Debase Read online

  I spun the cylinder, the sound slicing through the dark cave like a knife.

  I squeezed the trigger.

  And shed the last tear I would ever shed, over the fact that I was still breathing.

  Now

  I JERKED AWAKE the minute I felt the tear on my cheek and quickly slapped myself. I was lying in a pool of sweat. Then again, whenever I dreamed of that girl’s blue eyes and blond hair, and the trigger going off, I sweated.

  Something about my father calling me son.

  Something about my desperation, tested my sanity.

  I wasn’t a man desperate.

  I was, however, a man barely sane.

  Because I gave into the madness and fed the darkness.

  I wiped down my face, and then I reached for my revolver, it was a bit tarnished with age on the outside, just like I was on the inside. I gripped it tight and spun the barrel, then I did what I did every birthday, I stopped it and cursed my birth right along with my existence.

  I emptied all but one bullet.

  Spun.

  And held the gun to my forehead.

  And I prayed to a God who never heard.

  For death.

  I pulled.

  Click.

  With a scream I threw the gun across the room and collapsed onto my knees.

  Twenty-two years old.

  And sadly.

  Still living.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Alice

  I HAD NO idea how long it had been, only that my family most likely thought I’d died. Then again, they didn’t really care, did they?

  That’s what my brother said when he handed me over to the men with the tattoos after being raided, they were the same men my father told me to run from if they ever came close to our house.

  “Killers,” he’d said. “Monsters.”

  Most little girls grow up assuming that the monsters in their head are fake, that there aren’t monsters in the closet waiting to scare you and steal your scream for energy; that would be silly.

  But there were monsters outside my window.

  I knew it because my father told me every single night.

  And my brother told me if I screamed, they’d hear.

  So, I never screamed when he came into my room.

  I just closed my eyes and waited for it to be over.

  I dreamed about one of the monsters seeing and saving me, because death it seemed would be a better option, wouldn’t it? Better than sitting across from those who said they’d protect me with their lives while they chewed on pasta and drank wine I served them.

  I exhaled and looked around the small room. It was draped in rich burgundys and had no windows that I could see. Then again, I was chained to a bed so it wasn’t like I could actually roam anywhere.

  Every hour someone would walk in, unchain me, allow me to use the small restroom attached to the bedroom, only to chain me back again.

  At one point, my teeth were inspected, and I was told if I bit I would get my tongue chopped off.

  They didn’t know that threats fell on empty ears.

  I almost asked if they’d take my eyes too, or my heart. I almost asked if they’d take every organ that made me Alice De Lange.

  My family was on the run, being hunted down by the monsters outside my window.

  And the worst part was that I hoped the monsters in this story.

  Would win.

  The guilt I carried with me was the very truth that I wished for it to be over. All of it. And yet the nightmare continued, until a few days ago, three? Maybe four?

  I shook my head and stared at the metal door in front of me. It had several locks on it, and looked like it could survive a bomb going off.

  Unfortunate.

  I pulled my knees to my chest and squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself to keep the tears in.

  Tears had betrayed me after all.

  My tears and screams are what got me in this place.

  They’re what made my father finally come. Though he had a gun pointed at his head, and one of the monsters was there, holding it with a smile on his face, the look of a fallen angel had me sucking in a shocked breath as he eyed first me, and then my brother.

  I tried to cover up.

  I wasn’t fast enough.

  My brother’s hand landed on my cheek then. “You bitch! You sick bitch! Stop throwing yourself at me!”

  I said nothing.

  I stared straight ahead.

  And then something was thrown over my head as I was pulled to my feet. I heard cursing in Italian, my brother was yelling at my father.

  A gunshot rang out.

  I closed my eyes and escaped.

  And then I was being forced into a car, my brother’s warning in my ear as I was ushered away.

  Two more gunshots rang out.

  And I’d smiled the first genuine smile since my fifth birthday.

  I leaned back against the soft bed and stared up at the ceiling. At least they were feeding me.

  At least my door was locked.

  How sad, that I had to be captured to realize that I preferred captivity over my own home?

  Whatever happened… I would be okay.

  Because my door was locked.

  And he was gone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Andrei

  “WHAT THE HELL is that?” I pointed my pen at the pink cupcake with rainbow sprinkles sitting in the middle of my desk, looking so out of place I would have smiled had I wanted to waste the energy.

  “We drew straws.” Tex, the Capo dei Capi of the five families grinned a stupid ass grin and crossed his arms. “I drew the short one, just in case you were wondering.” The guy was lethal and a giant pain in the ass. If he brought you a cupcake, you fucking said thank you and left it at that.

  But I wasn’t most people.

  And I didn’t answer to him.

  I was Russian.

  The last of my line.

  A Petrov.

  The last living heir.

  He could shit a golden egg and call me Bitch the rest of his life, and I’d still want to rip his face off for putting me in a position I loathed.

  Playing both sides.

  Claiming my birthright in order to keep up pretenses.

