The Game by L.P. Lovell
31
Sawyer drives through the city in silence, eventually pulling up to the same house on the edge of town where the masquerade party was held. “Home sweet home,” he says, putting the car in park.
Is this how the game ends? Trapped into playing house with the man I once loved, knowing he’s a monster. I stare at the front entrance while endless questions mount in my head.
Sawyer gets out of the car and heads to the front, waiting for me by the door. And I guess I have to follow. Warm air wraps around me as I head up the sidewalk. Bartered and sold—no. I sold myself by signing that damn contract. But not to Sawyer.
The open street calls to me. An escape route if only I would run and save myself, but there is no running now. Nowhere they couldn’t find me, where he wouldn’t find me. So I follow him inside the foyer. The door closes behind me, sealing me into what feels like my tomb, and then he leans in like he’s going to kiss me, but stops. “I can still smell him on you.” A slight snarl curls his lip. “Go upstairs and change, then show yourself to the kitchen.”
I ball my fists, fighting the rage that my forced submission has tamped down for the last week. Sawyer knows I’m in love with Tobias. He knows I don’t want to be here. If I’m to get out of here, I must appear compliant and willing. Worse, I must be the girl I was before I ever played this game. The girl he loved. And then, when he least expects it, I will become exactly what they made me: Dark, without morals...a killer. That is the only reason I do as I’m told and go upstairs. The bedroom closet is filled with clothes—my clothes. How did Sawyer manage this? How many people do they have working behind the scenes to tidy their messes and play into their delusions? It’s an answer I’d probably rather not know.
I change into a pair of jeans and a tank top before I go back downstairs like the good little whore I’ve become.
Sawyer stands at the massive kitchen island, pouring two glasses of wine. This must be his house. His real house. And it’s the kind of home we used to “daydream” of owning. The thought provokes a mixture of rage and regret.
He places the wine bottle beside a vase on the counter and looks up at me with a smug grin. He seems utterly pleased with himself. Pleased that he won. Pleased that he fucked me when I thought it was another man—One he handed me over to for some messed up reason. The more the thoughts whirl through my mind, the more my anger grows until it’s a billowing cloud of hate. I used to love this man—picture my life with him and now all I can picture is what it would be like to kill him. And what if I did? I could grab the vase from the end of this counter and smash it over his head then use one of the shards to slice open his jugular.
He slides a glass toward me, then casually loosens the collar of his dress shirt. “The game is over, Ella. You can ask questions now.”
NowI can ask questions. I catch sight of the label on the wine bottle. Chateau Ste. Michelle. The wine I always picked up on my way home from work. I don’t touch the glass. “Can I leave?”
“In game four you made a choice if you recall. Jump or remain with us forever—”
“With Tobias and Preston.” I agreed to stay with them. Not Sawyer or Three or whoever the hell he is.
“You knew there were three players at that point. You shouldn't assume.”
I knew there were three players, but only Tobias and Preston mattered. I was too blinded by them to think something so warped would have come from that agreement. That, and my only other option was to jump. “It was never really a choice, was it?”
He rounds the counter with a wicked grin. “Ah, death is easy, Ella. It's the living that's hard. You chose the hard path, and you chose to play a game that you had no idea how to win. Some would say you'd already jumped the second you signed that contract.”
The contract he knew about. The game he put into play by tearing my life apart bit by bit. I grip the edge of the counter, trying to keep myself from slapping him. “Why?”
He softly takes my chin in his hand and forces me to look up at him. It’s so hard to believe this is who he is. So impossible to think someone so twisted and sick could play the part of normal so well. “Because I loved you, and I hoped you could become everything I ever wanted. Now you have...”
I jerk away from his hold. He didn’t love me. That isn’t love. “So you threw me into a game where I might jump off a bridge, where I was forced to kill, made to think I was crazy?” I smile, a mocking smile that Tobias would be proud of. “I can tell you one part of your plan that backfired, letting me get fucked by two other men. You’ll never be what they are.”
Anger builds behind his eyes. I guess his arrogance never allowed him to think I may enjoy them more than I ever could him. “It was a necessary evil. I had a version of you. Now though…” He curls a piece of my hair around his finger. “Now you're perfect. Tobias is very good at what he does.”
Tobias is very good at what he does, he says that as though he were a trainer for his dog, as though what happened between us was nothing more than a lesson. “I hate you,” I whisper, fighting the storm of emotions battering my insides.
“That may be, but you’re mine now, Ella. You lost. Accept it.”
“Or what?”
“Or your life will be particularly unpleasant. “The sick smile shifts to a stern frown. “You will love me again, Ella. We will be perfect.”
Bullshit. “I love Tobias.”
His hand meets my cheek so fast; I barely have time to register the blow. A part of me loves that he so easily snapped, and it’s this part of me that is beginning to understand Tobias’s love of control and manipulation.
“He doesn’t love you. You’re just a game to him. But I knew, from the second I met you, that you were special, Ella. That I wanted you in the game. I imagined what it would be like to watch them fuck you. To watch you blossom into something untouchable. Something perfect.” He’s insane. Tobias and Preston are undoubtedly psychopathic, but this is something else entirely. Obsession? The lengths he’s gone to orchestrate this. Our entire relationship… None of it makes any sense. He didn’t even want me when he had me. He had an affair.
“So why did you fuck Maria?”
