me in some irrational, irrevocable way. I was feeling things I’d never felt before, and in other ways, I felt Caleb was more damaged than me. Not in some tragic sense, but in a fundamental way that bridged the vast distances between us.
But my other half didn’t think any of that mattered.
He kidnapped you for a reason, she reminded. Don’t trust him. Don’t be like your mother, stop falling for his bullshit. He doesn’t care about you!
I pulled back, but unlike before, his arms released me easily. Deep, Caribbean-blue eyes looked down at me. At first they seemed to want to express so much, but then…nothing. I was tired of nothing. I wanted something. I needed something.
“What is it?” he asked, his tone carefully veiled. “Tell me.”
“I think I’m done trying to run, but I’m also done with not knowing what horrible thing is going to happen to me next. I’d rather know Caleb. Please, just tell me and give me the time…” Sitting there, I didn’t really understand what I was saying, but the part of me that was wising up, really did. Brace yourself…
Caleb’s blonde hair, usually groomed, now fell into his eyes. I resisted the sudden urge to brush it away from his face. As we sat in pregnant silence I watched him stare into his own lap. His jaw was tense, his lips tight, but I wasn’t afraid. I was done being frightened of Caleb. If he were going to hurt me, he’d have done it already. He wanted to tell me. I only had to wait.
I remained silent, waiting for his words I craved, my heart jammed into my throat as I willed him to continue. “If only I’d never laid eyes on you, never met you…” His wistful words suddenly caused a deep ache in my chest though I knew they shouldn’t. “I have obligations, Kitten.” He swallowed deeply. His brows knitted together to instantly let me know he was feeling sadness, anger, and disgust all at once. The desire to touch him was almost too much, but then I realized I should be worried about what the hell his words would mean to me and less about what they did to him. “There’s a man who needs to die. I needed you…need—” He paused. “If I don’t do this now then I’ll never be free. I can’t walk away until it’s done. Until he pays for what he did to Rafiq’s mother, to his sister, until he pays for what he did to me.” Caleb stood abruptly, his chest heaving. He ran angry fingers through his hair and fisted his hands at his nape. “Until everything he loves is gone, until he – feels it. Then I can let it go. I’ll have repaid my debt. Then, perhaps…maybe.”
“Rafiq?” I’d heard the name before but the importance of that name eluded me. Why was he so important? Did he have more say in what happened to me than Caleb?
Caleb’s eyes returned to mine. He had been far away again as though his words had not truly been meant for me. He was back in control now, the impassive mask he wore so easily slipped over his face. My guard went up. The past few moments when he seemed almost human, evaporated. “I’m going to sell you as a pleasure slave to a man I despise.”
A wave of nausea slammed the pit of my stomach and pushed bile into my throat. His words hit me in harsh staccato slaps and as each word made contact I flinched.
Sell. Pleasure. Slave.
The reality hit me hard, knocking the air out of me. I felt like I was going to throw up and felt my stomach heaving and throat working.
No more movie references. No more fictional characters to relate to. This was real. It was destiny. I was…a thing, a commodity.
He’s made you a whore Livvie, a fucking whore.
Caleb was still speaking, but I hardly heard him.
With difficulty, I stopped myself from retching and cleared my throat, “Pleasure means sex right? A sex slave?”
Caleb stopped in the middle of another sentence and gave a tight nod. His head was slung low, his hair hung in his eyes. This time I had no urge to brush it out of his eyes, in fact, it felt like a manipulation. His every move was calculated. He knew just how to knit his brows to portray sadness. How to tumble his perfect hair into his even more beautiful eyes and seem vulnerable and trustworthy. Well, I wasn’t going to fall for it anymore. Whatever I might have been feeling, it was dying and the numbness was left in its wake. “And…that day. The day we met, that’s why you were there. Did you know the asshole in the car?”
