Fragile Truths (17 page)

I dropped onto the bed and rubbed at my face, exhaustion and despair rapidly pulling at me. I felt the bed dip as Frankie climbed in beside me. I turned to her but she brushed me off as she turned her back on me and curled up on herself, her back twisting into a beautiful arc as she snubbed me.

God fucking damn women. Why the hell were they so bloody moody? I decided to follow her lead as I disregarded her cold-shoulder and turned my back on her as I fell asleep staring at the wall instead of her beautiful and breath-taking body.

14
^th
January 2014

Frankie

I opened my eyes to light filtering into the room from the window. My body still ached but apart from the soreness of my ‘holes’ nothing seemed to be unbearable. My finger throbbed now instead of smarted and I realised I must have slept for a long stretch, luckily through the dark of the night. I could hear Tate’s soft snores behind me as my eyes focussed on the two men watching us through the window.

Yard grinned at me when he noticed I was awake and waggled his fingers in a wave similar to how a parent would greet a child. “Fuck you!” I mouthed then allowed my eyes to drop to his lips.

“That fucking girl riles me up the wrong way.” I read as his lips moved easily with how he spoke, each of his syllables pronounced with a perfect forming of his lips. He was so easy to read and I smirked at him. He had no idea, the stupid man.

“Mmmm,” Don murmured as his eyes flicked over me. “What do we know about their relationship? Have they developed one?” He was a little more difficult to read as his thick white moustache slithered along his top lip and shouted for my attention, taking it away from the shape of his lips.

My heart rate sped up in panic as Jude approached and flicked his gaze over us before turning to Don, “No.”

Thank God, I wasn’t sure what would happen if they realised. “Are you sure?” Don asked with a sceptical expression but fixed his eyes firmly on me.

“Yes,” Jude answered simply but I caught the movement of his lips again. “Shit!” he mouthed. When Don or Yard didn’t turn to him I presumed he had said the single curse under his breath and just mouthed it. This surprised me as well as worried me. I could tell from the expression on his face he knew something had happened with me and Tate and I flicked my gaze up to the camera in the corner of the ceiling. He’d been watching us, viewing our pitiful lives play out as we became their puppets, each pull on the strings directing and controlling us as they played their cruel games.

Jude walked away, his eyes to the floor and I frowned and then stiffened as I caught Yard’s next words.

“Frankie!” I jumped in surprise when Tate placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Shit!” I exhaled slowly. “Don’t do that.”

“Sorry,” he whispered from behind me. “Are you…”

“Ssshhh” I hissed as I struggled to concentrate on what Don next said. “Shit, I missed it.”

“Missed what?”

I shuffled around, turning my body to face him. The strong contours of his face greeted me like morning coffee, the strength and smoothness of his face being the alternative I needed to stimulate my morning lethargy. “What they said.”

He frowned at me, glancing at Don and Yard then looking back to me. “They didn’t say anything. They’re outside, have they been in, did they hurt you?”

“No, calm down,” I soothed. “I can lip read.”

His eyebrows lifted as he stared at me. I tapped his chest, “Don’t look so surprised. I work with kids with special needs and we all learnt along with the deaf children.”

He nodded. “What did they say?” He grinned when he realised my skill would come in useful.

“Nothing much,” I lied; I’d wait and see if I could distinguish anything else before I warned Tate. “Just talking about our interaction but Jude denied that anything was between us.” I noticed his eyes flick to the camera before a frown covered his face. “You thought that too.” I deduced when I read the perplexity in his eyes.

“Mmmm,” he murmured as he pursed his lips.

We both shot upright when the door opened. Niko entered with two packets that looked deliciously like sandwiches. “It’s about fucking time,” Tate grumbled when Niko handed us one each. “We’ve been here ages and this is the first thing you’ve given us to eat.”

Niko remained silent and I shivered as I saw something in his eyes, something foreign but full of exhilaration. He pulled two bottles of water from a large bag and placed them on the small table. He closed his eyes for a brief moment before he reached in the bag again and Tate choked out a gasp when we both regarded the item he placed beside the water. “Nik?” Tate delved as Niko gathered more items from the bag and lined them all up.

