Page 38 of Corrupted Deception

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Chapter Eleven

Charlotte Santoro

Cielo laid Carlos Mendoza’s limp body out on the king-size bed like a discarded rag doll.

The bedding made a crinkling sound as he dropped him down, drawing my eye to a clear cover that had been spread out over the bed, now spread out beneath Mendoza.

“He’s all ears,tempesta,”Cielo said.“What is it you want to know?”

He crossed the room to the en suite and returned with a briefcase.

A moment ago, it had felt like Cielo and I were in sync.

Now, it was like he was pulling control here right out from under my feet.

I licked my lips. Suddenly, they were bone-dry.

“What… the… fuck…” Mendoza managed to slur out. His breathing was shallow but steady at the moment.

I was about to launch into my speech about what I’d injected him with and what was going on in his body at the moment when Cielo set the briefcase down on the end of the bed, right next to Mendoza’s useless legs, and opened it up.

“What’s that?” I asked him, because somewhere, in some universe, it was possible my eyes were going wonky and all those sharp, pointy things were really pens, or metal straws, or I don’t know… something other than a whole lot of scary shit designed to make people scream.

Cielo’s brows drew down, eyeing me like I’d gone a bit daft. “Now that you have his ears,” he said as he withdrew a small pair of pliers from the briefcase, “just think of these as a way to get his mouth moving.”

“Eyes, ears, mouth, and nose…”

The childhood song flitted through my head as my pulse started to race.

“Find five things you can see…”Dr. Steele had reiterated at least a thousand times.

I looked around the room.

The navy-blue curtains

The television mounted on the wall

The white bathroom door

The painting of a field behind the bed

A chair in the corner of the room

“Acknowledge four things you can touch…”

The smooth surface of the nightstand

The rough texture of the carpet

The cool, hard surface of the window

---