Untwist Read online

  My vision fades in and out between the present and the past as Shadow grinds his erection into the crack of my ass.

  I’m petrified. This is not a nightmare. It’s reality.

  There’s something about the word petrified that makes it seem much stronger than fear. We can say that our hair stands on end, or that we are shaking in our shoes, or shaking like a leaf. We can say that our heart is pounding, or that we break out in a cold, damp sweat. To me, that’s fear. But being petrified, that’s when our blood runs cold, our minds fill with chaotic commotion and we either fight or flight.

  Fight, Logan, please, I want to say, but Shadow is not only blocking off my ability to speak, he’s also making it impossible to breathe.

  Broken sobs spill inside of me.

  “Get up,” Shadow orders as he takes hold of the back of my neck and yanks me to an upright position. I feel the loss of Logan’s touch immediately. “Now walk.” He thrusts me forward. I’m gasping for air, trying to clear my head and the minute we walk past the side of the house is the second I know if he takes me, I won’t be able to get Logan the help he needs.

  I rear back my elbow and connect with his stomach, the shock loosening his grip just enough for me to break free.

  I run back toward Logan.

  “You fucking whore,” he calls out angrily, grabs me around the waist, and carries my thrashing body to the front of the house. I kick, scream, and try to break my arms free, but I’m too weak.

  I will myself to hold it together, be strong and pray that Logan doesn’t die, but the minute I see a dark-colored car in the drive, the man with the ski mask opening the trunk, I begin to lose hope.

  “Get in,” Shadow demands, releasing me and spinning me around to face him. I begin shaking my head, trying to contain my sobs.

  “No, you’ll have to kill me before I leave Logan here to die.” I refuse to look at Shadow, but I feel him staring down at me.

  “Say his name in front of me again, and I’ll drag you back there, place this gun in your hand and aim it at his head. Together we’ll pull the trigger,” he roars as his hand comes up and crashes across my face — scorching white light flashes before my eyes.

  “You need help, both of you do,” I cry out, my tears drying in an instant. I refuse to cry anymore.

  I’ve come too far to give up on hope, on Logan, and I won’t give these animals the satisfaction of watching me break.

  “Sweet Ellie. I have all the help I need. You, on the other hand, have none.” Shadow pauses, shaking his head. “I’m done letting Logan take from me. You’ve always been mine. Now get in the fucking trunk.”

  In and out I breathe in the damp air, gasping as much of it as I can into my lungs. I hope and pray with everything I have that it doesn’t take Gabe long to get here in time to save Logan.

  “I was never yours to begin with, I’ll never be yours.” I try to let out a scream, to turn and run again, but it’s no use when Shadow covers my mouth with his putrid hand and grabs my wrists with the other.

  “Don’t fight this. It’s going to happen,” he threatens. “I’m going to take what’s belonged to me all along, and this time, you’re going to watch me as I fuck you. I have plans for your betrayal, Ellie. Plans that will make you beg for my cock just to make me stop. I’m going to make you pay for fucking my enemy.”

  I can’t say what my mind wants to because the moment Shadow removes his hand from my mouth, it’s replaced with a cloth, and before I can spit it out, something pricks me in the back of my neck.

  My world and my life, it flashes behind my eyes, and I drift into the one place my mind has always been able to hide.

  Into the darkness. The one place where Shadows don’t exist.

  Chapter 2

  Logan

  I don’t know how long I’ve been enjoying the rain and the thunder that cracks through the sky, long enough to hear someone’s deep panic-filled voice calling my name.

  My insides tremble as the persistent yelling blares through my ears, causing my head to spin. It’s nonstop — a constant fucking chant for someone to hurry up and stop the bleeding. Whoever it is, is shredding the last bit of my sanity.

  The pain that once burned like a fire has dulled to an icy numbness. There’s a bitter taste in my mouth, and blackness fills the edges of my brain.

  My breathing is coming in ragged, shallow gasps as the rain pelts against my face, and Ellie’s screams pound around that wall of yelling. Both are refusing to be confined.

