Trapped in his End Game (Series)

MELANIE

Survival mode.

It means letting go of all emotions: your fear, anxiety, stress, hope, whatever. Letting go and doing whatever’s necessary to survive. The moment he grabbed me at the motel, I knew what was in store for me. I knew I wasn’t coming home except in a body bag.

I fought like hell to get out of his grasp, but he knocked me out, and when I woke up I was on the floor of his SUV, handcuffed.

I had my chance and I blew it.

Then I expected him to kill me immediately. I thought he would take one of those knives and drive it right in my stomach. Why didn’t he?

Confusion swirls inside my head, numbing the fear choking my breath. My mind still can’t really rejoice at the fact that I’m still alive. In my mind, I’m still dead. It’s only a matter of time.

The few sounds I hear are my own thoughts, bouncing in my head like a cavernous echo chamber. Every other sensation is blocked out. I can’t feel a thing or hear my own voice, even when I open my mouth and force air through. Even though it hurts my throat, I can’t hear a damn thing.

I feel the cold and the rough surface of the support beam on my back. They’re the only things reminding me what happened to me. I strain my wrists against the handcuffs, not feeling a thing with the foam wrapped around them. My throat vibrates with frustration.

How could I be so stupid? Jack sent Tommy after me to settle the score. Of course he would. Melissa assured me I would be safe with the FBI, but Jack’s people nabbed me right out in the open.

Tommy freaking O’Sullivan. The same guy who asked me out dozens of times, who I rejected dozens of times. The man with the awful reputation-he’s the one who grabbed me. Now I’m in that nut job’s clutches, and he’s going to play with me before he eats me.

I’m fucked.

My stomach clenches as I remember his hands all over my naked skin, how it heated under his touch and the electricity between our lips. I expected him to sink that knife between my ribs, but he didn’t.

He’s fucking with me. He made me wet and touched me where he had no right to touch. The way he laughed in my face when he felt my arousal all over his hands brings a surge of self-loathing in my chest.

Fuck him. Twisted, evil piece of shit.

Bitter, icy tears slide out of my eyes. The way I see it, I have a few options:

1. Attempt an escape.

2. Build a rapport with Tommy, and then attempt an escape.

3. Fight Tommy, die anyway.

I exhale through my mouth, licking my dry lips. I’ve no chance winning a fight against an experienced killer like Tommy, so number three is off limits. An escape attempt now would just set me back while his guard is up. Clearly I’m meant to be spared for a while. I have to wait for the opportune moment, when he thinks I’m safely under his control. Maybe I could manipulate him. He likes me. He wants to fuck me. I could use that to my advantage. I could get to him, maybe even get him to care for me.

Yeah, right.

But at least I could get him to maybe let his guard down. I nearly did just now.

Then something wonderful strikes my brain. He won’t kill me. Not yet. Not until the trial date. That’s why I’m still alive. They need my testimony to change. They need me, because the feds have enough evidence to put them away, even if I disappear now.

I need to appear as though I’m submitting to Tommy’s demands, even if he disgusts me. Even if the thought of touching him makes me want to throw up.

Angry, desperate thoughts keep me occupied for hours, or what I suspect are hours. They circle around my brain, over and over. Then boredom settles in. Stifling, inescapable boredom. I’m floating in space, a sea of black nothing for endless miles. I open my mouth to scream-maybe the noise will attract his attention. Struggling against the handcuffs is fruitless, but there’s still nothing. Nothing, nothing, and even more nothing.

Fucking hell, I’m already losing my mind. Where the hell is he?

There’s nothing except the clawing hunger in my belly that tells me I’ve been locked up for hours. I skipped dinner, so it’s impossible to say how long it has been. I try counting in my head. There’s nothing to distract me, so I count until two thousand, and then the boredom suffocates me again.

HELP! HELP!

Is it in my head, or can I hear my voice, raw with pain? Suddenly there’s a sound that makes my heart thunder in my chest. My dad’s low voice, sobbing.

“Don’t hurt me anymore! Please, I can’t take it! I’ll tell you anything-”

DAD!

That fucking monster took my parents, too. I can hear him next door, crying in pain. Tommy’s cruel voice echoes in my ears.

“You should have told your daughter what would happen to her parents if she talked. Don’t you communicate?”

FUCK YOU!

