Flames (A Special Agent Novel Book 3) Read online

  “Duly noted. I’ll get to it. Send someone over when you need me to help you with the girls.”

  “Don’t let me down. I know you can make her talk, so be quick about it. We need to figure out where’s she come from and how we deal with this threat. If she dies before she’s let the cat out of the bag, I will not be pleased." Geraud was now inches away from Adie's face, and his own was mottled with rage. Adie held his ground and didn't move a muscle.

  "I've got this. My knives are coming out next, and there's not a soul who doesn't talk after I start working with those. You concentrate on keeping Riley happy, and I'll work my magic over here." Adie then picked up one of his razor-sharp Japanese blades and turned it around in his fingers. The blade gleamed in the light, and it was so shiny you could see your face in it.

  Geraud took two steps towards me as Adie became preoccupied with his knife, and before I knew what was happening, he had two hands around my neck and was throttling the life out of me.

  “Who do you work for? Who sent you here? Why do you want to kill me?”

  Shaking my head back and forward in his hands, I felt like a rag doll under the care of a fractious child. I couldn't have answered his questions even if I'd have wanted to because his grip around my neck was so tight, I couldn't breathe, let alone talk.

  "Let her go. If she passes out, she's not going to talk, and you'll just be wasting time. We have little enough of that left as it is, so let me do my thing." Adie sounded bored at his father's antics, but he wasn't the one who had a pair of strong hands wrapped around his neck.

  Geraud looked at me with murder in his eyes, and his mouth was drawn in a long, taut line. Just as I thought I would lose consciousness from the vicious grip he had on me, he then released me with a violent shove that sent me reeling backwards. He then turned around and began walking to the door, although his hands were now shaking.

  “Don’t let me down,” were his last parting words and they were barked at Adie as he strode from the room.

  As soon as the door had closed behind him, Adie whistled. “Well, now we’re really in trouble,” he said quietly.

  Chapter Five - Lois

  Adie didn't say anything as he began sharpening his knives in front of me. It was an unnecessary action, as I knew from previous experience just how sharp they were, but I guess it added to the psychological element of torture. Now that I was down, he intended to kick me where it hurt. It also gave me cause to wonder if he'd ever had any intention of getting me out of here. Maybe he'd been fucking with me right from the start, and now that I was at an all-time low, he could press his advantage home. If all I had to look forward to was death, maybe I'd be more likely to spill the beans if there was a promise of ending my pain sooner rather than later.

  Adie’s silence spoke volumes. If he had a rescue plan in mind, now would have been the time to utter some reassuring noises, but I got nothing. So, not only was I nearing my last few hours on this planet, but my body had a bloodbath to look forward to before death came calling. If I was going to cry, now would have been a good time to do it.

  When I could no longer bear the sound of metal scraping against metal, I whispered, “Let’s get this over with.”

  Adie looked up at me surprised. “I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me to hurry up before,” he said.

  “I’m a special kind of girl,” I said sarcastically.

  "I'd already figured that out." He stroked the tip of my left nipple, and once again, my body clenched. "You can't fight it, can you? Even though you desperately want to, your body wants me, and there's nothing you can do about it." It was a low blow. I was in a dark enough place already, and the last thing I needed was for him to gloat about my attraction to him. Besides, the desire I felt meant nothing. If I ever got a chance to skewer Adie, I was grasping it with both hands and giving it a good twist.

  “Don’t let it go to your head. I reckon my death will sort the problem out.” My eyes were now steel-cold pits of apathy. This man wasn’t getting anything out of me from here on in.

  "Suit yourself, Thirty-Eight. I'm as eager to begin as you are. Just need to grab a couple of things, and we can start." Adie walked towards the double doors and opened one, his head peering behind it. He then began talking to someone, but he kept his voice low so I couldn't hear a word of it. I probably should have been thankful for the brief reprieve. My whole body felt like someone had set fire to it after the session with the flogger and the tawse, and the thought of someone running a knife down it made me want to vomit. My earlier meal was already beginning to curdle in my stomach, and if I managed to keep it down over the next couple of hours, I'd be extremely lucky. Not that it was a big concern right now. On my list of current woes, it was way down there. Perhaps this was my penance for being a cold-blooded killer. Maybe God was highlighting what would be waiting for me as soon as I left this earthly plane. The devil couldn't have much on Alain Dumortier, though, surely? If hell was any worse than this, someone down there was extremely talented, that's all I had to say on the matter.

