Page 4 of Monster's Claim
“Don’t.I’ve learned to live with what I’vebecome.She screamed, you know, when she saw me.”
Ryker frowned.“Skip’s bitch?”
“Her name is Lara.”
“Ryker, Marco wants you,” called a voice byhis front door.
“Don’t get too sentimental.What makes herso different from the others you’ve worked your knife on?”Rykerasked.
He glowered, but didn’t care for Ryker’sopinion.Ryker still answered to his brother.In a way, they alldid.Right now, Ryker asked that question not as a friend andbrother, but one of the boss’s lieutenants.
“Tell Marco he doesn’t need to worry.OnceI’m done with her, she won’t be a problem.”
“That’s all I need to hear.You take care ofyourself, Matthias.”Ryker paused, hands in the pockets of histailored trousers.Since he started operating in the dark, thrivedin it, he stopped caring about appearances.“Have dinner with Skyand me sometime.She’d like to see you.”
With those parting words, Ryker finally leftthe living room.The door shut a moment later.Matthias locked itand peered out his curtains.Two cars, including Ryker’s, tailedafter Marco’s black Jaguar.
Marco always did like to be loud.
The scars on his cheek started to twitch.The lock he put on the door in his mind, sealing the memories ofthe torture, rattled.Matthias’s breathing turned harsh.Time toget to work.He checked the security system in his house andgrabbed a beer, before heading down his basement to greet hispretty captive.
Chapter Three
Lara woke, feeling like someone stuffed hermouth with cotton.She had fuzzy memories of what happened to herhours—was it hours ago now?Lara remembered emerging from thesalon, feeling like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.Those inhuman black eyes, lacking any emotion, staring at her.Thatgiant who felt like a brick wall, grip like steel.
She shivered, rubbing at her arms.Why wasit so dark?
She reached out with her hands, touching herstrange new surroundings.Lara felt a wall, some kind of blanketnext to her.Something rattled.She swallowed and with tremblingfingers found the chain connected to her ankle.
A scream threatened to claw its way out ofher, but she shut her mouth, not wanting that titan to comeback.
Oh God.The two words playedrepeatedly in her head.This couldn’t be happening, not to her.Shewas no one special, merely a waitress who barely made ends meet.There were thousands of girls in the city just like her.Why didthat monster take her?
A light flickered on, and this time, she letout a shrill scream.She was in some kind of basement, except itwas so much more than that.Lara saw the large hook first, glintingsilver in the dim light, hanging in the middle of the room.Thechains at the bottom.
Lara nearly had a heart attack.She breathedhard, digging her nails into the concrete floor.Lara nearlyreached for the blanket but angrily shoved it away instead.Sheforced herself to study the room.
At the end of the wall stood a table, onwhich were lined knives of varying sizes, to wicked-looking tortureimplements she didn’t know the names of.
“No,” she whispered, tears filling hereyes.
Lara still couldn’t believe this was reallyhappening.She’d die here, a slow and unbearable death, and no onewould even miss her.Skip certainly wouldn’t.It might even takethe cops years to find her body.
Calm down,she told herself.Laracouldn’t let panic get the better of her.She swiped at her eyeshastily.Lara needed to think, to try to find a way out of here.She searched for windows, but found none.She touched the wallbehind her.Not concrete like the floor but made of some kind ofpadded material.
Soundproof, she realized with chillingclarity.Her captor took no chances.Something unnerved her morethan seeing that hook and the instruments on the walls.She foundthe answer a second later.None of them looked rusty or had, shedidn’t know, dried blood on them.They looked well-tended andclean.
Whoever took her was no amateur, and thatknowledge only made her situation a thousand times worse.
Footsteps thudding on the stairs made herback into the wall.She felt like a trapped animal with nowhere togo.That bastard.Did he turn the lights on first, wanting her tosee the basement and scare the living daylights out of her, beforemaking his appearance?
After all, he was the master of this littlehellhole.The asshole decided all the rules of the game.He coulddo anything he wanted to her, and no one would know.
She fisted her hands by her side, notwanting him to get any satisfaction knowing he’d rattled her, buther entire body began to shake.Her captor looked so much biggerthan she remembered, especially when he stood looking down at herposition on the floor.
Lara grabbed the blanket, and he let outthat ragged laugh that sounded like steel scraping on concrete.
“Do you intend to use that piece of cloth asa weapon, Lara?”
