Devil's Despair Box Set: Books 1-3 (26 page)

I’ve never listened to Hem. It’s become painfully obvious that I’ve never listened to anyone, and I’ve got no reason to change.

* * *

A few hours later, my patience has reached its end. I can no longer sit here and watch Joe worry, and Anna has me rethinking my self-promise of never hitting a woman. I’ve got to do something. I want to at least see her, look at her, if nothing else.

Standing from the kitchen table, I put my beer down and pull Cherry’s dad from his thoughts. “Joe, I need the address to the club and I need your car.”

His look is surprised, but his words are hopeful. “You’re going in there alone? Tonight?”

“I’m going in there right now. I want to see her.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Cherry

SAYING GOODBYE TO Decklan before my shift this evening was emotional. He asked why my eyes were “leaking” and I insisted it was because I was feeling sick; that I’m just old, tired, and achy. As he hugged me goodbye, I kissed the top of his head and Maria watched in concern. I left him there with her, praying he would be okay away from me for a few nights.

The club is busier than usual, and the customers are in hasty demand. I’m working tables with Tara, faking the confidence I can’t truly muster to make it until my shift is over. Vinnie’s here this evening working in his office. He hasn’t uttered a single word to me since Monday while advising me of his plan to reclaim what’s his. Vinnie enjoys pain. He gets off on the sound of my screams and cries of mercy, no matter the degree of my compliance.

“Are you all right, honey? You look a little pale. Is everyone doing okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m a little tired, though.”

Tara smiles and lifts her eyebrows for expression. “That hot boss keepin’ you up late at night, I see.”

Rolling my eyes, I grab my tray from the bar and when I turn around, I drop it as shock rivets throughout my body. Ace is standing at the bar on the opposite side of the club. He’s wearing his grey Henley rolled up his forearms, his faded jeans with the well-worn rips, and his black motorcycle boots. He’s scanning the crowd as though he knows what he’s looking for.

He’s talked to my dad. That’s how he found me.

Fear and grief fill my chest as I resist the urge to run into the safety of his arms.

Cutting my view of him, Tara steps in front of me, grabs my shoulders, and squeezes tight to garner my attention. “Cherry? Hey!”

Snapping out of my daze, I meet her eyes after realizing I’ve just dropped my bank on the floor. “Oh, God, I’m sorry.”

“You’re not okay. Go sit down. Jesus, Cherry, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Maybe I have. When I look beyond her shoulders again, Ace isn’t there. His beer sits alone on the bar. Darting my eyes quickly throughout the room, I still don’t find him.

“Here. Don’t worry about the rest, we’ll get it after close.” Tara is shoving dollar bills in my plastic container and wiping the tray with a bar rag. Smoothing my hair at the side, she tilts her head and tells me, “Cherry, if you want to talk to me, I’m here. I don’t say this without concern, but I’m not unaware of Vinnie Bartone and his ways with women.”

I nod in response.

“Vinnie wants to see you.” I hear Dominic’s deep voice from behind me before he stands at my side, taking the tray from my hands. Handing it to my friend, he finishes, “Tara, you’re gonna look after her tables for the rest of the night.”

Fearing what Vinnie wants, my body reacts to the light-headed sensation. I sway and find myself being pulled by the arm and taken by Dominic. Vinnie’s going to make good on his promise early, and this walk to his office is my last act of freedom.

Briefly, I fight it. Ripping my arm from Dominic’s hold, I get free, momentarily. “Don’t fuck with me, Cherry. Boss said to bring you in, and that’s what I’m doing.” I hear his malicious tone even over the blaring music and crowds of people gathered around us. He stops moving me momentarily, long enough to listen to his ear piece then he turns to me and gives direction. “Camera room. Let’s get moving.”

Vinnie’s caught Ace here, as well.

I follow Dominic down a long, dark hallway and when he opens the door at the end of it, he allows me to walk in alone. I hear the metal click of the door clasping shut before I hear Vinnie’s anger.

“You’ve brought trouble.” My assumption was right - he’s seen Ace.

Vinnie’s leaning against a desk, and a wall framed with television sets feed the camera angles behind him. I see several screen shots from the cameras placed throughout the club. The bathroom entrance, behind the bar, the dance floor. I have bird’s eye view of every square foot.

His demanding question. “Why is he here?”

My honest answer. “I don’t know. I saw him only for a second, then he was gone.”

