Caleb (The Unseen Series Book 1) (19 page)

“You mentioned before about giving up your studies, what experience do you have?”

“It’s okay Caleb, you don’t have to take pity on me.” She laughs.

“I’m not, I’m asking because there are a few positions available at Slate Securities.”

“I have my master of real estate development and I was really close to getting my master of architecture. Unfortunately I only made it to the second stage. I manage just under six hundred training units of the seven hundred needed to take the third exam.”

“That was why your ex-husband manipulated you to giving up your degree. He didn’t want to feel emasculated,” I spit out through gritted teeth.

“I came to that conclusion eventually,” she laughs dryly.

“Why didn’t you just find a job doing real estate development?”

“By the time I got away from my ex-husband and recovered physically, I was still very broken inside. Plus I was pregnant and had two other children under five in tow. It’s hard to hold down a job when you were scared of your own shadow. I would have had to pay childcare fees for three children and with my ex-husband still out there, I was too afraid to leave the children anywhere in case he found them.” I watch as Claire becomes more hysterical as she goes on and finally begins to hyperventilate.

I step back and allow one of my men trained in first aid to assist her. While I wait, an idea comes to mind. She doesn’t want a pity job but what if it’s earned, she has qualifications in the areas I need.

Once she’s calm again, I approach her with my proposal. “I have a proposition for you,” I say and she begins laugh. Realizing how that may have sounded, I rephrase while trying to hide my embarrassment. “I meant a job proposition.”

“I know you did, it just made me laugh. I’m sorry,” she says and I’m glad she’s smiling again.

“Have you done an internship?”

“Yes, I did a twelve month internship with Philippe Dubois. He’s a famous French architecture who has recently become known in America.”

“I’ve heard of him,” I say in complete astonishment. “He’s like the Armani of the architect world, what an honor that must have been.”

She blushes and it’s only now I’m seeing this woman for the first time. Talking about her passion seems to bring her out of herself.

“How would you feel about finishing off your masters?” She laughs at me for a moment, stopping when a tear escapes and her lip begins to tremble.

“I would have loved to,” she says, taking a deep breath and steadying her voice. “It’s been so long, I don’t know if I’d remember any of it. Plus I’d need to get funding, and studying and working while taking care of three young children don’t mix well.”

“What if I offered you an apprenticeship? You could study while working, so you’ll be getting paid. Plus I’ll give you full benefits and pay childcare costs.”

“Why would you do that for me?”

“I could interview a hundred people tomorrow and none of them would want it as much as you. I know you’ll work hard for it because I see in your eyes that this is your passion,” I explain, her eyes begin to fill with unshed tears again. “This isn’t a pity job, it’s a job for someone who is dedicated.”

“I can be dedicated.” She gives me a watery smile.

“Good because I need you to start right away and I’m not sure how you’re going to react to what I’m going to say.”

***

I spend the next hour explaining the demolition to Claire and funny enough, once I explained the whole plan, she was very much on board.

We’re at the demolition site, waiting for the explosives to bring the building to the ground when my phone rings. It’s a number I don’t recognize and consider ignoring it, but something in my gut tells me I need to take the call.

“Hello?” I answer warily.

“Mr. Slate,” Rita’s voice comes frantically through the speaker. My gut was right and I know what she’s going to say before she even says it. “SJ is missing.”

I spent the next ten minutes on the phone to Rita getting every detail possible from her, before leaving Claire to supervise the demolition while I race to the office.

“What happened?” Logan asks before I’m even through my office door. Grayson, Aiden and a few of our top men are there, ready and waiting.

I tell them everything Rita told me. That SJ wasn’t feeling well, so Rita took the children on one of the waterslides while SJ sat on a bench out of the sun. The most concerning part of this is that I haven’t heard from Thane, nor is he answering his phone.

Logan makes a few calls and makes a startling discovery. “Buccieri got to him first, offered him a job and a big pay out if he delivered SJ.”

“When I find him, I’m going to kill him,” I swear. “Grayson, Rita and the four children are being driven home as we speak. They should be here by late evening. Can you sort out my house for them and let Cain know he’ll be receiving visitors.”

“Are you sure I can do such a complicated task?” he questions sarcastically.

“Grayson, I’m not going to do this with you now,” I say a lot calmer than I actually feel.