  When Adie walked back towards me he had a bucket in either hand. I had no idea what they were for, but I guessed I would shortly find out. At the stage now where I’d rather not know what was going to happen, I kept my mouth shut. Besides, talking required energy that I didn’t have.

  “Want something to bite on something, Thirty-Eight?” Adie’s voice still sounded upbeat, and if I’d had the use of my arms I’d have slapped the smile off his smug, arrogant face without a second thought.

  “I’m going to assume that isn’t a question,” I growled.

  “It wasn’t,” he confirmed, placing a black, rubber bit to my lips. Opening up to accept the invader, I bit down and shuddered as the unpleasant taste of it coated my tongue. As Adie fastened the thing behind my head, I figured at least this one would be easier to wear than the last. Ball gags tend to stretch your mouth uncomfortably tight. This one was just mildly annoying in comparison. Maybe the man wasn’t all bad.

  "I'm going to start behind you and work my way forward. When the pain gets too much, grunt twice in quick succession, and I'll sort something out." Great. Mind you, what did I care whether my body was pumped full of drugs? I was shortly going to be wearing a very fetching body bag, and probably buried in half a ton of cement, so I might as well have some fun while I still could.

  “Brace yourself.” The first bite of the knife was blisteringly cold and painful. My back arched as I felt it slide through my flesh and the pain was, quite simply, indescribable. Soon after I felt a trickle of something roll down my back. Holy fuck, we were actually doing this and I needed to get my head into the game. If I asked Adie to shoot me up, all chance at escape would be lost. I wasn’t ready just yet to accept the awful blow that fate had dealt me, so that meant I needed to get my head around the pain. The trouble was, I could almost tell from the start that this was a battle I couldn’t hope to win.

  “Relax. You know the rules of engagement. The more you tense, the more it will hurt.” This was great. Adie was giving me helpful tips on how to deal with being sliced open. That man would make some woman a wonderful husband, I thought sourly.

  Adie wielded his knives in a way a Japanese sushi chef would have been proud of. Everything he did was carefully planned and executed with flair and precision. Today the man was going for maximum damage, coupled with more pain than the average person should have to cope with in a lifetime. After doing a series of vertical lines about a centimetre apart down the length of my back, he now set upon drawing the matching horizontal ones that would dissect them. When he'd finished that, he started on my ass. I bit down onto the rubber gag so hard, I swore I left teeth marks, but it managed to stifle my screams, and for that I was grateful.

  "How are you doing back there, Thirty-Eight?" Adie gave my backside a light tap with his palm, and I shrieked. "Anything you need to say to me?" Yeah, I thought, as two rivulets of salty sweat dripped into my eyes, you’re the biggest damn asshole I’ve ever met. �
��I can just imagine what you’re thinking right now.” I didn’t think he could. What I was picturing in my head now was quite graphic, and I didn’t think he’d be very amused if I shared the details. “You’re probably thinking about revenge, at a guess. Carving me up into tiny little pieces and then feeding them back to me? Something along those lines?” Actually, that was surprisingly accurate – except I intended to eat the little pieces, in front of him, one by fucking one, with a giant glass of Chianti.

  He pressed up close into my ravaged back, and I shrieked long and hard through my gag. Everything felt sticky and wet behind me, and the continuous smarting of the knife lines brought tears to my eyes as the warmth of his body aggravated them.

  “Pain is a funny thing, Thirty-Eight. One moment it can seem nearly impossible to deal with, and in the next it becomes nothing more than a slight inconvenience.”

  “Hmph.” I snorted through my gag. Anyone who had said that had clearly not had the pleasure of an hour or two with Adie.