Caleb’s eyes flashed with anger, and then cooled just as quickly. He was too fucking good at hiding his emotions. Why are you like this? Why the fuck do you care Livvie? He’s made you the one thing you swore never to be. “Does it really matter–”
“No, I guess it fucking doesn’t,” I cut in sharply. He wished he’d never met me? Well, the feeling was definitely fucking mutual. An old anger flared through me. My life just kept getting better and better. I was finally going to get out of one worthless existence, to prove to everyone I wasn’t worthless and my scholarship had been my ticket out, and then Caleb happened to me. I was finally…. “I was finally going to show her she was wrong about me…”
“You don’t need her approval,” he said, correctly guessing who I was referring to. I looked up at him.
“You know shit about what I need. I’ve been dealing with your mindfucks for I don’t know how long now, trying to figure out why someone like you would kidnap me. Despite what you’ve done to me, I’ve had these thoughts—”
“Thoughts, or fantasies, Kitten?” he broke in softly, his expression still cloaked.
“Both, I suppose,” I admitted. It didn’t matter what I said, not really. “I told myself you couldn’t help yourself, that something happened to you to make you this way, to make you as fucked up as me but you’re even more fucked up than I am. And in the strangest corners of my mind I thought…”
“That you could fix me? What’s more, that I could fix you? Well, sorry pet, I don’t want to be fixed. Whatever your little school-girl brain told you about men is absurdly wrong. This isn’t a romance. You’re not a damsel in distress and I’m not the handsome prince come to save you. You ran. I went to collect my property. End of story.
In two years, maybe less, I’ll have what I want – revenge. After that, I’ll make sure you get your freedom. Fuck, I’ll even send you on your way with enough money to go wherever you want. To do whatever you want. Until then….”
I wanted to cry. But crying hadn’t done me a bit of good before and it certainly wouldn’t do me any good now. “How much?”
“Excuse me?”
“Afterward. When I’m done being your whore, how much will you pay me? Whores get paid don’t they?”
Caleb stared at me for what seemed an eternity, then, “What would you like?”
“My freedom. But in lieu of that…a million dollars?” It came out as a question instead of a firm demand. The reality was he didn’t have to offer me anything. I had nothing to bargain with. He could take whatever he wanted.
“A million dollars? A bit much don’t you think?”
“Fuck you.”
Caleb smiled, the self indulgent little shit. “My apologies,” he mocked with a slight forward bow, “What I meant to say is: no pussy’s that good. Though yours does come close.”
Now he was back to trying to shock me and perhaps if I were still the naïve school girl he’d met all those weeks ago it might have worked. But I wasn’t her right now and I liked it. I was powerful. Perhaps the calculating, angry, fighter version of me would take over completely and I’d never be weak again. “How close?”
His smile was wry, “Half.”
Outside I was a placid lake. Inside I was a raging ocean, “What exactly do I have to do?”
“Obey.”
“You?”
“Yes. But also—”
“The man you’re selling me to.” My stomach rolled but I met his eyes. I’d survived this man. I could survive anything, I hoped. “Who is he?”
When Caleb spoke his tone was softer, but what did that mean to me now? Nothing. “His name is Demitri Balk. He’s a billionaire who deals in guns, drugs, diamonds – anything that deals in misery and money.”
And this was the man he intended to sell me to, had always intended. My heart sank lower. ‘You’re not a damsel in distress and I’m not the handsome prince come to save you.’No. He wasn’t. In real life you had to save yourself.
“He won’t have you forever,” Caleb said softly. “But you’re a means to an end for others much more powerful than me. In a way, we’re both chess pieces. I simply have a larger role to play and it’s a game I’ve invested my entire life in. If I could give you any hope, it’s that I will do all within my power to ensure an end where you and I come out of this with the things we need.” His tone said he had no doubt of his words, and I could tell it was important to him that I believe him too.
“Two years is a long time Caleb? Anything could happen.” Something in me wanted to give way and break. I refused that inclination. I had to be strong, not for anyone but myself. “Then what?”
He was silent for a long time. “Slaves–” he began, and stopped as he registered my shock over the use of the word. “You’d be worth a lot to him. So long as you were obedient, there would be no need to harm you. You’d be…kept.”
