Page 82 of Wicked Deceit
“It’s a thing of beauty isn’t it, boy?” His father asks him, slapping him on the shoulder. “And to think, you got a front row seat to the whole event.” Cushing smirks then and cocks his head when my eyes pop open, and my temporary heaven evaporates. All I’m left to stare at is the four of them looming over me with grins on their faces. No souls lie behind their eyes when they eat up my broken body.
“I told you, little rabbit,” Cushing murmurs with fire in his eyes, squeezing Carter’s shoulder with a puffed out chest. Pride roars through him when he peeks at Carter, and for the first time ever, I swear he looks at Carter with parental love. “He knew all along. Who do you think shoved you into the fish tank and watched from afar as you helplessly drowned?” My eyes flicker to Carter who smirks at me and nods, confirming my worst fears.
“For your final test,” Cushing says, shoving a pair of pliers into Carter’s willing hand. “You've passed everything with flying colors. Your deception. Your torture. Now, take from her what she owes us,” he says with a wicked glint.
Carter stares down at the pliers and raises a brow. “And what does she owe us?” he rumbles with a grin and straightens his robes.
Crowe frowns, crossing his arms over his chest. “For everything she’s stuck her little rabbit nose in. For the hacking, and breaking into my fucking office, and for stealing my phone. Sticking her nose where it shouldn’t be,” Crowe grumbles, counting off my offenses. “Pluck off the end of her nose,” he growls, stepping forward to loom over me once again. He growls, gritting his teeth, and snarls at me.
“Maybe the eyeballs?” Shaw says flippantly, waving a hand. “She’s seen more than she needs to. How was my office? I should have known it was you and your merry gang of assholes who broke in there.” He raises a brow at me, expecting an answer.
“Maybe her tongue?” Cushing says with a grin, squeezing my jaw. “Snip off the end and watch as she drowns in her own blood without being able to call for help. Not like any would come. Take a good look around, Sugar. This is your final resting place. If only you’d have stayed away,” he hums, tapping my injured cheek like this was all my fault.
“I couldn’t have stayed away,” I snarl, trying to shove his hand off my face with a headbutt. It does nothing but make the room spin. The more time they take to talk and laugh in my face, the more blood drains from my wound. Although, with where they’ve stabbed, I can’t be certain I’ll go any time soon. Maybe this is what they intend to do to every victim. Stab them and then talk them to death. “I knew some asshole stole my best friend’s life, and I was going to find out who did it,” I say in a quivering voice, but it feels so damn good to look her murderers in the eyes and know who they are. I successfully fulfilled my promise to my best friend and found the man responsible for taking her life. I watched the life drain from her killer’s eyes as she was thrown to the ground and stabbed multiple times. Magnolia hasn’t been vindicated just yet, if only I could get the fuck out of this chair and fight my way out of here.
I close my eyes again, dreaming of someone bursting through the door to save my life. For a small second, I could have sworn Carter was that man, and maybe he is. I look up into his dead eyes and heave a breath. I don’t know how much more I can take or how much longer I can keep my eyes open. A heaviness takes over my lids, and I just want to sleep for days.
“Yeah?” Carter asks with that patronizing smirk again. “How’d that work out for you, Little Troll?” I swallow hard when he steps forward, opening and closing the pair of pliers in his hands with a glint in his eye. I try to curl my fingers against the wooden handle of the chair when the metal tip of the pliers rubs against the flesh of my index finger, circling around my nail. He continues the pattern over every finger, tracing the outline of my nail bed.
“Don’t,” I beg for the first time. “Please, don’t do it,” I whisper, looking up into his eyes when he hovers above me. I want to beg for my life. I want to beg him to go back to the Carter I had grown to love so quickly these past few months. Give me back my grumpy man who refused to say he loved me, but I knew he did. Give him back to me, damn it! Don’t let the real Carter be this lifeless man parading around in a meat suit full of smirks and snarky words. “Come back to me,” I beg with tears spilling from my good eye and down my cheek. “Please,” I beg again, cracking at the stony exterior of the man inching closer to me. “This isn’t you,” I croak, earning nothing but laughs from the four of them in return.
He twists his head, saying something to the other three, but I can’t hear what he says through the loud pounding in my skull. Nothing but the blood whooshing through my ears and drowning everything else out. That's all I hear. All I want to hear. Through tear-filled eyes the three brothers back away from my chair, murmuring words to one another with smiles on their faces. Whatever he says to them, takes their attention away from us, and they leave him to do as he pleases. A little voice in the back of my head begs me to see past the mask covering the real man beneath it. But it’s hard to lift the veil when his dark eyes capture mine in his unwavering gaze, and I fall down the dreaded rabbit hole back into his lifelessness. How can one man turn off his emotions for the world to see with such precision?
