The Dark Star - Lockdown Vol. 02

"Go work your charm Mr Hughes"

**********

Siena sat herself down at the dining table, not feeling hungry despite having still eaten very little.

She was doing so only to make a polite civilised effort as Logan had implored her a little over an hour ago.

The prospect of days let alone weeks trapped here with only their company filled her with dread. This meal, this attempted conviviality felt forced from the outset, from the moment she'd let him convince her to join them. The three of them sat their intending to eat all knowing, none speaking, of what had transpired between them.

"Just plating up...with you in a bit" she heard his voice carry along the hallway from the kitchen.

She could smell a familiar smell, an aroma that despite her previous thought tempted her, steak, she had heard the pan-fried sizzle as she'd headed down the stairs. He had made the prospect of the notion of a civilised meal bearable, even to the point of asking her what she would prefer. Logan had a calming assured influence, an admirable trait in itself.

Although compared to the acerbic, poisonous Arabella he could have been an axe murderer and she would have preferred his company.

As if summoned by her subconscious she watched the platinum blonde haired Girl, barely older than her, as she entered the room clutching her hands around three pre-poured glasses of Red Wine. Not even having had the decorum to pour the wine at the table, Siena truly struggled to see what her brother had ever seen attractive in her. Visually she was a good-looking girl but never was the definition of skin-deep beauty truer than in the example of Arabella. Her personality flip flopped from spoilt little contemptuous brat to simply infuriatingly vile individual. Even now as she approached, she could barely contain the scowl and the disdain she held.

Setting down two glasses she took several more paces along the table and slid the glass before her with the weakest of smiles that so easily could've become a sneer at that exact same moment.

"Thank you" Siena offered with a sincerity she had to force herself to offer up, she wasn't sure she came across as all that convincing. Extending a hand to take the glass, she took a heavy swig, swallowing hard the slightly bitter tasting red. "What is it?"

"Wine," Arabella offered back to her with a blank expression.

"Where from... what vintage?"

"I didn't look...just poured... although it had a cork not screw top so it must be good."

She was about to take another sip when the tall dark-haired male entered the room. Logan balanced two plates in his hand and a third on his left forearm, like a classically trained waiter.

"It's a 2003 Fitou," he stated calmly, obviously party to their exchange.

Setting her plate down first she took a look across the plate and was instantly impressed. A seared chunk of fillet steak, sat amongst sautéed baby mushrooms, wilted spinach and several almost caramelised baby tomatoes on the vine.

"I'm sorry I never asked how you prefer your steak," Logan stated backing away to serve Arabella who took a seat opposite of her while he set his own plate in the middle of the dining table that she had seen comfortably seat twelve.

He raised an eyebrow before offering; "But then there is only one true way to serve a steak."

"Medium rare," was Siena's response as she took a knife which slide through the dark meat to reveal a perfect pink interior with a hint of rare.

"A girl after my own heart," his eyes fell to Arabella. "Unlike little miss make sure mines well done"

"We all have our preferences" Ari offered him the kind of soft playful sneer that Siena could only envy. She knew better than to make further comment on that subject matter but couldn't resist.

"This looks perfect." she stated not confrontationally but equally not caring if such a simple remark would be misinterpreted by the acerbic platinum blonde.

She cut a generous slice and took her first taste of the perfectly seasoned meat. Her comments gaining a nod of satisfaction from him while Arabella never reacted. "So, what's your secret...how do you achieve such a seared exterior and a beautifully rare middle?"

"I could tell you..." Logan offered on finishing a mouthful of his own.

"But then he'd have to kill you" Arabella finished his sentence for him with a deadpan interjection. Before a pause and adding with a more lightened tone. "That's what he always says at least."

Logan offered a shake of the head, in the wider context her slightly miss placed menacing comment was obviously not lost on him either so it seemed.

Siena didn't trust Ari in the slightest but somehow, she trusted him, there was a sincerity to the man an integrity. She never enquired but she was almost certain he once had business connections with her Father, her Father was a man of integrity he wouldn't associate with someone if they weren't of good standing. Yet somehow inexplicably he was connected to Arabella, how she had no idea, and while they had a chemistry, she couldn't place what caused their spark, their relationship.

"You two can finish one another's sentences" Siena offered up innocently enough but with a dual purpose. "You must know one another well.... so how did you meet?"

A brief exchange of glances between the two of them a knowing smirk from her.

"That's a long story," Logan offered keeping his gaze on her brothers' former fiancé.

"It's not that long a story Lo," Arabella set down her cutlery and turned to Siena. "Five years ago, Logan was in a relationship with my Sister Hannah. Well Stepsister if you're tracing the family tree. We started fucking... well I say we... he slowly manipulated me... corrupted me... made me his submissive little plaything."

Siena lost for wards glanced from her to him. Arabella's bite of her lip as she turned to face Logan suggested there was no malice but the prospect and the connotation of the words, she'd just spoken shocked Siena and obviously made him uncomfortable.

