Four Score

Fourteen

I get to the burlesque club a few minutes later, parking a few streets away in case Dornan sees me driving Jase’s car and asks me to explain. I jog the few blocks to the club, wanting to get there before Jase rides up on his Harley and intercepts me.

The front doors are unlocked; the place deserted at ten fifteen on a Tuesday morning. I wander in slowly. The darkened stage pulls old memories to the surface where they claw fresh wounds.

Crushing weight.

Leather.

A pair of black eyes that gleamed at us from the floor of the club. Emilio. He’d watched it all, barely blinked as his grandsons had taken their turns breaking me apart. First Chad, then Maxi, then the rest. As one would rape me, two more would pin my arms, and the others would hold Jase as he yelled and fought.

Then, one word spoken by Dornan’s father.

“Enough.”

Emilio ordered everyone out of the room but Dornan. Jase had been knocked out when he broke free momentarily and kicked Chad hard enough in the kneecap to cause it to dislocate.

Which left me, sitting naked with my wrists and ankles tied to a chair. My broken nose was making a weird scraping sound as I breathed past crushed bone and blood. It was cold, and I trembled violently as my exposed flesh rose in goose bumps to meet the frigid air.

Dornan made a show of removing his gun and knife from his holsters, placing them on a small table near where I sat. The camera was still going, or at least I assumed it was with the red light blinking every few seconds. By this stage, I’d been here for a few hours and had long since forgotten my modesty. My legs were cramping as I sat in a pool of my own blood, and I could no longer feel my arms.

I’d moved through the stages of grief swiftly as the Ross brothers had taken from me what wasn’t theirs. Firstly shock and denial, but that had been quashed as Chad had pressed painfully inside of me, eradicating any possibility that the horrors they promised were just threats. Secondly anger, and that’s where I still hovered, bleeding and furious as Dornan stood in front of me, his face poker-blank.

“Tell me, Julie,” he said, and I cringed as he used the nickname only my mother used. “Where’s the money?”

I shook my head. “I already told you, I don’t know!”

My breathing quickened, terrified as I watched him unbuckle his belt. I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut, but I daren’t look away in case I missed my own death.

“What are you doing?” I asked, panicking. No more. I couldn’t handle any more. Not again. Not him.

Dornan moved like a panther stalking its prey, every move measured and silent as he drew the belt from its loops and held it in front of him. It was black, leather, with a skull-shaped clasp.

“You know,” Dornan said, as he doubled the belt over and held it in both hands, “I was the first to hold you when you were born, Julie. All screaming and covered in blood.” He smiled darkly, standing in front of me.

Before I could flinch, he brought the belt down on my left leg, the leather burning as it bit into my bare flesh.

I screamed.

“It’s kind of like now,” he continued, playing with the belt in his hands. “Your daddy wasn’t there in time to see you be born, and he’s going to miss your death, too.”

He raised his arm and this time, I braced myself.

Not that it helped.

He brought the belt down on my other leg, and I screamed again. I screamed so loud that my throat felt like it would crack in two.

“Where’s the money, Julie?”

I started to cry, then. Hung my head and sobbed. Because I didn’t know the answer, and he wasn’t going to stop until I gave him something.

“My father will kill you for what you’ve done,” I cried, lunging at him against my ropes.

Dornan tilted his head to the side, an odd expression on his face. He chuckled mirthlessly, the sound hollow and bitter.

“Not if I kill him first, baby girl.” He bit his lip, letting the belt fall to his side.

Emilio cleared his throat, reminding us both that he was still in the darkness below the stage, sitting in his chair, his black eyes shining like orbs.

A flicker of annoyance registered on Dornan’s face as he turned his attention to his father.

“The belt isn’t working,” Emilio rasped, his Italian accent thick but understandable. “Maybe you need something a little more convincing?”

Dornan looked at the ground, then back at me. His mask slipped for just a fraction of a second, and I saw my chance. His tiny sliver of hesitation gleamed like a beacon of hope.

“Dornan,” I begged, “Please. You don’t have to do this.”

Dornan ignored my pleas as he untucked his shirt and began undoing the buttons. My stomach roiled as he shrugged the shirt off and laid it over the table next to his gun and knife.

“I swear, I don’t know anything,” I said desperately.

I had well and truly moved from anger to bargaining as he began to untie my ankles.

“You’re supposed to protect me!” I screamed. “You’re family!”

His face twisted into anger as he undid the final rope and wrapped his hands around my throat, pulling me to my feet. I tried to bear weight on my legs as I struggled against his grip, and failed miserably. I couldn’t even feel my legs, let alone stand unassisted.

“You’re supposed to be my family,” he growled as he throttled me painfully. “Remember?” He took one hand from my neck and drew it across his bare skin, reciting the words tattooed over the bottom of his ribcage. “Il sangue è sacro. Famiglia è sacra!” Blood is sacred. Family is sacred.

His indifference morphed into rage as he threw me on the ground. I cried out as I landed on hard wood planks, my skull and my elbows taking the brunt of the impact.

“Don’t ever talk to me about family,” Dornan spat as he stood over me. “You were going to steal my son from me.”

“He hates you,” I rasped, my own anger bubbling up inside me.

He stopped for a second, glanced at Emilio, then back to me. “I hated my father once, too,” he said, unbuttoning his jeans. “I got over it.”

What happened next was so brutal, so devastating, that even now, I can’t form words to describe it.

Blood is sacred. Family is sacred.

But clearly, we weren’t family anymore.

I’d moved into the final stage of grief, acceptance, as my vision clouded over and those white spots burst into shimmering stars, promising me peace, whispering sweet nothings in my ear that the pain would soon be over.

I accepted death, let it wash over me, and as a brilliant white light focused above me hours later, I smiled, believing I was finally going to wherever it was souls went after passing on.

Something sharp jabbed into my arm, and a gloved hand came into my vision as it tilted the bright light slightly.

Shit. I wasn’t going toward the white light. I started to hear again, panicked voices that yelled for blood transfusions and oxygen, and I realized I wasn’t dying.

I was being brought back to life.

I had ceased breathing; the only sound in my universe the intermittent roar and fade of my heart pumping erratically as it skipped to its irregular, fading beat. Someone shouted for paddles, and I thought it amazing that I could still hear snatches of voices even though my lungs no longer drew breath.

I had a choice to melt back into that acceptance of death, to succumb, and I won’t lie, it was so very tempting. I let myself sink further, the same fall you experience when you succumb to sleep, but I knew I wouldn’t be waking from this.

I screamed inside my mind as hot electricity bit at my chest and rushed through my body, forcing my heart to try and beat, but I resisted its saving grace, refusing to surface from my own demise. If my arms would work, I’d push them all away and demand that they let me die in peace.

I had accepted this. I was ready. I was ready to die.

And then a face appeared in my mind.

Jase. My dear boy.

I loved him. If there was even the slightest chance he was still alive, I had to hold on, for him.

I suddenly had to live.

Another shock, worse than the first, sparked something primal inside of me: a hope that burned like wildfire, and an anger that simmered like poison in my veins.

“She’s back,” a voice said, closer this time.

I opened my mouth and gasped for breath, pulling precious air into my lungs as pain spread through my body.

From the brink of death, I was born again—naked, bloody, and screaming as the cold reality of my survival overwhelmed me.

As I vowed to make Dornan and his sons pay for their sins.