All thoughts of manipulating Tommy drown under my towering wave of fury. I want to rip him limb from limb. How dare he hurt them? They’re innocent. They don’t deserve any of this.

A high, shrill female sound makes me retch and I try to tear myself from the handcuffs, sobbing. I can’t hear any of it, of course. Wait, what? I can’t hear, so how could I have heard my dad?

Confused, tears still itching on my face, I sit against the support beam. It’s possible that the headphones turned off. Perhaps he has a switch somewhere, to turn them off and on.

Or I could be losing my mind.

I’m not losing my mind. I heard them.

My teeth grind together as another small shriek pierces my ears, coming from the wall across me. I scream for his name. My voice vibrates in my head.

Then finally light explodes in the room. I see it through the blindfold and I shut my eyes painfully and bend my head toward the ground to study the porous cement floor beneath the blindfold, slowly opening my lids. My body jumps violently when I feel hands on my head, tugging the blindfold. There were no footsteps alerting me to another person’s presence.

That’s when I realize that everything I experienced was just a vision-or a dream. Jesus Christ, I’m already losing it and it’s only been, what? A day? He pulls the headphones off my head, and I hear my raw voice still calling out for Tommy.

Rough fingers grasp my chin and force me to look up into his burning eyes. “Have you learned your lesson?”

I want to spit in his face.

“Yes.”

The fog clears from my head, but the terror of the possibility of my parents being held here doesn’t disappear. They found me. They could’ve found them, too.

Stick with the plan.

He reaches around my back and uncuffs my wrists, tearing the foam away from my arms. My muscles scream as my arms bend to my sides. They’re sore after being stuck in that awkward position for hours.

Finally confronted with my captor, I grind my teeth together as a sickening feeling leaves me clammy and cold.

It was wishful thinking to believe that he needed me alive. Maybe he doesn’t.

Tommy changed into a casual button-up shirt and jeans. When he leans in, I can smell the shampoo he used and a bit of that intoxicating cedar note. His face is still smooth shaven. I need to study him, learn all I can about what makes him tick.

The last handcuff flies off my legs and I sit there for a moment, hair hanging around my face. I breathe heavily.

“Get up.”

He speaks in a high, cold voice I’ve never heard before.

Don’t be afraid.

I let tears gather in my eyes before I obey his command and then I get a glimpse of his broad chest and I let myself fall into his arms, sobbing. My arms tighten around his back as I nuzzle my head into his neck, sniffing loudly. He doesn’t move a muscle as I tremble in his arms.

Act upset.

“I’ll do whatever you want, just please don’t do that to me again.”

It’s hard to pretend to be weepy when what I really want to do is slam my knee into his groin, especially for what he did to me yesterday. My body shakes with unbridled rage, but I hope Tommy mistakes it for fear.

The sound of my shaking voice fills the cold dungeon. He doesn’t respond to my distress. He doesn’t even make a sound. Under my fingers, his body feels way too hard. Then Tommy grabs my arms from his back and pushes me slightly, hazel eyes filled with suspicion.

“Let’s go.”

Damn it. Didn’t work.

“Where are we going?”

“Shut up.”

I stumble forward as he shoves me. Suddenly he grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks my neck back as if he’s about to slit my throat.

Jesus.

“Get fucking moving.”

“Tommy, please-”

“What did I say? No begging.”

There’s a whirlwind of blank walls as he spins me around at the top of the stairs. We enter a closet, Tommy’s hands roughly shoving me through. Then the door opens and he thrusts me forward. My hands fly out as I land on the linoleum floor of what looks like the kitchen.

I turn around on my hands and knees to see Tommy advancing toward me, a cruel smile on his face.

He’s going to kill me right now.

Naked, helpless, I gasp for air, crawling on my hands and knees toward the chair. My heart pounds in my chest. Everything disappears when you think you’re going to die. Everything. My disgust at crawling on all fours like a dog, my love for my parents, the logic in my head, telling me that there’s no way he’ll spare me, all of it drops away. Every cell inside me screams for me to do whatever it takes to save my skin.

Beg him. Touch him. Do something!

“Please, I don’t want to die! Don’t kill me!”

He stands above me like a terrible god, his hands shoved deep inside his pockets. “I will if you don’t shut the fuck up and stop begging me.”

I make a shrill sound that I hardly recognize as my voice, but he smiles and stoops down to my level. I flinch away from him when he reaches out with a finger and strokes my cheek.

