Nessa & Vinnie

Amid a broken heart, a woman can do sinful things. Amid sadness, they can say psychotic and hurtful things, and in happiness, they can be a dream come true, but amid anger, a woman can become a dangerous vengeful being that no man can stop.

Anything can lead to any of those emotions but only a specific kind of hurt can lead a woman to be heartbroken. As sensitive as we may be, our hearts are far more protected than they appear. Especially if it’s not the first heat break one has been through. Eventually despite the screaming inside your mind of you telling yourself that you should feel, cry, get angry, be sad, or finally fucking smile and be happy, there’s just that feeling of numbness that god himself couldn’t pull away from the soul it’s attached to.

The empty wine glass clinks as I set it down on the black marble counter of the club I’m currently hiding out in.

“Another miss?” Asked the bartender.

I look up from the glass I was spinning in my fingers seconds ago and look up into the familiar blue eyes of the newly twenty-one-year-old boy who has been serving my drinks all night.

“Have you ever broken a woman’s heart?” I ask him

He gave me a confused look before answering. “I’m sure I’ve broken plenty.”

I appreciated his honesty.

“How’d you do it?” I don’t take my eyes off him as I ask him the question. I always found it less likely for people to lie if I held eye contact with them, no matter how much it made my skin crawl.

“Oh, that’s easy.” He pauses. “I came out as gay.” A slow sly smirk makes its way across his face showing the smallest hint of a dimple. It’s not a wonder why his being gay would have upset the girls in his school. He’s not unattractive at all. If anything he would be considered more on the attractive scale than most boys his age. He looks older than he is with his dirty blond hair and the light 5 o’clock shadow, even the sharpness of his jawline, and if I had to bet, if I lifted up his shirt he would have a six-pack. The type you see on college fuck boys.

He nods his head in the direction of my wine glass silently asking if he should refill it. I nod my head telling him yes.

“Coming out as gay in school must have sucked,” I tell him.

He shrugs “Not really. When I thought about it I waited for a while, I don’t even know how long because I always thought my friends would let me down. In all reality, it was my mom who let me down instead.”

“Why would that be?” I ask him

“The simple answer is that she was Christian and did not approve of my sexuality.”

“What happened after?”

“She kicked me out and I moved in with my grandparents”

“I take it they didn’t care about your sexuality?”

“No, they just made the right choice. When I was younger I would visit them every summer. I remember taking a trip and on the drive back something brought up sinning. I knew that I had gay Aunts and my grandfather always seemed so close to one of them. It was comical really.” He pauses as if trying to remember the situation more clearly. “They would always wish each other happy birthday on days they knew weren’t their birthday and because my grandfather refused to get a smartphone and was stuck with the flip phone my Aunt used to be able to text him twelve times before he finished typing 5 words and would make his phone go off like crazy.”

I smile as he continues

“Anyway, I remember asking if being gay and loving someone of the same gender was a sin, why were they so close? Love the sinner, not the sin. That’s what they told me. So despite them not liking that I was gay they still respected my way and the fact that I would never love a woman. They loved me over a rule an old guy made.”

He turns his back to me after I don’t respond, getting another customer a drink they ordered. Swallowing the wine in one go I place the glass back down on the counter and pull out my phone to see a message from Renei.

Renei: New file. Come home.

Two sentences are all it took to sour my mood

Me: It can wait. You know I’ll get it done.

Renei: This one is special.

I roll my eyes as I slip my phone back into my pocket.

Renei Valerez.

To me, she’s my aunt. The woman who took in a damaged 18-year-old and all the baggage that came with her. The woman who placed the last piece of the puzzle into my complicated, pathetic little life molding me into the woman I am today. My boss.

To the world, she is known as the black Leandra. The technical name originates from Greece, it is the female version of the name Leander. Meaning the lion man. That would mean she was called the black lion woman but a lion woman is called a lioness so therefore she’s the black lioness. She owns you until you work enough files and she’s made the same amount of money if not more than she spent to save whatever poor soul she took in.

For me??

I have no end in sight. She loves to remind me of that daily.

Looking around the room I purposefully look for someone to waste my time with.

The club isn’t too packed in the VIP area, most of the people that would be up here prefer to stay on the lower levels until they find the woman or man that they think can satisfy their needs and take them to one of the rooms up here.

