The Tempest

Chapter 8

Rayna

3 Days Later

Sweat coats my skin as I spar with Emilio, Rafael, and Rodrigo in our home gym, while Fae works on her punches and kicks, on the punching bag.

Emilio comes at me with a series of combos which I just barely manage to block. I grab his right arm and flip him, so he lands on his back, then I twist his arm and place my foot on his neck. After a few seconds of trying to get out of my hold, he taps the mat and I let go. I switch my focus to the twins, who are coming at me, fast. I drop to the ground and kick my leg out towards their feet. Rodrigo gets knocked down to the mat but Rafael manages to jump over my kick and gets into his fighting stance. I jump back up and get into my own fighting stance. We circle each other and watch each other's movements, waiting for the perfect time to attack. Rafael must see it because the next thing I know, I have the heel of a foot coming towards my face. Luckily I duck in time and grab the end of his kick and use his momentum against him by taking him down to the mat and trapping him in a jiu-jitsu choke hold. He struggles for a few seconds but eventually taps my arm in defeat. I get up and extend my hand for him to grab and then help him up. I then do the same for the other two.

"Damn Rayna, did you seriously have to go that hard?" Rodrigo complains as he rolls his shoulders.

"You guys have to get better and the only way that's going to happen is if I go hard on you. I need you guys to learn how to defend yourself properly. Now, again." They groan but get into their fighting stances. We've been going at this for the past two hours. I know I'm going a little too hard on them, but I just want to make sure they can handle themselves, especially when I won't be able to protect them anymore.

As I spar with my brothers and listen to the pounding of the punching bag, my mind wanders to the night of the auction. After I got us out of there, I drove the van for a good hour, making sure we weren't being followed. When I was sure there was no one following us, I drove us to the place where I parked the U-Haul. We switched from the van to the U-Haul and I gave my friend, Alex, the location of the van so he could go pick it up and have it crushed.

I dropped the girls off at the shelter where the manager assured me they would be well taken care of. With that I took a still passed out Vladimir and dropped him off at an underground dungeon I found a few years ago in the woods, by the home I had built here in LA.

I had gone jogging one night when I tripped and fell. At first, I thought I tripped over a branch or a rock but it was actually a latch that had been covered with dirt and tree leaves. I pried it open and found ten cells, five on the right and five on the left, with an open floor the size of my living room. I turned that room into my main torture chambers and there's a door that connects to my underground "lair" built under my home.

I didn't want to drag Vladimir's dead weight through my home, while my siblings were there, so I took him to the one in the woods. After I chained him up in one of the cells, I left him there to clean and drop off the U-Haul.

Once that was done, I headed back home, cleaned up, and got some sleep. For the last two days I have treated Vladimir like the animal he was. I messed with his sense of time by blasting rock music that pounded through the speakers in his cell and burned his retinas with bright white lights. I kept cameras in every cell and made it so I could control everything from my computers in the lair.

I haven't gone down to see Vladimir since I chained his ass down there, because I want to fuck with his mind first, and it was very clear as of this morning that it was working. When I checked the cameras he was screaming, then he moved on to pleading, and lastly, he started talking with himself. Thankfully the walls are made of thick cement so no amount of screaming could ever be heard.