He contemplates for a moment, then asks, “Do you remember what Marcus said?”

“Yes.”

“Did you bring him here?”

“No.”

Turning around and looking down at the desk, Vinnie picks up a remote and I watch him click the center console, changing its channel. On the screen is a close-up of Ace. He’s sitting alone at a table near the club’s entrance. He’s searching the crowd with the frustration of not finding me. His jaw is ticking and his eyes are narrowed, the glare of the dance floor lights dulling his view.

“Vinnie, I swear I didn’t…”

Slap.

I’m struck across the face before finishing the truth of my innocence. My jaw burns and my eyes are watering. Vinnie accepts my sign of weakness and grabs my shoulders, viciously turning me around to stand in front of him. The front of my thighs hit the desk with brutal force as he grabs my chin, squeezing it in his hold as he stands against my back.

I hear the hiss in his words, the tone a vicious indicator for what’s coming. “You’re mine. Because of this, I think Ace needs to be forgotten.”

I don’t understand his meaning with clarity until he pushes my face into the desk, causing my nose to bleed on impact. Moving his hand up my skirt, he rips the thong away and tosses it to the ground. He grinds his hardened cock on my body before pulling my hair and lifting my head.

“You’re going to watch
him
look for
you
while I refresh your memory of
me
. You’re going to remember the last time you saw his face as a time I was inside you.”

Tears of anger, pain, fear, and sadness openly fall from my eyes. I taste the blood in my mouth as it drips down my face, the metallic taste of it lost on me. “Please, Vinnie.”

“Good girl. Beg, Cherry. I miss hearing you beg for my mercy.”

My fear takes a turn and anger begins to bellow from inside. I’m going to be raped at the hands of this madman again, just as I was when I was a child.
A child
. It’s for the person that I use to be that I do this. “Fuck. You.”

Using my words as sustenance, Vinnie drills his fingers inside me, and I feel the tear in my delicate skin with his aggressive drive. His fingers slam into me as his palm grabs at my skin. His breathing is heavy and his words are sharp.

Through a clenched jaw, his voice rains over me, as if reciting from a memory. “Tell me I can’t do this. Use your body to stop me. Fight me, Cherry.”

Focusing on the screen in front of me, I concentrate on Ace. In my mind, he’s not here in this devil’s dungeon. I’m picturing us in his bed in California. He’s lying on top of me, pinning me to the bed. It’s Ace’s way of protecting me from nightmares that were once a memory. Closing my eyes, I tell myself we’re not here, we’re home.

Reagan… I love you.

Lost in my thoughts of Ace, I don’t move, and I also don’t comply.

He pulls my hair again sharply. Vinnie gets off on both fight and flight, so it doesn’t matter my reaction.
Indifference
is what insults him above all else. “Fuck. You.” I repeat through a clenched jaw.

Removing his fingers from inside me, he twists my body abruptly, and I’m met with another hard slap to the face. Again, using my anger as fuel, I don’t move. I repeat, “Fuck. You.”

Using his strength, his hand reaches the back of my head and he pushes me to my knees. “Your mouth is trash.”

As he unbuckles his belt, a relieving and heavy knock comes to the door. Looking down at me, Vinnie laughs quietly, the threat envelopes my already frightened state. “We’re not done.”

Buckling his belt and walking to the door, he opens it and a man I’ve never seen calls him out into the hall. Immediately, my head turns toward the desk in search of the camera views. Ace is gone, no trace of him at any angle.

Where are you?

Vinnie interrupts my search, walks to me in quick strides and hands me to the man I still can’t place. He’s taller but thinner than Vinnie. A large scar above his left eye and an evil grin dominate his face. He’s holstered. From here, I see a knife and a gun on the inside of his jacket.

Walking down the hall with him beside me, I hear the crowds near us. If I run, I’m as good as dead. Vinnie doesn’t follow where we’re going. He cuts to his office before we continue our path. Once we hit the stairs, my panic finally takes flight. I’ve heard about this basement. Vinnie plans to kill me now for bringing Ace here.

When we make it to the small space, I can’t see anything other than shadows created by the open door, leaving the light outside to shine dimly into the open space. I hear metal meet metal, and my hands are moved over my head roughly. I’m cuffed. “Please, let me go. I didn’t bring him here, I swear.”

“Raegan?”

Ace’s voice in the darkness stops my pleas. “Ace?”

“Rae, it’s me.”