In the back corner is a man on his own. I notice his messy black hair and unmistakable tattoos peeking up from under the collar of his white button-up shirt. His black blazer is resting on the table beside him, his hands resting on a glass of honey-colored liquid as he twists it in his fingers. I also noticed the shoulder gun holster with no gun. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have it, it could just mean he has it in an easier area that would be harder to see, for the person intended to be on the wrong end of it.

At the table beside him is a thinner man, with a buzz cut. No visible tattoos or weapons. That doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous, he could be the weapon instead. I highly doubt it considering how he looks more messy than organized.

He’d be the perfect choice.

Sliding out of my seat I put one foot in front of the other and started my walk to the man. He doesn’t look up from his phone once until I’ve reached his table and taken a seat across from him.

He looks at me with curious eyes while I glance at his ring finger. I’m a lot of things but the reason a man cheats on his wife is not one of them.

“You’re not married,” I tell him

“No. Why are you asking darling?” he says back with a smug smile on his face.

“I wasn’t asking, I was stating. It’s a fact.”

“Oh,” He leans back in the booth on his side of the table that he’s sitting in, spreading his legs and laying both his arms over the back of the booth. “And how do you know that?”

I shrug “For starters, you’re not wearing a ring. Then there’s the fact that if you were you wouldn’t spend your time here with your head buried in your phone. You’d be finding a woman and heading out as soon as possible so as not to get caught.”

He raises his eyebrows and asks, “Am I that obvious?”

It’s my turn to smirk and lean back into my chair. “No, but the tan line around your wrist means you wore a watch while you were in a very warm and sunny place and took it off when you came back from the said place that also means you would have taken your wedding ring off and there’s no tan line on your ring finger meaning that if you were married you would have had to take your ring off and it would have shown a tan line if you did”

“You are very observant.” He states

“Let’s just say it’s part of my job.” I lean forward folding my hands together and resting them on the table. “I assume no girlfriend either?”

“No ma’am.”

“Good,” I say standing. “Then let’s go, and don’t act stupid. Neither one of us has time for that and you know why I approached you.”

He doesn’t argue with me, he simply pockets his phone, throws back whatever he is drinking, and follows me in the direction of the back door. No way in hell am I taking off even a sock in one of those musty uncleansed rooms in the back.

My heels clicked quietly on the black concrete in the alley outside the club and I heard the soft shuffle of the man’s feet a good distance behind me telling me that he had decided to follow after me. What man wouldn’t follow a woman after they just gave a hint about sex?

“Now I have three rules. You’ll follow them or you’ll be on your merry way. I don’t negotiate and I don’t change these rules. They’re my rules, not yours, and we’re obviously not leaving this place to have a friendly brunch.”

I don’t turn around or even ask him if he understands, like I said he’ll follow them or he can get off with someone else.

“Rule number one. You don’t touch me until I tell you, you’re allowed to. Rule number two, no sleepovers. When you come we’re done and that better be after I’ve come at least once and for rule number three -.”

The sound of a gun with a silencer being fired cuts me off. I stop in my place, turn around, and sign at the sight before me.

On the ground is Mister Buzz Cut with a bullet in his head and blood spilling out of the hole onto the ground beneath him. Standing behind him is the man with messy hair.

“Well this is unfortunate,” I say dryly “You couldn’t have at least waited until we were done? Or maybe until I got to rule number three? It’s my favorite.”

He doesn’t respond, just stands there and stares at me with a look that almost looks like amusement.

I shrug and move to turn back around when a hand firmly grabs my left arm. I stop, looking down at the tattooed hand with too many rings then look back up to a bald-headed man with a blank look on his face.

“I’d really appreciate it if you let me go. After all, it’s not nice to grab a lady.” I told him.

“I don’t suppose you’re going to keep this to yourself, are you? Or are you gonna go running to the cops?” A voice from behind me says.

Only turning my head I look over to the man who shot my little buddy.

I huff out a dry laugh. “Now why would I do that?”

“Because you just saw a man get shot?” he questions. “Then there’s the fact that you saw my face and I’m sure you’re already thinking about the cameras this place has?”

“I wouldn’t be so stupid. You were smart enough to bring a silencer, meaning you were smart enough to get rid of any witnesses and make sure that even if there were cameras out there, which there aren’t by the way, you’d have made sure that they just accidentally stopped working all of a sudden.”

