32

Chapter 31

"You feel you need to do this, but one more time, you don't," Joe said. We stood apart on the front porch staring into the woods surrounding my cabin. The air was cool, the wind slight, but it was warm enough that I didn't need a jacket.

"I do need to do this. Now more than ever," I said.

"I'll help if you want me to. Gotta make sure you don't get yourself killed." Joe chuckled and shrugged his shoulders.

"I've got it covered. Why don't you go live that life you're always saying you want for me?" I wanted to forgive him for keeping me in the dark so long, for manipulating me. Even though I couldn't say it, I did, sort of.

"Well, now, like I said, I took credit for Carter. The higher ups want a replacement. We may be white noise, but there's still a hierarchy to the whole group. I can do more for you if I take the job."

"So everything works out for you, I see."

Joe was quiet for a long time. He didn't move much beyond leaning his hip against the railing of the porch. He sighed and pulled a folded manila envelope from nowhere.

"Burn this. Throw it away. Pretend I never gave it to you."

"I can't do that," I said firmly.

"Yeah, I know. I wish I didn't know, but I do. What's an old man to do though, right?" He stood up straight and moved as if he were going to hug me, then thought better of it at the last second. "I'd like to pretend you're going to settle down with Katie. That you're going to be happy and all that jazz. That you can make running and hiding work."

He released the package and walked down the steps backwards, facing me. "Contents are Carter's cell phone and the prenuptial agreement between Paul and Natalie Donnelly. The information I found most interesting in there is Donnelly wasn't Paul's surname; it was Natalie's. His was Morales when he married her, but after a little digging turns out originally it was Rios."

"As in Lana Rios?" Joe nodded. "Wife?"

"Sister," Joe said. "I'm pretty sure Paul Donnelly set up the kidnappings to cover the embezzlement. He couldn't afford to wipe his ass without his wife's permission before Junior got killed in Cantana. Junior's death made Senior a very rich man."

I swallowed the new information and nodded my head. "Do you know why he paid us everything to rescue Katie?"

"Not yet, but I'm working on it," Joe said.

"Any debt you feel you owe me, consider it paid." I tucked the envelope into my pocket. "I'm sorry about Carter but we're done, Joe."

"If that's the way you want it." Joe nodded. "If these are going to be my parting words I'd be remiss if I didn't give you some advice, kid. Ignore it if you must, but hear me when I say that information in your hands is only one thing. Death. Going after Jorge Riaz and Paul Donnelly won't give you what you already have right now, right here. You may not think you've earned a life with Katie, or that you deserve to be happy. You do, though. You are a good man, despite what you've done. The things I know about, and even the things I don't, don't matter. You are a good man, Drew." Joe's voice was almost pleading as he backed away from me and disappeared into the darkness.

"Take care of you and yours, kid," came from a disembodied voice and then Joe was gone.

I stared after him, watching for movements that never came and wondered. For the first time I hoped I'd see Joe again, even as I knew I probably wouldn't.

Chapter 32

I wanted to let Joe's abrupt departure go by the time Jared returned from seeing him off. It would have turned into a fight, and I didn't want to fight with Jared. Apparently, he didn't want to fight with me either, because the first thing he did was throw me over his shoulder and carried me up the ladder to the loft. Several hours and four mind-blowing orgasms later I was curled against his side, exhausted, watching the sunrise through the picture window with sleepy eyes.

His hand gently stroked my back through the t-shirt. I felt safe and warm, like I had no need to move. I still had questions about his dad. Their banter had gone from warm and playful to chilly, and I knew it was a touchy subject. Basically there was still a lot I didn't know about Jared, even though he seemed to know everything there was to know about me. Turnabout should be fair play, I thought. I just wanted to know him, the man, the mystery, the enigma.

"Why don't you want me to know where you learned to cook? Does it have to do with your mother? When did she die?" My voice got tinier with each question. I was afraid I would upset him as much as the first time he'd told me anything. His hand continued its lazy travel up and down my spine.

