“There is nothing to talk about.” This time he said it a little too easily. His voice grew husky. “Now, give me your hands.”

He grasped both my wrists and brought them behind my back. Before I could look over my shoulder, I felt them being bound together with rope. Did he keep a length of rope on him at all times? Probably. That and a knife.

“Get on your knees,” he commanded.

“Here?” I asked, my breath catching in my throat.

“Yes,” he said. He leaned in and said into my ear, “Here. Now.”

I wondered what would happen if I refused. One moment he acted as if he would never hurt me, the next moment there was this dark malice in his soul, the part of him that chopped people’s heads off.

Either way, the only choice I had was to be as unaffected as possible. So I did as he said. I dropped to my knees, carefully, with my hands bound behind me.

“Good. Now put your face on the floor. Keep your gorgeous ass in the air.”

I complied, leaning over until my cheek was pressed against the cold tiles. I couldn’t have felt more vulnerable, more humiliated, if I tried.

And it seemed like Javier was a person to try. I heard him unzip his jeans, the sound seeming to echo off the kitchen walls, so simple and so terrifying.

I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself. As I had done with Salvador or whatever man he’d made me have sex with, I removed a part of myself from the situation. I swallowed the fear and the feelings, and I became a blank slate, a void that wouldn’t feel any pain, wouldn’t process any emotion.

Javier could do his worst. I was ready for him. Ready to feel nothing.

But the pain never came. I didn’t know if this was part of the game, but he never touched me. Was he waiting to pounce when I least expected it? Was he taking his time?

I opened my eyes, and though I didn’t dare look over my shoulder, I caught sight of him in my peripheral. He was standing there, right behind me. But he wasn’t just standing there. He was moving ever so slightly.

I heard a small moan escape from his lips and finally realized what he was doing—he was pleasuring himself.

I felt a jolt of revulsion mingled with perverse curiosity. A part of me wanted a better look, wanted to see him in the act. Another part of me—the better part—wanted to pretend none of this was happening.

So I closed my eyes again and tried to pretend I wasn’t there, but I could hear his palm sliding up and down on himself, skin on skin, his breath as it hitched in pleasure. I couldn’t shut it out of my mind. The more worked up he got, the more it teased me, taunting me to look. I could barely imagine a man like Javier wrapped up in the vulnerability of release, and yet it was happening right behind me. It was happening because of me.

And yet he hadn’t laid a finger on me, not yet. He was getting off on just the sight of me, the bare sight of me before him. I didn’t know whether to feel humiliated or flattered.

He is only making fun of you, I told myself. Just because he’s not forcing himself on you doesn’t make him any different from Salvador.

Then how come I was tricking myself into thinking this was … better?

“You’re so complicit,” I heard him moan from behind me, his voice low, rough, caught up in his own passion. “So good. Why do I feel there’s a bad girl in you that needs to come out?”

I didn’t say anything. The sound of his breathing, his stroking, intensified.

“Perhaps if I come all over your beautiful back,” he whispered, pausing to catch his breath. “Come onto my letters. Rub myself into your skin, into your blood. Will the bad girl come out? Will I awaken the true Luisa?” He let out a deep groan that reverberated into my bones. “We’ll see, won’t we, my darling?”

At that he sucked in his breath and groaned even louder. “Fuck,” he cried out, gasping over the words. “Fuck.”

Hot fluid spurted onto my back, making me flinch, catching me by surprise. For a moment I could only hear his heavy breathing and I waited, not knowing how literal he was going to be.

I heard his zipper go back up and felt his shadow looming over me.

“I look good on your skin,” he murmured. He pressed his hands on my back and began to rub the sticky fluid into my back, into the wound. I bit my lip and held back a cry as it stung like crazy, making my eyes water.

“Finally,” he whispered, and I could feel his yellow eyes observing me closely. But he didn’t say anything else. He kept rubbing until my skin had absorbed all of him, just as he wanted. He then undid the rope around my wrists and stepped back.

I put my hands on the ground, and he walked around so I was facing his leather boots. He crouched down until we were almost eye to eye and he held up my dress in his hands.

“Thank you,” he said with a small smile, his eyes glazed with lazy exaltation. Then he grabbed me by my arms and hoisted me to my feet. Quickly, he slipped the dress on over my head and pulled it down until I was covered again. “You’re free to go,” he said.

I stared at him in surprise which brought out another smile from him.

“To your room, of course,” he said. Suddenly, he was turning around and snapping his fingers. “Tito,” he barked, and the guard who had winked at me earlier appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Take her to her room.”

I felt my cheeks flare from embarrassment—had the man seen the whole thing? If he had, Javier definitely didn’t care who saw him come all over me.

Javier reached down to the table and handed me the plate of uneaten food that had been for Esteban. “Almost forgot your breakfast.”

And at that he turned around and walked down the hall, disappearing into one of the rooms.

I stared at him, bewildered, clutching the plate of food in my hand.

Tito pointed the way toward the staircase, gesturing as if he were being polite. I barely took in his youthful but menacing appearance before I walked numbly up the stairs and back into my room. He shut the door behind me, locking it, and I was left alone again, with food that I didn’t want but needed, and thoughts that I didn’t need but wanted.

Luisa

When the sun rose the next morning, I was so tired I felt like I’d been drugged. I hadn’t been—I just hadn’t slept at all. The fact that I couldn’t be on my back, on the fresh V that Javier had carved on it late last night, didn’t help either. But mainly it was the nightmares that plagued me at every turn.

I’d never been the type of girl to fear the dark—when I was young, I loved for my father to tell me scary and thrilling stories. But now they were no longer stories, they were real, and every time I woke up from a nightmare, I was faced with a reality that was no better.

In some strange way, being alone made it worse. It’s not that I wanted Javier’s company, but I had to admit that when he was in the room with me, even when he was branding me and inflicting pain, it took my thoughts away from their darkest places. He distracted me. Even when he asked me questions about my past, questions I tried to dance around, it was still a distraction.

I would have thought that having someone nightmare-inducing with me would have made things worse, but it didn’t. Because my nightmares weren’t about Javier. They weren’t about what he was going to do to me. They weren’t about the fact that I could die in a few days at his hands.

My nightmares were about Salvador. They were about not what happened if he told Javier they had no deal—they were about what happened if he traded for me back.

What would happen to me if at the end of the week, I was set free and picked up by Salvador’s men? If I was brought back to the house? If Salvador saw how Javier had claimed me as his? I knew what the man was capable of, and it scared me to think of what else could happen—not only to me, but to my parents. Salvador was sick beyond comprehension, and I had a feeling that I had only seen the tip of the iceberg.