C2 Satisfy me and your grandmother lives

CHAPTER TWO

Fred face came into view as he crouched down to her level on the floor with his pleasant face arranged into something that was trying to be sympathy and not quite making it, and he told her Amara was dead.

Hella looked at him and said nothing.

"I'm sorry," he added, and the word came out of his mouth sounding like a pebble dropped into water. "She lost too much blood."

Hella's fingers curled slowly against the cold concrete floor. She pressed them flat again, feeling the grit beneath her palms.

"Your father's debt doesn't disappear because of what happened tonight," Fred continued, standing back up and dusting off his trousers. "If anything it compounds. You came here and caused a disruption."

"Get out," Hella said.

"We still need...."

"Get out of this room," she snapped again, and her voice was so flat and so empty that Fred actually stopped talking and stared at her properly before leaving.

Hella sat there for another hour, maybe two. The light overhead was a single bare bulb that gave everything a yellowish cast that she hated. She used her inhaler twice more, which meant she was burning through it faster than she should. She thought about Amara's face. She thought about their grandmother.

Don't think about Grandma. Don't.

She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and breathed.

THE NEXT DAY

It was mosquito bites that woke her up. Hella yawned, covering her mouth. She had slept and it was obviously another day. The door flung open and an old woman walked in.

"Get up, poor thing," she said in a husky voice, dragging Hella to her feet.

She was ushered to where she took her bath and brushed her teeth, but she had to wear the same clothes she had on the night before. They served her food but she didn't take a single bite. She refused to eat the food of people who had killed her sister. The thought made tears slip uncontrollably from her eyes.

"Amara," she whispered, sniffing.

She was still wiping her face when a set of guards moved to drag her, but she wrenched herself free or they let her. She couldn't tell which.

"I can walk" Hella snapped glaring daggers at them before following them like a puppy.

The room they led her into was larger than where she'd spent the night.

Inside, Nero sat like a king and he looked at her for a moment, then reached into his jacket and produced his phone, turned the screen toward her without a word.

Live footage of a small house and two men standing outside the gate with their hands in their jackets.

that's her grandmother's house. No not her grandma too.

Not her.

Hella quickly knelt, shaking.

"No. Don't do it!" She said loudly "No, please, she has nothing to do with...."

"Your father's debt," Nero said calmly, pocketing the phone. "You said you'd clear it. You said you'd do anything."

"Please, she's an old woman and..." Hella whispered again bead of tears forming at her eyes circle.

"I have a special mission to go for at 8, why not make the remaining minutes before 8 enjoyable, I might think of sparing him." Nero cut her off, and her breaths caught.

"W...what do you mean?" She stuttered without meaning to.

Roughly, his thumb targeted her rough lips. He pressed it so hard a little blood exploded, then he leaned forward, and her chest locked.

His gaze.

That gaze made it feel like a thousands phantom ants are crawling over her skin.

"Let's see if your mouth is good at pleasuring, just the way it's good at telling lies," he started, relaxing.

"You crawled to me, that's a bonus. Now undo my belt, pull out whatever you find there and take it to your lying mouth." He ordered.

"What!" She gagged.

"Yeah." Nero said quietly, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. "Your grandma lives only if you cooperate."