Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 71865 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71865 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Taking my hand, he pulls me behind him to the elevator. I almost trip in my heels trying to keep up. We ride down straight to the basement parking, not going back for our coats or my clutch in the cloakroom.
He unlocks the car and shoves me inside. “Buckle up.”
Sitting hurts my butt. I shift to the most comfortable position I can find. Before I’ve fastened my seatbelt, Maxime is already pulling out of the parking with screeching tires. His hands are clenched on the wheel and his shoulders tense. When we hit the road, I understand why he told me to buckle up. He’s driving like a daredevil, breaking the speed limit. I have to grab onto the door handle to prevent my body from being thrown to his side as we round a bend.
On a straight stretch of road, I rub the cloth over my face again, but I don’t dare look in the sun visor mirror. I’m not sure I can cope with what I’ll see.
Maxime doesn’t say a word. All of his attention is fixed on the road. Fortunately, he’s a skilled driver. We skip several red lights. I’m waiting with my stomach pulled tight for a police siren to sound or for us to crash into another car, but nothing happens. I’m one big ball of nerves when he finally parks in front of an apartment block near the harbor.
“Come,” he says, throwing open his door.
I get out and scurry after him to the entrance. Gautier stands there, a dark look on his face. They exchange a few words. Gautier nods, then takes off.
Maxime punches in a code and lets me in.
“Where are we?” I ask, looking around the modern lobby.
His voice is tight. “My brother’s place.”
I want to ask what we’re doing here, but a voice in the back of my head tells me this isn’t the moment for questions. An unsettling sensation steals over me. Alexis seemed nice enough when I met him, but I’m sure it was all acting, just like Maxime is always acting with me, playing nice or decent and kind when it’s nothing but a show, a sick game to manipulate me.
Maxime and I climb into the elevator. He punches in another code and watches the floors light up with a broody expression. Alexis’s apartment is on the top floor. The elevator gives direct access to Alexis’s lounge. We step into a spacious room with futon sofas and a low table. A lamp casts a soft light over the wooden floor. An electric fire burns in a black metal pit in the center. It’s all very cozy, but goosebumps break out over my skin. The hair on my neck pricks. Something isn’t right.
Alexis stands in front of the window that overlooks the harbor with his back turned to us and a drink in his hand.
“Alexis.” Maxime’s deep voice thunders through the space.
Alexis turns around, unsteady on his feet. Is he drunk?
Maxime advances on him with big steps. “What the fuck have you done?”
A whimpering noise comes from somewhere down the hallway. The sound makes me stop breathing. There’s something horrifying about it, something that’s not right. It’s the sound a wounded animal would make. It’s hopeless and scared, lost in pain.
Maxime grabs Alexis by the collar of his shirt. “Qu’est-ce que tu as fait?”
Alexis stumbles, spilling his drink over Maxime’s sleeve. He says something in French that makes Maxime draw back an arm and punch him in the face. Alexis goes down on his ass, the glass flying through the air and breaking in shards on the floor.
The violence is unsettling enough, bringing back unpleasant memories of my drunken father I don’t care to play over in my mind. My reaction is involuntary, a flashback to my youth that makes me retreat to the corner and try to make myself invisible, but it’s not Maxime’s pounding fists that hold my attention. It’s the sickening grunts dispersed with pitiful moaning coming from elsewhere. Maxime is straddling his brother, dealing punch after punch to his jaw. My whole body drawn tight, I turn away from the fight and pause in the doorway. A low howl makes my stomach turn. Cold sweat breaks out over my body.
Light spills from a room at the end of the hallway. My mind screams for me to hurry, but my feet refuse to obey. It’s as if I’m stuck in slow motion, in a very bad dream. When I finally reach the open door from where the light and sounds come, I battle to take in the scene. My brain refuses to process it. Nausea boils in my stomach, and bile pushes up in my throat.
A naked woman is tied to a cross in the middle of the floor, hands and feet spread. A man is pounding into her. He doesn’t see me, because his back is turned to the door. A horrible pattern of crisscrossing lines covers what I can see of her breasts and thighs, blood dripping from the cuts. Her left arm is bent unnaturally at the elbow. Her face is bruised and her eyes swollen shut. Cuts mar her legs and feet.