The man smirks as he pushes the gun back into the Holster wrapped around his shoulders and hanging at his waist. Stepping over the body he pulls a rag from his inner suit pocket and begins rubbing it across his hands cleaning up whatever blood must have splattered onto them.

“You don’t seem to be affected by the fact that I just shot the man you were going to head home with.” He says

I look down at the man dead on the ground and tilt my head looking at him curiously as if I could read his mind despite him being dead. “Nah he doesn’t look like the type to listen to rule number one.”

“Forgive me for not listening but what would that be?” The man asks

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I drawl, looking up at him with my head still pointed in the direction of the dead guy.

The man tilts his head side to side with purged lips as if thinking. “Mmm, actually I’m more interested in what your name Is.”

He finishes wiping his hands, pocketing the cloth as I take in how he’s standing. Feet are only a couple inches apart and every time he talks his eyes seem to be on something other than mine. This man is either used to being listened to or doesn’t think I’m a threat. Or maybe it’s both.

“Does my name really matter when you think you’re going to kill me anyway?”

He raises one thick black brow as he smirks. “Think?”

I smirk. “If you were going to kill me you would have by now.”

“And how do you suppose that?” He asks, putting his hands in his suit pants pockets.

“You put your gun back.”

His face relaxes leaving him with only a smirk and his amused eyes.

“If you thought I was a threat I would have been dead by now, you never would have put your gun back and you never would have put your hands in your pockets”

His smirk falls from his face and his legs widen their stance to where they are shoulder-width apart.

“And that,” I say pointing to his legs. “Is because you just realized that I might just be more of a threat to you than you thought.”

A smile spreads across my face as the bald-headed man beside me tightens his grip on my upper arm. The man with messy hair gives a singular nod to him and a few seconds later a rag is placed over my mouth and nose. I wiggle in his arms enough to make it seem like I’m struggling to get myself free all while making sure not to inhale what I’m sure is chloroform. After a couple of seconds, I slow my wiggling down and make my eyes droop a little before turning my body into dead weight and closing my eyes fully. The man doesn’t catch me as I fall to the hard concrete floor so I have to do my best not to make a noise when my head hits it with a hollowed thump sound.

“Put her in the back seat with me. Also.” He pauses briefly. “If she has even a drop of blood on her head from you not catching her you might as well start digging your own grave.” I hear him walk away as his dress shoes clomp against the ground.

“Fucking prick” The bald-headed man mumbles under his breath.

I’m lying half on my side and half on my back when he comes to pick me up. Sliding his left arm under my neck. Just as he’s about to slide his other hand beneath my knees, he stops. I stay limp with my eyes closed as I feel the slight movement of my jacket.

Then I feel his hand.

On my breast.

My eyes fly open to see the side of the bald-headed man’s face as he stares down at my chest.

“Really nice tits,” he whispers as if he’s trying to tell me himself even though he knows damn well he’s groping me right now while I’m supposed to be unconscious. My stomach curls in on itself as my hand itches to grab the blade I had stashed inside my coat but I can’t move yet or he’ll know that I’m not really unconscious. He gives my breast a firm squeeze before removing his hand and digging through his pocket. He pulls out a phone and after a couple of taps, he brings it to his ear. I’m just close enough to hear the other side of the call.

“Davis,” A deep voice says

“I think I got something for you.” He tells them

“Get on with it.”

“Vincent was on a call and stumbled across a pretty little thing. If he doesn’t kill her I could accidentally lose her if you know what I mean.” A nasty-looking smirk revealing a single blackened tooth in the front of his mouth spreads across his face

“We don’t have time to play around with your little whore obsession.” The voice spits. “Do what your fucking told and kill that Mackenzie prick before I kill you Kendric.”

I hear the beeping of the call disconnecting as I watch the man pull the phone from his ear and scowl down at it before he shoves it back into his pocket. He ogles my chest for one more second before I close my eyes again and he lifts me into his arms carrying me away. I do my best to count the steps as he walks and about twenty-eight steps we come to a stop.

“The fuck took you so long?” The voice of who I’m assuming Vincent is, says.

“The bitch is heavy” He grumbles in response.

“Then give her here” Vincent snaps

I feel a hard chest on the side of my body not pressed against the pervy bald guy then I feel arms being wedged between us. Once an arm is securely brought around my thighs and my waist my weight shifts to my new carrier. Being carried around isn’t ideal but it gets the job done. This man shot another man in cold blood, one who didn’t seem like he was a bad guy. But yet again do all bad guys seem like they’re the bad guys??

