Page 90 of Their Cruel Love

He takes a sip, leans back into the bar. “You’re probably thinking you have no power and you’re right, but your mother does. I am feeling guilty, to tell the truth. I regret my involvement, and you are my best way out.”

“Oh?” I angle one eyebrow and wait. Everything,everythingwe were postulating seems to be correct. “You were making films? Killer Crew?”

“You got that far?Hmmm.Well done.” He places aside the drink and pulls out a phone, which makes me wonder if his has any bars. He taps and scrolls then turns the screen to face me. “I don’t like being a murderer. I prefer being a sadistic and grievously nasty sexual partner to the women I bed. This.” He pulls a disgusted face, waves vaguely. “Not me.”

“Or not anymore?” It’s facetious to think one can be absolved of murder just because you’ve changed your mind. I crane my neck to see the screen and this concrete evidence without getting too close to Simon. “May I?” I reach out a finger as if to touch.

He advances so I can touch it. “Scroll all you want. I’m not in those.”

“But you were there?” I murmur, as if his answer would mean nothing to me. Horrified, I spot three different women. This is that room. The stone table room. Manacles and blood and writhing women being sexually tortured meet my nauseated gaze.

The moment is nailed into place, a wriggling maggot pinned on a stick. I’m sickened to my core by the fusion of my nightmares andthis.I cannot move, cannot think past what is before me. It cannot be real. Again, I let my eyes track the movements, see the blood, the silent screams, the faces in throes of agony. I’ve seen war on TV. I’ve seen the insanity of humans. The damage we inflict on others.

And yet, this cannot be real. My hope, my need for Milli to be alive, demands that I reject this.

It might be roleplayed? Imagined?

It’s not.

It’s real. This is real.

I swallow, twist my mouth, and accept this revolting fact.

When I glance at Simon, he seems placid but fascinated with my face. He may have sworn off murder but he’s getting off on showing me these awful crimes. I almost tell him the police would love these. I don’t. I hold my tongue, difficult as it is not to yell at him and call him names likecockturdandassholeandyou putrid fucking murderer.

Nausea surges up my throat, and I swallow it back down. Puking here, no. He’d probably love that too.

“You can get us three off the island? If we get you immunity, somehow?”

“Yes. In a nutshell. Emma and the board have influence. I can call them. There is a set time when the network is on. I give them all the info on this. The board have a security force they can send. Your mother and the board leave me alone, help scrub me from records.”

I’m wondering how the fuck he thinks I can influence my stepmother enough to do this when I couldn’t get her to wipe my parking fines, or my nose, let alone this…when an image makes my finger freeze up. Then it shakes.

A video, but I don’t tap play.Don’t.It is Milli, bound to the table.

Don’t tap.

Tears spring into my eyes, welling up along with revulsion, rage, and illness—they roil about, fighting for supremacy, and I’m not sure where to look. He will see I’m upset, and I’ll lose this deal, and then bad things. I’ll get us all killed.

I clamp down on the tears and my emotions, then ask ever so nicely, “Who is this one?”

He turns it, scans the screen. “Umm, not sure. I was there, but the name escapes me.”

He. Was. There.

Then, he smiles, he smiles at me, then turns the screen and it’s playing, and Milli is screaming, soundlessly, becauseduhthe sound is off. The hut tilts, expands, the phone is all I can really see.

This is how she died. My fault. Again. Mine. I see that. Just as us three being here is my fault. Marcus and Razor would be saying words to me now. Likestopandthinkanddon’tbut this man, he is plain fucking evil.

I clench my fists, feeling helpless, hopeless, and if I cannot do anything what use am I?

I stare at his face, meeting him without wavering for the first time. Get a grip. Do something for once. My thighs are still shivering, but it’s with energy I want to release, not terror.

Every muscle on my body…

…strains and twitches…

…with incandescent rage.

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