Page 197 of Deep Cover

"Where are you taking me!" It came out a demand to the guards, not a question. They couldn't hurt me, because Vincent would break them in half for doing so without his commanding it. So I had a hard time taking them seriously, which was stupid of me, but they weren't some actual force. Not police, not the part of some dictatorship, just thugs who got off on being ugly (or maybe just on being paid) and worked for a crazy billionaire.

In the long run, that alone was something to be afraid of.

"Shut your mouth," one of them growled at me.

I didn't. My shift was riding up, my heart was pounding hard enough to escape the confines of my chest, my ears were ringing with fear as my blood pressure and heart rate soared.

They dragged me into a room I'd never seen before on a different floor of the house. They dropped me in the room, no more words, no more instructions because there was no need. They locked the doors behind them. The room was all interior, no windows, no natural light.

Spotlights lit up the things I didn't want to see. The St. Andrews Cross. The spanking benches. The suspension bars. The spreader bars. The rack after rack of striking tools and impact tools and sharp tools, a whole world of things I'd learned of in the last year or so. This was an education I hadn't gone looking for.

I was on my feet and running for the sharpest, heaviest tools I could see before the lock finished clicking shut.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Vincent's voice stopped me in my tracks. The room was lit with spotlights. Why hadn't it occurred to me that with specific areas lit, there were specific areas left dark?

Instead of cringing or apologizing or going submissive, even for pretend, I whirled toward the sound of his voice, searching the shadows without seeing him. "What would you do, hmm? Would you just let a chance to defend yourself go by?"

No answer. I couldn't see into the dark. The spotlights blazed hot and too bright. They were blinding me to whatever was in the shadows.

"Vincent! What would you do? Answer me!"

"I'd be afraid," he said, and his voice was in my ear, his breath on my neck. Something cold touched me on the back of my neck, something metal that might have been nothing more than a table knife.

And might have been the straight razor he had on the plane.

Or any other thing.

He leaned in and licked the rim of my ear. "Take the dress off."

"Let me go! I'm not here voluntarily. I don't consent. There are laws!"

He sounded surprised, like I'd actually managed to surprise him, and delighted, as well. "Of course there are laws, you stupid little quim. They don't apply to people like me any more than they applied to Cole St. Martin. You're here because I want you here. There isn't anything else."

"You can't do this." My voice was calmer than I expected. "You can't hurt me. You can't keep me here. People will be looking for me. My father will be looking for me." I turned, his ugly stone-eyed face coming out of the shadows. "You know who he is. What he is." My father. There had been charges against him but I thought by now they were dropped. He was a hero cop. Nobody wanted to know the inside story or the things that happened along the way to the things that made him a hero.

"Your father." Vincent's voice was scathing. "Did you think I wouldn't already know that, just like I know who you are and how you came to be a guest of my friend Cole?"

Ice coursed through my blood. If you've hurt him… this time, I meant my father. Probably that was too far outside even the reach of a mad billionaire. Probably, past the ability to scare me the way he just had, Vincent had no interest in my father. After all, he already had me in his control. But the fear remained.

And a little bit of determination that had been starting to grow. When I heard about the deaths in Seattle, deaths of teenagers I might have saved if I hadn't gone off the rails with the drugs and gotten myself holed up in Vegas, when I'd let Cole do his magic and take out that threat to innocent lives, knowing as I did what my father might have done, that was when a slow, steady slide started.

When I started thinking that sometimes the best solutions are permanent.

When I started thinking that judgement calls like Kie is never going to be a useful, contributing member of society, never going to be sane, never going to find anyone who fits her needs like Vincent once he's gone and maybe it's better if…

Because I knew it would be better if Vincent was gone. Once I was free, whether through my own efforts or Cole's, I was going to kill Vincent Geddes.

And then he gave me all the more reason.

On the cross, in the glaring light. Facing into the thing, my hands buckled so far above my head I had to go on tiptoe to avoid just hanging there. Spread-eagled. Because he wouldn't leave me hanging. He actually suspended me. By wrists. By waist. My ankles were lashed to the thing.

It didn't feel sexual. It didn't even feel like he was somehow enjoying it. It felt – purposeful. Like there was intent. Like he wanted something.

If it was me screaming, he got it.

He marked my back. A dozen strikes of some short, horrible whip, something that made a noise like gale winds and lit into me like bursts of white hot acid or fire.

I hung limp when he finished and he left me there, no idea for how long and he didn't say anything, just walked away and left me hanging. This time, the sensory dep worked. This time I saw things in the darkness.

Visions of violence.

Memories of Cole.

Memories of Mark, laughing at something in a rare moment when he was relaxed.

I knew what I was going to do when I got free. I knew that Vincent wouldn't die quickly. I'd beat him to death with his own tools.

Knowing as I said it to myself that it would never happen that way. The cop in me knew better. If I got free and got the drop on him, I'd shoot instantly. Anything else is movies and stupidity. Never give them a chance to come back.

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