Page 9 of Fervent

Brock lifted his right arm and swung the cane with a grunt. I jumped at the crack that struck my ears with such force, it rattled through me. I didn’t know how she was still in one piece. Something warm and wet fell from my eyes, and her image blurred. I would have given anything to take her place.I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…

The apology bled from my soul, and maybe some part of her deep inside heard it. She slumped, eyes screwed shut as her screams diminished to hopeless mewls. Right then, I knew I’d kill every last one of them, and not in the I’m-fucking-irate-as-hell-and-talking-a-good-talk way. I would literally kill them, would do so with the most disturbing satisfaction imaginable, and no one would find the pieces of their corpses after I was through.

Another crack assaulted the tormented space between my ears. Her head dipped, chin to chest, body entirely limp as urine trickled down her quaking legs. She’d given up fighting. Her fucking brother had driven her to stop fighting the day she’d tried to kill herself.

“Let her down. She can’t take anymore.”Don’t break on me now.

Cleft gestured with a wave of his hand, and the bastard with the cane brought it down on her again. After three more strikes, he pulled the rubber band from her hair, and her curls tumbled around her shoulders in a mess of tangles. He freed her from the shackles, the fucking bastard apparently satisfied he’d broken her.

But she wasn’t broken. She couldn’t be. I wouldn’t let her fucking break. She’d come too far for these assholes to do her in.

Depleted of strength, she crumpled to the floor. Blood slickened her backside, and the sight of the deep red horizontal lines on her skin turned my stomach. Brock and another guy picked her up and carried her from the room.

“Where are you taking her?” I shouted, cranking my head around. She lifted her lids, just enough for me to see a spark of the woman I’d do anything for. In that moment, I knew it was true. Alex had me by the soul, her love winding around me like an unbreakable rope of which I couldn’t escape.

I didn’t want to escape her, but wehadto find a way to escape this place.

Cleft stood in front of me and folded his arms with an air of nonchalance, as if we were old friends having a friendly chat. “That was your first lesson. If you so much as sneeze without my permission, she’ll take the punishment. Do you understand?”

“What do you want from me?” I asked through clenched teeth.

“You destroyed my family.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Same old memory problems.” He rolled his eyes. “You’re pathetic, Mason, but your head issues won’t save you. I’m here to collect a debt, and I’ll take it all, pound for pound, from your girlfriend’s flesh.”

I couldn’t hold it in anymore. The chains were the only things holding me up as I vomited on the gritty floor. “Kill me,” I begged. “She’s innocent.”

He tilted his head. “Is she?” He stepped closer, his sneakered feet bypassing the mess I’d made. “She’s the reason you were in that fucking prison in the first place. One lie that sent you away,” he said, pausing long enough to snap his fingers, “and my life is fucked. She’s as much to blame as you.”

“She was only fifteen. Don’t do this. Whatever I did…just fucking kill me for it and let her go.”

“Believe me,” he said, his breath rancid in my face with the stench of tobacco. “I will cherish that day when it comes.”

I wheezed air between my lips, muscles bunched, aching to pound him to a bloody, unrecognizable mass of body parts.

Cleft’s fingers fell to the button of his jeans. He nodded to the other two men in the room, who had quietly watched the horror unfold without a word. “Get him on his knees.” He retreated a few steps. “In fact, make him kneel in his fucking puke.” He grinned in such a chilling way, the smile crawled down my back like a spider.

“Do your girl a favor and open your mouth big.” He unbuckled, and I stiffened, my teeth grinding as he lowered the zipper. The fucker had a huge-ass erection.

My nightmares came back, flooding my conscious mind with details I hadn’t been able to grasp until now. Something had seemed so familiar about Cleft. His smell especially—the odor of sweat and tobacco combined with whatever musky cologne he favored.

Now I knew why. He’d raped me in prison. Though I didn’t remember it with clarity, I knew it was true.

He folded his hand around his dick. “You’ve got two options. You can suck me off, or Brock can have some more fun with your girl. Your choice.”

I couldn’t breathe. Oh my fucking God. There was no choice. Not even a little.

His goons loosened the chains keeping me upright, and I collapsed to my knees, right in the middle of my vomit. Goon number one grabbed the back of my head and held me in place while the other forced my arms in the air again with a jerk of the chains.

The moment was surreal, like an echo from a nightmare that twisted my insides. I opened for him, focusing only on memories of Alex—on what it felt like to wrap my body around hers, how hot and wet she’d been when I dipped my fingers between her thighs. The whimpering sound she made in the back of her throat when I possessed her mouth.

Cleft pushed his cock against my tongue, and I gagged.

Memories flashed behind my eyes, crashing through the barrier like a dam busting. The rapes in prison, how deep his hatred for me ran, though my psyche refused to stir up the reason why. It was there, tickling the edges of my memories, but that sick feeling returned and scattered the path to recollection, and my heart thumped so fast, I thought I’d black out.

He pulled back, and his dick slipped free. “Fuck this. I wanna fuck.” A quick nod to his men sent them into motion. They released my hands and shoved me to the floor. I struggled in my vomit, my limbs little more than deadweight. Someone grabbed my legs, but I kicked behind me and pushed to all fours.

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