Infernal: Bite The Bullet (20 page)

Konstantyn’s thumb stroked down my cheek and I
flinched. He didn’t do more than that, but the memory of him comforting me just
the same way not days ago fuelled my disgust.

“Answer me this. Do you want to live?”

He loosened his hold on my jaw so I could answer,
but I couldn’t speak through the vicious swell of anger surging inside me. Hurt
and humiliation caught at my tongue and I swallowed the bile rising up my
throat.

My silence angered him, and the slap that cut
across my face was startling, but weirdly devoid of pain. A powerful guy like
him, I’d have expected him to hit hard, and yet my cheek didn’t even sting. It
was just warm from the contact with his hand.

“You hit like a girl,” I spat.

Odd. Something he’d said to me at Gracie’s
apartment rose to the surface of my mind like a bubble.
I don’t hit women.
Right.

He hitched me up by the chain, closer to his face.

“I said, do you want to live.” Not a question this
time, his accent punctuated the words with a harshness that jolted me to
respond.

I nodded jerkily. His jaw twitched and I stared
into his eyes, willing the tears in mine not to overflow. I would not give this
bastard the satisfaction of seeing me cry. Again. I stared at him, and through
my tears I almost missed his lips moving.

I’m sorry
, he mouthed.

For a split second, Konstantyn looked just like
Konstantyn, like a veil had been lifted and he was the man who had comforted
me, who’d kissed me, who’d laughed because we liked the same kind of pizza. The
one who’d taken a serious beating from the police to help me get away.

No. Those were lies, all lies. What did he want?
Absolution for what he was about to do to me?

I blinked and his face was back to the terrifying
mask of cruelty he’d entered with. Had I imagined his apology?

His hands were too warm on my clammy skin, and I
squirmed. His brutal grip tightened on my jaw to keep me still, and I froze at
the bite of pain that twisted around my wrists as he tugged at the attached
chain.

He had me completely trapped. Any way I moved, he
could hurt me, and my wrists were so raw, just flexing them sent bolts of stinging
shock through my nerves.

Konstantyn’s face got close and as his eyes bored
into me, no doubt searching for a fragment he could use to hurt me, I wanted to
stab those pretty eyes right from his skull.

He’d find nothing. With my brother gone, I had
nothing but my life left to lose.

He nodded, as though he’d found what he was
looking for, and a ghost of a smile flickered across his lips, like the
phantoms of his victims, taunting me for my own stupidity.

“Smile for the camera, Neva.” He yanked my head
around to the flashing red light mounted on the wall over his shoulder, but his
eyes stayed on me, and I was drawn back to his gaze with a shudder of
revulsion.

It would be witnessed. Everything would be
witnessed.

Curling my lip at him, I didn’t let myself be
fooled by the sudden drop of attitude in his face, didn’t let myself read into
the shame and concern and sorrow that seemed to be crowding into the brown of
his eyes.

An act, it’s an act
.

But as I raked him with a despising glare, I
caught on his mouth, and my heart flopped over again.

Play along
, he worded silently.

If he was trying to mess with my head, he was
doing a really good job.

Play along with what, his sick games? He was
torturing me with the Jekyll and Hyde routine, and my confusion was on a level
with my terror.

He leaned in so close, I felt his breath on my
ear. “The boss is watching you, right now. Understand? This is the performance
of your life, so you better fucking perform good.”

Play along. Perform. My brain was twitching,
trying not to believe what it desperately wanted to: That I wasn’t alone. That
he hadn’t betrayed me.

His eyes squeezed shut and the mask slipped again.
Konstantyn looked distressed, his shoulders bunched and his chest inflating in
a deep breath. He was bracing himself for what was to come, and that terrified
me more than anything.

If it affected him this badly, how the hell was I
supposed to weather it?

Whichever act was the real Konstantyn, it didn’t
matter. I was still trapped, my stomach rebelling against what I would have to
endure, because no matter if we were playing a part or not, there could be only
one end to this.

“He wanted to do you personally,” Konstantyn purred,
and I could see the shutters fall down, blocking out the man I knew, and
replacing him with a vicious doppelganger.