“Get up.”

There’s no feeling in my legs. I grasp the chair sitting next to me and haul myself upright, my stomach caving in on itself as he gets up with me and pushes me into the chair.

“T-Tommy, I’m sorry. Tell Jack I’m sorry.”

“Jack doesn’t give a shit about you.”

I bite my lip hard enough to make a small tear. My instinct screams to beg him for my life, but he’s already warned me enough times.

“Why am I here?”

He places both hands on the arms of my chair and leans in so that I’m inhaling his breath. “Now why would I tell you that?”

Stunned, I sit back and blink furiously. Keep it together.

“This is about the trial, right? You want me to change my testimony?”

“Right now, what I want is for you to keep your fucking mouth shut. From now on, you don’t speak unless I ask you a direct question. Understand?”

My mouth trembles for a moment. “Yes.”

“Good.” He twists his hands around the arms, hazel eyes still boring into mine. “Now, I could keep you in the basement for twelve hours a day if I want. Obey me, and you’ll get to stay upstairs.”Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.

So I’m basically to be treated like a dog. The clenching, horrible feeling in my chest loosens as I slowly breathe air into my lungs. They’re not killing me immediately.

“Believe me, you want to stay upstairs.”

“Can I at least get some clothes?”

A low chuckle reverberates from his throat as his eyes slowly strip me up and down. Heat rolls from them. “You just spoke out of turn, but I’ll let it slide. Maybe you’ll get clothes later, if you behave.”

My hands ball into fists.

“All right. Let’s go.”

He tugs my arm and I rise to my feet, having no idea where the hell we’re going. Tommy slides up behind me, and a cold hand grasps the back of my neck as he leads me upstairs. I have no idea where he’s taking me, and blood keeps rushing to my head, making me sway on the steps.

He won’t hurt you, he won’t hurt you, he won’t hurt you.

We reach the top of the stairs and pass by a bedroom, which I assume is his, and then he leads me into a white bathroom. A tub filled with hot water. He just wants me to take a bath.

Thank God.

Tommy nudges me inside and closes the door behind him.

“Take your panties off.”

I turn around, facing him as my heart begins to thud against my chest. My head fills with visions of me forcing his head under the water until he drowns, and then I make myself to drop my gaze from his steady, relaxed eyes.

“Take them off,” he repeats. “Or I’ll do it for you.”

A smile flickers on Tommy’s smooth face, and even though it’s condescending I feel a swooping sensation in my body. Suddenly I’m aware of how alone we are and how damn quiet it is. I can hear his breathing, slightly faster than mine. There’s a razor on the sink that I could seize. I could slash his throat. He follows my eyes and his smile widens.

“Go for it.”

I won’t fall for it. For all I know, he planted it there to see if I would take it.

Without breaking his gaze, I bend over and slide my panties off my legs, watching how his eyes flick to my pussy and how he clenches his hands into fists to keep himself from touching me.

“Get-” he clears his throat, “get in the bath.”

Inwardly smiling to myself, I turn around and hear him slowly exhale as I walk toward the long, white tub and slowly slip into the hot water. I hiss with pleasure as it instantly floods my skin with warmth. Tommy sits on the edge of the tub and watches me with a look filled with ravenous hunger.

Now’s my chance.

“So how did you like sensory deprivation? It’s not what I usually use on the people I-ah-deal with.”

The way he says it bring a chill over my skin, even though I’m submerged in a hot bath. “What do you-what happens to the people?”

“I kill them,” he says, giving me an icy smile.

“Why would you tell me that?”

He shrugs, still smiling. “It doesn’t matter if you know. Not anymore.”

Cold disgust rises in my throat. I fucking hate him. If he wanted me dead, he’d have done it already. All this intimidation and fear is just to keep me in line.

It’s working like a charm.

“You need me alive.” My voice wavers. As much as I believe my theory, I can’t shake the fact that Tommy is a man who’d love to wash his hands in my blood.

He cocks his head. “Who says I need you alive? Maybe I’m just fucking around with you. Jack gives me the people he wants to disappear, and I take my sweet time breaking them before I finish the job.”

He looks at me as if I’m a piece of furniture.

I’m nothing to him.

Cold tears run down my face. “Why?”

“Because it makes me feel alive.”

