Tiara regretted not having any sort of weapon on her, not even a stun gun. Her heart was pounding, and she couldn’t deny that she was terrified. The man sitting on her queen-sized bed was the man who was responsible for her life being the way that it was. He had taken away her innocence at an early age and was responsible for hurting the people she held dearest to her heart.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said menacingly. His grin and the look in his eyes made her stomach drop. “You have a pretty high price on your head in the underworld.”
He stood up from the bed, and Tiara took in his appearance. He was wearing a pair of 501 Levis and a Crooks and Castles sweatshirt, but tucked into his pants, Tiara took in the sight of the butt of a gun there. She backed herself into the farthest wall as he advanced on her. She prayed silently for herself and her best friends, hoping that they weren’t next. Finally, he was directly in front of her, so close that she could smell the tacos he ate for lunch on his breath.
“Tiara Rogers,” he said, using his pointer finger to gently brush against the cleavage showing through her robe, “responsible for the deaths of Blake Rogers and Doctor Pierce. How do you plea?”
“Fuck you,” Tiara spat, realizing that she was going to die at the hands of the ingrate anyway. “You aren’t even worthy to speak my name out loud.”
“Worthy?” he said to her. “Do not forget that you spent a year being raped and molested by a man twice your age. You are nothing but a used-up whore.”
His words cut Tiara deeply because she had spent the last three years working hard to heal and get past that part of her life. It was a daily struggle for her having to deal with the nightmares that presented themselves nightly. Every night she saw an image of Doctor Pierce on top of her, pounding into her relentlessly. She recalled the feelings of pleasure and hatred that seemed to intertwine together. She remembered the feeling of the drugs on the days she fought him off of her in the institute, and she often had flashbacks of the day three of his workers ran a train on her. What she was having a hard time understanding was how the man before her had even the slightest clue of what was going on in the clinic.
“Why are you here? What do you want from me?” Tiara did her best to sound confident. She refused to let him see that she was actually terrified inside. Don’t show him that you’re scared. You’ve been through worse shit than this. Tiara gave herself a little pep talk. She tried to mentally prepare herself for whatever was about to happen.
With one swift motion, he pulled out his gun and put it to her head. “This might just be one of the easiest hits that I’ve ever had to carry out since your father’s,” he said. “I just want you to know that back then, none of what I told you was a lie. You really were special to me. Now, it’s just business.”
At that moment his finger tightened around the trigger of his weapon and right before the shot rang out that would end her life, Tiara closed her eyes and took a deep breath when she felt the cold steel metal push against her temple. She had no regrets, so as she stood there vulnerable and unarmed, she prepared herself to die. She knew death would be coming for her one day. She wasn’t expecting it to come to her so soon, but either way, here it was. Her mind rewound all the way back to the beginning of it all . . .
As she said her final prayer, she was startled when Mario pulled the pressure of the gun off of the side of her head.
“You know what? I have something even better for you,” he said. “I want to enjoy that special goodness you have between your legs. I know it won’t be as good as when I took your virginity all those years ago, but that’s OK. Let’s get those clothes off of you.”
“No!” Tiara screamed and tried to run out of the room, but he grabbed her up in one swift motion. “Please, Mario! No,” she pleaded with him.
“Oh, what? You can give it up to the doctor but not your ex-boyfriend?”
Tiara used her elbow to strike Mario in the mouth and ran out of the room. The house was dark, so it was hard to run anywhere without stumbling. Her heart was beating fast, and she knew that all she needed to do was get to the kitchen. She knew the front door wasn’t an option, there were too many stairs to go down, and she didn’t have time to wait for an elevator. She would have to kill him. The kitchen knives she owned were very sharp, and she wouldn’t need much force behind them to dig deeply into his flesh.
“Umph!” Tiara yelled when she tripped over a chair in her dining room. Before she could get back on her feet and into the kitchen, she felt strong arms wrapping around her torso.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Mario grunted trying to hold her steady. “You’re a fighter, aren’t you?”
As he carried her back toward her bedroom, Tiara held on to the door frame. Mario tried to pull her back into the bedroom. She looked back toward the room and instead of seeing her room, a room that she considered her sanctuary, she saw hell’s flames. She used all the strength she had to hold on. She wouldn’t give in and let him take her back there to be taken advantage of. She wouldn’t let him abuse her body. But Mario pulled with
