TWENTY-ONE (21)
by Clarissa Wild
Dark Romance (18+) coming October 7th, 2015
21 years
On her 21st birthday, she’s
taken. Collected by a rich family as an unpaid debt. Her body sold. Her mind
his.
21 weeks
For 21 weeks, she carried a
burden no girl should ever have to carry. Now she loses her freedom to a man
born to destroy her.
21 days
His name: Angel DeLuca. His
mission: to break her in 21 days before she sees through his lies. But she
won’t give up without a fight.
21 minutes
It takes only 21 minutes for
their lives to be forever entwined.
21 seconds
21 seconds to spill. Time is
running out.
Secrets ruin them … but not
all truths are worth the price.
This is a STANDALONE Dark Romance
novel. WARNING: contains explicit situations, dubious consent, graphic
violence, drug abuse, and other disturbing content.
Excerpt:
(Copyright 2015 Clarissa Wild. Unedited. Subject to change.)
Day 1
Sky
A
never-ending darkness shrouds me, the surrounding void like space, swallowing
me whole. Eyes open or eyes shut, it doesn’t make a difference to the vast
emptiness around me. It seeps into my bones like poison, clouding my mind from
the memories that I had.
Where am I?
My body
feels cold, and my limbs solid, like they’re not mine. I notice myself
breathing, however. The only thing I hear is the steady, rhythmic beating of my
heart. The only sound in this dark hole. Thud, thud … thud.
For a moment
I doubt my own existence.
Who am I,
even?
A drop of
water falling onto a surface pulls me back into reality. I’m here, but how?
My fingers
tighten and relax in an attempt to regain control. My muscles feel stiff, but
slowly the sensation is returning to the tips of my fingers, giving me a small
bit of hope that I might find out what happened to me.
With slow
movements, I let my hand slide only a few inches, but it’s enough to determine
that I’m lying on a concrete floor. My head begins to hurt and every passing
second the pain increases. I move my fingers to my head and touch the back of
my scalp. The searing pain stops me and tells me I’m wounded.
When I touch
my face I gasp. There is a bag over my head with a hole near my mouth and nose
through which I can breathe. For a second, I contemplate removing it, but then
I realize they might be watching me.
A buzz moves
through my body, bringing life back to my limbs. And even though I’m regaining
my sense of touch, my vision is still impaired. However, my eyes feel fine as I
touch them, so it must be the lack of light.
I push my
elbows underneath me and lean up. A sudden queasiness overtakes me, causing me
to buckle and heave. I puke on the floor beside me, which surprises me, because
I hardly ever puke.
I tally up
the sensations that I’m feeling. Nausea, loss of motor skills, buzzing nerves,
botched memory … it all leads to one conclusion: I was drugged.
Stabilizing
myself on the floor, I focus on regaining control over my body before moving
again. This place is unfamiliar to me, and I dig into my mind to find clues as
to how I ended up here. The pain that’s slowly creeping to the surface of my
skin distracts me, but I still manage to catch a glimpse of a memory in the
back of my mind.
Men with
black masks and fire weapons dragging me out of a room. A cloth with a sharp
odor pushed against my mouth. Drowsiness engulfing me. A big SUV, also black,
doors sliding to the side. A blow to the back of my head. All lights went out.
My skin
pricks with anxiety, and I shiver to shake off the fear. It doesn’t help,
because I know deep down that there is more to come.
There is one
question in my mind that can’t help but repeat itself. Why me?
This is the
single question every victim of abduction asks.
Except, I
already know the answer.
It was only
a matter of time before they came for me.
My papa once
told me that goodness always comes at a price. Now more than ever, do I realize
the truth in his words. However, I don’t regret making the decision for even a
second.
Now, I’m
here in a darkness so deep it consumes me whole.
And still
the light of rebellion sparks inside my heart, fueling a fire I haven’t felt
before. An uncontrollable need to defy whoever is keeping me here.
But I will
wait. Lying in the cold, harsh, emptiness of this space, I will await my
captor’s arrival and take whatever he’s going to give me. Punishment. Pain.
I’ll endure it all.
Because
that’s what a good person does when they’ve made their choice.
They bear
the burden of their choice, because it’s the only thing they can do.
***
I don’t know
how many hours pass before a noise wakes me. I can’t remember when and how I
fell asleep, but I must’ve been very tired from the ordeal. A metallic door is
slid open, a crack of light splitting through the opening. The burlap bag over
my head makes it difficult to see, but when I narrow my eyes and focus I can
still determine where I am.
Only now do
I see how small my cell really is.
The vast
emptiness I thought would overwhelm me, turns out to be not much more than a
bedroom-sized cell. A quick look at the walls reveals iron rings of all shapes
and sizes, used to hook a chain around and snare whoever needs to be contained
and subdued.
In other
words; me.
Squinting, I
watch as a man steps inside, and I focus solely on his presence. Even though
the door is open, and freedom is luring me on the other side, I stay put and
watch. No matter how much I’d try, I’d never be able to flee. Not like this,
with my muscles weak and my body aching. There are probably a bunch of guards
waiting outside, wondering whether I’m going to try anything.
So I won’t.
I’ll sit right here on this cold, hard concrete, observing my captor as he
walks into the room with a certain aloofness. His feet are bold, his body
brawny, his face hiding behind a Guy Fawkes mask. If I weren’t so scared, I
would’ve pondered why he chose that specific mask to conceal his identity, but
now is not that time.
His
footsteps sound more like sand scraping off a harsh surface as he circles
around me like a snake ready to attack its prey. The door is left open like a
silent seducer, a tool to entice me to run. I look up at my captor, giving him
a deadly stare, and even though I can’t see him, I know he can feel the
determination in me.