“Logan, you and Aiden need to find me every conceivable location they could have taken SJ to.”

“I’ll have a list for you in less than an hour,” Logan replies.

“Grayson and I are going to contact Jungle Rapids and see if they can send us the CCTV footage of the area SJ was last seen.”

“I thought I was on babysitting duty?” Grayson argues.

“Stop being so fucking pedantic,” I yell.

“Hey, calm down.” Aiden steps in, placing a calming hand on my shoulder. “I’m going to try and contact Kade, but he’s working undercover right now,” he says, referring to his brother, my step-brother.

“Undercover doing what?” I ask.

“Infiltration,” he replies. “He’s a soldier, under a capo who doesn’t know us.”

“What if he gets caught?” I ask incredulously.

“He has a pretty good disguise and a fake identity, it’s very unlikely he’ll be discovered, but it’s a risk he’s willing to take for the greater cause,” Aiden explains.

“When this is over and I have SJ back in my arms, you’re going to tell me what this greater cause is,” I say, pointing at both Logan and Aiden.

Chapter 17

The
pain
is the first thing to register. It’s everywhere. In my head, my neck, my arms, and legs. I try to lift my head. It feels so heavy, but what has me screaming is the stiffness in my neck. It’s been at a slumped angle for so long, the muscles have locked and are protesting any movement.

The next thing I register is the sound of my scream. It’s muffled. My mouth is extremely dry that it makes moving my tongue a really hard task. There’s something in my mouth. A cloth, maybe? I try using my tongue to push it out, but I can’t seem to push it past my lips—they’re sealed shut. I stretch my jaw and realize it’s some kind of tape as it pulls on the skin either side of my mouth.

I’m tied to something. A chair maybe? I pull at my limbs and figure out my ankles are tied to the chair legs, my arms are tied behind the chair back. The smell entering my nose is pretty rancid, a mixture of blood, sweat and urine? Oh god, please don’t tell me I’ve wet myself. I lower my head to check and that’s when the worst thing of all registers. I’m blind. It’s not a blindfold, I can’t feel anything of any kind around my eyes or head. It’s not tape, there’s not a pulling sensation like there is around my mouth. I just can’t open my eyelids. A frightening thought goes through me, but that’s eased when I can feel my eyeballs moving on the inside of my eyelids. Thank God my eyes haven’t been removed.

I stop my frantic need to see and try to concentrate on what I feel. There’s a sort of crusty feeling and every time I try to open my eyes, I feel like my eyelashes are being pulled like when you try to take off false eyelashes. Oh god, my eyelids have been glued together and sealed shut.

The thought makes me sick and I retch, trying not to throw up. What’s going to happen to my eyesight? Isn’t glue toxic? What kind of damage will there be? I lose all thoughts of rationality and begin screaming and thrashing, trying to get myself free of the ties that bind me. When I’ve eventually exhausted myself, I drop my head and cry. How the hell am I going to get myself out of this? I remember sitting on a bench in the shade. I’d been feeling queasy all morning and thought I may have had some heat stroke. A woman came and sat next to me and started talking to me, she made me feel uncomfortable and I tried to make an excuse to leave. There was a sharp stab in my neck, my hand came up to swat away whatever bug had zapped me. That was when the woman moved to catch me. I didn’t even realize I was falling. The last thing I saw was the man from the pool bar and then everything went black.

“Well, that was no fun,” a gravelly voice says from my left side. “You broke way too quickly,” the same voice says from the right now.

My head is swinging back and forth like I’m watching a game of tennis. Because I can’t make any coherent words, I decided to just scream.

“That needs to stop,” the voice says, this time from right in front of me. He slowly and painstakingly pulls the tape from my mouth. I would have preferred him to just rip it off in one go. Little by little I feel like he’s tearing my skin off with the tape. The pain is horrible. I hear his breathing come harsher and shallower and I realize he’s getting turned on by my pain, just like Jake had.

When the tape is fully off, I try to dislodge the cloth but my mouth is too dry and the cloth is stuck to the inside. The man puts his fingers into my mouth and pries the cloth out. The metallic, sweaty taste of his fingers causes me to gag. His hand fists in my hair, pulling so hard my eyelids want to open, but can’t and the pain causes me to cry out. Before I know what’s happening, he thrusts two fingers down my throat. The taste is disgusting and with the added sensation of his fingers, my gag reflex kicks in and my throat constricts around his finger. He eventually pulls them out, wiping my saliva and phlegm on my face.