  And betraying my own blood by working alongside the families that destroyed mine effortlessly.

  God, I hated them all.

  Probably as much as they hated me.

  We barely tolerated each other.

  A cupcake?

  Really?

  What was next? A Christmas sweater?

  “It’s not poisoned.” Tex felt the need to point out. “Bro, I gotta be honest you’re staring real hard at that pink cupcake. Been getting any action lately, or does the color just remind you that you lack the goods to get a woman—”

  “Is there a reason you’re here?” I interrupted, changing the subject. “I have twenty-five girls ready for transport. The weakest ones will die on the way, the other ones have been given weapons. One of my men has been given strict instructions to give them a head start. It’s all I can do.”

  Tex whistled and pulled out one of the leather chairs. “Working on your twenty-second birthday?”

  I sighed in irritation. “Was there anything else?”

  “Shit, you’re old.” He said it more to himself than to me. “Just answer me one thing…”

  “And then you’ll leave and let me do my job?”

  “You know how I live for our conversations, Drei.” Great, his nickname for me. And then the mask he always wore slipped. Shit, he leaned forward his elbows on his thick thighs, both of his favorite Glocks were strapped to his chest, held there by an ever-present holster that wrapped around his whole body. I knew the guy had enough ammo to make it out of here alive, he was that good, and people didn’t want an all-out war, so they let him be.

  Because we’d somehow found a greater enemy than each other.

  The one from within.

  The De Lange crim
e family was hated by everyone, Italians, Russians, Irish mobsters, the cartels — they were sloppy, and they made us look bad. Ergo, we were eliminating them one by one.

  They had giant red marks on their backs.

  Women. Children.

  I narrowed my eyes at Tex. “What?”

  He jerked his chin toward the cupcake. “Laced it with some Xanax so you wouldn’t yell.”

  “Truly?” I smirked. “You know that wouldn’t do shit.”

  He eyed me up and down. “Yeah you’re strung tight as a drum. Sexually repressed assholes are my favorite, just ask Chase. Makes it so much fun to spar, he coughed up two teeth last year.”

  “So, you came to gossip about Chase?”

  “One of the girls,” Tex said slowly. “The one Chase brought in a few days ago…”

  Interesting. I leaned back in my chair suddenly enjoying the conversation a lot more. “You mean the dirty one that tried to bite his fingers off?”

  Tex smirked. “Best day of my life.” And then. “Holy shit, are you smiling?”

  “She tried to bite off his thumb, if that doesn’t deserve a smile.”

  “It’s why you and I get along.” Tex chuckled. “Look, Chase went in blind following a lead for a De Lange nest, didn’t know how many men would be guarding the house. The brother got off, everyone else is dead, but her brother was abusing her, mentally, sexually. He needs her. He’ll come for her.”

  My stomach sank as I tried to keep my expression indifferent. I tapped my pen on the desk, once, twice, three times. I focused on my breathing, on the blank expression on my face as I tilted my head to the side. “You’re saying you want me to sell her… here.”

  “I’m saying we want you to auction her off to the highest bidder, get him to come out of the woodwork.”

  “We can’t kill him in front of other customers,” I pointed out.

  Tex stood. “No… but she can.”

  I stood, leaning dangerously close to the pink sprinkles. “What are you saying?”

  “How much do you think they’ll pay to see her slit his throat? How distracted do you think those men will be for thirty or so minutes?” He shrugged. “Distracted enough to provide an escape plan for the remaining girls your father bought?”

  A weight settled onto my shoulders. “Tex, it’s too many women. It would be a fucking exodus of women who’ve been abused for years, who have no clothes, and most of them with no will to live. You let them run, they come right back to me, I’ve seen it a million times, it’s why we do it this way.”

  Tex locked eyes with me. “Family dinner, this Saturday. Bring someone so Chase stops asking if you’re a virgin.”

  At that I did laugh. “Chase can suck my dick.”

  “Saying things like that doesn’t really help, Drei.”

  I pointed at the door, my ever-present black leather gloves covered my cold hands. “Go.”

  “Enjoy your cupcake, Cupcake!” He started whistling. “Oh, and it’s at seven, and you’re in charge of wine.”

  I cursed under my breath.

  Italians and their wine.

  The door slammed behind him.

  And I knew, he hadn’t given me a choice.

  In typical Tex fashion, he was letting me know what they wanted to plan, and I could either side with them.

  Or against.

  I slammed my knuckles against the desk and then stomped over to the side room and shoved the heavy metal door open. “Out.”

  Four of my men stood and left.

  I faced the wall of cameras.

  I knew hers by heart.

  I knew everything.

  Because the minute they’d brought her in, I heard silence. They screamed, all of them screamed, they struggled, they cursed.

  This girl, this woman, looked relieved.

  And as my men passed me by in the hall, for two seconds she lifted her eyes to mine and I felt a fissure of tension erupt between us. She was looking at me like I was the hero in the story, not the villain.

