Roses & Thorns Read online

  Rose is staring out the window with her arms crossed over her chest. She’s in her head. I’d be in my head too if I was constantly locked in a room. I wish I could let her out, but she’d get herself into all sorts of shit.

  She’s wearing a satin blue nightgown with lace trim. Her delicate legs are tense and stiff as she stands there. I have the urge to run my hands along every inch of that skin. Her white blonde hair is tied up on her head.

  She can’t even hear the silent tapping of my feet hitting the wood as I come up behind her and wrap my arm around her waist. She gasps and grabs my arm.

  “Shhh…” I whisper in her ear. I see chills run up her arm. I nip at her ear. Her head falls back.

  “Why do you do this to me?” she whispers in the dark. “You’re evil… I shouldn’t.”

  I lick up the crook of her neck. Her hips subtly rock back into me. Sending a wave of lust straight through my nervous system. I turn her around to face me and kiss her. She kisses me back. I hear her moan in pleasure and confusion.

  “Just shut your mind off,” I growl.

  “I can’t.”

  A tear trails down her cheek.

  “Damn it! Why you? Why do you make me feel alive? The universe hates me!”

  She crosses her arms over her chest like a stubborn child. I walk up in front of her and move them. I slip my hand in the top of her nightgown and massage her breast, kissing her collarbone as I do so. She moans and lets her head fall back.

  “Sven. Stop. I…”

  “Why?”

  I kiss close to the top of her breast. Her hips rock into me, completely out of her control.

  I lift her up and sit her on the bed. She’s shaking with lust. With need. I'm sure being locked in a room without distraction doesn’t help, but damn it! I need her. I’ve needed her since I laid eyes on her.

  “I’ll make it good.”

  “You’ll taint my soul.”

  I kiss the sole of her foot. “I'll make sure I don’t rub off on you.”

  “But this will make me evil. I can’t sleep with you!”

  “Damn it!” I growl. I stand up and shove her back, climbing to hover over her. “You piss me the fuck off when you say shit like that.”

  I slam two fingers inside her. She screams and grabs my shoulders. Her body falls into the bed like jello. I pump in and out of her. She reaches an orgasm quickly.

  “You don’t seem to have a fucking problem with me when I do that. Do you Rose?” I snap.

  “I…” She’s still fighting me. I growl and stand.

  I grab a pair of handcuffs. She’s so far in her head she doesn’t even notice. I slip them in my back pocket. I grab her arm and spin her around on the bed. She kicks around half-heartedly. I grab her hands and whip out the handcuffs, snapping them on her wrists.

  “SVEN! You let me out of these right now! I'm not fucking kidding.”

  I get right in her face. I'm so furious. I'm done with this, ‘I'm doing this with you shit’. Way past done!

  “No. I'm not fucking kidding. You are going to stay right here. I'm going to make you come so many times they’ll be no room for you to say stupid shit about why you think I'm somehow a piece of trash to fuck.”

  “Sven. No. Please. Don’t do this.”

  “Don’t worry little Rose. I won’t fuck you. Not ‘til you ask me to.”

  “I won’t. I won’t ever.”

  She doesn’t even sound sure. That makes me smirk.

  “Oh, little Rose don’t say things you know aren’t true.”

  She starts to shake. Good. She should. I'm about to prove every Goddamn thing she’s said about me wrong. She won’t be able to say shit when we are done.

  “Sven… don’t.”

  She’s terrified, but I know she knows I won’t hurt her. She’s terrified of how good I make her feel. How alive. She desperately wants it not to be me. But it is. She’ll have to accept that, and I'm going to speed this process up. Even if it kills me to do it, because I need to get off too, but every time I go to fuck someone else it feels wrong and I fucking hate it. And when I try to get her to touch me she gets all weird and spacey. I don’t like that. That just makes me want to fucking fix her.

  Her shaky breath snaps me back to the present. I smirk at the gorgeous site in front of me. Her small breasts are gracefully falling up and down as she tries to get air in.

