Deadly Fear (Deadly #1)(76)

“I’d always been pretty good at reading people,” she told him. “Just one of those things. I’d pick up on body language, voice—don’t know how or why really—I just always did. And I-I started reading him.”

More than that. She’d gotten into his head.

“The first night I was there, he cut away my clothes. Branded me.” She took a ragged breath. “Then he beat me. Not with his fists—he didn’t like to touch us, not directly anyway. He had a pipe he liked to use.” Silence. “He broke my right arm with his first hit. After that…” A shudder. “Doesn’t really matter.”

Oh, shit, he shouldn’t ask, he shouldn’t, but he had to know. “Did he rape you?” Romeo had raped the other girls. But Mary Jane—that part hadn’t been in the file he’d accessed.

Her breath caught. “He strapped me to his table. An operating table. Pulled my legs apart—”

Christ, no, he didn’t want to hear this. Why had he asked? Why?

“He tied rope around my wrists and ankles so tight I bled.” His fingers dug into her arms. Kill him.

“But then he found out I was a virgin.” She exhaled and he felt the soft shudder of air against his throat. “And he liked that. Said it made me more his.” A humorless laugh.

“You’re not his.” Never were. Never would be. That bastard should have gotten the death penalty for this twisted shit, and Louisiana usually wasn’t a state to hesitate. But Romeo had a way of working women, even women on juries.

“He didn’t break my hymen.” Said clinically, coldly, as if she were distancing herself again. “When he realized—he pulled back and he smiled at me. He told me I was his good girl. His sweetheart.”

Luke always knew what to say to the victims. Knew how to comfort them, how to help them step away from the darkness, but he didn’t know what to say to her. And he sure didn’t know how to channel the rage boiling his blood. Helpless. Not her, him.

“After that night, he didn’t try to rape me again. He kept me locked in a freaking two-by-three-foot room, like I was some kind of dog. No windows, no light. He took me out to screw with my head, to show me what he’d done to the others so he could watch my reaction. Then he’d put me back.” The words came fast, tumbling out. “Every time he put me in there, I felt like he was burying me.”

Luke swallowed the lump that rose in his throat.

“I survived. I played his game, and he kept me alive.”

“And the others?” Had he made her watch as they died? Watched as he carved up their bodies?

“When he brought them down, I-I heard them. He kept them chained in his playroom.” Her head moved in a slow shake. “I told them not to scream when he hurt them. I pounded on the door and I told them.”

Christ.

“I told them not to show fear because that was what he wanted.” She trembled a bit in his arms. “I told them but they couldn’t stop screaming. He’d slice them, and I could hear their screams for hours, and I couldn’t get out to help them. I couldn’t get out, not unless Romeo came for me.”

He kissed her. Kissed her with the tenderness he should have shown her before. Her breath slipped into his mouth, and he stole it, giving her back his own with a sigh. His lips lingered on hers. Tasted the salt of tears.

Slowly, his head lifted. Silence then, thick and heavy in the air. He didn’t think she’d say anymore, didn’t think—

“After a while, he started letting me out of the closet. When no one else was there, he’d let me out and allow me to stay in his playroom. That’s what he called it.”

Her voice came stronger now, with anger boiling beneath the words. “There was a metal door at the top of the stairs. I tried to break that door down so many times. I couldn’t. He’d leave me down there for days, and I couldn’t get out. I was trapped there, and I knew I’d die there, just like the others.”

No. “You got out.”

“He left a knife behind.” Her hair was drying. The light lavender scent deepening. “I think it was a test. He’d been getting angrier and angrier with me. Telling me he knew what was inside of me. ‘Time for it to come out.’ I found that knife, I kept it, and I knew that the next time he turned his back on me, I’d kill him.” A brittle laugh. “Maybe that was the test. I think it was what he really wanted. To show that I was just like him.”

“You’re nothing like him.”

“I tried to kill him. I would have killed him, if Hyde hadn’t stopped me.”

Yeah, and maybe Hyde should have been a little slower on that pullback. Because if anyone deserved a chance for payback, it was Monica. “The bastard deserved to die.”

“He wanted me to be a killer. Just like him. He was pushing me, always pushing me, because he wanted me to cross that edge and be like him.” Her hand pressed against his chest. “And I became one.”

“No! You were a kid! Tortured by a sick freak—”

“I stopped being a kid the minute the door of his Corvette closed behind me. And when I left those woods, I was a killer. Even Hyde knew it.”

Aw, f*ck. Her skin seemed so cold now. He pressed a kiss to her shoulder and dragged her closer, trying to warm her with his own flesh.