Unexpected Gift
The sky is dark and the moon is up when I reach Max’s office building. He quit his job as an officer to take over his father’s company three years ago. Isabel is peacefully asleep in the passenger seat. I would wake her if I didn’t feel guilty. I glance around the half empty parking lot. There are two guards posted by the entrance and I’m sure the lot has surveillance, so I don’t have a problem leaving her unattended. But I do crack the windows and lock the doors. Before stepping out the car, I change my shirt. The stained white shirt with Isabel’s blood is tossed in with heaps of other laundry. It’s a good thing I always keep a change of clothes in my truck.
“Name?” one of the bulkier guards demands.
“Hunter Knight.”
He whispers into his earpiece, nodding to something I can’t hear. For a heart-stopping moment, I think the other one will search me, which has me on edge. I prefer strangers to keep their hands to themselves when it comes to me. “You’re clear.”
Lifting my chin, I head into the gleaming building that shoots up and pierces the midnight clouds. The attractive dark-haired secretary eagerly gestures to the bank of elevators. “Right up to the top floor, Mr. Knight.”
“Thanks.”
My pace slows when I step off the elevators. I hear voices drifting from his closed office door. I note that he is having a conversation with his mother.
“…she can’t sleep, Mom. What do you want me to do? I’m helpless in this situation. You have no idea what we go through. She has nightmares, and not just once in a while. Isabel has them consecutively. She has them every night. It’s like I’m not enough.”
“She needs help, Max. I know what fresh scars look like and she has them. All over. She’s going to be your wife and the mother of your children…my grandchildren. Don’t give up on her so easily. Fight for her.”
“Mom, please. I’m tired and I’m behind on some stuff….” I don’t stay to listen because I am walking back to the elevators when the most outrageous and insane thought I ever had the idea of entertaining happens.
I am going to save her.
I am going to take her.
***
Isabel
Warm hands tilt my face up towards the light as if appraising. My eyes are reluctant to open but when they do, Hunter’s stormy eyes penetrate mine. His gaze is attentive yet detached. “I thought you were going to sleep forever.”
When the haze fades and my eyes are more focused, I glance around the dungeon-like bedroom. I lift my hands to touch his hair that shines despite the dullness in light but pause in mid-motion when the chains come into view. Restraints. They’re on my wrists and ankles. But the worst one is a thin metal collar around my neck. My trembling fingers reach up to touch it and then come into contact with the small steel lock in the back. “What’s this, Hunter?”
He smiles, his expression amused as if I said the silliest thing. “A collar, my sweet.”
My instincts take over and I begin to panic. “What’s happening? I want to go home. Where’s Max?”
His eyes darken and he reclines in a chair with a kind of languid impatience about him. “Where you’re not.”
“Hunter, let me go. Right now. This isn’t funny.”
“You’re absolutely right. This is not funny, but this is necessary.”
Tears spill down my cheeks, filling my mouth that’s already flooded with saliva. “I’m not consenting to any of this. You’re breaking the law, Hunter. This is kidnapping.” I draw in a shaky breath and force the next words out. “Let. Me. Go.”
“N.O.”
Perplexed, I gape at the person I thought I knew so well. My incredulous stare doesn’t have the desired effect on him. He winks at me. How is it possible that I don’t recognize his eyes that I memorize even in my sleep? Has my rejection taken a toll on his sanity? Has he gone mad like Smith and…Omar? Am I just another victim?
He can kill me if he wanted to.
The overwhelming guilt wracks me after that thought passes. No. He wouldn’t kill me. But I’m unsure of what else he wouldn’t do.
His rough hand grasps my chin, refocusing my teary gaze. “The chains are bolted into the wall above your bed. They’re long enough for you to go to the bathroom, so hygiene won’t be a problem. But the chains stop a few feet from the door I have a key to. I’m the only one that has the key to this door. This room will always be locked, Isabel.”
When he says my name, everything feels more real. This is not a dream or some kind of twisted fantasy. This is my new reality. I grip the sheets beneath me, not scarce of the supply of tears. “Why are you doing this?” I squeeze the words from a constricted throat. It burns to say them.
He leans forward and traces a healing scare above my right forearm and, for the first time, I note that I am only in underwear. Fresh underwear. And my skin faintly smells of jasmine soap. Did he bathe me? “You belong to me now, Isabel.”
My head snaps up and my forehead creases as my brows furrow. “I belong to you?”
The muscles in his jaw clench. “In every sense of the word.”
I swallow past the huge lump in my throat. “I don’t. Hunter, I’m marrying Max. I have a wedding to plan. I have a life to live. I don’t belong to you. I never will.” I have a life outside of you. Maybe that will have a profound effect on him.
It doesn’t.
He rakes a hand over his mouth, his dark eyes on me. He’s losing patience. “I’m going to let that go for now. In here, I am a god. In here, I am your god. Do you understand what I am saying?”
I don’t answer him.
I hate you.
“In the future, I want you to answer verbally. There will be repercussions for your actions, so you should think wisely and behave. Am I clear?”
After a heartbeat, he stands and ambles over to me, wrapping his long fingers firmly around my neck. He adds more pressure and I wonder if he can feel my pulse jumping. “You belong to me. Say it.” Hunter gradually increases the pressure when I don’t respond. My breath hitches and gets stuck in my throat. “Say. It.”
He does look like a god standing before me with the threat of taking away my precious air. “I-I belong to you,” I rasp with constricted vocals.
