Mistaken Trust (The Jewels Trust Series) (31 page)

Scooting her body close to the wall and leaning over, she stuffed her free hand down the small three-inch gap between the bed and the wall to see if it would even fit. Though a tight squeeze, her fingertips could reach the floor. “Okay,” Jewels whispered in triumph. “Now let’s see if the leg can be lifted.”

Retracting her hand, she craned her head, straining to determine the construction of the leg. The bottom the shaft was crimped and flattened out, like an old-fashioned, three-pronged Christmas tree stand. There was a hole in the center of the flat part so it could be fastened to the floor by a screw, but nothing was currently holding it in place. Jewels’ heart swelled with hope.

Painstakingly, she inched the rope down the leg. Progress was slow and minimal. Tank had securely fastened the rope around the metal leg, even tighter than around her wrist. Still, she persevered, driving the rope toward the floor while enduring the frightening grunts, groans, and growls of the two battling titans.

Once again Marshall’s back was fiercely blasted against the door, the air in his lungs forcibly expelled. Tank immediately thrust his right forearm at Marshall’s face, violently thumping the back of Marshall’s head against the door.

The horrible noise froze her actions. It was a gruesome sound, like a live trout being bludgeoned to death with the lead-end of a fish whacker.

Then silence.

As quickly as the battle began, it ended. Jewels hesitated to turn around to see which man was left standing. Marshall she hoped.

Finally she looked.

Lip bloodied, Tank triumphantly towered over a knocked cold Marshall Watters lying in a heap by the door.

“Marshall! Marshall,” Jewels gasped, instinct catapulting her toward his side. But her tethered hand spun her back to the bed, like a chained dog on the run who had reached the end of its rope and is violently yanked back by the collar around its neck. Three of the four bed legs had been anchored into the rock floor. She wasn’t going anywhere.

“Your boyfriend won’t be helping you, Bitch,” Tank said, mopping the blood from the corner of his lip with the tail of his shirt as he gazed at her sitting near the top of the bed.

Shit!
Code Black
again. Now what was she going to do? Rapidly rubbing her throbbing bound wrist, her mind scrambled for options.
Injury trumps strength. Injury trumps strength
, her thoughts screamed. Okay. Fine. Had to injure him. And bad. But how?

Wiping blood splattered hands on his pants, “Where were we?” he sneered, lumbering to the cot and bending over her.

“Cock and lock,” she whispered to herself quickly thrusting her back against the mattress and coiling her knees toward her chest. The instant he was within firing range, she aimed for his bandaged arm and blasted a flurry of frenzied feet at the target. And hit!

“Fucking bitch,” he snarled, automatically grabbing his arm and retreating out of range of her kicks.

Jewels immediately reloaded. Feet ready to fire another blistering round.

Shimmying his shoulders and shaking his arms, as if shedding snow from a winter coat, he eyed her. “That was pretty good,” he said, a hint of approval in his voice. “But I took care of your boyfriend...,” nodding at Marshall conked out on the floor, “and I can certainly take care of you,” he said, pouncing on her drawn up legs.

Jewels shrieked. The impact of his weight forced her entire body to rotate toward the wall, legs pressed together deep into the mattress. Wildly she hammered the fist of her free hand at his face.

Using the side of his body to hold her down, he snatched her arm, jerked it toward the corner of the bed.

“No,” she screamed, violently wiggling her body and tugging her arm. “Marshall! Help me!”

Winding the loose end of the rope cinched around Jewels’ left wrist around the bed leg, he once again knotted it ... this time inescapably tight. Leaning his body against her hips, as if in a moment of relaxation, he gazed at her lying there. Every muscle in her body tense. Face twisted in frustration. Fists tight. Breaths labored.

So much for cocked and locked, she thought. So much for injury trumps strength. So much for help from Marshall Watters. She hated to admit it. Hated to even think it. But it appeared she was fucked. Not just figuratively, but probably soon to be literally as well.

“Ah, yes. That’s what we were doing before we were so rudely interrupted,” Tank said with a villainous grin, drawing another length of rope from his back pocket to purposely dangle at her.

Spitting in his face, “Pervert!”