  “You don’t believe me?” Adie purred in his sexy Spanish drawl, sounding almost affronted. “Querida, I’m disappointed. You should know better than to doubt me.” With that, he slowly put his right hand between my legs and rubbed gently backwards and forwards. “Fuck, you’re wet.” He sounded in awe of this, but in reality it had nothing to do with the intense and horrific torture session, and everything to do with the man who I knew was standing behind me. Thankfully, I couldn’t tell him this. If I could have controlled the attraction, I would have, but I seemed to have a hard time these days putting one foot in front of the other, let alone anything slightly more complicated.

  Adie’s middle finger slipped inside me, and my body clenched itself tightly in desire. Mewling in pain, as my back was pulled taut, I was also panting in desire. The two were an oddly exciting combination. It annoyed me that the man was unerringly right, as ever, and for the moment I had all but forgotten the depths of agony my body had been subjected to.

  “Do you want me to stop or continue?” His finger edged its way slowly inside me, and my body twisted. This wasn’t to escape his touch, it was to drive him in deeper. “That’s what I thought,” he whispered in my ear. “When tempered with a little bit of arousal, pain turns you on, doesn’t it?” There was no way I was touching that question, but I was fairly certain the man had already come to his own conclusion on that score. “If I work you up a bit, you might be able to get through this session a little easier, Thirty-Eight. What say you?” Shaking my head almost immediately, I gave him a definite ‘no’ in response. The fingers inside me might take the edge off the pain, but they would grow another gnawing need that would be just as painful, in its own sweet way.

  "I never took you for a coward, Thirty-Eight." Adie's breath tickled against my ear, and his sharp, spicy scent assailed my senses. It was something vaguely reminiscent of the orient – sultry and provocative. I should have been smelling blood – my own – but for some reason, that smell was strangely absent. It could have had something to do with the rubber bit in my mouth. The taste and smell seemed to permeate everything at the moment – but for some reason, Adie's scent still got through. The man was infuriating.

  Adie didn’t need my permission to continue what he was doing, nor did he ask for it again. The fingers of his left hand continued reaching between my legs, while the fingers in his right brought the sharp edge of his blade up around my stomach. I didn’t flinch. Death was already on the cards, and to honest, I’d rather he got it over with sooner rather than later, but I didn’t think I’d be that lucky.

  “Are you scared of my knife, Thirty-Eight? A grunt will do.” Adie let the sharp edge of his blade graze my stomach as he waited for my response. I let him wait. There was no point in exciting him further.

  When he got tired of waiting for me to reply, he tipped the blade at a right angle to my body and ran the edge just above my navel. A thin line of red bloomed in response, and I shuddered.

  “Answer the question.” I was damned if I would. He was going to cut me open regardless of what I said or did, so he might as well just get on with it. Adie then swiped his hands across my stomach, smearing them in my blood, before he brought them up to my face.

  “These are killer’s hands, Thirty-Eight. You should be scared of them. They’ve taken many lives.” Yeah, well join the club, bastard. My head pulled back as his creepy fingers moved towards me, and I felt the ropes around my body tightening. Now, I could smell blood. The metallic tang of copper hit my nostrils, and they wrinkled up in distaste. Although I might be a killer, I had never enjoyed the scent of blood. Adie did not share my aversion. Turning my head to the side so I could see him, he put his fingers to his lips and sucked on them. Closing my eyes, as the image was more than I could handle, I heard him chuckle. The knife around my stomach began to move upwards, before stilling as it approached my right breast.

  "Open those eyes, Thirty-Eight." With his left hand, Adie grabbed hold of my chin and shook it. Growling through my gag, I didn't move a muscle. The next thing I knew, the knife was at my nipple. "Open those eyes now, or I disfigure you, slave. You have three seconds to decide. Three. Two." I opened them. Already knowing that Adie was more than capable of seeing through his threat, I decided to put off the inevitable for as long as possible.