  “Open your eyes, Logan. Goddamn it.”

  A rough hand presses against my cheek. It pisses me off that they’ve blocked me from feeling the rain. What the hell do they think they’re going to do, save me? If I could, I’d laugh. Surely they can tell that it’s far too late for me, it’s Ellie they need to save.

  “There’s a ring in my pocket, give…” I cough, biting my tongue. Gagging at the coppery taste of blood in my throat. Jesus, that shit is nasty. “If I die, give it to Ellie.” The words barely leave my mouth before my body goes numb, and the weight of someone shaking me starts to piss me off even more.

  “You aren’t dying; you’ve lost a shit ton of blood though. Help him, damn it.”

  It sure the hell feels like I’m dying. There’s no other explanation as to why the very air I’m trying to breathe in is suffocating the ever-loving hell out of me with every breath I take.

  I clench my hands into fists, arms swinging until I meet flesh, and the rain hits me again.

  “Shit, hold him down.” An unfamiliar voice slices through the ruckus.

  The air I try to breathe in is dejected by the overexertion from my hands fighting off whoever the hell is trying to hold me down.

  “If I’m not dying, then get the hell off of me. I have to save Ellie.”

  A flare goes off in the pit of my stomach. It shoots bright, bold shades of red in every direction. Everything I see is a shade of that color.

  The rain, the earth, the sky, the dirt, it’s all washing away with my blood. Of course, it doesn’t wash away my sins. They are mocking and laughing, screaming with all they have that this is my fault.

  A needle pricks my arm, and I slowly fade. It sends my heart into a pounding frenzy because I’d found a slice of Heaven on Earth, and I can’t see her, can’t feel her warmth around me. Instead, all I see is whoever the out-of-focus person that’s yelling in my ear fades, and as my heart slows, all I see is the smile on my mother’s face.

  It’s warm and inviting, and if I weren’t sliding away and entering a dark vortex that scares the hell out of me, I’d laugh at that too — my mother, of all people? I must be drifting to Hell.

  How fucking bittersweet.

  That would be my luck to see the woman who I always blamed for the man I’d become because Hell was the place for people like her and me: the worthless mother and her whore of a son.

  The memories of the day I wished my mother to Hell slink right into my sluggish brain.

  My eyes shoot directly across from me to my friend Shadow, who stands next to his uncle with his hands shoved in his pockets. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why Shadow was the only one amongst all these people with a smile on his face. It wasn’t a natural smile either, it was crooked, the kind where one side lifts higher than the other. Almost like he wanted to laugh but knew if he did, his uncle would slap him upside his head. A hook smile as my dad used to call them. One that expressed trouble was brewing behind it.

  The Devil in disguise.

  I wanted to beat his ass as the smirk grew wider when he looked up to catch me staring. I lifted a brow in a challenge and then closed my eyes thinking maybe when I reopened them I’d be wrong. After all, I’d barely slept for days.

  When they fluttered back open, I sighed in relief. Shadow wasn’t smiling; he was frowning as his gaze shifted from me to my brother’s. I didn’t care why he was looking sad rather than happy like I thought. Good thing too because I had bigger things to worry about than figuring out what
the heck was going on with him.

  I hadn’t known Shadow or his sister Whitney long, and at times some of the shit he said freaked me out, but the two of them seemed alright the few times we’d hung out. Shadow was fun and was always on a rant about the two of us becoming rich while Whitney followed us around sponging up every word that came out of our mouths.

  “Big dreams and possibilities,” Shadow said one day when we were shooting a basketball. “One of these days we’re going to take over our families’ businesses. You rule the sex world, and I’ll rule my uncle’s world. When we both get the gist of it, we’ll combine and own it all. From here to New York. Sex and money. We need both to make the world go round and become kings. At least that’s what my mother says.”

  I didn’t know what he thought he was going on about, I sure the hell wasn’t taking over my family’s business. There wasn’t a chance in hell. The only way I would is if I had no other choice.

