Page 84 of Love to Defy You
Enzo drums his fingers against his knee. “Tell me about Willow.”
He’s baiting me. Willow is my one weakness, and he knows it, but I refuse to let him win. “What about her?”
“Do you trust her to be faithful to you given her”—Enzo smirks—“proclivities?”
I play dumb. “Proclivities?”
“Her need to be adored. Lusted after.” His voice grows thick. “Fucked in front of an audience.”
“I don’t worry about her loyalty to me.” I glance down at the tattoo, which is almost complete—the lyre inside a circle and the arrow piercing through it.
“I saw her porn video, you know.”
My head shoots up.
Enzo chuckles. “The night I met you two in the restaurant, I knew she looked familiar. It took me a moment to remember where I knew her from, but when it clicked...” He licks his lips. “I must admit, I was rather disappointed when the website got shut down. I can’t tell you how many times I watched it.”
I bite down hard on my tongue before I lose my shit.
“I imagine you had something to do with that, yes?” Enzo asks. “Shutting the website down?”
I clench my jaw. “Anyone who operates a website disseminating revenge porn of a minor should be hanged, along with the sickos who watch it.”
Enzo leans forward. “Come on, Kurochkin. I find it hard to believe you didn’t sneak a peek.”
Not only did I sneak a peek but I kept a personal copy and beat myself off to it. “Once, but only to understand the extent of the damage to her reputation,” I lie.
“Of course.” Enzo’s dark eyes glint with humor. “Willow’s white knight.”
I’m no white knight. I’m depraved. I studied Willow from afar—her likes and dislikes, but particularly her sexual preferences—and learned everything I needed to know about her, waitingfor the right moment to strike. I was an opportunistic predator who hunted her and claimed her long before she realized she was mine.
“Done.” Gunther leans back and clicks the tattoo gun off. The mechanical buzzing stops, and the silence left in its wake is jarring.
My forearm prickles, and the skin around the completed design is a little red. I flex a couple of times to bring back feeling in my arm, and a vein rises through the center of the tattoo.
Enzo stands from his chair and turns to face the others. “Who’s next? Hmm, let’s go with…” Tapping his chin, Enzo examines the row of candidates far too eagerly for my taste. “Rasmussen, come on up. You’re next.”
When Gunther releases me from the shackles, I sit up from the recliner. My back protests as my skin peels off the leather. All the candidates turn toward the redheaded candidate, whose eyes grow wide. He makes no move to get up, no doubt frozen in terror. A hooded figure steps from the circle to pull him up by the arm. The figure wears a rope tied around his waist with a sheathed dagger attached to it, and it reminds me of both a Catholic monk and an executioner warped into one twisted figure of death.
“W-what are you going to do to us after this?” Rasmussen’s voice shakes from the tremors running down his pale, naked form.
Enzo folds his arms and sneers down at him from the top of the platform. “You don’t get to ask questions.”
Rasmussen hangs his head. “I can’t take any more of this. Please—“
“Does that mean you choose the ultimate sacrifice?” Enzo quirks his brow. “It’s the only way out.”
The redheaded candidate lets out a choked sob. The hooded figure releases him, and he falls to his knees against the uneven cobblestone.
“Make your choice.” Enzo’s command rings in the dead silence that follows.
All eyes in the room are zeroed in on the pathetic figure. His shoulders rack with sobs as he stares down at his palms, faced with an impossible choice.
At last, Rasmussen takes a deep, rattling breath, and when he looks up to meet Enzo’s gaze, his expression has morphed into wild desperation.
“Well?” Enzo asks.
Rasmussen moves so fast that no one sees it coming. He whips around and grabs the knife hanging from the belt of the hooded figure standing behind him. Whirling in a circle, Rasmussen holds the dagger in front of him, his trembling hands clutched around the handle. “Don’t come any closer!”
