The Twelve Tables

Authors Note: Thank you to everyone left comments or sent me feedback about previous chapters of this story. Thank you to Margaret who proofread for me. I hope you enjoy this chapter. ~ellie

*

Nik smiled down on the man who had his lips wrapped around the big strap-on cock she wore. Men were so easy, they thought with their dicks and if you could give them their fantasy, you could mould them to your will. It hadn't taken her long to realise that her guard at the facility had been chosen because of his homosexual tendencies. They probably thought he was a safe bet to resist any form of seduction she might try. It took her even less time to exploit his weaknesses and his need for punishment for not living up to family standards.

Now he had the best of both worlds, a disciplinarian who would punish him for not towing the family line and getting married to a baby making machine and a cock to worship and fuck his ass. She would miss him in a strange way she thought as she thrust her hips making him choke on the soft rubbery cock. Of course, he had opted for a life-like cock, the shaft all veiny with a swollen darkly shaded and mushroomed head. Still it did the job and who was she to complain when it rubbed her clit so vigorously when she fucked him.

"Such a greedy little cock sucker, you can't get enough can you," she grabbed his head and bucked her hips cutting off his air supply until he flailed around in his urgency to breathe. She held him tight a moment longer making him strain for the precious air before releasing him to fall back on the floor at her feet.

She'd planned this night from the moment she had arrived at the facility. All of the pieces of the puzzle falling into place a week ago with the arrival of that stupid, fat cow, Peri. Her revenge would be sweet, and she looked at the clock on the far wall considering how much longer she could play with her prey. She looked disgustedly around the small office that belonged to the man who even now crawled back to her and took the cock once again between his lips sucking on it like it held the water of life.

"Desk," she instructed, and he immediately jumped up and leant over the desk reaching back to spread his ass cheeks for her. The handcuffs made it difficult for him, but such was the price he paid to live out this little fantasy. Of course, she had made him pay handsomely for every session in which she let him worship the cock of his dreams. She wondered who it was that fucked him in his mind as she stood and pressed the unlubed cock against his asshole. Her bet was on some Hollywood superstar that wasn't even gay, someone big and muscled like Schwarzenegger.

Without warning, she thrust forward making him cry out softly muffling the sound by bending his head, so his mouth rested against his shoulder. She didn't care as she began to ride him feeling the hard nubs on the inside of the harness rub over her clit. She felt her arousal rising rapidly, and she took off the belt that held her toga high and away from the strap-on cock but still hid her breasts for him.

"Giddyup, wild stallion," she groaned threading the belt around his neck and holding it like a pair of reins. Feeling the edge of her climax, she crossed the reins over in her hands and began to thrust harder and faster pulling tightly on the belt, revelling in his struggle as he became aware of what was happening. She gritted her teeth and bit at the inside of her cheek to stop from crying out as her climax finally slammed into her and she fell back into the chair trembling with its force.

She watched dispassionately as the body of her guard slid lifelessly to the floor, and she murmured softly, "Oh dear. Accidents will happen when you play rough." Feeling the energy born of adrenaline she shoved the body under the desk and removed the strap-on shoving it into his mouth for good measure. She then retied her belt and quietly left the room. She stepped through the door to the mess hall taking her seat with the two other family outcasts.

Nik ate ravenously; she was starving after all that exercise. She chatted normally to the other two girls and shrugged when asked where her guard was. "Gone to the bathroom, I think," she smiled sweetly as she always did here. Since her arrival here she hadn't put a foot wrong in the eyes of anyone except her guard and that was the way she wanted it to stay until the last possible moment. She waited until the guards went to talk with those guarding the other tables as they always did during mealtimes.

She stood with her tray and walked past Peri absently dropping a note onto her tray before disposing of her own tray and walking through the side door to the library. Over the past week, she had smiled and apologised and told Peri that she had seen the error of her ways now that she was drug-free. She made overtures about being one big happy family and how much she was looking forward to the wedding and her hope that Peri would be able to forgive enough to let her be part of the special day.