My chest heaved as the blood in my veins chilled inside me and I struggled to take regular breaths, yet I sickeningly couldn’t take my eyes away from the grotesque items. Before I could ask what was going on Yard and Don walked into the room.

Oh shit.

Tate stood up, his back rigid with apprehension and anger as he stared at Don. “Don’t fucking touch her anymore; she’s not strong enough to cope with more.”

“Tate,” I hissed angrily. How dare he stick up for me, I was capable of deciding what I could and couldn’t cope with by myself.

Don grinned and snorted, “Oh Tate, calm your fire. We’re not going to hurt
her
.”

The pit of my stomach swirled in dread, the compression in my chest becoming too much as I flung myself upright and flew across the room. “You dare, you bastard. I’m warning you.”

He laughed at me, flicking a wrist across my cheek so swiftly but powerfully he knocked me sideways and onto the floor with a heavy thud. Stars exploded before my eyes as the side of my head smacked the hard stone slabs covering the floor. “Just as I thought,” he murmured as the big hefty guy came in and grabbed hold of Tate when he rushed to my defence. “Nik,” Don instructed with a nod.

Niko didn’t hesitate and a fire ripped through me when he picked up a long segmented chain; each small section of chain was locked together with a small round ring of metal but it was the end that sent me into a panic. The tip of the metal whip held a long thin blade, a little like a dart but with a sharp serrated edge.

Sumo stepped back as Niko lifted it high and with a single strike of his arm the chain wrapped around Tate’s neck and pulled taut. His face reddened immediately as his eyes watered and tears ran the length of his face with the tension. His fingers were digging desperately under the thick metal restricting his airway and causing him to choke loudly.

“Stop it!” I yelled as I struggled to get to my feet, the sweat covering my hands making the action slippery against the smoothness of the stone.

Don narrowed his eyes on me but Yard grabbed me before I could go to Tate’s aid. “Hold the fuck still, bitch.” He ordered in my ear with a hiss as he pulled my arms behind me, cruelly twisting the tendons and muscles expertly until I was in a severely agonising position.

Niko snapped the chain and yanked Tate towards him in a simple accomplishment, the grin of satisfaction covering his face making me aware of how much the darkness and hunger for the sinister fed him. Tate stumbled to the floor but was laid beneath Niko’s feet within a fraction of a second.

I saw Niko remove his gaze from Tate when he lifted his head and glared at him. “Get up!” he growled as he twisted his hand and hauled Tate to his feet. Before I could blink, Niko had a chain that had been hanging from the ceiling secured around one of Tate’s wrists, then another bound around his other before I could exhale the breath I was holding tight in my lungs. I had never seen someone move so fast and I garnered from the strong pulls on Niko’s chest that this fuelled him, drove the adrenaline around his system and served his want to deliver pain.

I shivered and kicked back with my foot when Yard chuckled behind me, catching the front of his shin with my heel harshly. I groaned as his knee hit the base of my spine and my knees gave way reflexively. He yanked me up by my hair and forced my face around to the scene developing, “Keep those pretty eyes on your lover, sweetheart. You’re gonna love this.”

I refused to watch, closing my eyes tightly as I shuddered with the first whoosh of something heavy but graceful. “Please…” I choked out when Tate’s cry filled the air and burnt through every single fibre of me, the agonising pain in his howl tearing at the edge of my heart and fraying my already shattered spirit. “Please don’t…” I continued with a sob when another scream of torture hurt me worse than anything physical they could do.

“Stop!” Don declared suddenly and I let out a huge sigh of relief, grimacing as I opened my eyes. The deep lacerations on Tate’s back glared angrily at me, a torrent of blood flowing freely down over his now bare buttocks and running like rivulets along the lengths of his strong legs to pool at his feet.

Oh God, what had I done? All he had done was return my bag and I had pulled him into hell with me, brought the devil’s wrath to him. He didn’t deserve this. He had been nothing but gentle and caring and although he held little regard for himself, he certainly wasn’t as ugly as he saw himself.

I stiffened as Don came behind me, close enough that the course hair of his moustache tickled the skin beneath my ear.  “You chose this, Francesca. You chose this when you took me on and you chose this for Tate as you continue to disregard my wishes.”