  It was a new feeling, having a woman look at me that way. It was also hateful, because they all used to look at me like that, and I’d done exactly what my father did. I’d followed in his footsteps, it didn’t matter that I saved who I could.

  Because I still damned the rest, didn’t I?

  That was three days ago.

  Three days of watching her lay across her bed, arms spread out like she was on a damn vacation in the Caribbean. A small smile on her face as she fell asleep like she was finally at peace.

  Like I, Andrei Petrov, seller of women.

  Had saved her.

  She couldn’t be more wrong.

  I watched as she lifted her arms to the ceiling and then let them drop back down at her sides, and then she yawned, her blanket of hair moving across the pillows as she rose up on her side.

  She wasn’t just beautiful. She was stunning, the kind of beauty that made a man forget himself. The kind that would bring a man to his knees.

  My least favorite.

  Because women, in my experience, didn’t know how to handle the chore of that sort of beauty, so they either manipulated it or wasted it.

  I watched another ten minutes as she smiled.

  I expected more tears.

  And then she laughed

  I put my hand on the screen, I had this impossible need to hear it, to close my eyes and see if it would make me feel better about what I did. And I knew I was the sort of man, to steal that laugh.

  And replace it with hate.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Alice

  THE MAN WITH the tattoo on his left hand would come again and let me use the restroom. I’d been left alone close to an hour already.

  I leaned up on my elbows and stared down at my tattered clothing.

  Black leggings.

  A ripped baseball shirt that I’d put on for bed, and no shoes, not even any socks.

  I stared at the door and waited.

  It was the only constant in my life now.

  My bathroom breaks, and when they would bring me food.

  One by one, the locks jerked back making a shrieking sound as the door moaned open.

  It wasn’t the same man.

  It was a man.

  But different.

  With lighter features, icy blue eyes, and golden blond hair that made him look like he should be on the cover of a magazine not giving me a bathroom break.

  His cheekbones were high, his jaw firm.

  I gulped.

  Because he didn’t look happy.

  No, he looked pissed.

  And I’d been on the other end of that look my whole life.

  I very quickly squeezed my eyes shut and whispered. “Can you please just make it fast, please?”

  I didn’t sense any movement. My heart was beating erratically as I wrapped my arms around my legs and tucked my head against my knees, if I fought it would only hurt more, if I just let it happen, it would be over soon, it was always over soon with Aldo. Half the time he couldn’t even perform let alone do anything other than touch me and squeeze me until I had bruises marring my breasts.

  “Slut. Whore,” he’d whispered in my ear. Saliva ran down my chin onto my shaking hands. “You shake because you want your own brother. Say it! Say you want me!”

  I never did.

  And he hated me for it.

  More than he hated himself, I think.

  He was raised to dominate.

  And I was raised to look the other way.

  Any minute now, this blond man’s hands would be on me, any second, I would smell his breath on my neck, and it would have liquor on it, because that’s where foolish men gained courage, wasn’t it? And he would be sloppy because he was drunk, and maybe he’d pass out.

  Dear God, help him to pass out.

  I was shaking so hard that the bed was moving.

  I couldn’t stop it. At least I knew what Aldo would try. This man, I didn’t know. This man didn’t look like he was capable of a sm
ile.

  I knew it, like I knew that Hell existed — this man was many things.

  Good, was not one of them.

  “Come,” he said in a rich voice.

  Slowly I lifted my head as two men walked past him and unlocked the chains wrapped around my ankles.

  I didn’t move when I was free.

  He seemed disappointed.

  It was three against one, it was survival.

  I was on high alert; anything could be used as a weapon if you hit hard enough, right? If they tried something, if a weapon was pulled, I would need to fight my way through it, I would need to do something — anything.

  I was a De Lange.

  My name meant something to me. Once a proud family, now on the run, my father was one of the last made men still alive.

  It meant something.

  I meant something.

  I was valuable alive.

  I knew this.

  Did they?

  My stomach sank as the two men who helped free me walked in the opposite direction of the blond-haired man.

  “This way.” He sounded bored or maybe just indifferent as he led me down a richly lit hallway with sconces lining the walls, nude art that had me blushing to the roots of my hair, and the sound of people screaming in the background.

  Whether it was from pleasure or pain, I wasn’t sure.

  And even then, I asked myself, did it even matter anymore?

  He stopped at the end of the hall, slid a key card over something black and then looked up at the camera.

  The door beeped open.

  And I was hit with steamy hot air.

  A spa? He was taking me to a spa?

  I narrowed my eyes as women of all shapes and sizes stared me down, several of them were in a hot tub looking thing, completely nude sipping champagne, the other half were getting massages.

  Everyone looked, happy.

  And curious.

  We kept walking through that room.

  Nobody made eye contact with him.

  I kept my head down in fear that it would trigger the beast because that’s what he was, a magnificent lion moving through the rooms like it was his kingdom and everyone else, his subjects.

  People didn’t bow. Then again, they didn’t have to.