She'd had to play a lot on the fact that as Josh's twin and the special bond she had with him and she hoped Peri could understand that, and they could be friends. She had gone out of her way to help the girl and introduce her to the friends she had made within the facility. To the point where she believed, Peri thought of her has a friend now.

"The stupid, fat cow as so trusting," Nik thought to herself, "This would be easier than anything else she had planned for tonight.

*****

To Nero's surprise, Peri had not arrived at his office for her morning session. With less than a week left of her trial, she had been given more freedom to move about the grounds and upper floors of the facility and were she any other girl he would assume she lost track of time. Peri, though, had diligently followed every instruction of the Marshall's and Commander. The girl needed no consequences not even from Francesco, who was notoriously hard to please. The truth was that she had arrived at the facility with far better conditioning than some of the girls who left having finished their trials with passing status. Nero stood from his desk and walked to the mess hall. He approached the purple table and the two women who remained finishing their breakfast.

"Did Peri have breakfast this morning?" He asked pleasantly.

"She wasn't here when we arrived, Marshall," one of the women answered.

"We did arrive slightly later than usual," the second admitted.

"Thank you," Nero walked to the stairs pulling his phone from his pocket and calling Francesco. "Hey did you see Peri late last night, she hasn't arrived for our session," He said as soon as Francesco answered the phone.

"She didn't come to me after supper last night," Francesco said. "Not like her to be late for anything have you checked her room?"

"I'm on my way there now," Nero answered shortly.

"Okay I'll meet you there and help you search if she is missing," Francesco said.

They met at the bottom of the stairs and continued to her room. It looked like there had been a fight or, at least, a tussle within the small cell. There was no sign of Peri and their anxiousness increased.

"Call Marco to meet us in security, I'll call the commander," Francesco said through gritted teeth. They had all relaxed in their observation of her because she had accepted her status here without complaint and followed their instructions without question. They had no concerns about her commitment to the trial, what they had not bargained on was someone else interfering in their well-designed plans. It had been easy to dismiss her special circumstances and the diligence needed in her care.

Sitting in the security room, they scrolled through the video of the corridor in front of her cell from the evening before. Looking for anything unusual that might tell them of her movements or who she had fought with.

A woman in a purple toga who was quite obviously not Peri had gone into her room late in the evening. She had stayed a few minutes and left again. As if aware of the camera she had never looked up as she passed its lens. They watched it over again to try and discern who it was but the best they could tell it was someone who had borrowed a toga or taken Peri's as it was far too short for the tall woman.

"Show me the main corridor after supper, I did not see her last night so she should have gone straight to her room," Francesco said as the commander walked in, his foul mood showing in his expression and body language.

"Well?" he asked belligerently.

"All we have so far is an unknown woman entering her room and leaving again," Nero informed him.

"Show me," he leant forward putting a hand on Nero's shoulder to get closer to the screen. The picture was brought up, and the Commander frowned.

"Veronica Donati," he said abruptly standing once again. "Marco go and search her room."

"No sign of Peri in the corridor after supper," Francesco added, "I don't think she will be there."

"Perhaps not but I would bet that purple toga will be," the Commander said with certainty. He knew the full story of Veronica's incarceration here and anxiety that she may be involved in Peri's disappearance gnawed at his gut. She had been responsible for harm to Peri on at least one other occasion before she had come to them. The question was how she could have pulled it off.

"She wasn't on the stairs after supper," Nero announced as his head spun between the four computers and the two security men who helped him search. "Which means she never left the first-floor after supper last night.

"That limits the search area, just in case, check with the front gate and lock it down, no one in and no one out until she is found," the Commander spoke with authority.

Francesco left to start the search as Nero picked up that nearest phone. He spoke in clipped tones asking a battery of questions in rapid fire before slamming the phone back into its cradle.