I gave a derisive laugh. “Just what every girl dreams of, a billionaire.” I swallowed hard, sounding wooden and not myself. “Maybe I’ll be ridiculously happy and we’ll never have to think of each other again.”
“Perhaps.”
“Is he handsome, this Demitri? As handsome as you?” I said dully, softly and numb all over. Caleb visibly flinched. Good. That felt good, inflicting pain in him. I looked at Caleb. He was an example of what I could become if I let myself become hard, unforgiving, consumed with rage and vengeance. I couldn’t be like that. I didn’t want to be like him. “Will he make me come half as good as you do? Tell me Caleb, tell me all of it. Tell me so I know what I’m getting into, and then tell me how I have no possible way out. It’ll be better this way. Clean, and I can depend on myself—no need for the prince charming to rescue the damsel in distress.”
Caleb turned his back on me, fists clenched at his sides. I couldn’t imagine what the hell had made him angry this time. “You should try and get some sleep.”
My eyes were stinging, but this was not the time to cry, not here and not with him being witness. I was tired of crying, of being feeble and in no control of my own life “I’d rather not sleep. I don’t want to dream.” I ran my hand through my sweat caked hair, something in me turning ice-cold and resolute. “I could use a shower though.”
Caleb turned and I noticed immediately his face had altered to a stalemate. The argument was over and I think we were both relieved to avoid the inevitable for now. He had told me what I wanted to know, and he didn’t have to, but it didn’t give me any relief, not the way I thought it would. I had thought that if I knew what to expect I could prepare myself for the horror to come. But—
That’s not why you’re upset. He doesn’t care about you. Everything he’s done has been to manipulate you into doing what he wants. Every touch, every kiss, him saying you’re beautiful – it’s all been a lie. And you fell for it.
“I’ll help you.” I looked up from my thoughts and stared at Caleb’s outstretched hand. I wanted to say what a joke his words were, not only these but every word he’d spoken and whatever words would follow, but I was afraid my voice would fail me, betray all the girlish feelings inside me.
Slowly, I used my good arm to peel the blankets away from my body and stood. My head swooned and I felt my body follow. For a split second my panic was mirrored on Caleb’s face, but then relief swept through his features as he caught me. “Livvie,” he said softly as his hands held my trembling shoulders, “let me help you.”
My eyes remained glued to my lap as my face went both pale and red at the same time. Caleb stared too and I couldn’t help but feel as though I had lost ground with him. Did he just call me Livvie?
Considering all that had transpired between us, I wasn’t sure what I felt one second to the next, each moment laced with a different kind of suspicion and distrust but under all that, a shallow yearning. Caleb wasn’t my prince charming, but it didn’t mean I had to settle for anything less.
He held out a hand for me to take, and I did so. We walked into the bathroom together, and though this was not an unusual occurrence anymore, the fact that I was so broken, both inside and out made it different – more humiliating. My resolve was cracking under the weight of my tumultuous emotions.
“What’s wrong?” Caleb asked, but I only shook my head in response and continued to stare at the ground. He stood in front of me and simply watched me for a moment.
“If I survive this, I can’t go back. I’ll have to move forward and I don’t know what that means.” I paused, feeling anesthetized. I would yield because I must, but had to find a way to keep from breaking. “Do you?”
Caleb said nothing, which didn’t mean anything.
He put his arms around me, as he had done so many times before and held me close for a moment. I knew his embrace was nothing more than a comforting lie. There was an end coming. An end to these moments between him and me when the lie felt like anything but. It was all I had left. My loose arm hung at my side, the other in its sling, but it still felt nice to be held, even if I wasn’t an active participant. He went to pull away, but I wasn’t ready to see his face just yet, and so I stepped closer, asking him in my silent way to wait a little longer. He held me a heartbeat longer and gave me a chaste kiss on the top of my head.
“How long do I have Caleb? How long before you leave me?” Caleb cleared his throat a few times before he spoke and when he did, his voice cracked.
