Twisted (Never After Series)

Razul: All is fine. She’s with her friend. Will text when we’re on our way home.

Me: Woman?

Razul: Yes.

Closing the text on my phone, I place it on the folding table I keep propped against the wall, outside the hanging plastic tarp that covers the other 90 percent of the room, creating a transparent protective barrier over the walls and floor.

I’ve seen Yasmin snooping around the house the past week, watching her from my desk at work on the security cameras that she either doesn’t realize I have installed or doesn’t care about. But she hasn’t been in this room. Not that she’d be able to find it or get in even if she did. It’s locked with a high- level security system and hidden behind one of the large bookshelves in the library.

I pull back the tarp and walk into the middle where a single chair sits, that fucking piece- of- shit cop from yesterday bound and gagged. His arms are strapped with rope to the arms of the chair, his legs in a similar situation, and his face is turning a putrid shade of purple from the way he’s trying to scream loud enough for someone to hear.

“Officer Tate,” I start, my staff already in my hands as I flip it back and forth. “I want to thank you for coming out to meet me on such short notice. I understand how much time it took out of your day to be called back to that empty warehouse. And I know my trunk isn’t the most comfortable of spaces, especially on these hilly roads to my home.”

Smiling, I stop when I’m directly in front of him, satisfaction already burrowing in my stomach at the fear that’s percolating in his small, beady eyes.

He makes another muffled noise and jerks against the bindings.

“Ah, ah, ah,” I tsk, bringing up the staff to rest over the gag in his mouth. “You’ve done enough speaking.”

I drag the end of the staff down from his mouth, over his neck, until it rests at his pulse point. I can’t feel it, of course, but I imagine that it’s beating rapidly, sporadically even. The thought excites me.

“I know what you’re thinking. How could I fall for it? And you’re right. It does make you incredibly foolish to think there’d be a wellness check needed in the same spot you were yesterday. But I promise, your trip isn’t in vain. You see, my wellness did need to be checked.” I chuckle, shaking my head. “My mental health has been incredibly unstable since we met.”

Moving the end of my staff, I drag it along the top of his arm until it rests at his wrist. He tries to kick out, the chair itself moving violently against the floor.

He swallows, his gaze flicking to the end of my staff and then back.

“Curious about this?” I lift it from his skin for a moment before placing it back down. “I’ll admit it’s not the most practical weapon, but I have a soft spot for it. It’s incredible what a staff can do when you’re too weak to have a fair fight.”

Thoughts of my childhood creep into the moment, remembering the first time I brought a staff home from the dojo.

“What the hell is that?” Mamma asks.

I freeze in place in the middle of my bedroom where I’m flipping the staff around. I keep dropping it when it skims the back of my hand, and the frustration has me in my room practicing ten times harder, just to make sure I’m the best at it. I don’t know why I like the staff more than the nunchaku or short stick, but the second I picked it up, it felt right. Like it was made to fit in my hand.

But I never wanted Mamma to see because I’m afraid she’ll take it. Use it.

I jolt out of the memory when Tate jerks in his chair again, the sound grating against my ears. My mood worsens from the memory, realizing that I’m going to visit her later tonight. And anytime I see my mother, she makes me feel two feet tall.

Right now, however, I feel like a god. I stand up straight, flipping the staff around until it’s situated properly in my hand.

“Don’t worry,” I coo. “This will only hurt for a little.”

I bring it down in a harsh stroke on his fingers, enjoying the sound of his bones breaking beneath the metal.

A muffled scream rings out and I breathe in deep at the noise, using it as fuel as I start an intimate dance of striking and twirling, my biceps burning from the muscle strain of quick movements as I beat him until he matches the black and blue of his uniform.

By the time I’m done, my chest is heaving, the exertion causing me to lose a bit of my composure. Laughing, I run my free hand through my hair to get the stray pieces off my forehead. “Your first mistake was not recognizing who I am.”

His screams have fallen silent, perhaps from the shock of his injuries, blood spattering across the plastic tarp and over patches of his mangled skin.

I walk away from him and over to the edge of the strung- up makeshift plastic room, where I have my other tools laid out on the ground. I drop my staff in order to pick up my knife. When I turn back around, Officer Tate has tears streaking down his pathetic face and snot dripping from his broken nose, coating his upper lip and oozing down over the gag in his mouth.

My fingers wrap tightly around the handle of the blade, and I bend down, my free hand gripping the back of his neck.

“Your second mistake,” I whisper, “was disrespecting my wife.”

The knife cuts through his eye like butter, digging through soft and squishy cornea until it hits the back of his socket. Naturally, his yelling starts up again, more guttural this time, as though the pain is being wrought from the deepest parts of his fucked- up soul.

I revel in his screams while I bathe in his blood, and eventually he quiets for good.

Two hours later, both the room and I are clean, my hair still damp from a shower where I scrubbed remnants of Officer Tate off my skin.

My neck cracks as I let out a sigh of relief, the anxiety of my upcoming visit with my mother temporarily muted from the pleasant buzz that’s left over after a kill.

Isabella hisses and I stare down at her in the enclosure.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I say when her beady eyes meet mine. “I warned him what would happen. It’s a matter of respect.”

Tate’s body is splayed out in the bottom of her home, a few mice laid on top. She slithers over to it and slowly coils her body around the length of his torso, constricting tightly, not realizing that I’ve already incapacitated her prey, her jaw unhinging as she starts to swallow him whole.

I wait until her stomach is bulged from the large meal before I leave the room, making sure to lock the door behind me. I hadn’t meant for Yasmin to see Isabella, and while I don’t mind that she did, I don’t want her asking questions about what type of meal is making her stomach extend the way it is.

Heading to the front of the house, I walk into my office, pouring myself a glass of scotch before sitting in one of the cushioned chairs by the window, soaking in the peace and quiet and trying to enjoy the last few minutes of peace before my mother undoubtedly ruins my mood.

My phone vibrates where I set it next to me and I glance down at the lock screen.

Razul: On our way

Sighing, I run a hand through my hair, tilting my head to the side until the entire length of my neck cracks again, and I guzzle the rest of the scotch.

If my mother finds out from someone else I’ve married, I’ll never hear the end of it. And the guilt she already piles on is enough to bury even the strongest kind of man, so it isn’t worth taking the chance.

Besides, I want to see how Yasmin fares against her. She’s been so docile and well-behaved; it will be interesting to see how  she reacts to my mother, who will undoubtedly insult her.

My dick jerks when I think about her acting out, imagining bringing her back home and showing her what happens to naughty girls who step out of line.

I shake my head from the vision, willing my cock to go back down.

See, this is why I need the reminder. My body continues to play tricks on my mind, making me think Yasmin is here for my pleasure. That she’s bound to me for me. But that’s not the case. She’s a means to an end, a loose thread that I’m going to unravel until there’s nothing left and then toss in the fire to burn. And that means I shouldn’t care if someone disrespects her or get angry at the audacity of the pathetic boy who keeps making her look so sad.

I shouldn’t care at all.

And I need to figure out a way to remind myself that I don’t.