Club Alpha (18 page)

He goes in first and slams the door wide.

A silent pop like a stone punching into still waters comes from my left.

Tallinn drops like a mighty tree.

I freeze inside the doorway while a pool of blood spreads beneath Tallinn.

The sight of him bleeding out on the ground shocks me to stillness. I realize in this treacherously suspended moment that I love this crude, raw, and brutally honest man. He is so much more than my guard.

The passage of air when the bullet pierced the darkness makes my training taking over, but too late.

Men move forward—four in total.

I do not recognize them, but we speak the same language: that of the body and battle.

In the end, no amount of expertise can equalize four against one.

Not when I am met with a similar skill level.

I break bones
—faces—
and
draw blood.

In the end, I fall.

My thoughts before consciousness leaves me are not of my mortality.

Greta is the singular heartbeat of my wakeful mind. When that leaves, her ghost follows me into darkness.

Greta

My eyes snap open.

Alert.

Ready.

Bare concrete walls greet my fuzzy vision. A naked bulb tosses its glare across every surface. A shadow from a wooden corner chair stretches toward where I lay like a bony embrace.

My body's so numb with my fear, it surges through my veins alongside my frozen blood.

I'm too smart to move my head. I know I'll either barf or pass out. Some people might take a second to come to themselves after being hit in the head.

All I remember is
before
.

I won't panic. I remember where that got me last time. Gia's voice surfaces like a phantom sliding over my clammy skin.

There's nothing you could have done, Greta.

I swallow against the dryness in my throat, and a tiny bit of surviving saliva catches. I tug at my wrists and ankles.

Locked.

A tear I can't afford to shed slips from my eye. It sears a brutal trail of fire over the injuries on my face.

The zip ties are savage plastic against my tender, scarred skin.

Surely Zaire Sebastian couldn't have thought
this
was a Club Alpha feature.

Gia promised me that triggers wouldn't be allowed
. This is so far beyond a trigger that I can't breathe.

This is a replay of my prior torture.

My breath hitches in an incomplete sob. Another tear joins the first. I bite the inside of my cheek until the taste of metal clings to my gums and teeth. Crying won't help me escape.

Survive, Greta.

The sound of water is all around me, disturbing the tomblike silence like being entombed in a boat without windows.

I blink back tears. Gia
knows
I've been hurt. She'll get help. I roll my lip between my teeth, thinking of the obvious.

Maybe help won't come soon enough.

*

When Tor strolls in, I don't dignify his presence with even a flicker of acknowledgment.

I grit my teeth.

I've spent the last hour looking at the four cement walls and smelling my own dried urine.

I know a few things.

I'm near the water. I can smell and hear it all around me. Moisture seeps into the corners of my concrete prison like saltwater tears. The bare bulb that hangs above me, illuminates the damage of my body.

My face feels distended, and I can't see through one of my eyes. I know that my cheek has swollen into the eye socket where Tor tossed me into the wall.

Curiosity burns like a virus in my brain; however, I remain silent. My chin throbs, and I give thanks to an uncaring God that the floor in my hotel room was carpeted.

“Greta,” Tor calls softly.

Fucker.

A traitorous tear of frustrated rage slides down my face, though my lips are tightly clamped.

His fingers are suddenly on my tender chin, viciously turning it, and I cry out, despite my best efforts not to.

“You will give me your full attention.”

I stare into his cold green eyes, like a sea robbed of warmth.

I'm reminded of Paco's bright-emerald hue. Open, glittering with his joy of being alive and, so I believed, in my closeness to him.

Unlike Paco’s, Tor’s green eyes are glacial, closed with indifference, and shimmering with his intentions.

I've learned a lot from a gaze. “Fuck you,” I say between my teeth.

He slaps my abused cheek, and my head whips into the mattress. My instant agony is a muffled wheeze between my teeth.

“A love tap, Greta. Have you already forgotten the feel of my fist?”

I hate that my voice is small. “No.”

“Then you will do what I say.”

“Why?” My one eye follows him as he clasps his large hands behind his back, straightening above me.

I breathe easier when he's not hovering above me.

Blood runs down my face, pooling in the hollow of my collarbone.

I want so badly to protect my body, to cover it, that my skin crawls with the urge.

Tor appears to sense my thoughts in an unwanted pulse of telepathy.

“You are quite naked, Greta.” His voice is a soothing drone. He grins, his teeth looking vaguely vampiric inside his cruel features.

I stiffen.

His eyes move over my form, lingering at my crotch.

I've never wanted to hide more than I do in this moment.

“Why are you here?” he asks in a mocking tone. “Why did I take you two years ago? Which question would you like answered first?”

Take me?
Like what—to a picnic?
No
,
gang rape is not something Tor gets to gloss over.

He speaks in a completely reasonable tone of voice, as though I'm not tied off in a cement basement somewhere.

“Why did you
rape
me?” Tears gush, flowing down my cheeks. I can't contain the memory of how injured I was—and still am.

Like liquid grief, my tears flow out of me like an unending river, burning over my abraded face, sealing the wounds with my despair.

Of course, Tor is unmoved.

“I am indebted to someone for the dismantling of you. Piece by delectable piece.”

What?
“Who?”

He holds up a palm, slightly reddened from beating me. “In good time.” His mouth screws into a tight twist of lips.

Tor steeples his hands beneath his chin as though in prayer. I know this man hasn't prayed a day in his life.

“Our fathers were in business for many years. When my unfortunate psych evaluation came to my father's attention…” Tor hesitates for a few seconds, appearing pensive. “Along with certain proof of my deviant inclinations, he would have me put away. Disinherited.” He shakes his head.

The wetness of my memories dry on my cheeks before the testimony of his words. I listen while I hate him. His deceit. My vulnerability.

