Locked up

Iris’s POV

The sound of Julian’s slow and heavy footsteps, as they came down the steps leading to the dungeon, collided with the sound of my erratically beating heart.

The man hadn’t shown his face around here for days. What did he want now?

“Mary, pray tell, what are you doing down here?” Julian said, his voice laced with amusement and mockery.

I could smell Mary’s fear, even from here.

“W-well uhm,” Mary stuttered, words failing her.

“Cat got your tongue, eh?” Julian probed.

“I-I was just concerned about the girl, sir.”

“And who says you can be concerned about her?”

“She’s the Don’s girl, and-“

“Mary,” Julian interrupted her ramble, “if you don’t scream from here right now, your son Jesus would hate what I would do to you.” “You hear me?” he barked, and the sounds of Mary’s scurrying footsteps followed almost immediately.

After a while of deafening, uncomfortable silence, Julian cleared his throat. “Open up. I wanna see her.”

“C’mon now, Julian. Let the girl be,” the guard outside the dungeon, who I later realized to be Leo, said to Julian in hushed tones.

“Shut the fuck up, man, and open up. Don’t get on my nerves.”

Without another word, Leo walked towards the door, and I heard the chains rattling as he opened it up.

As the heavy iron bars were pushed inward, and Julian stepped into the dungeon, I slowly lifted my head to glare at him. He was smirking down at me. Laughing at me. Mocking me.

“How you been, beauty?” he cooed in that annoying Texan accent of his, as he squatted beside where I lay sprawled against the dungeon wall, too weak to move or speak. “These folks here are giving you the princess treatment or what?

“Oops,” Julian snickered, “by the look in your eyes, they are probably giving you hell.”

He raised his fingers and pushed back my hair away from my face, smoothing it backward, and I recoiled inwardly, repulsed by the feeling of his hand against my skin.

“Sweetheart,” he purred, leaning into me, his hot, ginger breath fanning against my ear, “did you miss me?” he asked, his voice coming out in low, hushed whispers.

As I stared at his ear, sticking out from behind his mass of dark, worm curls, a mischievous and wicked thought popped into my mind.

I was too weak to move, or talk, but I wouldn’t let this man get away unscathed.

Suddenly, I opened my mouth wide and caught Julian’s ear between my teeth, clamping down harder on it as he screamed. I held on for about a minute before Julian’s flailing fists connected with my jaw forcefully, sliding me farther from him.

I bared my bloody teeth in a wry smile as Julian clutched his bloodied ear, the agony on his face highlighting his pain. “My bad,” I started weakly, my voice a little giddy from the happiness I felt, “I guess I was starving so badly. So I just grabbed the nearest edible thing, without stopping to think.”

I lifted my shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. “And that happened to be your ear.” I winced, now feeling the impact of Julian’s teeth on my jaw.

Julian groaned like the wounded beast he was, and stood to his feet, marching towards me. “You stupid bitch!” he spat, picking me up with one hand and landing a series of slaps across my cheeks simultaneously, “you think you’re smart, huh?!”

I felt tears rush to my eyes, but I held them back, refusing to let this beast of a man see my tears.

He beats women without even stopping to think about it. A beast.

“I know I’m smarter than you, dumbass,” I retorted. “Because if you were even a tiny weeny bit smart, you’d know better than to touch me.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “The Don is going to kill you, you know that right? You messed with what belongs to him.”

Julian just glared down at me as I spat the venom-laced words at him, his face red and puffy. I was riling him up, getting on his nerves.

What was I doing?

I was stepping on his ego.

Another slap stung my cheek, dragging me out of my thoughts. “I’m going to teach you a lesson today, beauty,” he said, reaching down the front of my dress and ripping it apart. My struggles did little to stop, as the mortification climbed my neck and face as my bare skin came into view, and his eyes lit up excitedly. “You would learn to shut your pretty trap after I’m done with you.”

“You would teach me nothing,” I spat, “you’re just a scared little cat, nothing else.”

A dark cloud fell over his face and his fingers closed around my neck, squeezing fast and hard.

“Get away from me,” I choked out, and I kicked him in the groin. He let me go for a moment, the impact was not as great as the first time I had kicked him there, and I crawled away from him.

He caught me again, and pulled me roughly against the hard floor to him, spreading my thighs as he did. I kicked harder and fiercer as I realized what this evil man was about to do.

The leery smile on his lips told me enough.

“Come here,” he hissed, prying my thighs open with so much force and feasting his hungry eyes on my center.

Not willing to go down with a fight, I grabbed a rock I had found earlier, from behind me, and smashed it into his head. It drew a frustrated groan from him, but he hardly flinched.

“You’ve left one too many marks on me, beauty. I guess it’s my turn to leave mine now, on your pretty body,” he snarled, and without warning, his teeth sunk into my thigh, and I let out a piercing scream.

I didn’t cry for Jesus to come save me, this time.

It was Damon I thought of. Despising him. Wishing him to appear.

“Your screams would do nothing to save you, beauty. These walls are soundproof, so it’s pretty much you and me in here.”

“Get away from the girl, Julian. What the heck is this, man?” Leo queried from behind. He had heard my screams and barged into the dungeon, like a knight in shining armor.

But he wasn’t my knight in shining armor.

Julian snickered, shaking his head. “Well I guess it’s you, me, and him, now, sweetheart,” he said, and without warning, and in one fluid movement, he brought out his gun and fired at Leo.

“You’ve talked down to me too much, man,” Julian intoned as he blew off an invincible smoke from the muzzle of his gun, and replaced it in his back pocket. “I’m not a very patient, or tolerant man.”

Slowly, my eyes trailed to Leo’s body which had fallen to the hard floor with a thud, and another scream tore out of me when I saw the hole in his forehead, and the blood seeping out from where his head lay askew.

Julian had shot him point blank in the head.

He turned to me and shrugged when he saw the horror on my face. “Plus, he was about to ruin our good time, sweetheart. I couldn’t let him.”

I bit my lips, the tears brimming now. “You’re a beast,” I bit out, and he scoffed. “Sure. I’m not a saint, like you.”

With that, he charged at me again, and I scurried away, mustering my strength to fight. “Stay away from me!”