Leering, “Got to get ya some manners, Bitch. Shoulda fucked ya and maybe that mutt of yours, too, when I had the chance at your house,” he said, turning around to coil and knot the rope around her right ankle.

“Marshall! Wake up! Marshall!”

“Wake up, Marshall,” Tank mocked in high-pitched, sniveling singsong as he drew the remaining piece of rope from his pocket to wrap it around her left ankle.

“Help! Marshall! Help,” she wailed.

Using the weight of his body to keep her legs in check, he forced her bunched up legs to straighten to bind them to the bottom of the bed. Once her legs were secure, he rolled off her, stood up and parked his hands on his hips.

Fighting the ropes, she madly kicked, jerked her arms, and twisted her body, struggling to break free. But her energy was wasted. The rope was strong. Knots unforgiving. Bed solid.

“You’re one spunky bitch,” Tank commented admiringly as he jumped on top of her, his knees straddling her waist. “So is it true... ,” Tank quizzed, loosening his belt to unzip his pants, “you’re a bitch with old fashioned values ... never fucked another man except your husband?”

A rhetorical asinine question, she thought, though it was true. A virgin when she married, Robert really was the only man she had ever made love with, yet Tank’s tone implied her lack of premarital sex was shameful. Sucking in air hard from the battle she had waged against the ropes and lost, she turned her head toward the wall, staring blankly in silence.

“Damn! Lucky me. So I’ll be only the second man you’ve ever had,” he reveled. “You know what they say, once you’ve had black you’ll never go back,” he bragged with a sinister laugh, violently ripping her muumuu-sized T-shirt in half.

“Stop it,” Jewels ordered, tussling in the restraint of the ropes and squirming under the mass of his body.

“Hmm. Just got this far the other night at your place,” Tank recalled as he caressed her tan breasts spilling out of the black lace bra.

“Get off me! Leave me alone,” Jewels shouted, her limbs constricted as far as the ropes would permit.

Tank squeezed her pumping breasts.

“Marshall! Wake Up! Marshall! Pleeeeeease—”

“Shut the fuck up. You’re givin’ me a headache with this Marshall bullshit,” Tank barked, pinching her breasts harder.

“Stop it! Marshall! Marshallllll!”

Digging a handkerchief out of his pocket, he wadded it into a ball. “I fuckin’ told you to shut the fuck up, you stubborn bitch,” he said, stuffing the balled-up hanky in her mouth.

Coughing, nearly gagging, she saved herself by pushing the wad of cloth out of her mouth with her tongue. “Marshall! Help me!”

“For crissakes, woman,” Tank growled, grinding out the words between clenched teeth. Stripping the leather belt off his pants, he scooped up the wadded hanky she had spit out.

Jewels continued to plea for Marshall’s help.

“Let’s see you spit this out, you feisty little bitch,” Tank fumed, jamming it into her mouth to create a
stuff gag
then adding an
over-the-mouth gag
by wrapping the belt across her mouth, behind the back of her head and around to her face harshly buckling it over her mouth. He had created a classic
layered gag
: a series of gags placed over each other to very effectively quiet the victim, but not without the high risk of choking to death.

The taste of blood filled Jewels’ mouth; blood from the force of the wide leather belt crushing her tender lips against her teeth. Tank was right, she would never spit out this gag. Sobbing, she closed her eyes in dread.

“Eyes open, Bitch,” Tank demanded, rapidly thumping her cheek with the tips of his fingers.

In numbed horror she watched as he drew the Leatherman multipurpose tool from the sheath on the side of his belt, configuring it into scissors. “Gonna have a titty-twistin’ blast,” he announced, slicing open the front of her bra and peeling it away to reveal her naked breasts.

Tank was crazed. Jewels’ muscles tightened. “God, please don’t make me go through this,” she begged beneath the makeshift layered gag.

Re-configuring the multi-tool into pliers, Tank rapidly clicked them open and closed in anxious anticipation. Gazing at her perfect round breasts, his eyes crinkled mirthfully. “Like I said, ‘titty-twistin’ time.”Pinching her eyelids shut, she attempted to mentally prepare for the kind of pain and suffering she could never fully comprehend until the torturing began. “Marshall, please wake up. Please,” she softly begged.

