Page 28 of Enemy of the State

I take things up a notch over the next couple of days. Ineedher to talk to me, to give me something.I need her to break.

In one session, I subjected Lou to more fire. In another, I broke her fingers, not just hearing her bones snap, but feeling them as I cracked her left pinky and ring finger with my own two hands.

As the bones in her pinky fractured and splintered, she had looked me squarely in the eye, her vision a mixture of pain and defiance, hardly blinking as I moved to the next finger.

While her brazen recalcitrance turned me on, it’s also why I stopped at two fingers. The torture I’m forcing her to endure isn’t garnering any results. Not the waterboarding, not the bubbling of her flesh as I subject her to burning, not the physical breaking of bones.

Creativity where torture is concerned isn’t something I’m typically short on, but something tells me that subjecting her to claustrophobia by locking her in the tiny box I’ve often forced inmates into wouldn’t get her to crack either. Neither would forcing her to stand for days on end until she collapses.

I’ve never encountered someone with a will as strong andunwavering as hers. I admire that, even if it never ceases to frustrate the fuck out of me.

She’s fighting me at every turn, and it’s undeniably attractive. I like my victims unenthusiastic, to say the least, and the fact that she doesn’t fall apart as I push her only makes me hard. No matter how many times I tell my dick to calm the fuck down, he doesn’t get the message.

After Davis and Vincent dragged her from the room yesterday, I marched straight to the shower and tugged on my cock with Lou’s defiant expression in my mind’s eye and the smell of her burning flesh sticking to my skin like perfume. I came to the image of her bubbling skin rioting beneath the glow of my torch.

Lou is destroying me.

I need to break her before I lose myself completely.

Louhi

I miss my flat and my cozy bed with all the blankets and my favorite pillow. I pout as I think about that bloody pillow. It took me years to find that perfect pillow, but when I finally found it, it wasgame over. I never slept anywhere without it. The damp concrete floor of this inhospitable cell is a far cry from that plush bed in Boston.

Thoughts of Boston remind me of Martin, the owner of the upscale, exotic wine market down the street from me. I’d buy a bottle a week from him, sometimes two or three, just because I loved listening to him talk about the grapes. I smile to myself as I meditate on if Martin wonders what happened to me. Did the older sommelier notice when I stopped showing up, pestering him with questions?

Outside of my brother, Martin is probably the only person I’d consider an actual mate. There’s still Viktor and Conall, but can you really refer to the heads of the Bratva and the Irish mafia asfriends? Well, perhaps.

Actually, I know for a fact that you can.

I’ve known Viktor for as long as I can remember, our thirteen-year age difference meaning nothing to each other. While Viktor likely would’ve had more in common with my brother,it was me who he spent his time with, choosing to play with me while our fathers and his grandfather worked.

While we don’t see each other as often as I see Conall, due to proximity, we’ll pick up wherever we leave off.Will Conall reach out to Viktor about my whereabouts now that I seem to have dropped off the map?

I wince as I move. Everything hurts. My fingers need to be splinted and the smell of my burned flesh reaches my nose when I breathe too deeply. I was a little surprised when Digs never showed up to administer a dose of his aftercare. I’m still not sure what’s behind the bizarre form of treatment Digs provides either. Is it because he feels guilty about what he’s done? Or is it because he wants to check on me out of concern? Why would he care what happens to me? And why did he stop?

Hunger scrapes its talons along the inside of my stomach, and I’ve been dreaming of my first real meal when I escape this place. The contents of that meal change on a daily basis, but today, it’s a fat glass of dry red wine paired with a prime, medium-rare steak with a fresh chimichurri sauce and something bright green on the side, because I wouldkillfor a vegetable.

I’m itching to get out of here. I’ve cursed myself a thousand times for not demanding a more certain timeline from Mercer other than his cryptic“before the anniversary,”for precisely how long I’d be stuck here. Instead, I simply vowed that I’dtryto behave. I’ve kept that promise, generally, so I give myself pats on the back for that.

Groaning, I shift, and though I’m not freely swinging from the eyebolt in the ceiling, it’s no less uncomfortable. My wrists chafe, the noisy iron chain digging into my skin hard enough to bruise, as I push higher on my tiptoes to relieve some of the pressure placed on my joints. I’ve long since given up forecasting what fresh hell each new position I’m left in will bring, so I haven’t bothered analyzing my current predicament.

My shoulders scream in pain by the time Digs saunters into thetorture room, dragging a chair noisily behind him. Positioning the chair against the wall that faces me, he begins to pick at hisunbroken fingers with his knife as I contemplate how good it would feel to slice him open with it.I’d be willing to bet that his blood would spill prettily.

“Get on with it, then,” I huff impatiently. I’d rather skip to the end of this bullshit. I’m losing patience witheverythingthese days. I want my damn pillow and my decadent wine. I want to slip my feet back into my black stilettos, or combat boots, depending on my mood. I want to tug on my leather jacket and slide onto my bike, sans helmet, letting the night wind dance wildly through my hair as I pick up speed.

Most of all, I crave to get back to work. It keeps me sane. The bloodletting of that guard has hardly soothed my fraying nerves, but it’s been enough to keep me somewhat tame…for now. How long that will last is anyone’s guess, and Mercer should know better than to leave me here for an extended period of time. I’m patient, but there are limits.

“Get on with what, exactly?” Digs questions without even glancing up.

“Whatever it is you’ve planned for today.”

“What is it that you think I have planned?”Lovely, he wants to play games.

Just then, the lightbulb above my head flickers, casting the room in an eerie ambiance that makes me roll my eyes. He probably loosened it before I arrived.

“I won’t presume to understand the mind of a sadist.”

His head snaps up, shock momentarily turning those watery blue eyes to icicles, and I grin.Nailed that diagnosis, not that it’d take a genius.

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