“Good.” He laughs harshly. “And I don’t have to worry about your mother. We both know what a mercenary whore she is. I’m paying for her silence.”
My eyes widen with an unspoken question.
“Yes, I’ve been paying her bills down in Atlanta,” he confirms. “She has a much better apartment now. In Buckhead, no less. You know how many men she would have had to fuck to get that? I’m doing her a favor, and she’s much too grateful to ask questions about how I’m treating you.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, betrayal and shame for my mother burning a hole in my heart. He bends to whisper in my ear, slipping the gun free of my mouth and running it down my neck.
“I hope tonight has demonstrated that I hold all the cards.” He circles my nipples with the muzzle and stops to dig it into my belly button. “If you try to leave me, I will at the very least gain partial custody of Sarai. You have no money, and whatever court-appointed lawyer you’ll get will be no match for what I have—the best legal representation money can buy. Between that, your Dear Diary entries, and the ‘concerning behavior’ Ramone reported to social services, I think I’ll have a pretty strong case.”
He walks to the end of the bed, slides the pistol down to the juncture of my thighs, and my blood slams in protest against the
skin at every pulse point.
“Add your exploits with the police tonight and you’ll be lucky to even see her on weekends by the time I’m done with you.”
He slides the gun another inch downward, nudging it against my pussy, separating the lips. My chest rises and falls with anxious breaths. Tears run over my cheeks and collect around my neck like a noose.
“But beyond custody of Sarai, and beyond your mother and Lotus and anything else I could use to keep you with me,” he says, each word a brick in the fortress he’s building around me, “the only thing you really need to understand is this.”
He glances up from between my thighs, and if everything he’s ever told me before was subterfuge and lies, I have no doubt that what he’s about to say is the absolute truth. His eyes are finally honest. “If you ever try to leave me again, Iris, I will kill you.”
A sob rattles my chest, and I bite my lip to contain it.
“Have you ever thought about the similarities between a gun and a dick?” he asks, pushing my knees open wider with his free hand.
“Please don’t do this, Caleb,” I beg, pressing my lips together against a moan.
“There’s the obvious,” he goes on. “You cock a gun. Get it. Dick. Cock?” His laugh is low and breathy, excited. He pushes the muzzle to my opening, exerting the slightest pressure.
“Oh, God, Caleb. Please, stop.” A sob breaks my words up. “Pl-pl-please. Oh, God, please, Caleb.”
With one hand he undoes his belt, the jangle of the buckle and the harshness of the falling zipper a knife cutting across my ears.
“With a gun, you have to consider safety,” he says. “Just like sex. Not that I’ll be using a condom tonight. Another new rule. I’ll be fucking you raw from now on.”
My eyes are closed, and everything blares on my senses. The fresh smell of his recent shower mixes with the scent of my terror. The rough muzzle biting into the sensitive tissue of my vagina. The sound of his pants slithering over his legs and hitting the floor.
“What a relief.” He laughs. “No more holey condoms.”
Anger slices through me. I open my eyes, waiting for him to continue, because I know he will.
“Yeah.” He grins unabashedly. “I may have used a few condoms with holes, but we got Sarai, so it all worked out.”
Lo was right. God, I’ve been such an idiot, trusting someone else with my body, with my future. And now I’m paying for my naivety.
“Sorry,” he says with a laugh. “I took a little rabbit trail there. Back to the similarities. A gun discharges, and so does my dick.”
He squeezes my thigh so tightly, I bite my lip to lock down a scream so I don’t wake up Sarai.
“So, I ask you, Iris.” He reaches up to grab my chin, tightening his fingers there until I meet his eyes. They’re obsidian, hard and black with lust. “Choose. Do you want this cock or mine?”
He presses the gun deeper, not quite inside me, but deep enough, hard enough to leave abrasions on the most delicate part of me. My head lolls to the side, and I squeeze my eyes into complete darkness as I weep. Weep for my little girl, whose father is so evil. Weep for my innocence, squandered on a man worse than any of the ones my mother ever brought home. Weep for lost chances with a good man like August West, who will never have me now. I can’t imagine anything beyond these walls. I can’t think of anything other than the weapon between my legs.
“I asked you a question.” Caleb’s voice comes sharp and harsh, a cat o’ nine tails, a whip dragging my flesh with its hooks. “Choose which cock you want, Iris.”
If it weren’t for the tiny sighs, the faint, steady infant snore coming through the baby monitor, I would beg him to shoot me. Shoot me right now instead of what is about to happen. But there is Sarai.
She makes the word I finally whisper not surrender, but survival. “Yours.”