I won’t let
myself be tempted to flee like a wounded deer.
Not when I
know that this is merely a distraction, like a lollypop being dangled in front
of a child while the adult knows full well he’s never going to give it to the
child, and the child knows he can never reach far enough to grasp it.
I refuse to
be that child.
My captor
walks some more, and then returns to the door to close it.
His
experiment failed.
I control my
emotions.
He doesn’t
know who he’s up against.
In the darkness
I hear him come closer, the only sound being his steady breath and soft steps.
He’s still testing me. Seeing if I’ll give in to the fear. Alone with him, the
predator, in a cage filled with blackness. But I’m not afraid of the dark.
My soul has
already been tainted and defiled. Nothing he does can hurt me. I already went
past the breaking point once … and I survived.
“Up.”
The sound of
his voice suddenly breaking through the façade makes me take in a breath. It’s
familiar and yet so unknown, the way he speaks to me with full authority,
resoluteness resounding in every spoken letter, even if there are few.
I crawl up
from the ground, slowly, steadily, maintaining my posture. My aching back and
pounding head won’t stop me from attempting to keep my dignity as I stand up
straight and stare ahead.
My captor’s
steps are everywhere, resounding in the darkness like echoes that disappear
into the night. He’s confusing me, and I try not to concentrate on the sound,
but on my own heartbeat instead.
Suddenly,
he’s right in front of me, and the air is sucked out of my lungs. I struggle
not to let my breath come out in short gasps, but I won’t let his tactics work
on me.
His
breathing sounds like that of a bull, short and loud, as if he’s readying for
charge.
But he
doesn’t move. He just stands there, gazing at me.
“Do you know
where you are?” he asks with a low, gruff voice that brings goose bumps to my
body.
I compose
myself before I answer. “No.”
“Good.”
I can hear a
faint smile behind that word, but the second my eyebrows move, he puts his
hands on my chest and shoves me. I fall down backwards on the hard floor,
bruising my groin.
After a
while, he says. “Do you know why you’re here?”
I don’t
answer. I refuse to. Why would I? He is only here to intimidate and hurt me.
There’s no benefit for me in answering his questions. As a matter of fact, I
think he owes me some answers instead.
“Why am I
here?” I ask.
He’s silent
for a few seconds, and then a smug laugh is dulled by the mask.
“Bold. I
like that.”
“Who are
you?” I ask, putting emphasis on every word as if they’re the last that’ll come
from my mouth.
He muffles
another laugh. “Who am I? I am the man who will break you.”
I shake my
head, still lying on the floor as if I’m taunting him. Maybe I am. I want him to
speak, and for that to happen, I have to be the one asking the questions, not
the other way around.
“Where am I?”
“Where you
belong,” he growls, and then he takes a step forward, grabs my arm, and pulls
me up from the floor.
“Why—”
Smack. His
hand hits my cheek, silencing me.
“You do not
talk unless spoken to.”
My head is
still to the right, as I refuse to look at him. I will not bow to his violence.
If he hits me, my body will remain rigid, unmoving. Not an inch of pain will
exude from me.
“You may be
wondering why you’re here, but you’re forgetting the most important question.
What have you done to be here?”
My lip
quivers, so I force it to stop. I can’t show weakness. Not now, not ever.
He grabs my
chin. “You don’t seem to remember, so let me refresh your memory,” he says.
“You stole something. It’s time to give it back. You have twenty-one days to
come up with an answer.” He pulls me closer with a pinch. “Lie and I’ll know.
Do you understand?”
I nod while
blankly staring at his mask. If I’m to obey to survive, I’ll do just that, but
no one can take away my pride.
He let’s go
of my chin and pushes me away. “It’s time for you to pay back what you owe.”
Fear ripples
through my veins. “Pay what back?” I say, taking a step forward.
He shoves me
so hard my back hits the wall and the air is ripped from my chest. I sink to my
knees against it.
“Don’t think
I will go easy on you. Just because I know about you, doesn’t mean I won’t rip
you apart if you don’t tell me the truth.”
“What
truth?” I gasp. “What do you know about me?”
He turns
around, but waits, standing still in the darkness with only the sound of ragged
breaths filling the room.
“You tell
me,” he says, his voice softer than before, almost as if he himself doesn’t
know the reason.
Frowning, I
look up at him, and for some reason the way he cracks his knuckles feels so
familiar.
But then the
feeling immediately disappears as he starts walking toward the door.
“Wait, you
haven’t told me why I’m here yet. How am I supposed to know what to tell you?”
I can hear
him knock on the door. Then there’s a pause. “Oh … you’ll now soon enough.”
The
forewarning brings chills to my skin.
The door
opens with a squeak and in comes the blinding light again. It’s so bright, my
captor’s clothes almost look pale as snow. But then I realize that’s only
because I haven’t seen light in such a long time … and I won’t be seeing it any
time soon.
The last
words he speaks remain with me for the rest of the day, echoing in my mind over
and over again. “Welcome to your own personal hell.”
About the Author:
Clarissa Wild is a New York Times & USA
Today Bestselling author, best known for the dark Romance novel Mr. X. Her
novels include the Fierce Series, the Delirious Series, and Stalker. She is
also a writer of erotic romance such as the Blissful Series, The Billionaire's
Bet series, and the Enflamed Series. She is an avid reader and writer of sexy
stories about hot men and feisty women. Her other loves include her furry cat
friend and learning about different cultures. In her free time she enjoys
watching all sorts of movies, reading tons of books and cooking her favorite
meals.
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