"Well, that's a version of the truth" Logan offered by way of response.

Taking a slug from his own glass of wine. A notable tension between them but not one of animosity.

"I was young... not exactly vulnerable... but impressionable none the less," Ari's eyes bore into his but still not with any anger.

"Logan here showed me.... well, let's just say it was a wild rollercoaster of a ride... and when the ride stopped I didn't know if I wanted to ride again or throw up"

"I remember things a little differently" Logan softly offered.

"Your point of view was from a different angle," Ari stated not coldly but matter of factly.

"I'm not sure I'm glad I asked" Siena said taking a large swig of her own glass of Red.

There was a bitterness to the contents of the wide rim glass. Perhaps the wine hadn't aged as well as Logan had suggested. Her mind moved on from the taste of the wine. Fascinated with the revelation shed just discovered. That the two of them had been partners spoke volumes for the relationship and obvious connection she could see they had, now she understood without still fully understanding.

She could tell from the brief insight provided that such an overview couldn't anywhere near capture the level of intensity that their relationship must have encompassed. The smoulder in both their eyes as they discussed matters without detail alluded not so much to unfinished business as it did to an appreciation of what they once had together. It seemed far from a romantic ideal, but Siena had never been convinced that the perfect ideal of romantic entanglement existed, ever, let alone in the modern age.

"Her Sister though..." Siena broke the slight awkwardness building around the table with an attempt at humour. "Christmas must've been fun"

Arabella laughed aloud at a thought unspoken before offering "I think the family dog liked him."

The rest of the meal passed in fairly awkward silence it was obviously a subject matter Logan wasn't uncomfortable with but something he'd rather not be discussing in front of her.

Inwardly Siena smirked to herself a little side project to discover more details on trapped away from the outside world as they were here within their macabre little threesome. The lockdown and restrictions that she'd spent time reading about from reliable news sources seemed draconian, scared her. If the need to protect the population from the increasingly spiralling death toll was necessary, there was sound logic.

What perturbed Siena most was the prospect of being holed up in the company of Arabella and Logan. The deceit they'd spun, the fragile emotional web of lies to cover for Kimberley's death held her captive, held them all accountable.

She couldn't fathom how in the long-term Kim's disappearance could be accounted for how, how any of them expected to get away with what had transpired. What was their motive for protecting her, she had thought this not for the first time as she threw subtle glances from one to the other across the dinner table.

Her stomach lurched, the empty sinking feeling spreading from the pit of her gut through her body.

Having finished his meal Logan rose from the table, returning shortly with the remainder of the bottle of red. She'd barely eaten half of the truly delicious steak, but her appetite waned, as her overactive mind contemplated the scenarios that lay before her. None without consequence. Few options she could take without exposing their hideous unspoken secret.

"Top up?" Logan offered hovering the bottle over her glass but without pouring

"Shhurr..." she stated noting the slur to her words as she watched him pour generously.

Instinctively she took a swig, noting the unpleasant aftertaste once more. Her cheeks felt flush, her mind racing once again but trying now to compose constructive thought process.

Logan didn't sit he hovered placing a glass down, no placing the bottle down.

She looked over to Arabella but couldn't focus on her face, her face seemingly blurred set in untrue white blonde hair.

Siena gripped the stem of the wine glass, her throat dry, cotton mouthed she needed water perhaps but instead once again as the only option raised the glass of red wine to her lips taking a long slow sip to attempt to quench her unbearable thirst.

The room spinning now, warping as setting down the glass she watched but couldn't focus as it tipped and spilled. Red liquid like blood ran across the white tablecloth of the family dining table.

Her family dining table. What was she doing here? What were they doing here? She attempted to stand. Rising from the table her ankles and knees weak, her legs suddenly like liquid.

She heard words, a female voice on the words echoing around her mind but she couldn't concentrate on what was said. Stumbling, strong arms catching her with a firm grip.

A distant scent of a spicy subtle aftershave as she was held up in his arms.

She trusted him

She trusted him

**********

"You've been holding out on me Ari"

"What were you expecting behind the locked doors?" she stated coldly but with a mischievous glint to the steel pale blue eyes, framed my dark eyelashes

Logan looked around the room once more, taking in the varied and elaborate devices and methods of restraint placed around the room. The devices all looking bespoke to match the black and scarlet red trim decor of the high-ceilinged room. Long sash windows, the same as all the others in the property, fitted with wooden slatted blinds that effectively obscured what remained of the early evening light outside.

Darkness falling figuratively and metaphorically.

"We've all our little secrets," Ari continued biting gently and playfully at her lip as she looked up at him. "Some of us prefer not to keep ours in dark damp dungeons... shall we say?"

Siena Mancini lay slumped across the mattress of the metal frame bed beneath them, bringing her here and up the stairs had been a simple enough task. Guiding her from the dining room, her eyes heavy but her feet somehow managed under their guidance to bear her weight, despite her drugged state. Between them they'd led her up the stairs and along the corridor to the room that had remained locked until this evening. Ari stabbing a four-digit code into a control lock, a code of which Logan noted the initial 2 and 1.