He was quiet for a long time. When I thought he wouldn't answer, he sighed. "I learned to cook watching my mom. It's one of the few good things I remember about her." He paused and I felt him swallow hard. His hand stuttered in its stroking. "She was so beautiful. Young, and just beautiful. She loved me. I didn't know Joe then. She never talked about him and he never came around. Food was her true passion. She loved to cook, and she was really good at it, too. Award-winning chef good." I could hear the pride in his voice as much as the pain.

I sat up and looked at his face. "What happened to her?"

His eyes were closed tight and his fingers tightened on my back. He wiped his other hand over his face. "She was raped and murdered," he said quietly. "When I was seven years old. In front of me."

I had no words. I hugged him as tight as I could for as long as I could, tears in my eyes. The confession explained so much about him. The most heartbreaking part was it answered the question of why me.

"Oh Jared, I'm so sorry," I whispered.

"I shut down emotionally after that. I couldn't feel anything. Good or bad, there was just nothing. I grew up in a string of abusive foster homes. My name didn't help me make any friends. Kids can be cruel. I didn't bond with any of the families. It should have been a terrifying experience, but I felt nothing about it. It went on so long that by the time I was a teenager, I was diagnosed as a sociopath." His voice was flat as if he were reading a grocery list, detached from the information about his life.

I pictured him as a small child, suffering and closed down from not being able to protect his mother from a monster. I wished I could have protected that child who ended up alone, internalizing everything. He protected himself by not feeling anything.

I crawled onto his chest and kissed him, then pulled back. "How old are you?" I asked, wishing I'd asked him that instead of the questions about his mother.

"Forty-three." He smirked. I looked deep into his green eyes and saw that they were guarded. I kissed him again, and then again. He wrapped his arms around my back and held me tight, returning my tearful kisses.

"I'm not like your mother. You don't have to protect me. I can take care of myself," I said.

His face shut down. "I know," he whispered. "I don't know, it's different. This, whatever it is, it's different. Or whatever."

"In a way I envy her," I murmured. "Sometimes I would have preferred dying over surviving. Like death would have been better than having to live with what happened to me. It's always there, even now. Every day I remember what happened to me. Sometimes I can't help it. And something simple triggers it. Then the memories are just there."

"Katie, don't do this to yourself."

"I hate him. I hate him so much, and yet, yet...I miss him too."

"Jorge?"

"The Commandant, yes," I whispered.

"Jorge Riaz. Why? It's just Stockholm syndrome. It's like your therapist said. You'll get over it. How could you still have feelings for that asshole?"

"It was, like, I can't explain it. I couldn't tell the therapist about that one part of it. How I ended up like that. But it's there, every day. Every day I remember it."

"Just tell me. Tell me so I can understand," Jared pleaded.

"You don't want to know. It's not going to help. It's not something I like having in my head, and with your memory, you'll never forget it. You don't need my nightmare in your head."

"Okay, I'll drop it if you do one thing for me. Stop calling him the Commandant. Stop giving him power over you. He was just a man named Jorge Riaz." His hand pressed me tighter to his chest.

"Jorge Riaz," I said, and instantly my nightmare was in my head.

***

Noel slashed across my back, buttocks, and thighs with quick strokes that made me want to scream. I pulled and twisted my hands and feet in the restraints and took deep breaths. His arm would fatigue before I'd call out again. I'd learned long ago not to scream or yell. I didn't fight. I did everything I was told to do. Screaming was the one lesson Noel punished me for over and over again. At least that was why he said he was beating me.

There was a pattern to the abuse. My backside flamed with each stroke and I held on to the fact that it would end. I dove into my head and snapped my mouth shut tight. I stared at a blank screen in my mind. I didn't like to think about my life before Cantana—too painful. Seeing all the things I had before, who I was before, the girl I'd never be again was cruel to think about. So the screen was blank, empty. Then the whipping was over and I slumped against the wall, barely realizing it had stopped.

