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“Where else would we keep the whore?” the man who answered the door says, and he and his brother both cackle like a couple of hyenas.
What they don’t catch in their amusement is my measured and purposeful steps towards them until I grip their greasy hair in my gloved hands and bash their heads together. Their bodies drop to the ground in a cluttered mess of their unconscious state.
“Now that is worth laughing about,” Zak comments as he begins the descent into the darkness under the house.
Following behind, I’m disgusted by what we see. She has a soiled mattress on top of a platform on the ground, just barely high enough to keep her off the dirt floor, a few flashlights around the room for light, and plastic bins for her clothes. The bedding is ratty and nearly threadbare. I can’t comprehend how she stayed here. Slept here.
“What the fuck have they done to her?” Zak marvels in a rage-fueled whisper. Anger burns through my veins like a fucking freight train, and the itching to return to the main floor and bleed both men dry is eating at me.
“She’s ours now. She’s safe.” I don’t know whom I’m trying to convince, myself or Zak, but it’s not working on either of us. She’s been here for nearly five years; it’s a wonder she’s survived for so long.
Digging at the ground where she said she had a small chest full of mementos buried, we get to work. Everything else can be burned to the ground with her relatives. There’s nothing here that she’ll need. “Found it.” I pull the box from the earth and wipe it off before opening it to ensure it’s what she described.
Pictures of her and her mother, jewelry, drawings, lockets of hair. All of them precious to Abilene. Twenty years’ worth of a life condensed into one tiny box of importance. It makes me sad for her.
“That’s all?” Zakar questions.
Growing up in a wealthy family allowed me to live in a cocoon of opulence. For years, I had no idea what the real world was like. No clue how the people on the other side got by day to day. It wasn’t until my father brought me in on the family business at around twelve that I even thought about it.
After my mother died before my thirteenth birthday, I ran away. Spending those days on the streets, I finally understood how privileged I was. And not because of some fortune my father made being a good man—he was as dirty as the floor I’m standing on. My father was a brute of a man who cared about only one thing: family.
He married shortly after my mother’s passing, and along came Yelena. She was a beacon in our otherwise dismal world, and when the enemy stole my father and stepmother from our lives by the time I turned twenty, I grew bitter and angrier than ever. If not for Zakar and Valerian, I would have sunk into killing the men who took them from us rather than ruining their lives. Watching them suffer greatly pleased me more than if I’d ended their miserable existence.
And now, I feel that same rage and need for vengeance clawing at my flesh. Abilene deserves the life I was given. She deserves a silver spoon and everything that comes with it. “We must provide her with everything in our power,” I utter, meeting Zak’s frigid eyes in the darkness, figuring he’s thinking the same thing.
“Whatever she wants,” he confirms. We both know she won’t ask for a damn thing, however. That’s not the girl she was in her childhood, and it’s not who she is now. Which makes our jobs of taking care of her so much more challenging because we need to be the ones to anticipate when she needs or wants something. Keeping her close to us all will be the best way to gauge that. And that is undoubtedly the most incredible pleasure any of us could hope for in our ruthless lives.
* * *
Abilene
“Are you sure they’ll be here?” Sitting in the middle pew of the church, Father Marcum’s service is about to begin, and I’ve had so many conflicting emotions since reuniting with Val, Levan, and Zak that I need the calming presence of the Lord. Father Marcum’s voice has always soothed me in my most turbulent times.
“They’re coming.” Valerian rubs the inside of my wrist with his thumb to help ease the thundering pulse of my racing heart. I don’t understand why I’m so anxious about them missing the service. It’s my first time attending church with anyone other than Yelena or my mother. “If you don’t stop fidgeting and calm down, I’m going to have to revert to drastic measures in order to settle you.”
My head whips to the side, and I hear the creaking of the old entrance doors opening. As I stare into Val’s eyes, I can tell he means carnally. Like earlier. On the couch. Blushing, I attempt to hide how my lips twitch, wanting to smile, but he sees it and winks just as I feel a warm body at my side.
Spinning around, Levan sits next to me, and Zakar is on his other side. “You made it.” They don’t miss the relief in my tone. Zak leans forward, grazing my cheek with a finger as he kisses the opposite side.
“Wouldn’t miss something so important to you.” His words are kind, but I notice in his eyes that he’s angry about something.
Levan’s arm reaches around me, burying his hand in my hair and pulling me closer to him without saying a word. His body vibrates and twitches with restrained rage as well. It pulses off both of them, and when I look to Valerian, I see he’s just as confused about their moods as I am.
As Father Marcum begins speaking, I close my eyes and concentrate on the words he imparts to the sparse audience. Words of understanding and acceptance. Of faith and the willingness to heal, even when we don’t feel we deserve it. And I know, without a doubt, that his words are coming from a place of understanding with me. He’s trying to guide me into the act of loving myself again.
He’s trying to tell me that it’s okay to move on from one life to another and that I don’t need to suffer from the guilt I’ve been harboring for so many years. Maybe he’s right, maybe he isn’t. I don’t rightfully know. I’m not sure I ever will, but what I do know is that if I want a life with these three men who can’t keep their hands off me, even in a house of worship, then I have to be open with them about my life and find the acceptance to move forward.
After a final prayer that ends the service, Levan can’t wait anymore. He turns my head, stealing a deep and overwhelming kiss filled with far more emotion than I ever thought possible before releasing me into Val’s arms and following Father Marcum to the back office.
“Where is he going?” I blurt out before I can restrain myself.
Zakar slides closer as parishioners begin to stand and take their leave. I see a few people eyeing us up and down, and it hits me then that all three of them have been touching me with proprietorship in public. Nobody outright says anything, but I see the disgust on their faces—the judgment in a place where there should be none.
Trying not to allow their opinions to turn something that I have begun to view as beautiful into ugliness, I avert my gaze and focus on the men at my sides as Zakar finally answers my question about Levan. “He’s got some business with the Father. He’ll only be a few minutes.”
Chewing on my lip, I want to probe some more, to get the answers that keep me watching for Levan to reappear, but I’m not sure if their moods are a reflection of what he’s doing or of what happened before they arrived.
“You can ask, you know. We can see the questions darting back and forth behind those liquid gold eyes of yours,” Valerian tries to reassure, his mood more stable than Zak’s.