He drops his hand, flexing his powerful fist in front of my face. “Good. I already have dinner prepared for you. I won’t be able to spend the night, though.” Hunter gives me a sympathetic look as if this is bad news to me. “But I will be back in morning to feed you breakfast and noon for lunch and again for dinner. I will provide all of your meals. I am the only source of nurturance for you. You should learn to be nice to me.” Hunter beams. It is very deadly. “I’ll give you a little tour.” The room is spacious but it’s still four brick walls of imprisonment. He proceeds to point out a poorly lit bathroom that’s a few steps away—complete with a shower/tub and a toilet. Hunter instructs me that there is a mini fridge that’s filled with bottle waters and juices among other beverages in a corner. There is no food inside. He will feed me whenever he feels I should eat, whenever he thinks it’s necessary. Hunter has even gone so far to consider my entertainment.
That fucker.
There is a massive flat screen mounted on the wall that includes Netflix and Direct TV. He even has his Kindle plugged into a socket, charging. I don’t say anything as he rests his hands on his hips. He glances around the room, his expression utterly smug. Hunter seems satisfied with his work, satisfied at the new cage he has created for his pet Isabel.
I nod to whatever he says, then he exits and comes back with a tray of my favorite: his chocolate chip pancakes that I haven’t tasted in three years. Hunter sits next to me. But when he attempts to feed me, I smack the entire thing out of his hand, flipping the tray over. The plate bursts on impact and sticky syrup splatters everywhere.
“Why are you doing this?” I scream, fisting my hands in my hair like a madwoman.
He doesn’t reply. Hunter simply bends and collects broken fragments of the dark orchid plate. The deep purple shards of dish remind me of the color of Max’s eyes.
Max!
Max is going to find me.
He is going to free me.
It’s difficult for me to hide my smile and instant elation and relief.
“Max is going to find me. And when he does, I’m going to make sure you reap your repercussions, fucking dick head. You are going to die alone and sad because you’re a fucking nutcase like your mother…maybe Sally was right all along. You do kill everyone in the end.”
His head sharply cocks to the side, mimicking a predator’s when hearing prey approach. Hunter gracefully stands, leisurely wiping his hands on his jeans. When he turns towards me, his eyes are closer to the color of coal than the sky in the daylight. The veins in his neck and arms are bulging and his jaw is ticking.
He smiles, but his smile definitely does not reach his eyes and is so far from kind it terrifies me. With his grave stare on me, his fingers swiftly undo his belt buckle and he yanks it free from all the loops with a silent whoosh that sounds as loud as nails on a chalkboard to me. He folds it, doubling it in his hands. His intention is crystal clear. He doesn’t look like a god now, in fact, far from it. He looks like Lucifer. People have the understanding that monsters are visually repulsive and unattractive. How wrong they all are. The devil was the most stunning angel that God ever created in heaven, the definition of beauty itself. But his objective was pure wickedness like Hunter’s. The more beautiful the monster, the more malevolence it will bestow. Beauty is a sin.
My heart plummets to my stomach and my breathing is labored.
He’s going to whip me!
I scurry across the bed, my limbs getting caught in the twisted sheets as he begins to lurch towards me. I thrash and cry in his arms, but they are strong and able to keep me face down into the mattress. One hand is pressed into the middle of my back, weighing me down while the other deals out a torrent of blows with his leather belt.
A deafening scream leaves my trembling lips as the first strike of fire lands on my backside, crippling heat spreading through my body. “You,” a harsh lick of the belt, “will learn,” a hit across my thighs, “to watch your mouth.” He gives me another swat on my backside and more brutal ones follow. With each whack of the belt the blaze across my skin intensifies. I have to focus on breathing because I almost choke on the pain and drown in my tears.
The pain is excruciating and robs my lungs of oxygen. I break out into a severe sweat with every muscle in my body shaking and aching and strained, bracing for the next strike. Strands of hair are plastered across my wet face and mouth. I reach back and try to block my sore bottom with my hands to alleviate the pain there, but he grips my wrists and presses them cruelly into the small of my back as he distributes more strikes that I threaten to blackout from. I shriek and writhe in the sheets, begging for him to stop, begging for mercy. But I don’t think he ever hears me, or cares.
My body goes limp as I suck in a shuddering breath, realizing he has stopped or maybe paused from the strenuous activity to catch his breath and gain his energy back only to wield the belt on my flesh again.
He’s panting and gasping for breath just as badly as I am. Then he tenderly begins to massage the welts all across my back, thighs, and legs. I groan out in pain as his fingers run across the abraded flesh. His fingers seem to intensify and prolong the burning agony.
Tears drop quietly into the bundled sheets as he rubs me down with refreshing cold cream that tingles in areas I know he broke skin. Hunter kisses my wounds, shushing me at the same time. His skillful fingers massage me until I become lax in his hold and barley sniffling.
I even find myself leaning into his touches that bring me so much relief, and yet is the very origin of my despair. I shiver and moan when he bends and brushes his supple lips behind both of my trembling knees. It seems like a silent plea of some kind. I don’t know what he wants from me. He stands and moves about the room.
I can’t believe he actually had the audacity to whip me.
He beat me with a belt.
It hurt like hell.
Hunter hurt me.
Who is this Hunter?
The minty cream feels pleasant against my wounded skin and douses the burning sensation. The relief is amazing. But I’m sore and aching—all over.
When I gather the courage, I peek from my moist lashes and notice Hunter meticulously scrubbing the syrup off the floor with every ounce of concentration focused on that task. I’d give anything to know what he’s thinking. He can’t possibly keep me down here forever.
Can he?
He dunks the dirty rag into the bucket of soapy water and wrings it dry. He pauses for a moment as if he can feel my eyes on him. But when he turns his head back to look at me, I hide my face in the white sheets that smell of him too much.
“I’ll be back in the morning. Goodnight.”
The door shuts and the sickening sound of the lock turns, declaring my confinement loud and clear.
I’m left staring blankly at the wet smear on the floor that’s quickly drying, wondering where the hell I am.