“Call her that again, and I’ll cut your fucking tongue out.”
“You don’t have the balls.”
“No? You don’t think so?” Levi threatens, staring him down, the muscle in his jaw ticking as his hand balls into a fist. Levi is terrifying when he wants to be, and it’s enough that even Corey seems rattled. Not that it stops him.
“You put your dick anywhere near her, and I’ll cut it off.” He lobs another hollow threat in Levi’s direction.
“Well fuck. What an inspiring thought!” Levi snaps back. “You know, I really thought I had today all planned out. But sometimes we have to improvise.”
He hollers for one of his guys again, and they have a tête-à-tête. His guy returns a couple of minutes later with a kit. One Levi opens and sprawls across the table in front of Corey. I can’t see the contents, but whatever it is has all the color draining from Corey’s face.
“Zephyrine, could I borrow you a moment?” he calls after me, seemingly wanting to demonstrate that I’m not actually restrained. I pull the rope off the hook and stand, meeting Levi in front of Corey. It's another insult to injury for Corey to have to endure.
I watch as he processes the fact that his wife isn’t a victim but a willing participant in his torture. His face contorts with the information and lands on a vicious sneer that’ll be burned into my mind for the rest of time. But I keep calm and follow Levi’s instructions.
“Could you undo his pants for me, sweetheart? Pull them and his underwear down to his ankles. He won’t be needing them. Infact, I’d guess he’s about to piss them, so you’d be helping him avoid the embarrassment,” Levi explains.
Even as he speaks to me in a tone laced with sweetness, he looks up at Corey, their eyes meeting as Levi gives him the most diabolical look I’ve ever seen cross a man’s face. I almost,almost, feel sorry for Corey. For all of nearly half a second before flashbacks of how he treated me in the past come flooding back. The punishing blows across my cheekbones for daring to ask to leave the house. The back of my head tearing through the stucco as he launched me across the hall for forgetting my place at a dinner with his men. The bloody lip and black eye from him ruthlessly backhanding me for telling him no when he tried to crawl into bed with me. Independence was a cardinal sin in his world. One that always deserved corporal punishment.
The memories keep my fingers working his button and zipper open even as he viciously orders me to stop, cursing the day he met me. They keep me going even as the orders turn to pleading, and he begs me to have mercy when I start to pull the fabric down. His dick springs free from his boxers out of the corner of my eye, and it garners another round of low chuckles from Levi. Corey’s face blanches in the wake of it.
“Which part’s got your dick at attention? The part where I fuck your wife or the part where she humiliates you in front of another man?” A low whistle comes next. “Or is it both? Fuck, I bet it’s both.”
“I will fucking kill you.” Corey swings his weight forward, and his dick pokes me in the chest as his body contacts mine. I grab it, squeezing tight, letting my nails dig into his skin and draw blood.
“You won’t touch him, you witless little dipstick,” I snipe at him.
“You fucking bitch!” He lashes out at me, his eyes wide with horror at the idea I might actually be siding with this man. They go wider still when Levi presses a blade to the base of his dick.
“Say it again,” Levi threatens. “Call her a name one more fucking time.”
Corey’s teeth grind together as he glares at Levi, but he stays silent. I have no doubt Levi will make good on the threat, and Corey must finally believe him too. After a long minute, Levi retracts the blade and looks at me, a softness returning to his face. His eyes search over me as if he’s trying to make sure I’m visibly unscathed. I offer him the briefest half smile to reassure him, and he nods.
“Good girl,” he praises before he offers up his next instruction. “Go back and wait for me at the stand.”
And God help me because I do exactly as the man asks. The priestly version would probably tell me to add rosaries to the count if he knew my thoughts. Hell, I think I need to tell myself to add them, given the situation we’re in. Even my darkest dreams didn’t touch it.
“Now, I want you to tell me where the governor is keeping the other relics,” Levi says casually as he runs his fingers over the implements in the kit that’s sprawled out in front of him on the table. He looks like he does in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, surveying the drawer for whatever tool he needs next.
“Do I look fucking stupid? I give you that, and he’ll kill me.” Corey’s sardonic tone grates on Levi, and his eyes narrow as he looks him over.
“Well then, you’re in a bit of sticky fucking situation because if you don’t tell me, I’ll fuck your wife while you watch, and then once I’ve made her come a few times, and I’ve got my energy back, I’ll start dismantling your limbs piece by piece until you start saying words I want to hear.”
“You wouldn’t fucking dare. You do that, and he’ll have every head in your family.”
“He tried that once. Didn’t work out for him.”
“You don’t have the fucking men. The gear. The fucking guts to take him on.” Corey shakes his head.
“Watch me.”
“I’m not fucking telling you shit. Anything you could do, he would be worse. No fucking way.” He spits at Levi’s feet, nailing the tip of his cowboy boot. Levi looks down, grinning like it’s the funniest thing he’s seen all day, before his eyes meet Corey’s again.
“Is that a challenge?” Levi looks up bright-eyed at him, like he’s just gotten the little push he needed to set the ball in motion. Levi pulls out a device and holds it up for Corey to see. “You know what this is, or are you too much of a city boy for that?”
“No fucking idea,” Corey sneers at him.
“Ah well. This is an elastrator. You put this band here…” Levi grabs something out of the kit in front of him and attaches it to the device in his hand, admiring his handiwork for a moment. “Then you just slide it under here.” He moves the device underneath Corey’s scrotum, working it back and forth until the band he attached snaps tight around the narrower stretch of skin at the top.