“A few months.” He rushed to say the rest before I could get excited about the length of my reprieve. “You were only supposed to be with me for six weeks and a little over half that time has passed. We won’t be alone much longer.” He pressed himself against me and I let him. He was actually talking and I wanted him to continue. I thought for a moment about what all of this meant. I’d been away from home about three and a half weeks. Over three weeks. I couldn’t put it into words – the deep loneliness at realizing I’d been missing for almost a month. Isolated with one other human being. No one really looking for me – not anymore.
“Is there any way – ”
“No.”
I paused. His tone was absolute. But I wondered if it was because he had considered it, considered keeping me from this fate. I had to believe he had. I had to hope he cared enough about me to ponder it. I had to; because it was the only hope I had of seeing myself out of this situation but a part of me reserved itself for the truth.
“Will you miss me Caleb?” I let my arm circle his waist. I don’t know what prompted it and instantly I tried to pull away. He held me still.
“Yes,” he said simply. The moment I tried to look up at him, he pulled away and turned his back to me, “But it doesn’t change a single thing.” I could tell he believed what he said.
He was closed to me again, I could tell in the way his shoulders squared as he turned to face me again. Caleb lifted the sling from around my neck, and the tingle of pain in my shoulder and collarbone brought me back to the moment, but I still stood there in a trance. After the sling came off, he lifted my nightgown over my head, careful to maneuver around my shoulder. He threw it in the wastebasket. I stood in front of him, wearing only bandages. Tonight he didn’t really look at me the way he did on other nights. There was nothing sexy about me. Tonight he looked at me and there was hardly anything behind his eyes.
He walked back to me. “What’s wrong?” he asked again, but he sounded distracted or dismissive, I didn’t know which – maybe both.
“Nothing,” I said again, solemnly, but I doubted he heard me. He was undoing the bandages around my mid-section, telling me I didn’t really need the bandages to heal my ribs, but that having them in place would remind me not to sit in certain positions or make certain movements. He would replace them when I was done showering. Yes, I thought bitterly, the last thing I wanted was for my ribs to heal improperly.
He put his arms around me as he unwound the bandages, but though my breasts were only inches from his face, his eyes didn’t register that he even noticed. In a strange way, this added to my embarrassment. Apparently, now that everything was out in the open between us there was no need for him to pretend to feel things for me he didn’t. But he said he would miss me. That has to mean something. Doesn’t it?
Once the bandages were off we stared at one another for a moment, as if we both tried to figure out what the other was thinking. Then he walked over to the shower in the corner of the room and turned it on.
He never ran the shower, always the bath, though this was a simple thing for me to understand. I didn’t exactly want to sit in my bath water at the moment either. What I didn’t understand was how he was going to be able to help me wash myself if I was in the shower. I couldn’t really raise my arm above my head to wash my hair, and moving around in general was painful because of my ribs. If this meant he was going to be in the shower with me, I didn’t like the thought of it.
He tested the water and seemed satisfied. I felt his eyes staring me up and down and heat crept up into my face, my entire body blushed. He cleared his throat.
“Why don’t you go ahead and get in this water. I’ll get you the things you need. If you want me, call out for me. I’ll be in the room.”
I nodded as he walked past me, and I stood still until he left the room and the door shut behind him.
The water was warm, and clean, and reassuring on my skin. The shower had multiple heads at varying heights so no part of my body was left open to the air but the pressure wasn’t so hard that it made me wince, but soft and gentle. I let it run all over me, I breathed in the steam and it seemed easier to take in air. I stood for several minutes before I lathered myself up, or at least the parts I could reach.
As I stood, I got lost in thought alone in the shower for the first time in over three weeks. I knew that once I stepped out of the shower, I would begin the hardest journey of my entire life. I would have to save myself. I would have to be strong and smart and brave. I would have to let the other side of me, the ruthless side, take over and this me…would cease to exist.
