SWNOVELS The Sacrifice: Chapter 69
I enter the bedroom we’re staying in, kicking it open so hard that both doors hit the interior walls and bounce back, slamming shut. “Lake?” I call out, chasing after her. She beat me to the elevator and up to the room. Seeing the bedroom is empty, I make my way to the en suite bathroom.
I shove them open too, and she’s already stripped off her clothes and stands in the shower, her cries filling the bathroom.
With my clothes on, I open the door and step inside. She just found out she was raped, so I don’t want to strip down naked in front of her. “Lake—”
She slaps me across the face, cutting me off. Before I can recover, she does it again. “Little—”
Slap.
“You knew.” She’s screaming at me, her voice shaking. “When were you going to tell me?” She shoves my chest, and I wrap my arms, around her, spinning her around and pinning her back to my front.
Her knees give out, and I lower us both to the shower floor. She cuddles up in my arms and I run my hand down her hair while kissing her head.
“You … knew.” She trembles in my arms and my chest tightens. Telling her the truth won’t matter. It’s not going to change what happened to her.
The door opens, and I look up to see Gavin enter the room with Saint. Gavin’s eyes drop to my cut and bloody hands before meeting mine. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you.”
I nod. “Been busy.”
He looks over at Luke hanging from his chained wrists and speaks. “I see that.” Reaching into his pocket, he removes a cell phone and holds it out to me. Sin takes it for me because my hands are covered in blood, holds it in front of me and presses play.
My wife is thrown onto a hospital bed. Luke gets up and straddles her, pinning her wrists down by her head. “Fucking sedate her! Now! And where the fuck are the restraints?”
“No. No. No. TYSON!” She screams for me.
The male nurse with the blue scrubs on who I killed grabs a wrist from Luke and places it in a leather cuff attached to the bed and secures it down to her side. Luke wraps his hands around her neck and chokes her while the guy continues to make his rounds, securing her other arm and both of her legs.
“You know…” He lowers his face to hers. “He might have actually done me a favor. You may be worth something pregnant.” He shoves her head into the mattress before letting go and gets up off her.
She gasps, sucking in breaths, yanking on the restraints, realizing they’ve got her tied down to the bed, and you can see the life drain out of her face. All hope gone.
“I want her sedated until I say otherwise. And get that pregnancy test done,” he barks out the orders, and people run in and out of the room.
“I’m… not…” She sucks in a deep breath. “Pregnant.”
He leans over the bed and grips her tear-streaked cheeks. “You better pray to God that you are. Otherwise, you’re no use to me.” His hand drops to her bare chest. He grabs her breast before slapping her across the face. She cries out. “A worthless bitch is a dead bitch.”
His hand lowers to her black booty shorts, and she fights him as he cuts them off. She’s sobbing when his fingers move her underwear to the side. “I guess if the results come back negative, I can fuck you until you’re pregnant.” He kisses her tear-streaked face when his fingers enter her. “Either way, I’m going to make you useful.”
His lips move to the side of her lips to kiss my wife again, and she leans into him, sinking her bloody teeth into his flesh and he screams before his fist hits her face.
Her body goes limp, her cries now silent, and he wipes the blood from his face. He undoes his jeans, jumps up on the bed, and spreads her legs the best he can while they’re tied down. And then he fucks her. Her body moves with the bed as he leans down, grips her hair in both of his hands, and spits on her face. “Fucking bitch. I’ll make sure you’re worth something.”
He’s coming inside her in a matter of seconds, then gets up and zips his jeans. “Clean her up,” he barks to someone and exits the room.
Whoever holds the camera walks farther into the room to stand beside the bed. “You won’t be needing this,” a female says, and then I see a hand in the shot, pulling Lake’s wedding ring off. Whitney’s laughter fills the room as she turns, leaving my naked wife restrained and unconscious, her face covered in Luke’s spit and his cum leaking from her pussy.
I realize I’m shaking while I hold her to me. The video ended, and I couldn’t breathe. I went to run out of the room, looking for my wife when Saint told me that Lake was down in the basement with Whitney. I was too late. The fucking bitch told her what Luke had done.
“I’m sorry, little darling,” I whisper, my tongue heavy and throat closing on me.
The sound of her sobbing makes my chest ache. I can’t comfort her. Nothing I do will be enough to take away the pain.