  And my dad, he always told me and my brothers we had a choice to become whatever we wanted to be. I wasn’t sure yet, but I liked to draw. A hobby no one except my family members knew about.

  Shadow was quite protective of his sister too. A lot like me with my brothers, although I had this sense that hit me in the gut, I needed to protect them a lot more after today. It didn’t have anything to do with Shadow. It had to do with my mother and her downward spiral into not giving a flying fuck she had kids to take care of. Bitch suddenly went off the deep end.

  Headfirst.

  “I promise always to protect my younger brothers and anyone else who needs it, Dad. I won’t let you down, but Mom, she’s not acting like herself.” I silently vowed and lowered my head. I wanted to talk to him more. I needed to tell him the things Mom was doing, the way she was acting and how she forgot about my brothers and me. The thing is, my dad couldn’t hear me. He was dead, and it was up to me to be the man of the house.

  But I wasn’t going to man up for our mother, not if she wasn’t going to get her head on straight and be the loving woman we knew again. Nope, I’d take care of my brothers. Protect them always and wish her straight to Hell.

  As the minister went on, the rain started falling from the sky. The dark clouds were quickly approaching, dropping lower, and becoming thick and turning a grayish black. Thunder and lightning cracked the sky wide open, and the rain got heavier, soaking through my clothes and skin.

  It made me feel alive when everything inside me was filling with something I couldn’t quite figure out. It felt a lot like fear. I stood there wondering who I had to be afraid of as I took a look around at the people as the rain showered my skin. I recognized several from when they stopped over to drop off food. I couldn’t for the life of me remember their names or why the women looked at me like I was as delicious as the meal they left behind. Not one of them made me feel fear. Their looks sure wigged me the hell out though.

  “Here, you boys need this more than I do. It’ll protect you.”

  I didn’t have to glance behind me to know the low whispering voice was coming from my dad’s good friend Gabe. He and his wife, Lena, had been coming around our house more often than usual the last couple of days. Lena with her motherly smile and loving touch. Gabe, with his shield of protection, was what got my brothers and me through this past week. Fuck all if our mother gave a shit. Bitch was standing there with a black veil over her face, an umbrella over her head while Lane and I are getting soaked to the bone.

  I should trip her when we leave. Maybe if she smacked her head, it would knock the sense back into her.

  God, I hated her for deserting us when we needed her more than anything right now, especially what it was doing to Lane and Seth.

  “Thanks.” I took the umbrella that was in front of me and held most of it over Lane from the sudden storm. He needed it more than me. It had only been raining for a couple of minutes, and already, he was shaking like a leaf.

  “I get you are grieving, woman, as are these boys standing by you. You do remember them, right? Your kids? They need you as much as you do them. Straighten the fuck out, or you’ll have me crawling up your ass,” Gabe says in my mom’s ear. I inwardly snicker.

  “I’m sorry, boys, it’s just, well, I loved your father so much, and now I’m lost. I’ll find my way back soon,” she says, not attempting to look at us. She wasn’t sorry, not in the slightest. She wasn’t lost either. Whatever the hell she meant by that, I hadn’t a clue.

  Bitch was higher than a kite right now too. I might be young, but I wasn’t stupid. I smelled weed trailing through the house last night and this morning. Caught her snorting white powder up her nose when I went to tell her the car was here. It’s either cocaine or heroin.

  She didn’t even make sure Seth was bathed and dressed for today. Hasn’t fed us any of the food people left, hasn’t done anything to make sure her children are okay. No hugs, no kisses, no tucking us in bed. All she’s done this past week is stay in her bedroom with a man named Angelo. The only time she’s come out is to go into Dad’s office.

  I shake off caring about her anymore and look down to my baby brother Seth to make sure he wasn’t getting wet. Seth was dry and clinging to our mother’s leg with one hand, his other still gripping hold of mine. Good, that was good. I didn’t want him catching a cold.