My chest freezes as I stare right into Tommy’s blank eyes. I thought I was dealing with a man who could be manipulated, but he tortures and kills people for a living. I never knew. No, I had no fucking clue.

What makes you think he gives a flying fuck about you?

My lips tremble with an unspoken plea, and I search Tommy’s vacant face, hoping to see a scrap of human emotion somewhere in there.

“I meant, why me?”

There’s no sound except for the soap hissing on the water and the slow drip of the faucet.

“It’s nothing personal.” Then a smile suddenly appears. “I can’t deny that having you all to myself was tempting.”

A shiver runs up my thigh when the last word falls from his lips. Having you all to myself. I have to believe he’s capable of feeling something for me, because otherwise I’m fucked.

The soap lathers in the sponge, and I raise it to my arms, water dripping over my skin. I keep my head down and try to pretend that my heart isn’t hammering against my chest like a jackhammer. His greedy eyes follow my hands soaping my body, but he makes no movement to touch me. Then I sweep my hair to the side and give him a pointed look.

“Could you help me?”

A slick smile spreads over his face as he edges closer and takes the soapy loofah from my hands. He rolls up his sleeve and slowly massages my back.

Victory.

“I know what you’re doing, you know.”

“Doing what?”

Tommy’s laughter burns my cheeks. The sponge moves lower on my back and his fingertips touch my jaw. I follow his fingers, looking up Tommy’s rolled sleeves to his face.

“I meant it when I said you were beautiful.”

Silence follows his echoed words. What a strange thing to say to me. Even stranger is the response I feel in my chest, all that confusing warmth. What does he want from me?

“I know.”

“Do you really think that getting me to fuck you will change anything?”

It might.

My stomach sinks, but my voice is steady. “Maybe I don’t want to die without getting laid first.”

A grin lights up his face. “When was the last time?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a year.”

Shock momentarily ripples across his face like an electric current, and he pauses his hand. Then the sneer returns to his face. “Liar.”

“It’s the truth.” I lean forward and hug my knees, suddenly disgusted with myself. All the heart in my plan is gone. It only took him five seconds to see right through me.

It’s hopeless.

“I don’t believe it,” he says, resuming the sponging of my back.

My fists clench in the bath. “With you Mafia assholes in the club every week, no guy wanted to be anywhere near me.”

He pauses again and the loofah slips from his fingers. I feel the spread of his palm against my wet back like an electrical wire. His hungry gaze freezes me into place.

“They weren’t real men.”

I know what he wants to fucking say. I’m a real man. I would have treated you right.

No, you wouldn’t, you fucking jerk. You would have used me just like the rest of them.

It pisses me off.

I reach and pull the plug to the bath, shivering as the water spirals down and descends over my knees. Tommy still sits there, looking at me as if I’m a meal. I know I’m supposed to touch him, to make him feel wanted, but I just can’t stomach it.

Your life depends on it, moron.

My hair drips as I stand up, and I wring it dry. Tommy holds out a towel for me, but I only briefly pat myself down before climbing out. He eyes my gleaming legs as I step out of the bath. I make a beeline straight for him.

The grin on his face falters somewhat. “You’re getting water all over the floor.”

I walk closer to him until my nipples brush his t-shirt, and then I wrap my arms around his solid waist. His eyes widen in surprise.

“Are you a real man, Tommy? Do you want to show me what it’d be like to be with one? I’ll admit it, I’m curious.”

I don’t think his eyes could get any hotter, and then I move my hands down his abdomen, over his ass, which makes him smile, and then my hand anchors over his iron-stiff cock. It’s rigid in his pants. Suddenly he grabs my throat and slams me into the wall, hard enough to make stars burst in my vision.

“Oh no you don’t.” He seethes in my face. “I’m in control, not you.”

I guess I hit a nerve.

The hand around my throat tightens as his mouth crushes against mine. Breath leaves my chest as electricity spreads over my skin, surprising me. I don’t want him. No, that’s a lie. I’ve wanted him since I met him, rebelled against my attraction to him to save my own skin. Now I have to use it to save myself. The sane part of me screams to shove him away. He’s a threat, but I have to make him believe me, and that means I have to see the man behind the monster.