“I couldn't have that,” he says in soft reflection.

The pieces of the puzzle come together in macabre synchronicity. “You killed our fathers?” I ask slowly, suddenly remembering how badly Father had seemed to want to tell me something on his deathbed.

Tor drops his hands, rolling his eyes. “Your stubborn father would not die in my conveniently contrived vehicular accident,” he remarks with a tone of feigned patience.

Tor shrugs, and a hysterical bubble of laughter rises in my tight throat.

He notices my expression and gives curious pause before continuing, his head cocked to the left. “So, for what a lubricated autobahn could not accomplish, a goose-down pillow sufficed nicely.”

My stomach twists painfully. “You suffocated my father?” I whisper, though in my gut, I already know.

Tor shoves his hand in the pockets of his slacks, drilling me with his eyes. “Sure.”

Sure?

I swallow, and the dry click is the only noise besides the drip, drip of water finding its way into my new hell.

Keep him talking.
“And
your
father?”

“His jet
accident
was engineered with more care. I am not—as you Americans say—a slow learner.” He's not telling me all this to purge his soul.

Tor is going to kill me. I feel it to my marrow, and my bladder clenches with the surety of my inevitable death. It's what might happen before my death that has me soaked in sweat and trembling.

Tor is freely confessing because there will be no accountability for his actions. He claps his hands together, and I jump. The plastic teeth of my bindings bite into my skin, flesh scarred and sensitive from the last time.

The wounds of my mind run deeper than those of my body.

“Let us get started!”

“Started?” I manage through my tight throat.

Tor's chin jerks back. “You speak French?” he asks suddenly.

Enough.
I nod with automatic slowness through my puzzlement.

“Déjà vu, Greta,” he says quietly and winks slyly.

Chills sweep down my naked body. “No,” I deny.

“Why—
yes
,” Tor says, genuinely perplexed. “Did you believe I played with you, elicited trust, braining that pretty head of yours and then bringing you here to confess my sins?”

Tor cups his elbows, rocking back on his heels while he guffaws in chilly false humor.

No, I didn't think that.
I hadn't gotten that far.

I've been far too preoccupied with my injured and vulnerable state and the potential for things worse than what I've already survived.

I squelch my fear. “Tell me
why
I've been tortured and beaten. Now that you've killed our fathers, you can have
your
father's inheritance. I'm unnecessary in all this.”

He shakes his head. The dark copper of his hair glints under the sick yellow light cast by the florescent bulb softly swaying above my body. “No. Father was brilliant. He disinherited me. Between my unusual hobbies being revealed and my IQ, it's my belief that Father thought I was too much a risk to let roam free, or bequeath me a dime.” He gives a dark chuckle. “However”—he swings a palm dismissively—“provisions were made to the finest sanatorium in Europe.” His mocking gaze finds mine. “Only the best nuthouse for an Aros.”

Oh my God.
One eye bulges in terror; my other remains swollen shut, but uninvited tears leak out.

Tor is legitimately crazy.

I force my body to be calm.
Knowledge is power, Greta
. “How is keeping
me
helping
you
?” I'm so proud that I can keep my voice steady.

The first genuine smile I've ever seen—because all the smiles that fell on me before now were a mask—lights his face. “This is the part that is so delicious to me, Greta.” He's impassioned, beginning to pace the small room. “Upon your death, the trust—as all Norwegian trusts are fashioned—falls to the next living relative.”

I know he's circling some insane revelation while I lie here, beaten and naked, smelling like piss. Hate infuses me with courage. I state the obvious, my heart racing, “We're
not
related.” I strain against my bindings.

His eyebrow pops. “True.”

Tor's malicious grin reappears; he clearly relishes the cleverness of his secret. “However, my wife will be taking care of that small detail.”

Sweat rolls from my bound hands to my elbows. “Wife?”
Someone's
married
to this monster?

“Ah,” he says softly, “I see from your disgusted expression that you can't imagine anyone being joined with me.” He wags his finger. “Me, either. However, how wrong we both are. I have found my other half. She allows my ways and accepts…” He inhales deeply, muscled chest expanding. “My needs.” Tor's last words are spoken almost reverently.

“So you're going to-to—”

“Kill you,” Tor finishes pleasantly, lips curled in a satisfied smile.

I blanch. “Why?” I ask quietly. “What have I ever done to you?”

“It is not personal for me, Greta. It is personal for the woman I love. Your death and degradation is a means to an end. Your torture and ultimate death will give her joy, and—we will benefit tremendously.

“Everyone will believe we eloped. Your death will not be revealed. And we will—another wonderful expression I steal from the Americans—ride off into the sunset together. I will be rich, and my beautiful bride will be happy.” He sighs in utter contentment. “And it will be fun.”

Fun?!
My mind spins.
How?
What?

A dull knock falls on the door. “Ah! My bride has arrived. I won't keep the two of you apart another second, now that you know the entire truth.”

Tor swings the door open, and Lisbeth passes through the rough opening.

Her eyes land on me trussed up on a mattress, urine and tears drying on my naked flesh. A slow smile takes over her face.

That's when I know.

My capture, my systematic rape two years ago—was never for Tor. He was only a vehicle of emotional and physical destruction.

It was Lisbeth. My own sister instigated the torture that crushed my body and soul.

I shut my eyes, wishing for death. Underneath that, I wish for Paco.

“Well hello, Greta. We meet again.”

“Love, why are you…?” Tor asks, wafting his palm around her face.

Lisbeth looks like a corpse.

Through the mud of my thoughts, I think of Paco’s plan to pay off the doctor. He must have somehow disguised her. Now she's free of the threat from the narco. Paco probably believes he saved my deserving sibling, that he saved the day.

Not that I would ever be a damsel in distress.