The thing is, I had a feeling Luke did this. I had Gavin run every test possible on her here at Carnage once we got her here. And when the rape test came back negative, I was relieved, but he said too much time could have passed. That it may have not caught it. I hate that he was right.
It’s been two days since I sat on the shower floor and held my sobbing wife. She hasn’t spoken to me since. Not one word.
She’s shut down. Gavin is on standby. He said at any time, night or day, just call him, and he’ll be here to start a feeding tube and IV for fluids. She’s not eating and won’t drink anything. Just lies there in bed staring at the wall. I’m not even sure she’d put up a fight if I called in Gavin to help her.
I’m going crazy. Almost as bad as I did when she was taken. Because once again, she’s gone. She’s right there at arm’s reach, but she’s not there mentally. I don’t know what to do for her. How to pull her out of where she’s gone to hide. I want to give her time, but I also hate to see her suffering like this.
I gave her a bath last night, and she silently cried while I washed her. I half expected her to hit me, slap me, or punch me in the face. But she didn’t. Instead of pushing me away, she clung to me.
I’ve spent my day with Luke today. I woke up this morning, kissed my wife, and went down, needing to blow off some steam. She needs the tender side of me right now, not the I want to make you bleed side.
Gavin taped my cut hands and even those are bleeding through because I can’t not use them. I step out of the shower and dry off. Entering the bedroom, I see she’s in bed where she’s been, and I put on a pair of boxers before I crawl in next to her. I’ve always slept naked with her, but I no longer do. I don’t want her to feel uncomfortable around me. I’ve based our marriage off of sex and now I don’t want her to think that’s all I want from her.
She rolls over onto her side, facing me, and I reach out, gently running my taped knuckles down the side of her pretty face. I hate it. When I close my eyes, I hear her screaming my name. I see her lying there fighting for her life. Then I see him hit her, knocking her out and raping her while his spit covers her face.
I did that to her. I allowed Luke to take something from her that I can’t give back no matter how much I make him suffer.
“I’ve decided,” she speaks, her voice rough since it’s the first thing she’s said in two days.
“Decided?” I ask softly.
“I don’t want to see the video.”
Is this why she’s been so quiet? Because she’s spent the last forty-eight hours debating if she was going to watch her sister’s husband rape her and spit on her face? I hate to tell her, but I wasn’t going to let her see it.
“If that’s what you want.” I push her dark hair behind her ear for a better view of her gorgeous face. I just wish for once in my life I’d get to choose something for me. Is what she once said to me. I’ll allow her to think this decision is hers. But the truth is, the video is long gone, and the phone destroyed. No one will ever see what happened to her. Gavin had told me that Bramsen found it back at the hospital. Whitney had two separate phones. One she used to communicate with Luke and another one. It had no texts, calls, or emails. Just pictures and videos of victims over the past few years. The things on her phone made me sick, and I’ve seen some fucked-up shit. I’ve done some unforgivable things in my life, but to know that she helped, makes me angry.
“Is that awful of me?” Lake whispers. “Am I … a coward?”
Propping myself up on my elbow, I frown as she rolls onto her back, placing her shaking hands over her face. “Why would you ask that?” I pull them away so I can look at her.
She licks her trembling lips, looking over at the floor-to-ceiling windows, unable to meet my eyes. It’s dark outside, so you can’t see shit out of them. The first tear runs down the side of her cheek when she speaks. “Because I don’t remember it. Other victims—”
“Lake.” I cup her face, cutting her off, and fresh tears fall from her lashes when she blinks. “No.”
“We’ve had sex since then.” Her chest starts to heave. “I’ve … begged you.”
I grab her wrists and pull her to sit up. “Breathe, little darling,” I tell her, needing her to calm down. She’s all worked up and I hate to see her hurting. She’s fighting a battle that I didn’t even think would be one.
She throws her arms around my neck, and I pull her into my lap, hugging her to me tightly and softly rocking her.
I understand what she’s trying to say she feels. She went on with her life while other men and women have had to live with the nightmares and the trauma.
Am I glad she was unconscious? Yes. Do I hate that he’s making her feel bad about herself for that? Abso-fucking-lutely. But the Spade brothers have assured me that I can keep Luke alive as long as I want and visit him as often as I choose. While my wife starts to heal and comes to peace with her decision, I’ll remind him every fucking day that he has to live with his.