  My big brother instincts had been kicking in ever since we got the call that our dad was dead. I knew it would change our lives forever. I knew it would be up to me to protect my brothers. I didn’t mind because I loved them more than I loved myself. I’d do whatever it took to make sure they had everything they needed. I’d protect them until the day I died.

  What I didn’t know was, I’d become both brother and parentless less than twenty-four hours after Dad was gone.

  I squeezed Seth’s hand, and he looked up at me with tears in his eyes. Seth was too young to understand what today meant. I think he’s sad because Lane and I are, but in a way, I think he’s happy that our mother is paying attention to him just like she used to before tragedy struck our world, taking the one person who held our family together. It wouldn’t last past us walking through our front door though. I knew this with certainty.

  Lifting my head, I blinked away the tears and focused on the casket decorated with flowers. I wasn’t a fan of funerals, pretty sure no one on earth was. Death was final. It meant you’d see your loved one no more. You’d never hear their voice again, and there’d come a day when that sound would fade away. To me, that was the hardest part of death. The being afraid I won’t remember.

  Dad dying has not only shocked me; it scares the hell out of me for what’s to become too, because our mother is not only spending time with this Angelo guy, she’s also been on the phone in Dad’s office with someone quite a bit talking about me. I’ve never been able to make out all of what she says, but I know it has something to do with the family business. One I understand, yet I’m too young that I shouldn’t be worrying about it. Even my dad told me that not long ago when I asked him what exactly went on at Behind Closed Doors. Was it a secretive place? Like the saying, “No one knows what happens behind closed doors?”

  I about shit myself when he sat me down a while back and told me what went on inside his club. One of the many reasons why I’ll never go into business with Shadow, let alone by myself. No way, I’ll sell the place and move my brothers far away from this town.

  I let out a sigh, thanking God I’m still able to hear my dad’s voice. “There’s more to owning a sex club, Logan, than owning it. You aren’t old enough for that to make sense yet, nor to talk about the family business. I suppose you are old enough to talk about sex. Hell, I thought I had a few more years until we’d have this discussion. Then you are growing up on me quickly, aren’t you? When the time comes, and you want to be involved, that’s up to you. If you don’t, then you don’t. I want what’s best for you and your brothers. Happiness and health and love. Someday, you’ll be a father, and you’ll understand.”

  I shook my head and held up m
y hands and told him I wasn’t having any kids.

  I also told him that his lifestyle was screwed up. He said it was if it wasn’t something you were into. I shrugged it off and vowed that shit wasn’t for me. Hell, I hadn’t thought much about sex at all before that day.

  “I’m sorry for your loss. Give me a call when you decide to go out. The sooner, the better.” A deep voice that makes me cringe brings me out of my thoughts.

  I look up into the seedy eyes of Angelo as Lane stiffens at my side.

  And that fear. It creeps up my spine.

  Weird how I hadn’t noticed it before. It’s there though. Little tiny tendrils of it telling me to beware. I didn’t like him, didn’t like the way he was looking at my mother. Just like being too young to worry about the business, I shouldn’t be worrying about what his gaze meant. I did, though. It wasn’t how my dad looked at her; it was filled with something my young brain couldn’t pick up on. I just knew I didn’t like it, and when Angelo reached for her hand, he didn’t hold it and rub her skin as my dad would sometimes do. He squeezed it, and a satisfied smile formed on his lips.

  This son of a bitch was a thug. A user and he wanted the family business. I know it.

  It was then I noticed everyone was walking to their cars. The minister and the five of us were the only ones left standing out here in the rain.

  Gabe? Where is he? I search the cars until I find him closing Lena’s door and moving back this way.

  “Pick me up Friday night, Angelo. I’ll be ready by then. I want to go to Behind Closed Doors. I need to settle some things first. I need these next few days to talk to my oldest son about what I expect of him.”

  The heck is she talking about; I was just a kid? A kid who had just lost his father. A big brother who had to protect his younger brothers from this man Angelo. She can fuck off if she thinks I’ll be talking to her about anything.