No.

Not in my experience.

I wanted to know why Mr. Buzz-cut was faced with that untimely death and in order to do that I needed to play along with whatever little kidnapping game they started. Thinking about it I had to do my hardest not to laugh. It was kind of like when you’re a kid and you’re up past your bedtime playing on your DS in bed and your parents all of a sudden barge into your bedroom so you shove it under your pillow as fast as you can. If you were lucky you got it closed and didn’t have to listen to the music as you lay there with your head on the pillow, eyes closed, and trying your hardest not to smile as your mom or dad stood in your doorway watching to make sure you were actually asleep. Except then there was the chance of getting caught. You couldn’t control it if you were caught.

This, I can control.

If I really thought that Professor Pervo was a threat when I saw and felt his hand around my arm he would have been on the ground faster than Vincent would have been able to shoot me. You don’t just kidnap me because you want to. No one touches me unless I want them to and I mean, no one.

I hear the sound of a car door opening before I feel a slight shuffle as Vincent gets into the back seat of the car with me. The door slams before another opens and the car shakes with the weight of the man getting in the driver’s seat. My body is lowered to the seat next to Vincent. I open my eyes enough to make them look like they’re closed but enough for me to see out of.

He is still leaning over me from setting me down but my legs are next to his lap in the middle seat while he sits on the right side with my head resting on the left leather seat.

Being this close to him makes me take in his features better although I wasn’t far off with my original facial examination, but being this close makes the sharp edge of his jawline more prominent and the slight arch of his eyebrows clearer. His 5 o’clock shadow seems to be done on purpose as there’s not a single tiny hair out of place, then it’s perfectly symmetrical from the other side, and right below his left brown eye is a tiny scar that if I weren’t so close to his face I wouldn’t have even known existed. It was likely just from a fall or getting hit in the face with a toy when he was a child but it’s still there nonetheless, and if I were anyone else and any less keen on details than I am I wouldn’t have even noticed it or if I had I wouldn’t have thought much about it.

Somehow Vincent managed to lay my head at the perfect angle to where I could see his entire body and a part of the rearview mirror as well. I watch the club slowly get farther from us as the car starts moving forward. The two stay in an awkward silence for the duration of the car ride. I did my best to watch each turn the vehicle took and each sign or building logo we passed. When the car comes to a stop I have no idea where we are but I do know that one left turn will get me to a Burger King and three right turns will get me to a Super 8 motel.

If needed I could sleep, shower, find new clothes to wear, get an okay enough meal, and wifi. I close my eyes and listen again as the front car door opens and Professor Pervo steps out slamming it behind him. Once again I’m lifted into Vincent’s arms as I keep up my act of being unconscious, I can’t see where I’m being taken and I can’t tell when turns are made due to how many there actually are.

Vincent stops moving for all of 5 seconds when someone, im guessing Pervo opens a door, and then the next thing I know I’m being laid gently down on a bed. For a man who killed another man in front of me not caring at all that I was around he was surprisingly gentle with the way he handled me. For all he knows I’m unconscious and would never know if he threw me into his back seat or he threw me into a cold wet damp basement floor. But here I am laid out nicely on a soft mattress that might just be memory foam and from where my neck is bare to the pillow feels like silk sheets and pillowcases.

I open my eyes again just a crack and peer around the room. I was right to assume that I was lying on a bed because just below where my eyes can reach is a dresser against a wall with a mirror attached to the top reflecting everything in the room. The bed is in the center of the room not pushed up against any walls and just as I assumed the sheets are silk. Burgundy Red if I were to get into the specifics of the decor of the room. Which I am. The room is made up of three colors, the first being burgundy red as the main focal point then there’s black and a dark gray being the balance between the two so the room doesn’t look too dark making it look small and clustered.

To the left of the bed is a floor-to-ceiling black bookshelf covering the entire wall. The wall across from that is fully shown in the mirror but from what I can see there appears to be a couch in the same burgundy red color of the bed linens and beside it is a small black table with a dark gray lamp and an opened book laying upside down beside an empty crystal tumbler. The wall is filled with a mixture of picture frames that I can’t quite make out from the blurry haze of my squinted eyes.