It isn’t hard to let go and pretend I’m somewhere else. Maybe I’m at his house after a nice date with him. There was a time when I might’ve wanted to walk down the street, holding his hand. I would’ve seen how much he desired me, and been flattered by it. My cheeks would flush when he cupped my face to kiss me goodbye after he dropped me back at my house. His face looks different now. He doesn’t look like my captor; he could be anyone. I touch his furrowed brows, which slowly lighten as I lean into him and seal my lips against his. The hand around my throat loosens.

“I wanted you, too,” I whisper against his lips.

Suddenly a real smile spreads over Tommy’s face, and it temporarily robs me of breath. That cruel darkness that makes him look like a crazed killer disappears. His eyes flicker as he holds me close, breathing into my lips.

“I knew it.”

My hands move to explore Tommy’s lean abdomen, reaching under his t-shirt to feel the hard bumps of his abs. God, he has a hot body. All this time he was hiding it under suits and I had no idea. I lift his shirt and we break apart, Tommy’s lips red as he pulls it off. The sight of his broad chest makes my mouth water. I’m aching to run my hands over him, and that gorgeous dent right under his Adam’s apple begs to be kissed.

He wraps a thick arm around my waist and pulls me against his chest. Both of us sigh at the contact of our bodies. Jesus, he’s so warm. My breasts flatten against his body and then I reach down to move my palm over the bump in his jeans. His lips travel down my neck, kissing my bare skin. His movements become more frenzied, and I dig my fingers into his hair. My tongue pushes through his lips to taste him, and a sudden thrill shoots up my thighs. He sucks on my bottom lip before pulling away, and we spend another moment staring at each other with barely restrained lust.

“If I knew how good you looked without clothes, I would have done this a long time ago.”

Tommy smiles at me and strokes my cheek with his thumb.

Good, charm him. Flatter him.

Suddenly the moment ends. His face twists with another one of his cruel grins, and he no longer looks like the beautiful, innocent man I’ve never seen before. Tommy is back.

“You fucking bitch.” He whispers as he palms my tits.

I gasp as the contact makes my pussy clench hard.

“Sex is not supposed to be a fucking reward for you.”

My eyes flash. “So you were going to fuck me against my will?”

The smile on his face makes my stomach flutter. “I was going to make you beg for me. And you will.”

I doubt it, considering I’m faking everything right now.

“Where’s the fight in you? Why are you being so-” Then he stops, smiling suddenly as if something just occurred to him. “Come with me.”

No, we’re not supposed to leave.

“But-don’t you want to-”

“Come.”

Tommy pulls his shirt back on and I follow him downstairs, completely naked. Thoroughly disheartened, I descend the stairs. It’s fucking cold down there, and there are splinters on the cheap wooden stairs. They creak loudly as we descend them.

“You must be pretty hungry.”

I am, actually. The lack of outside light doesn’t let me know what time it is, but I know that it has been long enough to make my insides gnaw with hunger. He points to the chair.

“Sit.”

I take a seat as Tommy moves past me, opening the door to the fridge. The light spills onto the kitchen tiles and I lick my lips when he removes a thick red steak. Bewildered, I watch as he sets it on the kitchen counter and gets a pan from underneath the stove, heating it with olive oil immediately.

“What are you doing?”

He glances over and gives me a smile. “What’s it look like?” He sprinkles a generous amount of salt on the steak, grinds pepper over it, and then seasons the other side.

What is this, some kind of trick?

My eyes glance to the door. His back is turned toward me. It’s less than twenty-five meters. My thighs tense under the table as I imagine myself sprinting out the door.

“Don’t bother.”

I jump in my seat when I hear the sudden hiss of the steak being dropped on the hot pan. The ambrosial smell of cooking meat wafts across my nose as I watch the steak hiss and pop in the pan. My tongue sweeps over my lips, and after a few minutes, I watch him turn the steak over with a pair of tongs. Dripping, fatty, delicious steak. The smell saturates the air and my stomach growls. He takes the steak off the pan and pours red wine over the pan to deglaze it, and then adds a knob of butter and then pours the sauce over the steak. The dark-red sauce pools around the steak, and then he turns off the burners. He takes the plate in both hands and approaches the table with a smile I don’t trust. He sets the steak across the table from me.

“Thanks,” I say bracingly, reaching for it.

He takes my hand before I grab the plate. “Not so fast, sweetie.”

God, that fucking name. It still pisses me off. My stomach roils when he smoothes his thumb over my hand.

What the hell has he planned?

“If you want to eat, you’re going to have to work for it.”

“Work for it?”