His fingers stroked along my face and I reared
back so hard, I twinged something in my spine. Konstantyn didn’t break, his
rough hands keeping my face to the camera as the deep timbre of his accented voice
thrummed against my ear, just loud enough to be heard by the recording device.
“But I told him, after that pathetic excuse for a blow-job, you needed breaking
in first. I’ll break you in good. Don’t you worry.”

My cheeks heated with shame. Insulting my sexual
skills should have been the least of my worries, but my pride took a stab
nonetheless, even as my fear ratcheted higher. “You make the boss happy, and
maybe we’ll go easy on you.”

Oh God
. How many times had I wished it had
been me who’d died, and not Daniel? How many bargains had I made in my grief?
Now it was real, my courage had deserted me.

A warm hand slipped down my spine as Konstantyn
spun me to face the bed, and a bead of cold sweat followed the sensation,
terror manifesting in my trembling body as I looked at the mattress.

How many gone before me had suffered through
painful humiliation on this bed? How many had died, hopeless, alone, and in
agony? My brother had been one of them.

I could only hope it would stop with me. If Dante
got what he wanted, perhaps no one else would be tortured. But even that had
the taste of a lie.

The crack of Konstantyn’s palm against my ass
jerked me from my internal war, and I met his dark gaze over my shoulder. His
grin stirred me to sickness as his hand kneaded where he’d slapped, and I
recoiled, wincing when he grabbed a hard handful and pushed me towards the
centre of the room.

“Now get up on the bed.”

I stumbled towards it, my eyes flicking between
his face and the camera as I climbed up onto the filthy mattress. Disgust
roiled through me. The staining was so much worse up close. I picked my way
into the middle with a stiff spine and skin that crawled with abhorrence.

“Face down, ass up,” Konstantyn barked, making me
jump as I moved where he wanted me. My cheek mashed into the filthy mattress as
I took position, and my hot tears added to the stains on the material beneath
me as I trembled. Waiting.

The door clicked open.

“There she is.” Alexei’s voice prickled along my
spine. As the two murmured behind my back, I was crimson with shame, feeling
the heat of their eyes on me, lascivious, vile, crawling across my flesh like
slime. How many more were watching through the camera?

Alexei’s distinctive laughter chilled the marrow
in my bones. “I could smell that sweet cunt all the way down the corridor.” By
the slur in his words and the glassy sheen in his eyes, I gauged he was drunk.
The collar of his shirt was undone, and black hairs sprouted from his neck. I
knew the bastard had switched to speaking English just to torment me, and fuck
him, but it was working.

“Just give me the implements,” Konstantyn gruffed.

Implements? Oh God.

“Where are you going to do her?”

“Where do you think?”

Alexei moved behind me and I felt his rough hand
caress the cheek of my ass. My entire body recoiled from his touch.

“Yeah, I always figured you for an ass man. I hear
dancers have nice tight pussies, and even tighter little asses. Maybe I’ll
stay, and watch you work.”

“You can watch on the video feed, with the
others.”

The two men argued for a few moments in Ukrainian,
each guttural syllable chipping away at the remnants of my soul.

The steel in my spine trembled as long seconds of
silence followed and then… The sound of a zipper clicking along metal teeth,
the shush of fabric, the closing of the door.

Vibrating with fear, I dared to glance over my
shoulder, expecting the worst.

But Alexei was gone, and it was just Konstantyn’s
voice in my ear once more.

“You’re going to want to keep still, or this could
go very badly. I’m talking permanent damage.”

His breath was hot on the back of my neck, and I
couldn’t help but remember our routine, when he’d had me pinned to his chest,
his words warming my nape and teasing behind my ear with a rush that had
tripped down between my thighs.

Now, I shuddered, fighting the reflex to hurl up
what little I’d eaten.

Deftly, he unlocked one of the cuffs and dragged my
arms to the backs of my thighs, before securing the chain to my other wrist
again, binding me in that position.

I twisted my wrists discreetly, and the cuff felt
a little looser. I said nothing.

His lips twitched up and he needed a kick in the
face for looking so pleased.

The mattress dimpled with his weight and I
glowered at him over my shoulder as his body brushed against mine. Once, I
would have enjoyed it. Now, it was like sandpaper, abrading emotions that
swarmed to the surface and flooded my eyes with tears.