"Someone using the name of Peri Wells left in the middle of the night but she doesn't fit the description. The person using her name was tall, slim with long dark hair," Nero recounted the phone call.

"Call the men on duty last night and have them pick up Veronica Donati and bring her to the Athenaeum. Keep me informed of the search," the Commander said his voice dangerously low. He knew that delaying informing Joseph any longer was not worth the added disgrace this incident would incur.

Francesco made his way back down to the first floor gathering some of his family as he went to help with the search. He spoke rapidly describing the girl they looked for and suggested some harm may have come to her.

*****

"Thank God, for pay wave," Nik thought as she smiled at the shop assistant who neatly folded and bagged the clothes she had bought. They weren't great, but they would do until she found a bank that would accept her minimal ID and let her withdraw funds from her own account.

"Have a nice day, Miss Wells," the assistant handed her the bag and receipt.

"Thank you," Nik shot the woman a dazzling smile and left the store. She hoped that the Battaglia idiots would follow the trail she had carefully left for them and assume Peri had left the facility and headed to the closest city. She walked back up the street of the small town on the outskirts of the city and into a shoddy looking backpackers hostel. Peri had no class, so this would be more her style than the Hyatt or any of the places Nik would find suitable.

She showered and changed quickly into the new clothes and did her makeup feeling much better than she had in what seemed like forever but, in reality, was less than a month. Now she just needed a lift into the heart of the city. She packed what she had taken from Peri and her own wallet that her mother had lovingly packed into her cases minus her credit cards but still holding her licence and Medicare card, into the new handbag. Checking the mirror one last time she walked out of the hostel she had checked into as Peri leaving just enough tell-tale signs to show she had been there. She hoped that no one would find the body for days and she would be long gone, living a new life with a new identity.

She grabbed hold of a man climbing into a delivery van and flirted outrageously until he agreed to drive her to the city. "Men were so easy," she laughed to herself. Even poor Josh had no idea she had formulated her escape from the hold her family had on her long ago and that was where all that money she had taken from him had gone. Well, she had lived on that and saved all the money she had made from supplying party drugs to her wealthy friends. She had everything she needed in a locked box at the bank. Now all she had to do was get there before they found her.

While most of the money had been squirrelled away in the name of her chosen alias, she had enough in a hidden bank account in her real name to get her back home and to the locked box in the bank. She just had to hurry.

*****

Nero sat before the security screens with two other men scouring the tape from the last time he could accurately gauge where Peri was yesterday. He had seen her in his office in the morning, then she had seen Marco, then she had gone to Francesco. The camera's in the mess hall were set at a wide view, and it was hard to make out the details of individuals, but with the help of the technicians, he was able to track her through the side door and eventually to the library. The library cameras were skewed and showed only a small part of the room, but she briefly appeared in the shot before disappearing again.

The corridor view showed her going in but never coming out. It did, however, show a woman in an orange toga going in and coming out with books held to her chest. Once again the woman looked down at the floor as if trying to hide her face from the cameras. Peri had to be in the Library and he wondered why they hadn't found her yet. Leaving the security guards with instructions to keep searching, Nero left to help search the library.

"She has to be in here," he said to Francesco for the tenth time.

"We've looked everywhere, moved everything, she's not in this room," Francesco's frustration was evident. "We're fucked, totally and utterly fucked."

"Okay if she's not in this room," Nero said logically. "How did she get out without going through that door and down the corridor?"

"Do they even open?" Francesco asked as the both looked toward the large arched windows. The first of the windows they tried didn't open having been painted shut. They tried the others finding them also painted shut or the hinges rusted in place. Still they went methodically checking each one.

"Fuck!" Nero exclaimed pushing on a window that lay between two bookshelves and almost toppling out as it gave way easily under his strength. Francesco was by his side in seconds and followed his gaze down to the partially nude body of Peri lying lifeless and hidden between the wall and the bushy hedge that surrounded the building.