My eyes start to hurt with the strain of how far I’m pushing them to look around the room and I’m beginning to get a headache from the blur of the things around the room. I watch as Vincent leaves the room and the bald man takes a stance next to the door. Not five minutes after the door is closed and the bald man is left alone, he leaves his post. Making his way over to me in 5 big steps I watch through the mirror as he takes out his phone and begins taking pictures of my chest. When he’s done he pulls it closer to him and begins tapping before he starts typing.

I hear the ping of a text sending just as murmurs of male voices sound from the hallway. The bald man hurries to push his phone back into his pocket and swiftly turns around to head back to his place at the door. As soon as he turned around I sat up quickly grabbing the blade I always carry with me from the inside of my jacket. The man is a good foot taller than me at least so I forcefully used my foot and kicked the back of one of his knees. He stumbles forward as I do the same to the other leg bringing him down to his knees, where his head is exactly at my reach by my chest. Before he can react and get back up I use my hand not wielding my blade and pull his head back by his forehead then quickly place the blade to his throat. Putting my left foot over his left ankle I apply a slight pressure as an extra measure so he can’t get away.

“What the fu-” he grunts out before I cut him off

“I wouldn’t fucking talk if I were you,” I say in a low threatening voice, and just to further prove my point I push the blade harder against his neck but not enough to cut him. Just enough that if he tried to get up or fight back an easy slip of my wrist and his blood would paint the dark gray rug on the floor.

The door pushes open and Vincent’s eyes widen slightly as he sees me standing here. He walks slowly into the room stepping out of the way so the man behind him can see what he’s seeing.

“Well isn’t this a surprise?” The man says

He’s older than Vincent or the bald-headed pervert but he’s not old enough that he needs to take three naps a day. This man has clearly seen some shit in his days considering he doesn’t even blink at the sight in front of him. If I were a stranger to this world it would still be obvious that he’s clearly the leader or boss. At least to these two. If he’s not then Vincent must have a profound respect for the man considering he’s the first person he got when he left the room.

I look between the two men. Vincent seems more alarmed than the older man does.

“My name is Alan Trake. You are?” He doesn’t miss a beat or stutter or sound scared at all for a man who just walked into a room and found one of his men on his knees in front of a woman who was supposedly kidnapped by the very man.

I wait a minute before responding to gauge how I should approach this situation before realizing that if he wanted me dead I would have been by now. Vincent was gentle with me and even laid me in a bed. “Vanessa.” I say “Vanessa Valerez.”

The two men look at each other before eyeing Baldy on his knees in front of me.

“You want to let our man go so we can talk?”

I shake my head “No he’s dying today whether by you or me. Although I really would prefer it to be me.”

Surprise flickers across his face before it returns to the same cold expression from before.

I bring my attention back to the man whose life is currently in my hands and bend my knees slightly to reach into his pocket and retrieve his phone. Once I have it I toss it in Vincent’s direction.

“Your man here is a fucking pig and a traitor.” I nod my head in the direction of Vincent “You wanted to know what took him so long walking back to your car outside the club?? Professor Pervy over here was complimenting my tits and coping a feel all while he thought I was unconscious” I spit out

“You were awake?” Vincent asks, stunned.

“Rule number one. You don’t touch me unless I say you can.”

He thinks for a minute. “Why do you think he’s a traitor?”

“He made a call. I don’t know who to but he’s after some Mackenzie person. Whoever He called wants them dead. Said if Baldy here didn’t kill him he was gonna end up dead too.”

“Shut up bitch” The bald man spits.

I press my foot harder into his ankle making him growl through his clenched teeth. “I told you to shut the fuck up. If you don’t, I’ll give that pretty little rug in front of you a makeover. A little red might do it some good, don’t you think?”

When I look back up Alan has a slight smirk on his face. It seemed forced. “Vincent search the phone”

Vincent pushes the button on the side of the phone, turning on the phone.

“Password protected.” He says

“Alright, bestie well this can go one of two ways. You can either tell him the password or your thumb can grow its own legs and walk over and unlock that phone. So what’s it gonna be Mr clean?”

Alan lets out a choked laugh before masking it with a cough into his fist.

He doesn’t tell us the password so I decide to taunt him a little bit. Totally not because I’m having fun. “Cutting off your thumb-”

“NO!” He screams, cutting me off. “Okay, fuck okay fine. I’ll tell you if you promise not to kill me when I do.” “Awww,” I say, jutting out my lip even though he can’t see my face. “ I don’t really like lying. I promise that you’ll die today either way you can just make it easier on your part. Either way, I’m gonna have fun.”

