Page 60 of Elicit (Decadence After Dark)

“Jett, please. Just let me go,” I stress in a strained whisper. “Forget you ever knew me and just let me disappear,” I implore.

The moon’s glow highlights all his worried features and the shocked and confused look on his beautiful face.

“You know I could never forget about you. What you’re asking is impossible.” He uses his thumbs to wipe away the wetness descending down my cheeks.

“Then just kill me.” I move his hands down to my throat. “Just do it right now and put us both out of our misery.”

Anger flashes in Jett’s acute eyes. “London, you are talking fucking nonsense!” He snatches my wrists and pulls me up.

“No, I’m not. I’m dead fucking serious. I’d rather die than go back!”

“Backwhere?You have to tell me so I can understand.” His grip gets tighter, more urgent.“Trust me.If there’s only one person you’re ever going to trust in your life, let it be me.”

The tears rain out of my eyes as I crumble under his stare. Simply verbalizing the memoires is emotionally excruciating.

“I was sixteen.” I finally crack wide fucking open. I’ve never shared this part of my life with anyone, and I don’t know if I’ll survive if I do.

“What happened when you were sixteen?”

“I was taken,” I explain through the tears. “Given to a man who did unspeakable, vile things to me for years. I was a slave. I lived in a cage. I was his pet.” My voice disappears.

Jett’s expression drops. He understands.

“Whogaveyou to him?”

I look dead in his eyes. “My father.”

“What?” he gasps, appalled.

“I thought I had been kidnapped. Turns out I was sent to be trained. To be broken.” My lip quivers as the memories surge in like an angry sea. “He wanted a submissive, a slave, and he got one. For a long time. I did everything I was ordered to, no matter how disgusting. I was his signing bonus, his blackmail, his entertainment. Whatever he needed me to be. I had no voice. No face. No soul. I was a beautiful building with nothing inside. And he took full advantage.”

“And what happened?”

“I escaped. I’d had enough. I was dying. That night was the last straw.”

“What night?” Jett hangs on my every single syllable.

“The night he tied me to a bed and left me there. The night I was used over and over and over again by countless men. Even when I pleaded, even when I cried. Even when the pain engulfed my entire body and I couldn’t take another second, it continued.” I completely break down. “It continued for so long. I was helpless, and he knew. He loved it. They all loved to hear me suffer. It was part of the thrill.”

“Jesus Christ.” Jett pulls me into his arms and lets me sob out the agony all over his silk shirt. He rocks me consolingly, humming a soothing rhythm in my ear.

“How did you finally get away?” he asks delicately.

“When it was finally over, when I was finally released,” I weep. “I was bloodied and bruised and completely destroyed. I didn’t care whether I lived or died. All I cared about was it ending.” I become lost in the memory. “My father’s right-hand man, Silas, always kept a gun tucked away in the waistband of his pants, and I knew it. I knew I could get close to it. He had his time with me, too. Whenever he wanted. Which was often. I knew the two of them so well. Knew their routines, and their habits, and their timetables. I knew them better than anyone.

“I planned to just grab the gun and shoot myself, but it didn’t happen that way. Silas was too quick and deflected the shot. The bullet ricocheted and ended up hitting my father. We were all in shock, and Silas had to make a split-second choice to either help my father or catch me. He chose my father. I escaped down the service elevator and didn’t look back.”

“Where did you go?” Jett’s investment is ironclad.

“I hid in the streets. Cold, hungry, and alone was better than the hell I was living in. I ate out of garbage cans and bathed in public restrooms. I barely survived, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t a slave anymore.”

“Where was your mother during all this?”

“I have no idea,” I sniffle. “I never met her. And the few times I did ask about her, my questions were brushed under the rug. The last time I ever tried to find out anything my father threatened that if I didn’t stop pestering him, I’d end up just like her. I was nine, and his outburst scared me to death. Sometimes I wonder,” I whimper. “I wonder if he subjected her to the same hell as me . . .”

“And she wasn’t lucky enough to escape?” Jett finishes my thought.

I merely nod. It’s the only response I’m capable of. I’ve often wondered if I was a product of her hell. The thought sickens me, as I mourn a mother I never knew. What’s worse, the idea allows me a look into the window of her life, and what do I see through the glass? My own sad, abhorrent reflection.

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