“I can’t wait to fuck your mouth and feel your throat tighten around my cock,” his fingers wrap around my neck and I hear a moan of pleasure come from him. “You’re so small and fragile. I could snap your neck like a toothpick.”

I involuntarily shudder at his remark, unable to hide my fear. “W-who are you?” I manage to ask though my tremors.

“In public, I’m going to be your husband and you will be my loving wife, but in this house, you will be my slave and you will call me Master.”

“I’m not marrying you,” I spit out defiantly and then shrink back in fear.

“I don’t need your consent, just your signature and there are many ways I can force you to sign on the dotted line. I could forge it, but it’s so much more fun watching a woman break and sign away her life just to stop the torture in that moment.”

“You’re going to torture me?” My voice is barely a whisper as hysteria begins to rise.

“I’m going to train you to respond to my touch, condition your body to drip with arousal at the sight of my whip. The quicker you accept your new role, the less pain you’ll feel and the more pleasure you’ll receive.”

“I don’t want that. I don’t want any of this,” I begin yelling.

“You will be punished for that little transgression later and just because it’s your first, it doesn’t mean I’ll go easy on you. You will not shout or raise your voice to me. Am I clear?”

“Yes,” I nod my agreement.

“Yes, what?” I’ve read enough books and watched enough films to know what he wants from me, but that doesn’t make it any less embarrassing.

“Yes, Master,” I say quietly, but loud enough for him to hear. “What if I don’t want to be a part of any of this?”

“What makes you think you have a choice?” He laughs. “Like I said, the quicker you accept this, the less pain you’ll receive. That’s your choice right there, painful pleasure or painful punishment?”

Both ideas make my heart beat wildly in my chest. “No pain at all.” I have to bite my bottom lip to stop it trembling.

“Not an option, pet.” His breath wisps across my face. The stale smell emanating off him churns my stomach.

“Please don’t do this. Please let me go,” my cries fill the room.

“Your tears, struggles and begging turn me on, pet.” He runs his finger along my jaw and up around the curve of my ear, across my temple and eye and then down my nose to my lips. “You know I’m surprised you haven’t asked about your sight.”

“You glued my eyelids shut. What else is there to ask?”

“Don’t you want to know why?”

“Because you’re a sick, perverted—” I’m cut off by the backhand across my cheek.

“You will speak to me with respect,” he growls. “Now be a good slave and ask me, ‘Why have you glued my eyes closed, Master?’”

I consider defying him, but the throbbing of my cheek reminds me to behave. “Why have you glued my eyes closed, Master?”

“I
really
don’t like eye contact, this is the first step in training you to keep your eyes down. You’re too new and innocent to this—I’d kill you if you looked me in the eye. Your eyes have been glued shut for your own safety. Your eyes should begin opening again in a day or two and I’ll decide then if I think you need more time to adjust.” He’s been walking around me as he spoke, clearly excited by all this.

“So you’ll apply the glue every other day?” Unable to keep the shock I’m feeling under control.

“The glue usually last for seventy-two hours but you’ve been out for almost thirty—”

“I’ve been drugged for more than a day? What did you do to me?” I yell.

“Nothing, I prefer my pet to be awake,” he says, no hint of remorse present in his tone. “You’re in New Jersey now, it took nearly eleven hours to get you here. We swapped vehicles a couple of times too, to throw off anyone who might be tracking you.”

“Caleb has an efficient team of men,” I reply bravely.

“Don’t get your hopes up, pet. No one is coming for you because no one knows how to find you. Especially, the Slate boy. You must be hungry. Let’s get started and then I can feed you,” he murmurs into my hair.

“Get what started?” I ask but I really don’t want to hear the answer.

“Your training, pet.” He begins untying the ropes around my ankles and pulls me to a standing position with my wrists still restrained behind my back. The worst part about this is that I have to trust him—I’m relying on him to be my eyes. He pulls me to a halt and I gasp, panic flaring up as he places his hands on my shoulders and pushes me down on to a padded surface into a kneeling position. My lungs are trying to pull in air, but it never seems enough. I realize I’m hyperventilating. “Will you stop crying! Now bend forward.”