Then I hear the vicious assault: the sound of flesh hitting flesh, Ace’s ragged breath, his body moving in time with each hit.

“Stop!”

Silence.

“Neither of you say anything else. Each time you do, the other will suffer at the expense of your own selfishness.” Marcus’s voice permeates throughout the room. Lines of fear run up my back, my stomach sinks and my heart breaks in my chest.

“What did I say, Cherry? What did I tell you would happen if you ran?”

“I didn’t run, Marcus. I swear I wasn’t going anywhere.”

Another fist to flesh shakes the darkness. Marcus laughs a malevolent laugh with Ace’s pain being inflicted at my words. “You don’t learn. Do
not
speak, whore!”

I hear Ace spit, and the sound relieves me; he’s okay. Quietly, without words, I’m hoping Dominic isn’t near Ace and he’s not the monster giving him the beating. If I chose an evil for Ace, it would be the smaller man who brought me here.

“Rae, talk to me. I need to hear you. Tell me you love me again.”

A vicious sting radiates my back. The feel of it marks me as though a leather whip has sliced my skin. I let out a small, agonizing cry. Ace wants to hear my voice; his way of verifying I’m okay. Quickly, I let out a string of words for his reassurance, even knowing their consequence.

Stifling a cry, I let the words bleed from my heart. “I love you, Ace. I’m so sorry. I love you. I miss you. I read them all…” I have to stop. The gross sounds of his body being brutalized causes me to vomit as I stand with my hands cuffed over my head.

I hear clapping coming from the corner beside me, Marcus has enjoyed the scene he’s created. “I told you, Cherry. Ace will live a life of agony, did I not?”

I don’t respond, not willing to risk another strike to Ace. I nod, even if he can’t see me.

“She learns, Uncle.” Vinnie’s here now, as well. I watch his shadow make his way to me. Touching my face with the front of his fingers, he whispers gently, “Say goodbye to him, Cherry. His life will never be the same, and it’s
your
fault.”

Ragged sobs make their way out before I get sick at Vinnie’s feet. I don’t hear Ace struggling anymore. The room is quiet except for the shuffling of feet and the sound of a chair being pushed around the floor.

“Get her down, clean her up, and take her home. Hands off tonight, Vinnie. Your toy is broken. Give her the night to recover.”

That’s the last thing I hear before my arms are freed and I pass out in the arms of a monster.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Cherry

“WAKE UP.” THE sound of Vinnie’s voice sends shivers down my spine, and my stomach turns as I try to lay still rather than bolt for an escape. Opening my eyes, I find the nightmare I thought I was having is actually live and in color.

“Are you sore, darling?” His question, attached with a sarcastic endearment, causes me to swallow the bile that’s made its way from my stomach and into my mouth.

I answer, fearing if I don’t, he’ll strike me as he stands above me beside the bed in his tailor-made, gray Italian suit. “Yes.”

The sun’s bright glow tells me it’s late morning or early afternoon. Last night, after I came to, I was “loaded,” as Vinnie so carelessly refers, by Dominic. The drugs inside my system caused a haze in my mind that I still can’t shake off this morning. I don’t remember anything after leaving Vinnie’s office last night.

“You know what’s coming today. Your friend Ace suffers. It’s the beginning of the end, Cherry. You’ve done this.”

The panic of memory reaches its peak. Not worrying about the consequence I may face, I plead as I lay here helpless. “Please, don’t. Vinnie, I didn’t bring him here. You have to believe me.” My next words are a lie, and I’m mentally praying as they’re said that Vinnie believes them. “He’s gone. You and Marcus have already scared him.”

“How do you know he’s not dead already? He took a hell of a beating after you left.”

Mind fuck,
but I refuse to believe Ace is dead. “I don’t. Please, Vinnie. What do you want?”

When his hands reach for his belt buckle, I close my eyes; my time has run out. He’s going to take what he’s wanted from me all along. The stories I was told about being unharmed and guarded under Marcus’s promise are about to shatter.

I won’t survive this.

I lay still as I watch Vinnie stroking his semi-hard cock with rough pulls. His smile is deviant; he’s gloating. “I’m going to fuck your mouth. It’ll tide you over until this evening.”

I don’t respond as he takes the hand not holding his now-hard cock and pulls the back of my head toward him. With my head adjusted on the pillow below him, he traces my lips and I taste the pre-cum as he rubs it in, spreading the vile liquid across my face while he continues stroking himself.