  “You better not hurt me!”

  “Awfully big talk for someone so terrified.”

  “You have me chained to a bed. You could beat me. Or rape me.”

  “You know I won’t,” I say simply.

  “I hate you.”

  “No, you don’t. You want to. Big difference.”

  I walk around the bed. Predator to prey. I trace my fingers along the soles of her feet.

  “I hope you aren’t attached to this nightgown.”

  I grab scissors from the bedside drawer and cut it off, throwing it to the side. It’s in my way. Her breathing increases rapidly.

  “Calm down. I'm not going to hurt you.”

  She’s too perfect. Every inch of her. I trace my finger along her breast before taking her nipple in my mouth. I spread my hand on her tight stomach. She arches off the bed. I hold her down. She’s panting for air as I feast on her breasts. I crawl on the bed, lick down her abdomen to her pussy. I lick all around her clit. She squirms in the bed.

  “Sven. What are you…”

  I take her clit into my mouth. She shatters around me. I stick my finger inside her, prolonging her orgasm. When she finally comes back down I pull my finger out and sit back on my heels and smirk at her.

  “That’s one.”

  “Fuck.”

  That about sums it up. I lose count of how many times she comes for me, but… it was enough for me to lose count. Enough said. The general census is I don’t think she’ll be insulting me anymore, not when it comes to me being so bad to fuck that is.

  When I’m done with her, I uncuff her, help her get cleaned up and tuck her into bed and hold her. She doesn’t say anything. Not for the entire night. I give her that. I proved a very strong point.

  The next morning comes way too damn soon. Rose opens her eyes and lets out an annoyed groan before throwing her hands over her eyes as I flip on the light.

  “What time is it? Why are you up?”

  She throws the covers over her head. The corner of my lip turns up.

  “I have work. The next few weeks are going to be very busy for me, but after, I promise I’ll do something with you. We’ll figure this out. I know I can’t just keep you in here.”

  That gets her attention. She throws the covers back and sits up. She’s naked still and her breasts are right there for me to look at. Lust shoots through me. I'm gonna die. I need to get laid.

  “When you let me out. I'm gone.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Our eye contact is intense, having its own conversation.

  “If there’s a way to help Lacey, Sven…”

  “I'm not helping a prisoner.”

  “Please. She’s innocent. How can you… hurt someone innocent? She’s my friend.”

  “If I can help her… I will. Okay?”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  She sighs and lies back on her side, tucking the covers up.

  She needed to hear that from me. Unfortunately, Lacey already has her plans. For me. For Boss. For the Castellos. I do feel sorry for the girl, but she’s the perfect pawn. The one both me and Boss have been waiting for. Doing what we do, we can’t turn down a pawn as perfect as her.

  It’s a shame.

  But life’s a game. It’s not fair. And you live with the hand you get dealt. Bottom line.

  Three Days Later:

  The morning is chaos. This is the morning the plan will be set in motion. Boss is disconnected as fuck. Barking orders to anyone he sees, but there’s no one home. He’s robotic. Lacey never got punished for ‘sneaking out’. Boss didn’t say anything other than he wanted
her locked up until he had to explain the plan and hand her over.

  Boss takes a seat in his chair. He looks so deadly today. He wants the Castello's so bad I can taste it on him. Men fill the room from all angles. We all need to know the plan and there has been very few privie to it, until today. He wanted to wait ‘til it was in play so he didn’t risk anything. Once the room is full, Boss turns to Gioele.

  “Grab her.”

  Gioele and a few men shuffle out. I don’t even look at Boss. He’s teetering on the edge of control. He needs me to be Underboss. To do what he says. Help him get this going so we can end them.

  A few tense minutes of silence later, Lacey is ushered in the room in handcuffs. Her head is down. She’s wearing a navy blue cheap cotton jumper. She’s dirty and beaten. And tired. I notice obvious signs of self harm on her legs. I look at Boss immediately and frown.

  She’s cutting herself?

  Does he know?

  Does Rose? Is that why Rose is so damn protective of her?