The man’s breathing is ragged and uncontrolled now, blowing out in more of a puff instead of a steady stream.

He’s scared.

He fucking should be.

Whatever is on that phone must be pretty bad.

“24-8-2-6,” The man mumbles.

Just to fuck with him I lean forward and bring my ear closer to him. “Sorry friend, what was that? I didn’t quite hear you.”

“24. 8. 2. 6.” He says again, this time through clenched teeth clearly pissed.

I don’t care if he’s pissed. He fuckign should be, his mother should be ashamed of how he turned out.

Vincent wastes no time tapping the four numbers into the phone. The screen lights up and I’m surprised that despite how bright it is compared to the dark contrast of the room, Vincent doesn’t flinch. He taps around for a few minutes scrolling his thumb along the screen when he needs to. I can’t see what he’s looking at but from the way his lip curls up I have no doubt that it’s from disgust. He glances my way before glancing towards the man then he moves his eyes to Alan. Twisting the phone to the side he gives Alan a glance at what he sees. They seem to have a silent conversation that passes through their eyes, Alan looks at me and nods.

I straighten. “Really?” I ask with a genuine smile on my face. “I get to do it?”

“Have at it princess,” Vincent mutters.

My smile drops and I frown “Don’t call me that.”

My sour mood is now gone as I push the blade into the man’s throat dragging it slowly across his flesh. Blood begins to pour out over the deep cut that’s gradually getting larger with each inch that I cut as he tries to speak, the words coming across as garbled and pained.

Once my blade has reached the edge of the man’s throat I wipe the blood staining it on his shirt before letting go of his forehead and watching his body drop to the floor with a thick thud. I look at my hands realizing they are covered in blood and that the edge of my sleeve is damp from his blood.

I gasped dramatically “The bastard got his blood on me.” I frown and scrunch up my nose. With the blade still in my hand I hold up my arm to show the two men standing in front of me with an expression I can’t quite read. “Do you see this shit?”

“No, ’cause it’s black,” Vincent responds dryly.

“Yeah well, if it wasn’t black it’d be ruined.” I look down at the body in front of me and give it a light kick. “Rude”

Placing my clean hand on my hip I pop out my leg and lean to my side.

Alan raises a brow at me.

“What?” I ask him

“You’re insane.” He tells me

I tilt my head to the side.

“You got a bathroom I can clean up in or what?” I evade the comment. It’s not the first time I’ve gotten called insane. I guess it’s a normal comment to come out of a person’s mouth when you sharpen the blade you’re going to use to kill them as they sit tied to a chair across from you. I smile at the slight memory of the dusty old man who had smelled children in his line of work. Alan was not in that position so there’s really no need to call me insane. I never deny that I am though.

“Yeah down the hallway to the left, last door on the right,” Alan tells me.

“Thank you,” I say sweetly before sidestepping Caillou. When I make it out the door a piece of my long blonde hair gets caught on an eyelash. Using my hand I swipe it away and tuck it behind my ear with the rest of the box-dyed hair, not registering that I just used my blood-soaked hand to remove hair from my face.

I step into the bathroom and wash my hands first, not bothering to pull up my right sleeve, pulling it down and baring my shoulder. I pump a squirt of hand soap onto the fabric then run it under the water using my other hand to lather it. Rinsing the soap, I watch as pink water runs from the sleeve disappearing through the drain. Once the sleeve runs clear water I do my best to wring it out, then when that’s done I look into the mirror and begin using my still-wet hand to rub the blood off my lower eye where I must have smudged it when I swiped at my hair. I go to move my sleeve back up and cover my shoulder when my eyes catch on the scar on my shoulder.

Images and words flood my brain as they always do when I see the bite mark.

“Worthless cunt. You couldn’t even do one thing right.” the man says, spittles of spit flying from his mouth onto my bare chest.

“You’ll learn your goddamn lesson, not to fucking embarrass me” I hear the telltale sound of a belt being undone, then he’s raising it above his head, leather strap in his hand, metal gleaming in the air before it comes down on my body.

A knock on the open bathroom door pulls me from the memory. Quickly I pull my sleeve over my shoulder and glance at the face behind me reflected in the mirror.

“Alan wants to talk to you,” Vincent tells me.

“Cool,” I responded dryly, turning around and facing him. “Lead the way.”