Kitsch said, nodding to the glass. “It’s a great bottle, very rare. Makes everything that much...softer.” He sipped from his own tumbler.
I wasn’t about to play along with this. He probably had a vision in his mind of how this would go. He was going to get to play the gentlemanly villain who shows his victim hospitality before he kills her. At best. I didn’t miss the way his eyes lingered on my thighs, with my skirt riding up almost to my waist.
“He here to do your dirty work?” I asked, nodding to the goon, trying to banish thoughts of getting raped before he murdered me. “You want to kill me. Need to kill me if you want your freedom. But you also want to make whatever fucking speech you’ve built up in your mind because the only way a woman would really listen to you is if you kidnapped her and tied her to a chair?” I snapped.
Something moved in Kitsch’s eyes, he clenched his hands around the tumbler. I’d got to him. Men who thought they were smart, powerful were usually the easiest to unravel.
“Mommy didn’t love you, huh?” I continued. “So you decide that you’ll hate women for the rest of your life, punish them when you can? Newsflash, buddy. In my eyes, you’re always gonna be the pathetic, scared little boy who only wants his mother to love him.”
A muscled twitched in Kitsch’s jaw.
The satisfaction didn’t last for long, since he nodded once to his goon, who then stepped forward and punched me square in the face.
The pain was immediate and blinding. The goon had put all of his weight behind it. My cheekbone screamed, the entire half of my face felt shattered.
My stomach lurched and vomit worked its way up my throat.
With effort, I tilted my chin upward in defiance, making eye contact with Kitsch.
“You really think you’re going to be that cliché?” I asked. “You think that having your steroid-freak beat the shit out of me while I’m tied to a chair is going to make you seem scarier? Make you tougher?” I laughed. “You are really just doing what generations of weak, scared men have done before you. You’re not original, strong, or powerful, and you don’t scare me.”
It was now that Kitsch grinned. The gesture chilled me right to the bone. “Ah, but I will.”
No one punched me again. I was waiting for it. I didn’t know whether it was my words stopping him from doing it or his plan all along.
He did have his goon use the knife strapped to his belt cut through all of my clothes until I was sitting in tatters in my bra and panties.
Yeah, that scared me.
It all scared me. The prospect of more violence, more pain, of death. I was terrified of it all. All of my words and bravado were nothing but lies—good ones, excellently delivered, to be sure.
A little bit of stubbornness helped them along. I refused to let them see the fear, refused to give them that mental power over me. Kitsch was trying to demean me further, not just by beating me, but by brutally bringing the prospect of rape to the forefront of my mind.
In truth, that prospect never left a woman’s mind. It was a ghost that followed her as she walked to her car late at night, stalked her when she was out with friends and a stranger offered her a drink, and taunted her as she broke up with a violent or unpredictable boyfriend.
There was never a moment when a woman forgot the tool men used to fool themselves they had the power.
Kitsch was watching me, waiting for the tears, the pleading. He was experienced in it, after all.
I refused to give anything to a man who thought he had the right and ability to take it by force.
So I didn’t lower my gaze. Nor did I speak. I didn’t trust myself to. I only had strength in silence, because I feared if I opened my mouth, I’d beg. I’d turn myself into a weak woman. I couldn’t die like that.
He smiled after a few beats. “Ah, you’re not the pampered princess I pegged you for. That’s interesting. Impressive.” He stepped forward to brush the back of his hand over my jaw. It took everything I had not to flinch. That caress was more disturbing than the punch to the face delivered minutes ago.
“It’s a shame, really,” he said with a sigh, stepping back. “I would’ve liked