“No,” I shook my head. “I didn’t choose this for Tate. He has nothing to do with any of this. This is between you and me, and only you and me.”

He chuckled deeply, “So you are still refusing to grant me what I want?”

I swallowed heavily, my need to prevent further suffering to Tate conflicting with my desire to take this bastard down. Tate lifted his head slowly, turning to look over his shoulder at me and caught my eyes, the pain in them hurt so badly but he gave me a simple nod.

“Go to hell,” I whispered as I held Tate’s eyes and pleaded with him to forgive me. The edges of his lips lifted and he smiled at me from behind his pain.

Don inhaled loudly but moved away, his anger palpable and abundant. “If that’s what you want.”

Niko nodded and I braced myself as he picked up something I had seen many times on the internet. Since the storm that had hit the world regarding Fifty Shades and the more open awareness about BDSM, I had developed an interest in the subject, reading up and soaking up as much information as I could on the subject. I knew though that the cat-o'-nine-tails Niko had in his hands was no ordinary one. Along the ends and scattered across the length of each thin strip of leather were barbs, nasty spurs of jagged coarsely cut steel that I knew would bite much sharper than the previous heavy chain whip.

“Oh dear God,” I rasped under my breath as Niko threw the first lash and Tate hissed against the pain, his back arching so severely I thought he would snap his spine. Niko rained blow after blow, his assault relentless and unforgiving until Tate’s legs gave way and he slumped limply, the chains around his wrists being his only source of support. “Please… enough…” I shouted angrily, fury and rage now controlling me. I knew I was angrier with myself more than Don or even Niko for bestowing the thrashes that were stripping Tate of more than just his skin.

“Yes, stop!” Don instructed behind me. “Niko is rather good, isn’t he, my dear. Quite the delivery boy.” He laughed at his own humour as I curled my lip in disgust. Tate didn’t look at me now, his head remained dropped and from the angle I stood at, it looked like he’d been decapitated.  However, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the mess that now covered his back, his skin torn apart, his flesh hanging in strips as the spikes had stripped him down, inch by agonising inch. “Niko is good at this, Miss Wilde; in fact he’s an expert. There is nothing more he gets off on than distributing pain and agony, drawing blood and watching a person’s life force drip slowly from them. He is the deliverer and the collector and let me make you aware…” He leaned further in and I shivered at the touch of his body, “He’s only just begun.”

I couldn’t hold back the whimper that tore through me and treacherously slipped from my mouth. “Now, Francesca, here’s a nice little dilemma for you but I’m sure someone of your intellect will figure it out quickly.” I tensed as I sensed Don’s delight, his vicious trait thrilled in preparation for his demand. “Do you let Nik continue to expertly rip your boyfriend to pieces, slice him with the severity of each formidable strike or do you take control of that beautiful crop Niko has?”

“What?” I barked as I turned to stare at him in disbelief. “No, you sick fuck!”

He shrugged indifferently, “Fair do’s.”

Niko started again; each brutal thrash breaking off a section of my heart and chewing it up, each anguished whimper of Tate’s making my body squeal with pain as each chuckle Don and Yard made festered deep inside me, killing a part of me with the sinister chill of their laughter.

“Stop!” I cried out as a tear slid down my cheek with what I was about to do. I couldn’t let Niko carry on; his vigour and the strength of each of his strikes were killing Tate. Don knew this way that he allowed Tate to live, I was no match physically for Niko but he was also very, very aware that it would massacre me instead, it would destroy something inside me and slaughter what little self-worth I had left.

I stepped forward, the wobble in my legs making each inch closer harder to accomplish, like I was walking across water and the deeper the water became the more it pulled me under, threatening to drown me whilst it laughed and sneered at me.

Niko stood, waiting for me, his eyes fixed on me intensely as I made my way to him. I couldn’t read the expression on his face or the message his eyes were trying to convey. He lifted his arm as I reached him and held out the vile contraption for me to take. It burnt my skin as I wrapped my fingers around the rough handle, of course it wasn’t physically hot but my brain saw it as something evil and cruel, the weight of it heavy in my hand and the harsh feel of it disturbing every single element that made me the person I was.