"I was just getting started," Noel panted distantly somewhere behind me. He left the room and the Commandant was there. Even with my eyes closed, I knew his presence, his smell. His hands unlocked my cuffs, feet first then my hands. I leaned back against him and the sting from his sweat on my back made me writhe.

"There, there," he cooed, stroking my hair. "Lana, have Paco draw the bath."

He picked me up and carried me in his arms facing him. I planted small kisses along his chest and neck, so grateful.

***

I crawled along the floor to the Commandant after my bath. He sat on the bed kissing and fondling Lana. His feet hung off the edge and I kissed each, first the right then the left, seeking his attention.

He chuckled. "My little pet wants to play?"

I nodded and he offered his hand, pulling me up onto the bed with him. Lana sat back against the pillows as the Commandant played with me.

That tickle inside, almost an itch but pleasant, a fluttering of the senses as my tongue licked along his chest, raced through me. It felt like eating raw oysters in my mouth, a sensual explosion, and my body was eager to find enjoyment with him filling my mouth. As if finding some sort of pleasure in him made it not so bad in a small way. I wanted to deny it and I did with my mind, but my body was a traitor to my thoughts. My mouth kissed and licked his flesh eagerly.

My head screamed, my body ached, and as tortured as I felt, there was a change to the intense pressure deep inside me and between my legs. As if the fiery friction was somehow not quite pain, but pleasure. He impaled me, stretched me as he forced himself deeper inside with brutal strokes.

My body spasmed around him and the growing pressure pushed and pulled me until I felt as if I was floating outside of my mind, watching everything from a bird's eye view. It wasn't me pinned under the Commandant's body even as I felt every inch of him filling me.

The Commandant's cock entered my mind as surely as it entered my body, stroking and caressing me completely. My eyes felt dry, as if I had no more tears to shed, then a dam broke and a flood burst forth. I twitched violently, lifting my body and the Commandant off the bed in a shuddering spasm of exquisite pain and bliss. I panted without voice. My body felt empty and full. My head was fuzzy and split between meaningless thoughts and an agony of sensations.

The stench of sex flooded my nostrils. Everything was too much. It wasn't over, but it changed. His inhuman cock reamed me. He cored and destroyed me until I was no longer a real person. I wondered if I'd ever been one.

He lifted me while he pumped over and over at a blurring speed, encasing my back with his forearms, his hands digging into my shoulders.

The fire in my back was a distraction, a place to focus my energy. His rough hands reminded me of Noel's beating and I suffered all the while. A sloppy wet suction noise echoed in my ears as he finished with me.

I stared at the Commandant as he went back to Lana. He was done with me for the night. I crawled off the bed to my red pillow on the floor. My body was a hated thing because it wasn't enough for him. I hated Noel and everything about my life, except for the Commandant. Curling into a ball, I cried myself to sleep.

***

I took Jared's face in my hands. He kissed me as much as I kissed him. It was hard on my mouth, washing away the truth of my past with every taste of his lips. I wanted to vow that this was different. Jared wasn't tricking me into responding to him. We had both experienced more pain than a person should. He wasn't a distraction from my grief. A small part of me feared, as it always did, that the memories would inspire my lust, even as I knew the man beneath me made them flee. This was different. The memories no longer held the same power over me they once had. It was as if I released Jorge Riaz's power over me just from saying his name.

I smiled at Jared as I saw him for what he really was. He was the key to my healing. He had unlocked my acceptance of Cantana and set me free from it. Somehow Jared had managed to break through the prison that I'd built with the memories of Cantana to encase my heart.

I didn't need my memories to explain my lust, because it was Jared that inspired it. My tears felt cleansing as he shifted me so that my sex lined up perfectly with his, then he entered me. Soon I experienced the most mind-blowing orgasms—numbers five and six.