Page 17 of Devil's Riches

“But… I haven’t tried to seduce you,” I said, shaking my head as tremors of terror jolted my body.

“Oh, sweetheart. I know you haven’t,” Greg said, lips tipping down in a play at sympathy. “But I’ve missed it all so much. I have to do it or I’ll lose my fucking mind.”

He said that as if he hadn’t already lost his mind years ago.

“Please,” I cried out, voice almost cracking with fear as horror churned my stomach. “Please don’t do this!”

Before I could scream again, he pushed my legs apart, brought the ginger between them, and pressed it against my ass. I clenched the ring of muscles as hard as I could to stop it from entering, but it didn’t work. Greg was too strong for me. He shoved it inside me in one merciless thrust, eyes glittering with manic arousal.

My chest heaved as pain seared every nerve ending below my waist. I screamed and screamed until all the air went out of my lungs. It felt like the sensitive tissue inside me had been doused with gasoline and set on fire.

“Please!” I shrieked. “Stop!”

He didn’t stop. He pushed the peeled ginger in deeper, making me writhe with agony. Then he pulled it out before shoving it all the way back in, using it like it was a dildo.

“Stop it!” I screamed as jolt after jolt of pain rocked my core. “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

“You’re the one who needs to fucking stop,” Greg hissed next to my ear. “If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’ll cut your toes off and shove them up your ass instead.”

I believed him.

While Nate had made a lot of threats against me and hurt me terribly in the past, he’d never done anything to permanently maim me, unless you counted a few scars on my legs, and recently I’d gotten the impression that he’d find it difficult or even impossible to do something like that. He only wanted to hurt me because of all the terrible things he thought I’d done, but it wasn’t who he was at his core. He wasn’t a monster.

Greg was different. He was pure evil. He enjoyed every sick, twisted second of the torture he inflicted on innocent people.

“Do you want that, sweetheart?” he said. “You want me to cut them off?”

“No,” I moaned, gasping for air. I wanted to pass out more than anything, but I was wide awake, so I knew there was no way I’d faint anytime soon, even with the shock of the torture. If he cut my toes off, I’d be wide awake for that too.

“Are you sure? Because I’d love to see the look on your face when I do it,” he said, grinning wickedly.

My stomach lurched with horror again. “Don’t,” I said, lowering my voice to a strangled whisper. “I’ll be quiet.”

“Good girl,” Greg replied in a mellifluous tone, stroking one of my arms with his free hand. “Don’t get me wrong, sweetheart—I love the crying and screaming. But this place isn’t soundproofed, and I can’t have anyone hearing you and reporting it to the cops. So you really need to lower the fucking volume.”

He resumed the ginger torture, mercilessly shoving it in and out as I jerked on the bench and tried my best to swallow my sobs.

I was in absolute agony, but somewhere in that miserable haze, hope was glittering.

I was wrong earlier. Wherever Greg was holding me, it was close enough for someone to hear me if I screamed loud enough. I couldn’t do it now, or else he’d maim me like he threatened to a moment ago, but I could wait until he left again, and then I could scream the place down.

A moment later, Greg shoved the thick ginger so deep inside me that I couldn’t help but let a wail escape my lips. He let out an irritated sigh and slapped me in the face, leaving me breathless. Then he stepped away from the bench.

When he returned, he was holding one of the ropes from the bag and a balled-up sock. “I didn’t want to do this, because I wanted to hear something from you, but you won’t stop fucking screaming, so I don’t really have a choice, do I?” he said, pushing the sock into my mouth.

He laid the thick, wiry rope over the lower third of my face and pushed it between my lips, forcing me to bite down on it along with the sock. Then he tied it tightly under the bench. I could only let out strangled groans now, even if I tried to scream at the top of my lungs.

There goes my plan.

My eyes welled up with tears as Greg speared me with the ginger again. He’d done it so many times that it felt like he was using a red-hot poker on my insides.

I scrunched my eyes shut and let my mind drift to Nate again, wishing he was with me. Wishing he was squeezing my hand and whispering in my ear, telling me it would all be okay soon.

Such a yearning seemed crazy to the logical part of my brain, but I couldn’t switch it off or make it go away. Perhaps I’d succumbed to Stockholm syndrome after all the weeks I’d spent with him, or perhaps he was simply the lesser of two evils in my life right now. Either way, I wanted him by my side. Craved his hands on my cheeks and his warm lips on my neck.

The fantasy was so alluring that it almost stripped away my pain as I sank deeper and deeper into it. In the bright, glittering dreamworld, Nate never hated me, and we had no reason to be enemies. He was just a strong, soothing fixture in my life, always there to hold me and kiss me. Always there to chase the demons away.

“Good girl,” Greg murmured, tearing me out of my hazy dream state. “That’s so much better.”

He leaned down as he spoke, fetid breath ghosting over my lips and nose. I swallowed the bile in my throat as it rose upward. It took all of my strength to let myself sink back into my dreamworld; to ignore the presence of the man who personified the word ‘monster’.

When he picked up the knife again, slicing it down my abdomen, I didn’t even whimper. I simply closed my eyes again and retreated to my fantasy world, where the pain was gone and Nate was waiting for me.

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