I hesitantly do as he asks, knowing he’s already getting angry at me, but either way I know I’m not going to be avoiding the pain. My chest makes contact with another cold and padded surface and the moment it does, a strap is pulled and tightened across my back. My dress is lifted up and my panties are pulled off. My thighs are then spread and strapped to the same contraption I’m leaning on.

“While I wait for your test results to come back, I’m going to train this tight asshole of yours.” The idea of anything to do with my asshole has me thrashing around wildly.

“No, please don’t. I can’t do that. I’ve never done it before. You don’t have to do this,” I plead with him, hoping to appeal to his humanity.

“Of course I do. How do you plan on taking my cock there if it isn’t trained properly?”

“Please, I’m begging you.” I can’t do this. I need to get out of here.

“I told you, begging me only makes me want you more.”

I need to stall him, anything that will distract him from doing this. “I’m not on birth control.”

“I kind of figured that with you being a virgin. I won’t be going near there until your results come back clear.” Oh shit, he thinks I’m still a virgin. What if I told him I wasn’t?
He would probably kill me now.

“What are you testing me for?”

“Everything, including STDs. I need to know if you have any medical requirements such as diabetes, the last thing I need is you dying on me.”

“Why are you testing for STDs if I’m a virgin?” Well at least I know I should be clean, unless Caleb had some STD, but he would have said something surely.

“You were practically homeless, shared bathrooms with other people, and you could have quite easily picked up something.”

“How long will the results take?” If my calculations are correct, it’s been two and a half weeks since Caleb took my virginity. It should still be tight, shouldn’t it?

“I took your blood while you were out yesterday, so maybe tomorrow. It’s okay, you can sleep easy for tonight.” He chortles sardonically.

“Can you tell me what’s going to happen?” I ask, wondering if he’ll be able to tell if I’m still a virgin or not.

“That depends on your behavior,” he says almost humanly. “If you can behave, you’ll have free reign of my estate, though you won’t be able to leave it. If you misbehave, I’ll have to punish you and believe me, you will not like my brand of punishment.”

“So I’ll never be free again?” My words sound like I’ve given up hope already. I can’t let myself do that.

“As long as me or one of my men is with you, you can do what you want. You can go shopping or get pampered, but you can’t interact with anyone outside of the family.” I nod my acceptance and just give into the situation for now. I can only hope there is someone out there looking for me.
Is Caleb looking for me?

“You’re such a good slut.” I tense up at his term of endearment. “Just relax now, pet.”

I feel a warm liquid slide down my ass crack. My ass cheeks involuntarily tense up and I can hear him tisking at me. I try to relax, but it’s easier said than done. Just as I manage to unclench my cheeks, I feel a lubed finger probing at my tight hole. He eventually pushes past the resisting muscles and his finger is inside me. It’s the most horrible sensation. I don’t understand how anyone would enjoy this. Then he starts to move his finger.

“No, no, no, please no,” I plead under my breath while I trying to squirm away. Eventually he pulls his finger out. I’m about to sigh in relief until I feel something larger probing at me. It stretches and pulls my muscles, as they refuse entry to the foreign intruder. “Please stop! I can’t... It won’t... You’re hurting me, please stop!”

“That’s the idea pet. I can train it slowly or I can just shove my cock into you and risk causing damage?” I lower my head at the choices he’s given me, knowing that either way something is going inside me. “That’s what I thought.”

“Please just hurry up and get it over with. I can’t take this pain,” I plead through my sobs.

“I don’t mind you asking questions, it’s only natural in your situation, but you will not make demands of me,” he says in an eerily calm voice. “That is the third time you’ve spoken out of turn this evening and I won’t tolerate it. Once this plug is firmly implanted in your ass, I’ll start your punishment.”

I cry the whole way though the process. Even when the plug is fully inserted, my muscles refuse to relax. The pain intolerable. He leaves me for a moment. I thought it was to let me relax, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. There’s a sudden whistling through the air and then a sharp burn runs across the back of my thighs. Everything stops while my brain catches up and then I scream out in agony, just as he bring the punishing tool back down across my thighs. My head is spinning, unable to comprehend the searing pain that courses through me. I’m thrashing and writhing, unable to escape the next blow and the blow after that.