we were in. We were so close to getting out. We had a timetable, and we were all counting down.”
He touched the worst of the scars on him, remembering how much it had hurt. “Venezuela was very important to Sorbacov. He was cultivating their friendship through a man by the name of Jose Merhi. Sorbacov had deliberately groomed him to bring out his depravity with boys, especially torture. Merhi liked to hurt the ones he fucked. Sorbacov taught him how. They went down a very dark road and Sorbacov took his time grooming him. Merhi liked to have two boys there at all times. One hurting the other often times. By having two, it ensured the cooperation of both.”
He felt the heat. The rage. His monster close. The man had flayed the skin from his back. Merhi had learned from Sorbacov to threaten one while he forced the other to do whatever his sick mind came up with. Steele had to do whatever the man said in order to protect … Demyan.
“Absinthe had a brother, Demyan. He made it through just the way the rest of us did. We were so close to getting the hell out of there. So close. Sorbacov sent us out to meet Jose Merhi. We were to do whatever Merhi wanted. We weren’t to question or hesitate. If we didn’t comply, Sorbacov would kill Absinthe, and he’d do it slowly and as painfully as possible. That was always the threat.”
Her fingers moved to his temples and applied pressure. It was never too much or too little. Breezy always seemed to know exactly what he needed. He turned his head more closely into her lap, inhaling her. The womanly scent of her. It helped to stop the scent of blood and burning flesh from making him crazy.
“Breathe for me, honey. Take a deep breath and feel me. You’re here with me. You’re not there and that horrible man can’t have you.”
But he did. Jose Merhi had learned from an expert. Sorbacov had to shape Merhi into a man he could blackmail and use for his own political purposes. Once Merhi knew Sorbacov had filmed him and had him compromised, he demanded Sorbacov send him the young men he preferred. Demyan and Steele were at the top of his list.
“We followed orders. We could tell this was particularly important to Sorbacov and he would have really killed Absinthe if we didn’t do exactly as ordered—at least we believed that. Merhi liked to see a back red with blood when he fucked. He’d dip his finger in the blood and write obscene poetry and read it out line by line, sometimes using his fingernails in the raw whip marks.”
He was mumbling, hearing the whistle of the whip and feeling the cut as it sliced open his back. His breathing returned to ragged pants, his lips dry and hurting. Mostly, there was shame and guilt that when he knew so damned much about killing, he hadn’t killed Merhi.
He knew boys and men didn’t receive much sympathy from others when it came to rape and torture. The older the boy, the more they were told to sweep it under the carpet. They would say he’d allowed his attacker to do those things to his body. To violate him. To torture him. They would be correct. He’d been handcuffed, but he still could have killed Merhi. He hadn’t because they had sworn to make certain all nineteen would survive. He’d kept Absinthe in his mind until he couldn’t stand it and he began thinking up ways to slowly murder Merhi. When even that wasn’t enough he forced his mind to go blank. He needed to disassociate.
He made himself look up at her, to see her eyes. He was afraid of condemnation, or disgust, but she only looked at him with the greatest of compassion. Tears swam in her eyes. That was what allowed him to continue.
“He heated the blade of a knife and made me say where it could go in on both of us without hitting anything vital. If I made a mistake, the death was on me. The blade cauterized the wound as he sliced into us, at least that was the theory. I had to watch him put the knife into Demyan.” He touched his chest. “Into me.”
Her breathing had changed, rapid and shocked, but her hands never stopped their massage. The pads of her fingers put just the right pressure on his pounding temples.