“Make him love you,” Ruthless Me whispered. “Make it so he can’t live without you. The devil you know.” I felt her growing inside me, bringing with her the insane idea that I actually wielded power with Caleb. I had never tried to ‘use my feminine wiles’ before, but I had certainly been accused of it. What would happen if I actually tried?
The idea of trying to seduce Caleb frightened me, terrified me to the point of physical ache, but also…I wondered if I could. And that positively thrilled me. I wondered if I could bring that bastard to his knees with desire for me. I knew now why he had never fucked me in any conventional way; he needed a virgin.
And if he needed a virgin, then I needed to be anything but that.
Before I could stop myself, I leaned on the shower wall and cried, and cried, and cried.
Just for old time’s sake.
FIFTEEN : It was out now – the truth. He would never forget the look in her eyes while he told her about his plan to sell her into sexual slavery. What had he expected? That she would understand? Revenge was his purpose. She could not understand that, not yet. It would haunt him forever. One more memory among hundreds that always haunted him. Except, he had always been the victim in those memories. Always the boy and never the man. Now, the kind of man he’d become would haunt him too. Caleb slumped against the bathroom door. He needed a minute, to breathe, to keep from retching, and to deal with the jumble of thoughts tearing him apart. For the first time in recent memory, Caleb wanted something other than revenge. He wanted the girl. He wanted Livvie.
He knew her name now, but it was the least of what he now knew. He knew all kinds of things about her – too much maybe. She wore shapeless clothing to school because she wanted her mother to love her. Her eyes were sad because she knew her mother didn’t.
She had brothers and sisters. She felt responsible for them and jealous of them.
She was funny, and shy, but also fierce and brave.
Her first kiss had been a disaster.
She’d grown up without anyone to protect her.
And no one but Caleb had brought her physical pleasure.
Livvie was a survivor. That much he’d known, but what he hadn’t known was what she’d had to survive. She deserved better. Better than them and certainly better than him.
He’d seen it in her eyes and her manner, but he had tried not to know why. He had wanted her nameless. He wanted to forget she had ever had a past, a history, dreams and hopes and all of those other things that made her…Livvie.
He could hear her crying through the bathroom door and it nearly ripped his heart from his chest. He had done that. He had caused each and every one of her tears and to hiscomplete consternation, they did not make him hard, they made him… profoundly sad. Sadness was an emotion he had not felt in a very, very long time. And back then, he only felt it for himself; he’d never had pity for anyone else, not even the other boys.
Why now? Why her?
An image of her bloody and limp body in that young man’s arms flashed across his mind and he doubled over. She could have died. And Caleb knew he would never forgive himself if that had come to pass. Whatever the reason, he felt something for the girl, something he’d never felt before and couldn’t put into words. He just didn’t know if it mattered. He had told her everything mattered, that everything was very personal, but what did it mean in the grand scheme of everything?
She could no sooner forgive him than he could forgive Narweh. She would never be able to see beyond everything he had done to her. So, in the end, what did it matter? He could never have the girl, so why not his vengeance? Didn't he deserve it?
Narweh is dead! You killed him. What more could you gain by destroying a man you’ve never seen?
Caleb shook the thoughts away. Rafiq had rescued him. He had put a roof over his head, food in his stomach and women in his bed. Caleb owed him everything, his very life. If Rafiq wanted Vladek dead, then Caleb owed him the man’s head.
Rafiq wanted more that Vladek’s life. He wanted him to suffer unspeakably. He wanted everything the man had ever loved to disintegrate like ash in his hands. It wouldn’t bring his mother back, or his sister, but it seemed…right. It had always felt right to Caleb. He truly was Rafiq’s loyal disciple and it was the only thing that had given his life meaning. Without Rafiq, without their quest…what else did he have?
He could hardly sacrifice twelve years and his debt to Rafiq over three weeks and a girl who could never…. He’d almost thought the word love. Love. What the hell did that word even mean? It got tossed around so flippantly, by everyone. What did it really mean? After all this time and everything that had happened, was he even capable?
No. He didn’t think so.