THUMP!
It was a sickening, gruesome sound like sledgehammer pulverizing a fresh turkey carcass.

Reflexively her eyes flew open, body flinched. Marshall’s fist had pounded into the side of Tank’s ear hitting the mastoid bone; a classic boxing knockout blow. A nanosecond later, Tank crashed on top of her, his eyes shut, body motionless. A shrill shriek escaped the brutal gag.

Milliseconds later, she felt Tank being pulled off by his legs. His limp body landed on the stone floor with a hard thud. Stretching her neck forward, she strained to see what was happening on the floor next to the bed.

“Julia. Jewels, are you okay?” an exhausted-sounding Marshall Watters called from the floor near the foot of the bed where he had dragged Tank.

Perking up, “I’m okay. I’m okay,” she muttered, enthusiastically nodding her head up and down. Tears of relief showered her smiling cheeks.

Still hazy-minded and blurry-visioned from the knockout Tank had delivered earlier, Marshall crawled on his hands and knees to Jewels’ side. At the sight of her bare breasts, he immediately peeled off his T-shirt, covered her with it.

“Thank you,” Jewels mumbled, the hanky stuffed in her mouth and leather belt buckled over her mouth still effectively impeding her words.

Kneeling at her bedside, Marshall gazed at Jewels, his body slightly weaving back and forth, like a carefree feather in a wisp of wind. The spaced out look on his face warned he was not fully recovered from the fight with Tank. Afraid he’d pass out before she was free, she gently tugged on the ropes to get his attention, motioning to her bound wrists with her head: “The ropes. Please, untie me.”

Marshall’s face compressed. Stared at her for a moment. “Oh. Got it. Untie you,” he said with a fleeting smile while oddly nodding his head. “I’ll have you through ... by ... uh, out of those in a jiffy,” he said, clumsily retrieving the switch blade from his pocket.

Speech slow and choppy, he sounded like a drunk. Jewels worried he had suffered a concussion and may pass out any second.

Still on his knees, he leaned against the bed and propped himself up on the mattress with his elbows. Carefully, and as if in slow motion, he began sawing the rope binding Jewels’ left hand making about as much progress as one would using a butter knife to cut steel wire.

Preoccupied with images of freedom, Jewels didn’t pay much attention to Marshall’s lack of progress. Once liberated of the ropes, she planned to throw her arms around Marshall Watters’ neck to thank him for rescuing her in the nick of time ... maybe even add a kiss or two figuring, given the circumstances, that was about all she dared do to express gratitude to her hero.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Tank pushing to his feet. Rising like a devil from the depths of hell.

Eyes popping to half-dollar size, “Behind you! Behind you,” she frantically screamed, her words a jumble of unintelligible gasps and shrieks due to the layered gag still doing an excellent job of inhibiting her voice.

Marshall ceased sawing the rope, quickly examined her wrist, apparently thinking by her reaction he had accidentally cut her flesh.

Realizing Marshall wasn’t getting it, she wildly gestured with her head toward the bottom of the bed, thrashing her body against the mattress while continuing to grunt and squeak garbled incomprehensible noises and madly point with her fingers—as best as she could with her hands still bound to the headboard—at Tank who was creeping toward Marshall.

Finally, Marshall got it. Glancing over his shoulder, he pushed himself to his feet and turned.

Tank bulldozed a steely fist into his gut.

Marshall buckled in half, dropping to his knees. Tank finished him off with a violent kick to his jaw with the toe of his boot, hitting boxing’s coveted
sweet spot
.

Marshall’s head whipped to the side. Letting out a long deep groan, he crashed to the floor on his side. Once again, knocked out.

Victorious, Tank stumbled to Jewels, pliers still in hand. Showing teeth covered in crimson film, he snarled, “Time for payback, Bitch.”

In frenzied desperation, she battled to escape her bonds, focusing her efforts on the rope around her left arm Marshall had started to cut. Her eyes crimped as she tightened her fist, stiffened her muscles and pitched her entire body weight behind each powerful jerk of her arm. But Marshall’s knife hadn’t weakened the rope enough to relent its hold and the gag was suffocating. Her nostrils flared. Rapidly she sucked air in and out. A mixture of saliva and blood oozed from under the brutal muzzle.