For a second, my ragged, panicked breaths were the
only sound, and then the thick columns of his thighs kicked out between mine.

The reality of what he was about to do pounded
through me, a drum of frantic terror. I shook, adrenaline and fear and a
battling survival instinct hissing white noise in my head. No, not white noise,
vibrations.

Some kind of an instrument was buzzing at my back.

I torqued to see, but Konstantyn’s palm was a hot
brand between my shoulder blades, holding me down with a grunted, “Be still.
Dante wants you –”

“Screw what Dante wants!” I lashed out, ignoring
the blaze of pain as I ripped my wrist out of the loosened cuff. The top layer
of my skin scraped right off, but I didn’t care. My hand was free.

I jerked around, and slipped off the bed, but not
before I’d managed to aim a jab at his face, bruising my knuckles on the iron
line of his jaw. Whatever instrument of torture he’d been holding went skidding
across the floor of the cell, vibrating loudly against the concrete.

Konstantyn’s hands were as tight as the manacles
had been as he shoved me back onto the mattress and locked the cuff to my
bloodied wrist, tighter this time.

He growled, barely audible, just a breath of words
against my ear. “Still yourself, or you’ll get us both fucking killed. You are
dancing for your life here. Understand?”

I froze. Something in his voice compelled me to.
Play along. Dancing for my life. Was it really possible that Konstantyn was on
my side? That this was all an act for the camera?

The approaching buzz of the machine he’d bent to
retrieve from the floor was all too real.

“Dante wants you inked,” he continued like I
hadn’t moved at all. “Stay still.”

Inked? Branded more like. The same way he’d
branded my mother.

I squirmed in a panic when his knees indented the
bed either side of my hips and his palm smoothed over the left cheek of my ass.
There was a wet swipe – antiseptic? – on my skin, and then his hand shifted to
my lower back and the whirr of the machine got louder, faster, shaking the air
around me almost as much as I was shaking.

I wasn’t sure what would have been worse, having
their mark on me or having Konstantyn fuck me for their amusement. Either way,
I wasn’t going to be living long enough to deal with the after-effects.

“I’m sorry, Neva… stay still. You have to stay
still.” His voice was a soft whisper in my ear. Soft enough that the mike
wouldn’t pick it up over the buzz of the tattoo gun, I realised.

I looked towards the camera in the corner and I
didn’t have to fake my fear. Anyone watching would see the terror building in
my eyes as Konstantyn aimed a slap that cracked across my ass, numbing it for
mere seconds, before the buzzing was writing over my skin, a tickling itch that
crawled down to hum in my bones. But it didn’t hurt, I could barely feel –

“Oh fuck! Stop, Christ! Stop!”

I thrashed and Konstantyn cursed, his palm coming
down across the other cheek and shocking me to gasping immobility.

I thought he’d stop, he didn’t.

The needle tapped away at my skin with a hum of
searing pain, and I whined into the mattress, caged under the bulk of
Konstantyn’s weight as he moved himself to keep my hips still.

“If you can’t handle a tiny needle,” my tormentor
rumbled over the bass thrum of the tattoo gun, “you will suffer much in their
hands. I thought you were stronger than this, Neva.”

Was he baiting me? Chipping me down? Or
invigorating me?

I was strong, but prone and naked, and being
skin-raped by a crazy man with a mechanical needle held to my ass had knocked
my pain threshold to nil.

Everything was worse when you were bared to the
world. Literally, if the camera was broadcasting to more than just Dante and
his hell crew.

The pain tripped over my skin, and Konstantyn
huffed when I shifted, trying to settle into it. I jumped, and the needle
skidded. Wincing, I caught my lip in my teeth to stifle a whimper. Konstantyn’s
muttered curses quelled any further movement.

The camera blinked at me and I glared back. No
moving. No screaming. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

With my hands bound to the backs of my thighs, I
had nothing to brace onto, nothing to anchor myself, except the fabric of
Konstantyn’s combats, rough on my bare skin. I grabbed at them, fisting tight,
and held on for dear life as he moved the buzzing gun down over the curve of my
ass.