  Boss doesn’t look at me, even though I know he knows I'm looking at him. So yeah, he knows.

  “Hello Lacey,” Boss says, his voice cold as ice.

  “Sir,” she says, looking at the ground.

  I can see the sobs built up in her throat like a vice. She’s a strong girl. I’ll give her that. Men larger than her would be terrified.

  “Do you know why you’re here?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Look at me!” he snaps.

  Slowly, she looks up as the men holding her step away.

  “No sir.”

  “It’s time for you to find out why you’re here. Your role.”

  “Other than prisoner?” There’s a tiny hint of venom in her voice I didn’t expect.

  “Watch it,” he warns. “Yes. Other than that. See, The Castellos have to end. It’s really rather simple. I’ve been trying my whole life, and my father before me has tried. Then I run straight into you. Cherished prisoner of the Castello’s. It couldn’t have worked out more perfectly if I tried.”

  They make eye contact. It’s so intense I feel like I'm invading in on a private moment. Boss turns away for a moment to keep his cold, air of death.

  “I'm going to send you back to them with an undetectable voice recorder. Once we have…”

  For the first time since I met her, she absolutely loses it. Lacey loses her shit. She starts to shake like she’s having a seizure.

  “NO! Please anywhere but there. No! I can’t go back. I can’t ever go back there!”

  I have a feeling she expected a lot of hell, but never expected him to send her back to them. She actually underestimated his cruelty.

  She looks around the room frantically like a mouse caught in a trap. She bolts for the door. Boss pinches his nose as two men immediately grab her and pull her back in. She kicks and screams and fights both them. Boss stands, commanding everyone’s attention.

  “Lacey stop!”

  “No! You can’t do this to me. You can’t send me back there. Anything else. Not that. Please, not that. No!” she screeches.

  She kicks one of the men in shins. When he doesn’t budge she goes for the knee. Boss growls and stalks over to them. I lean forward, interested. It is always interesting when Boss gets personally involved.

  He grabs her arm bruisingly tight. The two men step away, ready to step back in if need be. You can see her red skin under his fingers. She’s shaking frantically in his grip, but he is subduing her with a simple hold.

  “You will do this,” he hisses.

  “You’re a monster!”

  She rears her head back and spits straight in his face. The room goes deadly silent as the two stare at each other.

  Boss breaks the silence. He throws her to the floor like dirt. Like the prisoner she is.

  “Pick her up.” He snaps his fingers and sits again, lifting one leg up over the armrest casually.

  “We can make this easier. Bring her to me.” They pick her up and carry her so she’s right in his face.

  He whispers something in her ear. I can’t hear but it looks a lot like he says ‘pretending’s over’.

  “You will be delivered to the Castello's. I will implant a listening device so I can get some arrests out of those fuckers. High up men. Then I can move in. That is what is going to happen. Now. You think you can spit on me. Like I'm trash.” He rambles off something in Italian. “You will be punished. Then set free. Well, in a place they are guaranteed to grab you. You will tell them you ran away from us when they ask you how you escaped, and because of the punishment, there will seem to be a valid reason.”

  “I'm beaten now! And I’ll never tell them that. You think I’d...” she rears her head back in shock and disgust. “You really think I’d do what you asked me to? Why would I do that?”

  She’s fucking losing it. He grips her jaw, hard. She stares at him as tears of hate and fear fall down her cheeks. I sit back and run my hands over my chin. This is truly interesting to observe.

  “You will tell them what I tell you to. Do you want to know why?” She continues to glare at him. “Because if you don’t I believe you have a lovely family who I would love to pay a visit to.”

  The strangest thing happens. Lacey looks at Boss with pure horror. Like she can’t believe what she just heard. Her whole body crashes to the floor. It’s so unexpected the men holding her can’t stop it.

  Wails of pure despair fill the room as Lacey cries at Bosses feet. His face is set so tight I wonder what would happen if he let lose the tiniest bit.

  He’d fall apart.

