Trapped In The Devil's Bed

The Bill Of Sale

Elara's POV

I despised the silence. It was the accompaniment to the pounding in my chest.

“Wait, Father.” I watched him, searching for the spark of parenthood, for the moment when he would rise to his feet and chase this animal away. When he would recall the nights he'd put me to bed, when he'd called me his little star.

He didn’t look at me. Instead, he looked at the floor. His hands twisted together in his lap.

“I don't have all night,” Dante growled, his voice sinking to a menacing, gravelly whisper. “The clock is ticking, Thomas. What’s your decision?”

A woman in a sharp gray suit emerged from the door, her high heels clicking on the tiles.

She handed Dante a leather-bound folder filled with pages he flipped through with the clinical detachment of a surgeon. It turned my stomach.

"This is a legal transfer of guardianship and a debt release," Dante explained, his eyes darting from the paper to my father. "You sign this, and Elara will be under my care. Mine to do with as I see fit. You will have no contact with her. No rights. Ever. Is this clear?"

"But she's a person," he cried out, my voice rising to a desperate pitch. "You can't just buy a person!"

Dante acted as though my father wasn’t speaking back at him, that it was simply another piece of furniture in the room.

His eyes stayed locked on father. "Consider it a clean slate, Thomas. I may be able to work with the other creditors as well. Keep you out of a shallow grave. All you have to do is pick up the pen."

"Please, Daddy," I pleaded, crawling toward him. "You have to reconsider. We'll figure it out. I'll get three jobs. We'll sell the house."

Finally, my father glanced at me, and in his eyes, instead of any love, there simply shone a miserable, ghastly fear.

His eyes drifted to the guard standing behind him, who was inspecting the large gun in his hold.

“I’m sorry, Elara,” he whispered. There was no apology in this, only surrender.

Dante threw the pen down on the table. It rolled toward my father, coming to rest against his shaking hand.

“The years we’ve known each other.” my father began to say.

"Were business," Dante snapped. "Everything is business. Now, sign this document or allow me to have my men demonstrate how much your friendship is worth."

A guard came out from the group and grabbed my father’s shoulder, pushing his face toward the table.

As he was coerced into taking the pen in his hand, I cried out, trying to reach him, but a guard held me around the waist and lifted me off the ground.

I kicked and scratched, managing to land my nails on the man’s face, but he didn’t even blink.

I watched, weeping, while the tip of the pen touched the paper. His hand shook as he sighed the first page, then the second. The turning of the page was like the slamming shut of a coffin lid.

“Done,” said my father, his tone flat.

Dante handed the folder back, snapping it shut. He examined the signature, a small, dark smile crossing his face. "Good choice. It would have been a pain to get you out of the carpet."

"I hate you," I screamed, my vocal cords raw. "I'll kill you both! I swear to God,"

Dante got up, his towering figure casting a shadow that enveloped an entire room.

Then, he came over to me, taking in my tearful face with a curious, amused glint in his eyes.

"Take her," he ordered.

“No! Daddy!” I shouted as they pulled me toward the back exit. But my father didn’t look up. He simply sat there, mesmerized by his empty hands, a man who had sold his soul for a losing hand.

The chill of the night air stung my flesh. They did not guide me; they dragged me as if I weighed as much as a sack of barley.

A black SUV was waiting at the curb, engine running, and its dark windows mirrored the bright streetlights.

The door was wrenched wide, and a push sent me inside. My fingers scrabbled for the other handle, my nails cracking through the plastic, but it was locked.

I turned my back on the door, as Dante slipped into the car beside me.

Inside the car smelt expensive yet intoxicating and suffocating. The car pulled smoothly from the curb.

"Stop the car!" I shouted, banging on the window. "You can't do this! This is kidnapping!"

“It's a legal contract,” Dante said calmly and very steadily. “Your father has turned you over to me. You are under my protection. It would be in your best interest to start acting like it.”

I turned to him, my body shaking from a combination of fear and adrenaline. "Let me go. Please. I'll do anything else."

Before I could even blink, his hand was wrapped around my throat. It wasn’t enough to choke me, but it was enough to grip my skin firmly, his thumb pressing into the spot where my chin curved in.

His breath, hard with the scent of smoke, whispered against my lips.

“Listen to me carefully, Elara. You belong to me. Your life, your body, your breathing belongs to me. There is no escape. No one is going to find you if I kill you so don't piss me off. Don't make me angry or…” He stopped, and his eyes became two sockets of pure charcoal. “I will break you until you are just a shell. Do you hear me?”

I couldn't talk. All I could do was nod, the tears clouding my vision until he was just a dark, looming figure.

He released me, settling back into his seat as if nothing had occurred. He peered out the window as the city lights slid past.

“Good girl,” he muttered.