Page 48 of Heart of a Devil

I head inside to the elevator, already looking forward to a hot shower and blessed solitude. I’ll call Seb after I get my head on straight and try to put things right between us. He knows my temper is almost as bad as his, and hopefully we can work our way through it.

I’m still thinking about that, planning what I need to say, when the elevator pings on my level. The doors slide apart, and I am immediately confronted with the unexpected sight of atall, heavily built man wearing a baseball cap and a mud-brown delivery uniform. He looks me up and down with dark, beady eyes, his face twisted into a cruel sneer. A face that matches the pictures I’ve seen of Diego Torres.

“Hi Lauren. Surprise!”

I gape at him, horrified, trapped inside the elevator with nowhere to run. I hit the button to shut the doors, but he sticks his foot inside so they won’t close. He grabs a handful of my hair and drags me toward him, making me stagger and trip as he pulls me out into the hallway. Mine is the only apartment up here, but I scream anyway. My lip splits when he slaps me viciously across the face, making me taste blood. “Shut the fuck up.”

I shove his chest as hard as I can, but he’s a big man and doesn’t budge. He takes after his father like that, and I feel sick at the unhelpful memories my mind conjures up:

Uncle Carlos and this man’s dad, sniggering when they arranged for a delivery of heavy-flow tampons to the house while my friends were over.

Rafe “accidentally” pushing me off my bicycle when I was going home from school, then kicking up my dress as I lay in the dirt.

The two of them finding me in the pool one afternoon and forcing me to stand in front of them, shivering in my bikini while they discussed how fat I was getting and how huge my ass was.

All of this rushes in on me at the sight of Diego, paralyzing my usual survival instincts and turning me into a scared little girl again. It gives him the time to take control. He spins me around so my back slams into him and puts his arm around my neck, crushing the breath out of me as he drags me toward my home. I have my keys held between my fingers as usual, but I’m so scared, so panicked at the lack of air, that my arms flail uselessly, slapping ineffectually against him.

“Ah, the keys—how helpful,” he says, tearing them from me. “It was easy enough to get in the building, you know. It’s amazing how stupid people are around a man in uniform, and now you’re practically inviting me in too.”

He unlocks my door and tugs me inside, towering over me as he forces me to walk toward my living room.Please let someone be watching. Please let someone see what’s happening here.

“Don’t worry, beautiful. I already got into the camera system. Nothing that happened outside or in the hallway has been captured. Now we’ll make it look like everything’s nice and normal, eh? Wouldn’t want that rhino of a boyfriend to come roaring in and interrupting us now, would we?”

My heart sinks, and he smiles. That’s exactly what he hoped for—for me to have hope so he could crush it. He releases the awful pressure around my neck and pushes me forward, deliberately sticking out one of his feet to trip me. I fall to the floor and slam my head against the wall. That’s exactly the kind of thing Carlos used to do, and my nausea threatens to cripple me as I lie curled in a ball on the ground.

He nudges me in the stomach with his shoe. “I expected more fight from you, Lauren. You always seem so sassy on the surface, but I guess that’s all fake. No surprise, though. I mean, you were weak as a kid too. Pathetic, really. My dad used to come home and show me the photos of you sleeping that he and Carlos took. Did you know they used to drug you? Didn’t you ever wonder why you slept through it all despite being so paranoid?”

Staying in my protective ball, I suck in air and try to calm myself down. I can’t be that kid again. I can’t go back to being some sick fuck’s emotional and physical punching bag. Diego is bigger than me, yes, but that doesn’t mean he has all the power. I need to breathe, to think, to play this game to win. As much as I hate hearing all of this, he clearly loves the sound of his own voice. If I want to buy myself time, I need to engage with him.

I shake my head. “No, I didn’t know that. Why did they do it? Why did they do that to me?”

He hoists me up with his hands under my armpits, and I let myself become a dead weight. “Ooof! You need to go on a diet, chica. They did it because it was fun, didn’t they? One night when you were sleeping, they unbuttoned your pajama top—the one with the pink rabbits on it, remember? I was only eleven, but boy, I still remember that. My dad snapped a picture and showed it to me—your gorgeous teenage tits, your big brown nipples, so perfect and perky. I asked him for more. I asked him if I could come along too, but he said no. Said that Carlos only allowed him to look, not touch. The next week, though, they pulled down your pants and spread your legs for me. Showed me your pubes, your pretty pussy. It was the first thing I ever masturbated to, that photo. Don’t you feel honored?”

He’s pulled off my coat and bag and placed them on the floor next to me. After he takes out his phone, he frowns at the screen, his fingers flying over the keyboard. I still feel nauseated. I still feel like a scared little girl—but I no longer feel paralyzed. “There!” he exclaims. “Now, let’s get this looking all nice and cozy.”

He puts the coat and bag on the couch, goes back to his phone, and smiles. “All done. Now anybody who checks in on you will see that and think you’re in your bedroom, safely tucked up. And who knows? Maybe that’s where you’ll end up—but definitely not safe. I’ve waited a long time to see you again, Lauren. You disappeared off the radar so well, didn’t you, moving around, changing your name. Even leaving the country. It was real nice of your mamá to let me in on the details of all the Montoyas’ lives like she did. I’d almost given up. You know, when your bastard cousin and his redneck friend Jax killed my father, I decided I wanted nothing more to do with any of you.We couldn’t bury him—were you aware of that? Didn’t even have a body to honor… My father, the only man who ever loved me.”

He kicks me in the side, and pain radiates from my kidney. I cough and choke, wiping tears from my eyes, then hold my hands up in supplication. “Please don’t hurt me. I’m sorry about your dad. You must know that had nothing to do with me. They’re all monsters—I ran away from them myself. I moved to the other side of the world to get away from the Montoyas.” There’s a flicker of doubt on his face, as though he’s considering my words. I wonder briefly if there is any humanity left in there for me to appeal to.

“Maybe,” he says, his eyes running over me hungrily. “I did always like you. I used to follow you home from school. I was younger than you, so I was invisible. But I’d walk behind you, watching, knowing exactly what your breasts looked like under your uniform.”

I suppress a shudder. “You don’t need to hurt me, Diego. You have all the power here.”

“Oh, I know that,” he says, laughing. He grabs my hair again, bunching it up and pulling me upright. The pain is excruciating, but I can’t let it distract me. I can’t let it blind me. “Lie down on the couch here. Show me those titties again. Then we’ll see.”

He spreads my legs and kneels between them. “Come on, Lauren. Do as you’re told. Don’t make me go after Samantha or her beautiful baby.”

“No, please! They have nothing to do with your father or the Montoyas—they’re innocent.”

The risk to people I care about is more painful than my throbbing scalp and the shooting pains in my back from his kick. He’s a coward, but he’s a dangerous coward, threatening to go after a woman and her child like that.

“Nobody is innocent. Unbutton that top. Now.”

I screw my eyes shut but still hear his heavy, excited gasps and feel his intrusive weight between my knees. His fingers squeeze my thighs painfully, and his foul, fetid breath gusts across my face. I force myself to look up at him. He morphs into Carlos, into Rafe, into Brad Schmidt. Into Jimmy McIverson and Ivan Volkov. Into every man who has ever hurt me. Every man who has ever hurt a woman. Every man who has looked at a female and assumed that he has the right to take whatever he wanted, no matter the cost to her.

He punches me in the stomach so hard I cry out, and with trembling hands, I begin to unbutton my blouse.

Chapter

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