  “I’ll say what you want me to! Don’t hurt them. Please don’t hurt them,” she cries. It’s like she finally realized who he is. No matter what good he’s done for her in private he’ll always be Boss first. It’s his strength. His greatest strength as Boss. It’s what makes him so impenetrable. He does what he has to even if it destroys him.

  “Don’t hurt them!”

  She grabs his feet desperately. He freezes. “I’ll do anything. Just… don’t hurt them.”

  “Grab her. Tie her up.”

  She cries as they pick her up. She doesn’t fight. Boss clenches and grinds his jaw. They tie her up with rope to a column. When she’s tied down Boss stands. An air of power follows him. All the men bow their heads but me, of course.

  Lacey’s head is down to her chin. She’s crushed, and this hasn’t even started. Even I feel a tinge of sorrow for the girl. Rose would raise hell if she witnessed this. The thought makes me smile, then frown. She’d really be bothered by this.

  “You’re going to be punished. Understand?”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “Answer me Lacey.”

  She shrugs a shoulder weakly.

  “Lacey!”

  She doesn’t reply. She’s gone. He grabs a small whip and throws it back, smacking it down on her shins. She flinches but her eyes remain dead.

  “You’re finally doing it yourself this time. Fitting,” she mumbles.

  He growls. He throws the whip back and hits her with it over and over again. Enough times to disconnect her from whatever zoned out state she was in. It’s a weird thing to watch a human being shatter. She grips the column as tight as can as the whip comes down for the last time.

  She shrieks. When he throws the whip to the side her whole body falls into the ropes. She leans forward and vomits.

  “Untie her. Don’t touch her.”

  The men untie her, faces impassive. Lacey falls to the ground in a bloody heap. Boss is a stronger man than me when it comes to this shit. Call it a weakness, but I could never do this to Rose. At least I don’t think I could. I don’t know all the reasons behind Bosses hatred for the Castello’s.

  Lacey cries. Another first since I met her. This the first time I’ve seen her cry purely out of pain. She’s wailing, the pain is excruciating. Her pain fills the room and seeps into the walls. I'm not sure this room ever be the same again. She’s scratching at her wrists. T
rying to numb it, but can’t. Even I have to look away for a second.

  “Insert it, Frances.”

  Frances walks over and grabs her arm.

  “No please,” she cries. “Please, it hurts! It hurts. It hurts.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Boss look away and close his eyes. Frances keeps her arm in place and makes a small cut. She screeches. He inserts the high-tech device we acquired to record what they say. Another man holds her arm down while Frances gives her a few stitches. She cries. When it’s all done he walks away. Boss clears his throat.

  “Clean her.”

  Screams fill the room as they try and make it look like the wounds aren’t quite as fresh as they are. They don’t clean them well, just enough to get the raw look out of them. It must burn like hell because even with Lacey’s strength and incredible pain tolerance she is clearly in excruciating pain.

  “OW! STOP! STOP! AHHHHH!”

  Those are the sounds that fill the room as several men hold her down and tend to her. When it’s all done and she’s cleaned up Boss walks over and crouches in front of her.

  “I h… hate you. I hate you,” she stutters, shaking too hard from the pain to get a full sentence out.

  Boss clenches his jaw. “I'm aware. I don’t need to threaten you again, do I? You’ll behave. No mentioning the chip. You’ll say you ran away. You’ll act like they caught you again by accident. That’s what I ask. You understand? Break this Lacey and I won’t just kill your parents. I’ll kill Jamie.”

  She drops her head to the stone and grits her teeth.

  “I need to hear you say you understand.”

  “I’ll do what you say.”

  “Okay.”

  He stands up, wipes his hands on his slacks and turns to a group of men by the door.

  “Take her to the location we discussed. Make sure they get her and nothing goes wrong. Should it go wrong it will cost you all your life... and Lacey’s families. So don’t fail.”

  He flicks his hand. “Now leave, everyone. Sven. Prepare the audio feed in your room, the main area and dining. I’ll do it my room. Go.”