  Draping a bloodied finger around my bottom lip, Adie purred, “Suck it.” Fuck you, I thought. I shook my head, ‘no,' but I already knew I would do anything he said when pushed. The stakes were too high, and he knew it. My disobedience was immediately rewarded. "All actions have repercussions, Thirty-Eight. Remember that." The knife then grazed my nipple sharply, a bead of blood forming in its wake before the edge moved upwards once again. This time, it hovered at my throat. I knew without question that the blade Adie held in his hands would sever the arteries in my neck effortlessly, but I also knew he didn't want to kill me just yet. The man was playing to the cameras. His objective was to scare the shit out of me and make me talk, and we weren't there yet. "Suck it," he barked again, pressing his middle finger towards my lip, "else I'll take my knife somewhere lower and really have some fun.” He chose that moment to squeeze my clit sharply, making me gasp out loud. If I’d been in any doubt to his meaning, I wasn’t now.

  Making a garbled complaint through the gag, that sucking would be nearly impossible, I gave him an angry stare.

  "Pull your lips over the top of it, Thirty-Eight. It's not a ball gag." Our gazes locked, mine mutinous, his challenging, and for a moment, I wondered if I would test him. Did I really want his knife down there, though? Adie could obviously read my mind for he then said, "It's more agony than you can cope with, trust me on that." He then set about making his point. When the knife moved from my throat, it drew a long line of fire down my back before settling in-between my legs. My clit was already pulsing furiously, and when the cold steel of the knife hit it, my body jerked up in shock.

  "Sure you want to defy me?" Adie drew the knife slowly over my left labia, and I gasped out in anguish. My eyes immediately watered, and I knew there was no way I could take that blade on my clit. "Are you going to be a good girl, Thirty-Eight," he crooned, pressing his body into my back once more and making me scream. I nodded. There was nothing else I could do. "That's what I like to hear." His finger was once again in front of my lips, and I pressed my face forward to meet it. When the sharp tang of blood hit my tongue, an involuntary retching noise bubbled up in my throat. "Don't do it, slave, else I'll have to spank you for being naughty," Adie purred in my ear, "and I honestly don't think you'll be able to take another round." He wasn't wrong. Screaming in misery through my gag, I did my best not to breathe while my lips rested around his bloodied finger. Somehow I managed to keep the contents of my stomach inside me, but it was a close-run battle.

  “Ready to talk yet?” I shook my head. If it was his plan to cut my clit in half, then so be it. I’d be dead within the next few hours, anyway.

  Adie chuckled into my ear and pressed his lips to my neck, b
efore his tongue traced a delicate line up to my ear. I shuddered. “I was hoping you’d say that,” he crowed delightedly.

  Adie spent the next hour working on the front of my body with his knives. This was far more awful than what had been going on behind me, and each fresh slice of my flesh added layers upon layers of hurt that were impossible to deal with, even though Adie’s fingers strayed repeatedly to my sex, ramping the toxic level of arousal running through my veins to a intensity that was almost impossible to deal with. Basically, the combination offered misery on all fronts, but it did keep me away from the promise of drugs and oblivion. It wouldn’t for much longer, though, and we both knew it. There was a nagging worry in the back of my head that Adie would renege on our agreement when the time came, but if that happened, I’d just have to deal with it. What was a few more hours of brutal torture amongst friends?

  A half hour later, the front of my body was crisscrossed in vivid red lines that leaked little trails of blood in all directions. I must have looked like something from a horror movie, not that it concerned me much. I just needed this over with. I had neither the strength nor endurance to fight this battle any longer. Adie must have realized the same thing shortly after because he then walked behind me and unfastened my gag. Uh oh. We were back to this again.

  “Want to talk now, Thirty-Eight?”

  “No,” I croaked. The act of talking was almost beyond me anyway. I was in too much pain to do anything.

  “Who do you work for?” Adie then threw one of the knives he was carrying across the room and it spun over and over, until it landed with a heavy thud in the doorframe opposite. Holy fuck. There weren’t many people in the world who could throw a knife like that, and it was just my luck I had to be in a room with one of them.