“All part of the game. I never wanted her. I only fucked her to hurt you. It was necessary.”
Necessary? He ripped out my heart and left me with nothing. Had this past week not happened, I would walk out the door right now. I’m not bound, I’m not being held at gunpoint… What I am is all too aware of the dark side of humanity. My agreement that night on the bridge wasn’t legally binding, but with men like this, legality is nothing more than a pretty formality. I agreed to stay and, unknowingly, that agreement included Sawyer. I can’t run. I can’t leave because there will be consequences, the likes of which would be terrible and gruesome, I’m sure. All I can do is bide my time.
“I must say.” He takes a sip of wine. “I was bitterly disappointed. I’d hoped that you would have been so jealous that you would have killed Maria when you had the chance.”
What does he expect here? For me to declare my undying love? Is he so far gone that he can’t see that will never happen? He’s a monster, but maybe that’s what gives him hope. After all, Tobias is a monster.
My gaze darts to the knife block within arm’s reach just as he grabs the wine bottle from the counter. And when he turns, placing it in the fridge, I snatch a paring knife and tuck it into the waistband of my jeans.
The fridge closes and Sawyer’s gaze lands on me. I wait for it to stray to the empty spot on the knife block, for him to notice the slight sweat I feel breaking out on my forehead, but instead, he moves past me. “Let me show you the house.”
The knife feels like a brand against my back as he leads me out of the kitchen. I can’t help but wonder if it’s a trap. If he knows I have it.
He doesn't show me the house, instead, he takes me upstairs to a gigantic master bedroom.
The door closes with a click, and I know what happens next. He’ll take what he wants whether I’m willing or not. I should pretend to be willing because it’s the only way I can take this knife and ram it in his jugular. He’s too strong, I know that from having spent years with him. To overpower him, I’ll have to take him by surprise, make him weak for me. Just like Tobias would... This is why, instead of shoving him away when he stops in front of me, I press my lips to his.
“Oh, Ella,” he mumbles. “I’ve missed this.”
Disgust crawls over me at the feel of his hands on my hips, but I swallow that down and slowly back him toward the bed. Our eyes meet as I reach for his belt and yank it free. His pants go next, then his boxers, and soon enough he's lying on the bed next to me, naked and vulnerable. Ripe for the picking.
I sweep my hand over his chest, thinking of all the places I could stab him, all the organs I could damage. When did I become this cold, callous person? On day three or four? Day five…
I straddle him, wondering if I should slit his throat mid-fuck or right after he comes.
Something in the room shifts, and I know Tobias is standing behind me before I even glance over my shoulder. His anger and dominance fill the space like a living, breathing creature, and I wonder if it’s because he’s seeing me like this, straddling a man that isn’t him or Preston. I want to tell him I’m only pretending to want the man I hate, but I can’t.
“Don’t be upset, Ella. This was the agreement.” Sawyer’s fingers wind around my throat like a collar, a satisfied smirk playing over his lips. He’s loving this. “You lose and Tobias has to fuck us. No Preston. Just me and you and him.”
He grabs my shirt and pulls it over my head, pinching my nipple as he glares over my shoulder. “Does it bother you that I have your favorite little toy now, Tobias?”
That anger swells, sucking oxygen from the room. “As I said, you may take her body, but you'll never take her soul. That's mine.”
His possession falls over me like a rogue wave, consuming me, and I have to fight the smile threatening my lips.
“Seven days, Tobias.” Sawyer sits up, imprisoning me against him as he kisses my neck. I hate the way it feels. “It's nothing more than a lustful form of Stockholm Syndrome. Nothing more than a drug, absolutely addictive but not something anyone needs…”
But I do need Tobias. His love may be like a drug, some dark, destructive force that if taken in the wrong dose will usher in death, but I do need it. And I think he needs me. The energy that swirls around him and lives in the air between us is limitless, self-sacrificing, and isn’t that the definition of love?
I glance over my shoulder at Tobias. He’s unfastening the buttons of his dress shirt when his gaze subtly drops to where the handle of the knife presses my lower back. I’ve killed for him. Will he kill for me?
I trail my fingers down Sawyer’s chest as I climb off him, holding his gaze as I back toward Tobias and circle behind him. “Do you want him, Sawyer?” My attention remains on Sawyer, naked and fisting his cock on the bed as I glide my palm beneath the parted material of Tobias's shirt. “Isn't he beautiful?”
When I slide the shirt from Tobias’s broad shoulders, I notice Sawyer take a heavy breath. “I have wanted him long before you and I ever met, pretty.”
And I realize that this is his fantasy. I think he may have manipulated and orchestrated this entire thing to have Tobias. I was just a pawn.
With a sadistic grin, Sawyer gets off the bed and opens the nightstand drawer. I tense when he pulls out a gun. Suddenly my knife seems pathetic. Tobias reaches around, placing a protective hand on my hip and shoving me further behind him as Sawyer approaches.
“It’s been years that I’ve wanted you.” He stops beside Tobias and kisses his throat. “But you would never let me have you.”
Tobias’s jaw tenses when Sawyer leans in to kiss him again. And as he does, he simultaneously places the barrel of the gun to my temple. “Now, this makes it much more exciting, doesn't it?”
We have one more game to play, and when we win, I will forever be Tobias’s little lamb and he will be my shepherd.