"Get help!" Nero yelled coming to his senses and jumping recklessly down into the bushes alongside Peri. He ran his hands down her body checking for signs of injury and pushed his fingers into her throat desperately seeking a pulse and finding a faint erratic flutter.

Francesco grabbed at his phone and called the commander, "Found unconscious outside the library windows in the bushes, north wall requesting medical assistance." Watching from the window he wasn't even sure the girl was alive and he wondered who had done this to her. He heard the scream of the ambulance from the hospital seconds later as it made its way through the village and across the grass to where he hung from the window waving furiously and pointing down.

Nero left in the ambulance with Peri and Francesco went to report to the Commander. When he entered, he could see Joseph Donati looking gravely serious and Marco talking in hushed tones. The Commander waved him forward to report.

"It's bad," he said in a subdued voice. "I suggest we make our way to the hospital."

*****

Nik walked out of the bank with five thousand dollars in cash and a plan. She bought herself a two new phones and headed into a hair salon. While she sat being pampered, she booked a flight to the middle of nowhere using Peri's credit cards and then took the sim card out of her phone planning on leaving it for some lucky traveller to find at the airport. Josh no doubt had one of those tracker apps on it and she had no intention of letting him find her. She was done with that stupid bitch. She had deserved what she got and if Josh chased her all the way to the middle of the country then more fool him. She smiled with satisfaction. He made it clear that he wasn't playing by her rules anymore, so he was dead to her now, as dead as that ugly cow who started all this. They all were, not one of her brothers had come to help her when she needed it, so fuck them. She would get her revenge on them all eventually.

With this in mind, she put the sim card into one of the new phones without bothering to turn it on yet. She then picked up the other phone she had bought for herself and set about making the plans necessary for her escape.

She walked out of the salon with a new blonde bob that made her barely recognisable and headed for a travel agency where she gave them the same sob story she had given the bank. She had been mugged and had no credit card but desperately needed to get home. She paid by cash for her first class ticket in the name of her alias and took a cab to the airport. She sat at the bar watching the people pass relishing the taste of her cocktail. She smiled at her cleverness wondering if any of the Battaglia stalked the terminal looking for Peri to drag her back to that hellish place. They certainly wouldn't look for her in the first class lounge. Nik retrieved the new phone that now held Peri's sim card, angry that it had held very little charge when she turned it on. She dug the charger out of her bag and went and sat at one of the couches near an outlet

She boarded the plane and ordered champagne to celebrate her freedom. By the end of the day, she would have a new identity and a new life far away from the constraints and oppression of the twelve tables. She smiled and considered leaving a new answering message on Peri's phone especially for Josh, but how to word it for the maximum effect, she let out a soft laugh.

*****

Peri's consciousness was pierced by the screaming siren that told her something was wrong except she couldn't move to find out what was happening. She couldn't open her eyes or even make a sound, yet the siren went on and on telling her of the danger around her. She fought against the inky blackness that sought to overwhelm her. Hands moved her wooden limbs, and strange voices filled her ears. She began to panic she wanted to cry out, but nothing came forth. Then suddenly she was beyond tired. So very tired and the inky blackness she had been holding at bay finally overwhelmed her and in her mind, she cried out for Josh a moment before she sank beneath the wave of darkness.

Peri floated back to the surface slowly, she tried to use her limbs, but they were frozen beside her, she could see the dull light trying to shine through her eyelids, but she couldn't open them. Still she floated higher becoming more aware of voices around her. She tried to move her head to hear better but the darkness held her tight, and all she could do was float close to the edge of it. She became aware of a large hand wrapped around her own smaller one. "Josh! She cried trying to grip the hand as darkness pulled her back under.

*****

"The facilities and doctors here are among the best in the country. She has been x-rayed and scanned completely so we can have a full picture of her injuries. It's difficult to say what was sustained in her fight with the assailant and what she received in the fall from the window," Nero said having taken over the coordination of all the specialists involved in her case.