurted word was as foreign to me as being free.
Dropping his unshaken hand, Mr. Prest scowled. His gaze danced over me, his face hiding his thoughts but unable to thwart his questions.
Just like I wanted to know who he was, he wanted to know me.
I fought the urge to drop my eyes, but the fierce intensity in which he studied me granted courage rather than stripped it. I never looked away as his black gaze switched from my closed-off posture, lingered on my nipples visible through the white polo, and skated to Master A’s arm clutching me tightly.
His lips thinned as a dark conclusion dawned on his face.
I wanted to applaud him. Give him a damn award for noticing that not everything was as it seemed.
But then, whatever realisation he’d come to vanished as he grinned just as cold, just as evil, just as nastily as Master A and his associates. “Hello, Pim.”
Pim.
Just like that, he shortened my name as if he knew me.
My crossed arms tightened.
You don’t know me. You will never know me.
His gaze drifted to my shoulders where my muscles twitched. Not that I had much muscle anymore. I’d wasted away thanks to one meal a day—and only if I earned it.
I hadn’t seen the sun in two years, unless it was through the window.
I hadn’t felt a breeze in two years, unless it was from an air-conditioning unit.
The craving I’d had in the trafficking hotel for outdoors was just as insistent here where marble had replaced seventies carpet, and Egyptian cotton sheets had switched overly starched white.