As fast as lightning, he grabs my hand in his and cocks his head. A grin so malevolent crosses his face, I swear a demon resides inside him. The shadows of the room cower in fear, including me. My body trembles when his thumb rubs the top of my hand, and fear truly sets in.
“I think I’ll take a finger,” Carter muses, earning chuckles from the dickbags lounging against the opposite wall.
“Take them all,” Cushing encourages, checking the time on his watch. “But make it snappy, Son. We’ve got to close this lot out soon and move on to bigger and better things. We’ve got a whole horseman ceremony laid out for you at home. Plenty of women to fuck and food to eat. A celebration of the century,” he says with enthusiasm and then returns to his conversation with his brothers.
Carter growls, gritting his teeth at his father’s command. “I’ll take all the fucking time I need,” he shouts, giving me his back. “I will do whatever I fucking please.” I swallow hard when their hard faces light up at his unruly demand, and Cushing nods.
“You want time alone?” He asks, raising a brow. “To do?”
“Whatever the fuck I see fit. She’s mine, isn’t she?” His gloved fingers curl into fists around the pliers dangling from his grip. “Mine to fucking torture. Mine to fucking bleed. She is mine to do with as I please,” he growls every word, and by the rigid stance of his body, he’s trying not to run to them and put his fist through their throats. I’ve been with him day in and day out now for months, so I can read his body like a map.
From here I see the grin lighting up Cushing’s face. “A finger it is then,” he says, gesturing for Carter to continue without moving to exit the room. “But we stay put first.”
“We want a front row seat for the screams,” Shaw says nonchalantly again, leaning against the wall with his eyebrows raised. “It just isn’t the same through a monitor,” he sighs through disappointment and urges Carter to continue.
“Nail,” Carter says with a huff, turning on his toes to face me again, and I’m greeted by the stone, emotionless expression of Carter.
Leaning over me, he examines my face, blocking out the entire room from view. A smirk placed on his lips when the tool in his hand runs across my good cheek, and he puts his forehead against mine. The heat of his body pushes through mine, and he gasps for air quietly, pushing his forehead into mine until the pressure forces my eyes to his.
My chest shutters when his warm breaths mingle with mine, and I swear my heart leaps from my chest with a joyous dance, seeing the real man behind the mask of indifference.
“I have to,” he breaths so quiet that I almost miss the confessions spilling from his lips. “Please trust me,” he breathes again: “I will fucking save you, Sweetheart.” He pulls away without saying another word and takes my tension-filled hand into his. Three squeezes say it all. I love you. I’ll save you. Do not worry.
Tension fills every molecule of my body when the pointed metal of the pliers rests just beneath my fingernail, resting there until I meet his eyes again. Worry lines set in and wrinkle his brow, but he continues to stare as he pulls at my fingernail with gentle pressure, until he knows I know the deception is not on me. The deception is on the three men quietly talking and laughing at the millions of dollars they’ve made in the last few hours or days, or however long I’ve been here.
Tears fill to the brim when his hand squeezes mine three times again in reassurance, and I finally see every emotion fluttering through the depths of his once dead brown eyes. He cocks his head, face twisting with indecision, as the pliers dig deeper under my nail. I gasp from the burning pain, but give him a subtle nod in the end to continue and just pull it off. My eyes squeeze shut when pain rocks through my finger, and a disgusting squish sound happens before the pressure pops off my nail.
My cheeks cover in wetness when I can’t keep my tears at bay any longer. I stare at Carter’s grimacing and green face until he wipes all his emotions away again. He turns to the other three, holding my fingernail up in the air, and they whoop in celebration. Darkness encroaches on my vision until I close my eyes. In the distance, their voices echo like they’re under water, but I swear through my fucked up hearing, I hear the door click and their footsteps retreat.
My head spins and lolls to the side when black dots scatter across my vision, and I heave a breath. If this rescue doesn’t happen soon, I’m going to die tied to a chair with a knife sticking out of my gut and a fingernail missing from its bed. A warmth encases my body, and I relax into the rough surface of the chair, letting the darkness take over my brain. Maybe if I just sleep for a little bit. Just a small nap.
“Fuck! Sweetheart, open your fucking eyes,” Carter hisses so quiet, I almost don’t hear him when he taps my good cheek, rousing me.“You cannot fucking leave me yet, do you fucking hear me?”
I swallow hard, letting the pain envelop me completely, and it buzzes around my body.
