Only God knows why he didn’t asked for the syringe back—maybe, for the first time in five years, Lucifer’s vengeful maker was finally on my side? He’s gotten me this far, after all—a room at the very end of a long hallway, where a balding man in a two-sizes-too-small three-piece suit opens the door with a grin.
Mack’s buyer is at least fifty, with a bulging gut and graying black hair styled carefully around that crowning bald spot. “You wait outside,” he tells Dante before ushering me inside with a hearty chuckle.
Shock nearly roots me to the floor, and I have to swallow it down before I can move. I expected some faceless monster. Some stranger. But...Iknowthis man. I met him just once before at a dinner Vinny hosted in a lavish restaurant downtown. It was one of the few times he brought me along to his business meetings, and I was suffocating in a red dress with a collar that choked my throat and reinforced his possession.
There were two other men there, and they all spoke in code about “kittens” that needed “new homes” and were eager and willing to be placed for “adoption.” One of the men had a funny-sounding name. Don something. Donahugh. He spent most of the night looking at me with long, searching glances that barely disguised the lust lurking within them. Vinny punished me brutally for that. How dare I catch another man’s gaze—was I a lady or a whore?
The current turn of events is enough to make me snicker as I stagger into a wide suite decorated with elegant, sleek furniture. A few leather couches frame a breathtaking view of the bay. It’s a cozy yet secluded atmosphere that seems the perfect backdrop to be captured by the camera set on a tripod in the corner of the room.
“Mack said no directors,” Donahugh scoffs as he waddles over to the camera and flips a switch that I assume turns it on. “But he promised that you’ll be a good little girl. Isn’t that right?”
He returns to me and runs a meaty finger along my chin while I, like “a good little girl,” obediently shed my coat, revealing the outfit underneath.
Beady eyes home in on my cleavage, and his cock practically bulges against his already constricting pants. He’s so different in his lust than Lucifer or even Vinny. He’s greedy and eager to fuckhis pretty little toy. It doesn’t matter to him if her eyes are dead and she’s already battered; he’s too damn busy trying to pull his pants down one-handed while he steers her to a leather chaise with the other.
“Lean down,” he tells me, his breath heavy on the back of my neck.
I obey, bracing both hands flat against the leather while he tugs at the back of my corset and unhooks the clasps within seconds. My hands fly to my chest once the garment comes undone as if to preserve what little modesty I have left.
Donahugh is not impressed. “Don’t be shy now, you little slut,” he growls into my good ear. “I saw the video you made. We’ll make a better one, eh? I’ll let you ride me too—”
It’s hard to manipulate a syringe with one hand. The movies make it look so easy, but once you turn and jab the needle into a man’s shoulder, it takes more pressure to apply to the plunger than you’d expect. The muscles resist the poison; it won’t go in.
“What the fuck?” Donahugh bats my hand away, leaving the needle sticking out of his skin, the syringe still filled with heroin.
I have to throw myself at him and brace one hand against his meaty neck, but it still isn’t enough. He shoves me off, the needle comes free, and I only have seconds to aim for a new spot and jab my thumb on the end of the syringe. His hand flies to his neck, trying to snatch the needle out, but this part of him accepts the liquid easier. He’s already losing his balance as he starts to chase me across the room. I hit my hip off a leather sofa and collapse on top of it just as he manages to wrestle a cell phone from his pocket.
“You fucking little cunt...” He fiddles with the screen, but his fingers are too sloppy. He can’t even get past the lock screen. He comes for me instead but hits the floor on his knees just feet away.
I watch him, panting. Shaking. Shocked. The success of this mad plan is a variable I can’t bother to assess right now.
Mack wanted information. He’ll get it someway. Somehow.
On my terms.
I try to hammer that point in.Myterms. I agreed to his plan for me: to prove something to that insane hole in my chest Lucifer has rubbed open and ground salt inside. I wouldn’t let him own me unwillingly. I won’t become his burden.
So I lied. I took initiative. I dragged him along with me without so much as a solid plan. I was reckless. I aminsane.
Donahugh seems to agree as he looks up at me with glassy, marble eyes. He can’t quite get them to focus, and maybe now I understand why Dante fought so hard to keep me anchored tosomethingwhile I was high—even to him. Donahugh’s far gone, at war with his own body. The hate alone isn’t strong enough. His fat lips are already fighting a stupefied smile as the heat consumes every bit of him in hungry little bites.
He doesn’t react when I slip my foot from the edge of the couch and kick him with it, but it’s not a very hard blow, to be fair—so I try again. This time, when my toes connect with his bulging stomach, he groans.
The poor man managed to get his pants halfway down, revealing the hairy tops of his legs and the part of him straining against a pair of white underwear.
Now what, Daniela?My fingers shake when I brace them on either side of me and dig into the leather.Vinny. Girls. Locations.I let those three things rise up and dissolve the revulsion at what I’ll have to do. I’m going to do it. I can. I will. I...
I feel heavy when I stand and stagger toward my discarded corset. Fear, pain, and anger are their own potent opiate. They take me away to some dark inner place inside my fractured soul as I carefully extract the small kitchen knife I managed to hide within the lacy lining.
It’s a familiar weight against my palm, heavy and already primed with the taste of blood. Sammy’s. Mine. Lucifer’s. I canuse it to draw more. I’m ready. I’m able to look past the demented insanity of what I’ve done...and of what Iwilldo.
I can.
The world begins to sway when I turn back to Donahugh. My vision blurs and tears slip down when I try to blink. I don’t know if it’s fear of Vinny, of Mack, or ofmyselfthat drives them to escape.
Donahugh tries to talk when I take a step toward him. His head lolls and a stream of drool dribbles down his lip, speckling his cleanly shaven chin. I keep walking. I size him up the way Lucifer scrutinized me, deciding within a second which place to strike in order to cause the most damage. Lucifer chose my heart, driving himself into the fragile organ like a nail. I choose Donahugh’s meaty left fist when I stoop down and drag the blade of my knife across the tops of his outstretched fingers. It’s not hard enough to break the skin, merely a little taste to make him flinch.
The next cut does the trick, however: a tiny nick in the flesh that draws forth a ruby smear of fresh blood. At the sight of it, memories flood back, hemorrhaging beneath my skull.
