The Great Below

The Crush

"What just happened here?" Dominic asked. He stopped well short of the door, confounded by the disheveled appearance of Raul and the fact that everyone stood quietly with their only exit hanging open and the sound of an engine fading into the distance.

Alex came back inside, still not ready to face his uncle but seeing no other recourse. He knew that Octavia's slender white fingers, pressed as they'd been to the glass of the rear window, would dominate his thoughts for a while.

"Victor beat the hell out of Raul," Nick interjected. "He almost killed him. Then he took Octavia and left."

"We can go right now," he told Dominic. "We'll track the car and bring them back."

"Why in the hell would they have a car?"

"He hot-wired a sedan," Nick said. He looked at Alex in an effort to solidify the lie.

Dominic ignored them, instead sidling up to Raul's desk. He pointed limply to the semi-automatic lying on top. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Gun not working?"

"He was going to cut her with a knife," Raul said, and coughed.

"No he wasn't. What is wrong with all of you? I see at least three men standing here versus the one who got away, because he threatened to hurt a woman he's so hell-bent on having that he'd steal her out of here by knife-point. I mean, did you even think about stopping him?" Dominic took a step closer and scooped the gun into his hand. "Raul, a man is trying to leave – what do you do?"

"I..." Raul began.

"Nick, Alex, what does he do?"

"He shoots him," Nick murmured.

"You shoot him!" Dominic repeated. He fired a round into the concrete block next to the door, making all of them jump. "And if there's a woman in front of him, I suggest you shoot her too, because we need one-hundred percent containment. No one does what he wants. No one voids his own contract."

"We can go right now—" Alex said.

"You're just going to fuck it up. I'm not sure why I trust you with anything. Nick, do you have the car-tracker on your phone?"

Nick nodded solemnly.

"Then you are going to take our resident do-gooder here and bring both of them back. I don't care if they're dead or alive, but I don't want to hear a whisper of it on TV. No chases, no witnesses. Just two reformed workers, or two corpses. Got it?"

Both men nodded.

Dominic offered Raul's piece to Alex before he could slip out. "Do you need a gun?" he asked dryly.

Alex patted the holster under his arm. "I've got mine," he said.

"Oh, good. So you didn't think to shoot him, either. I'm glad I go to the trouble of arming all of you." Alex heard a few more choice words as the door slid shut and he hoped they weren't aimed at Raul. The cloud of his uncle's disapproval followed them to Nick's car, where it felt like it was seeping into his brain and pinching a nerve behind his eyes. Nick was kind enough to offer his keys; at least Alex wouldn't have to suffer the indignity of riding shotgun.

"Ignore him," Nick said. "He's just afraid that Victor will talk to the cops." They got in, fastening seat belts while Nick tried to bring up a GPS signal to find Alex's stolen car.

"I've seen Victor ruin people, and he didn't need words. He thinks talking is a waste of time." Alex gunned the engine, taking them out of the lot of their industrial park toward the interstate.

Nick's face brightened as he noticed a signal on his phone. "Victor would use words," he mused, "if they could shoot out of his fists."

#

Victor pushed Octavia into the hotel room, where she had to watch her step to avoid the splintered wood that had fallen from the smashed lock. Once inside, he secured the deadbolt and chain. There was a small table lamp near the door that shed just enough light to allow them to move with some confidence. He went to the bathroom to rifle around.

Octavia shivered from the wet and the cold; she was trying to play out a few quick scenarios.

There was the one where she ran back out and took the car, only she had no key. That was in Victor's pocket.

There was the one where she sliced him with the scalpel and ran around front to wake the proprietors, only she had no scalpel. That had gone with Victor to the bathroom.

There was a truly futile one where she screamed and screamed, but she imagined it ended with Victor snapping her neck, and she didn't want it to come to that.

She began to consider the landline beside the far bed when Victor reemerged with white bathroom towels. "You have to get dry," he said. She was aware of him coming toward her, large and imposing, and before she could react he was pulling at her clothing and stripping her. His breath came warm and fast against her face. That close, he wasn't a person. He was more of a smell. A temperature.

"I can do it," she said.

But he wasn't listening. He'd pried off the sweatshirt he'd loaned her in the car and cast that aside, then slid his hand flat under the hem of her t-shirt, against her abdomen. "I knew it would happen eventually," he told her. "I knew that someone would come along who saw you the way I do. Someone has seen your value and wants you."

"The only feeling I have for Dominic Corvin is loathing," Octavia said. "I promise."

He peeled back the t-shirt and when she resisted him, taking small steps away from his hands, Victor followed her and ripped the shirt straight up the front, sending droplets of water across the carpet. Her shoulder blades bumped the drywall and she realized she'd run out of space to avoid him. "I'm not talking about him," he said.

The shirt had been discarded and she glared at him, bare-chested and humiliated.

"I'll deal with Dominic. I'm talking about his nephew – the one you're in love with." One large fist closed over the front of her jeans.

"What?"

Octavia lurched forward and then crashed back into the wall, Victor's hand on her waistband leading the way. She thrust her arms out for balance, banging one elbow on a mass-produced painting of a ship rocking across a stormy sea. Another violent push and she collided with the drywall in a cough of dust. "Alex Corvin. The man who goes pale and has to get drunk just to hear about our relationship. He has made himself sick over you, and you're protecting him. You would lie to me to keep him safe."

"He's harmless—" Octavia began.

"Not in the way he looked at you when I held that knife to your stomach. I guarantee you he's trying to find a way here right now. He won't give up until he rescues you from me, because he is convinced that you're a victim and he's your hero."

She folded her arms over her chest against the chill. "That's not true."

"You're feeding it," he continued. "You're leading him on. I've seen the way you look at him." There was only ragged breathing in the silence, as Victor idly fiddled with the button at the front of her jeans. So much waited behind that facade. She felt a reaction building in him that hesitated behind the thin veneer of his wet skin and the way he stared down at the carpet, pushing and pulling on her jeans by less than an inch. "Say something."

Even if she had been alone and unharmed – comfortable – could she quantify her feelings for Alex? He was, in every critical way, Victor's opposite. He had wants and needs, but also the dignity to bide his time and be patient. He put the welfare of others before himself. And even if she scrapped everything she admired about him, there was a gratefulness in his eyes when they spoke that said she was the most important person he'd ever met.

Victor was right: he was enamored with her. She wondered where he was right now. The idea that she might never see him again dulled the shine on her hard-won freedom.

"There it is, on your face," Victor said.

"No," she groaned.

With both hands, he ripped away the rest of her clothes.