Page 10 of Lost
Holy fuck.
“It’s a shame I can’t teach you a lesson,” John mutters, his eyes raking over my body as he adjusts himself. It takes everything inside of me not to sneer, my twitching fingers working to untie the rope around my wrists.
“Mr. Domino said that he wasn’t happy to leave Michigan for pussy, but that he would make an exception for you, Nova,” Louise croons. “Aren’t you lucky? We’ve fed and clothed you your entire life, it’s about time we get a payout.”
“You’re selling me,” I gasp, recognizing the name on Louise’s lips. All of this time, my sister has been living with our enemies, the very reason Emilia is untouchable.
Logic shreds in front of me as I see red, the knowledge that I shouldn’t kill Roberto Domino no longer important. If he’s buying my sister to rape her, then it’s the last thing he’ll ever do.
John glares at me as he crouches at my feet, systematically pulling off my boots. I can’t kick him because I’m tied to the chair, though I want to writhe to get away from him.
Don’t exert your energy. If I’m too tired to fight to get away, then I’ll be fucked. My muscles already ache from sitting here, the electric aftershocks that make my body twitch not helping.
Caleb and Lars taught me how to escape if I was ever kidnapped. It’s something I begged them to teach me when I started having nightmares as a teen.
Logically, I know I was a baby when Maree was kidnapped, but when I was ten, my parents installed a safe room in my closet. I asked if there was a reason for it, and my father said that he refused to allow the past to repeat itself.
To this day, I still don’t know how my sister was kidnapped, but I will find out who betrayed my family and end them.
“Your manners are lacking, daughter,” John says, pulling off my sock as well. I can’t figure out what he’s doing or why, but I’m sure it’s going to hurt. “Let me remind you of them.”
The fucker yanks my big toe back, the sound of the bone breaking slight against the pain as I suck in a breath.
“Don’t break too many,” Louise says softly. “Just enough to make her behave and so that Mr. Domino doesn’t notice.”
I don’t scream until he breaks two more bones in my toes in my left foot, and begin crying when he starts on the next.
“Good girl,” John murmurs, dragging his thumb through my tears and sucking on it. Numbness isn’t something I can reach for, not if I’m Nova right now. “I’ll remind you how to behave for me. I know that I said that you were too old for me to fuck now, daughter, but I do love how pretty your screams are.”
“Why are you doing this?” I gasp out. I need to know what kind of depraved parents Nova has, and that means asking questions she may already know the answers to.
“You’re mine,” John says, standing. “I like to know where my possessions are, and I’ve spent a lot of money getting you back.”
“Mr. Domino is going to make sure we get it back in spades,” Louise says. “Two million dollars if you live through him fucking you, and eight million if he kills you. I think that’s a pretty decent deal.”
“Mr. Domino is a hard alpha,” John says, moving around the chair.
Fuck, I bet he’s going to go for my fingers now. It’s what any good torturer would do, and it’s almost worse that I know this. If he’s trying to incapacitate me in a way that won’t mark my body, my fingers and toes are the way to do it.
The joke is on him though, because pain is life. I plan to live through this and burn the world down for my baby sister. It doesn’t matter that I’m only older by minutes, she’s mine.
The lost sister no longer is, and I plan to keep it that way.
“Hmmm. Her pinky isn’t crooked anymore. Let’s fix that,” John says, breaking it.
My eyes roll back as I focus on breathing, though I allow myself to continue playing into the act of feeling pain. I am cataloguing every word they speak though, including that Nova’s pinky never healed from one of them breaking it.
The world is colored in shades of red, keeping me grounded so I can’t disconnect. It’s more painful, but necessary so they don’t realize that they have the wrong sister. My bones will heal.
She shouldn’t have to go through this anymore.
“He’s going to be here soon,” Louise frets, her heel tapping on the ground. “We need to get her ready.”
My lips snarl involuntarily, and Louise just smiles.
“I know you’re not still a virgin, but this will hurt either way, Nova,” she says. “I plan to permanently clip your wings. If you survive Mr. Domino, then we’ll fix your hair and begin hiring you out to the family. We gave you everything, and you spat in our faces.”
“Wanting a life,” I gasp through the pain, “isn’t spitting in your face.”
