Twisted - Esme Devlin Page 0,86

said he won, but it’s never good enough for him.

He drops the gun and grabs my thighs with both hands, dragging me back to him and hooking both limbs over his arms.

I already know it’s going to hurt by the way he positions himself, and I squeeze my eyes closed, turning my head to the side in preparation.

He pushes inside me, fucking me brutally while telling me to look at him. “I want to see the light go out in your eyes when you realize I won you a long fucking time ago.”

I stare up at the mask that invades every waking moment and haunts my dreams.

“You’re living a lie, little girl. But I’ll keep your secret.”

It only takes moments for it to hit me like a storm.

25

Sapphire

I’m tossing and turning, trying to get to sleep while my mind races.

That’s when I hear it.

A tapping noise.

Sitting up, I close my eyes to better locate where the sound is coming from.

The wall?

I get up from the bed and make my way to the dresser, pressing my ear close to the wall.

Tap, tap, tap.

I tap back. Twice.

Tap, tap.

“Hello?”

Another tap.

Someone is on the other side of the wall.

I take a step back, contemplating my options.

Baron would forbid me to speak with anyone. That much is clear. The door is locked. I heard him turn the key when he left me so I can’t go outside and try the neighboring door.

But whoever is there—I want to speak to them.

And since there are no longer cameras…

I pull back the dresser to see if there is anything behind it. A secret door would be a bit too obvious, and right enough, one doesn’t materialize in front of my eyes.

Maybe I could knock a hole through?

I shift the dresser some more, so there’s enough space for me to crouch down behind it, and then I peel back a piece of wallpaper at the edge.

The wall is old, and from the hollow sound of my knock, thin.

Furniture shifts on the other side of the wall.

That’s when I notice a piece of the wooden flooring has a knot in it. And that piece runs directly under the wall. Poking my finger in, I pull it a few times and manage to slide it out from under the wall.

I lie down, my ear hovering above the gap created between the remaining two planks.

“Hello?”

“It’s you,” the female voice says.

Me?

“I heard you outside. With him.” The word comes out like it’s poison in her mouth.

Instantly, I’m ashamed of myself. I want to get up. Go back to bed. Because I can’t face the thought of someone else knowing that I don’t hate him.

But I’m not the girl who buries her head in the sand anymore.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“That doesn’t matter,” she replies. “I need your help.”

My heart sinks, because I know straight away there is nothing I can do to help her. “I’m sorry,” I reply. “I don’t—”

“You’re close to him,” she says, cutting me off. “Everyone knows that. They put me here days ago. One of the clients, he drugged me, and Baron doesn’t allow drugs. Ever. Andrei said not to worry, I was going to Utopia just as soon as I was clean. But it’s been days. I’ve been waiting for days. I just need to know if you can… find out when? I need to know how much longer I’ll be stuck here.”

My heart is thudding in my chest. Utopia. Baron explained exactly what that meant when I first arrived here. Utopia isn’t real… it’s just a place in his basement where people are disposed of.

She’s going to die.

The girl on the other side of the wall, a girl who could easily be me—the moment Baron’s strange fascination wanes—is going to die.

And she did absolutely nothing to deserve it.

A wave of nausea comes over me as I think about what he did tonight. What I allowed him to do.

No, that’s a lie. What I wanted him to do.

And I did want it. Why? What would possess me to want a murdering psychopath?

“Utopia’s not real,” I blurt out.

“What?”

I clasp my hand over my mouth while I try to think about this logically. If I can’t help her, then maybe it’s better if she doesn’t know that? Maybe that would be kinder?

But she deserves to know. Maybe then she can bargain with him. With Andrei? Maybe she can plead to be allowed to go back to work?

“It’s just a name for a room in his basement where he disposes of