“Shhhhh. I need more flowers. They’re wrong,” he stated firmly and stood up.
She moved her legs side to side and tried to lift herself higher up the bed to gain leverage. She didn’t want to be lying down with him next to her on a bed. But then, he must have seen her naked. He undressed her and put her in this thing.
“Did you touch me? You didn’t, did you?” she asked him, feeling the tears well up in her eyes. He just went about his business as if she weren’t even there. Then he came back, sat right next to her, and clutched her thigh. She gasped and tried to pull away, but he dug his fingers into her flesh.
“You need to behave. There’s a lot to explain. But first, I have to find the right flower. The one that tells the truth.”
He picked up another flower. She saw a whole bunch lying at the bottom of the bed.
“She loves me, she loves me not. She loves me, she loves me not.” He just kept pulling the petals, and he must have been at it for a while, because looking down, she saw that the comforter around her frame was covered.
“Unc, why are you doing this? Why?”
He was getting to the final petals. She could see that there were four left. He was going to get the same result again.
“She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me, she loves me not.” He slammed the stem onto the ground, stood up and stomped on it.
“No! It’s wrong. They’re all wrong.”
She heard a noise coming from the other room. She looked that way, and he gave her an angry expression and then a smile.
“You think I wouldn’t do anything for you, Ellie? I’ll show you, and then you’ll love me, petals or not.”
He started rambling on to her about a prostitution ring, illegal art, and being part of a business venture that made him millions.
“Do you mean you worked for Renaldo?” she asked and he became angry.
“Renaldo is a pussy. He had the world by the balls but he made a huge mistake. His worst mistake ever.”
“What was that?”
“He wanted you, and you belong to me.”
He opened the bedroom door and dragged what sounded like a chair closer.
She was shocked to see Renaldo. He looked like hell, was bleeding from his shoulder, and could hardly breathe.
“Tell me again that she is mine, not yours. Tell her so she knows what I would do if any other man tries to fuck her.”
“Yours. Yours,” Renaldo said and then coughed.
She felt the tears roll down her cheeks. Unc was a madman, and she was now tied to a bed and at his command.
“He needs a hospital,” she told Unc.
“He’s going to die. Just like Paul.”
“Paul?” she asked. Unc smiled. He walked back toward the bed and she tried unsuccessfully to get away from him. He grabbed her throat and then held her face as he knelt up onto the bed. His bloodshot eyes trailed over her body.
“He took away your innocence, an innocence that belonged to me, and no one else.”
He moved his hand down her throat and cupped her breast.
“Don’t, Unc. Please don’t do this. Don’t hurt me.”
His eyes widened. “But I need to hurt you. I need to get them out of your system and make you see only me and what I have done to prove my love. They cannot compare. I have money, I have power, I’ve killed for you. I even got rid of that pain in the ass uncle of yours.”
“What?” she asked, tears flowing an