Acting with an uncanny unison that gave them a near perfect tandem Logan and Ari stretched the intoxicated young dark haired girl's right wrist towards a thick black leather cuff, embroidered with bright red stitching, as he did so Ari efficiently restrained the young girls left wrist.

Threading the strap and pulling it as taught as possible before lancing the prong of silver buckle through a hole of punched into the strap of the restraint.

Olive skinned slender wrists soon held in the merciless bite of the cuffs attached with black nylon ropes to each corner of the bed. Without a word they both moved down the length of the bed taking her slender ankles and pulling them towards waiting restraints at the foot of the mattress.

Ankles that were as firmly restrained as her wrists in no time at all as the young Italian unawares of her fate was spread eagle across the bed, dressed only in an ivory-coloured bra and a pair of navy satin or silk briefs that she'd worn under the navy dress with a billowing loose skirt. The dress which lay discarded near the door of the room.

"What's the code for the door?" Logan offered looking across the bed towards Ari as they rose simultaneously back to their feet.

"Twenty-One... Eighty-Seven" Ari offered without objection as she walked to Logan's side leaning up against him looking down on the prone girl. "She'll need to be gagged."

"Harsh." Logan stated his eyes moving across their victims tanned toned physique, she stirred a little her chest rising and falling on long shallow breaths.

"I've a feeling she's going to be a little vocal when she comes around" Ari walked over to a stained black wooden dressing table. She opened the top drawer and returned moments later with a wide red rubber ball gag attached to a black leather strap. She held it out for Logan.

"My room is at the end of this hallway" she stated softly, offering further if perverse justification.

Logan didn't speak as straddling Siena's slender body he prised apart her jaw and unopposed, other than by a quiet moan that escaped the young girl's lips, he placed the ball of the gag between her lips before securing the leather strap tightly through her chocolate brown hair.

His mind slipping to her elder sister Laura for the second time that day; the fear he'd seen in the eyes of the eldest Mancini sibling the last time he'd seen her. Her mouth parted around the orange-coloured gag as she'd been handed over to East Asian traffickers.

"Let's get out of here," he heard Ari's words, causing him to flinch a little as she snapped him from the dark memory.

Knelt over Siena his heart pounding he watched her. He couldn't help but wonder where fate would eventually take this Mancini. The mists of the dark recesses of his mind faded leaving only fright echoes of the frightened muffled screams of Laura Mancini as he slipped from the bed.

"We've crossed a line Ari" Logan offered.

"It's a line that needed to be crossed," she stated not even gracing Siena with a further glance.

**********

Panic gripped her

A fear in her mind that transposed itself through every muscle in her body

Pulling hard at the restraints which held her wrists, her addled brain unable to comprehend what had happened how she'd found herself here in this pitch-black room.

Chest rising and falling heavily Siena maintained her frantic struggles, struggles in vain given the grip the wide restraints held over both her wrists and her ankles.

She could see very little, her head feeling heavy, her mind blurred, her senses dialled up instantly though as she lay there the room in complete darkness with only the very faintest of light seemingly creeping through the slats of blinds drawn over the windows to her right.

Screaming out for mercy and a help she knew in her heart of hearts was not coming.

Screams that were lost into the uncomfortable gag between her dry lips, her jaw aching from being held parted around the gag that in turn tightly secured around the back of her neck.

Warm wet tears forming in her eyes. Her struggles and screams carried on as resolutely she refused to yield to or give in to the fear that threatened to instantly crush her.

No recollection of how she came to be in this predicament, she recalled a meal, being seated at the dining table eating food he'd prepared for the three of them. Then her memory fails her until she'd woke to discover the circumstances that literally physically gripped her.

Staring up into the darkness above her, running through breathing exercises that, Jackie Grayson her therapist had taught her. Simple techniques to quell her agitated state.

Her body fell still, she drew deep breaths into her lungs through her nose.

She would survive this.

She would survive this.

**********

Stood in the corridor hearing her struggles, her frantic muffled screams Logan's head pounded.

All too conscious of what they'd done.

Ari walked away. Seemingly oblivious, seemingly carefree.

Had this been her sinister plan since day one.

Siena's protests fell silent, listening intently his forehead now leant against the locked double doors. Double doors that led to an until this evening previously unseen room. The very existence of which within the house, let alone the macabre contents now scared him far more than its potential existence had ever intrigued him.

Scared him by the cruel connections to a past he wished to forget.

Scared him because he knew what he was capable of.

Scared him for the sake of young brunette held captive the other side of the doors.

Scared him for her because he knew what he was capable of.

The strike of Ari's heels on the hardwood floor fading into the distance, he slid his hand across the door as he forced himself to follow after the platinum blonde.

Composing himself taking a deep breath.

Siena Mancini would not be a victim.

Siena Mancini would not be a victim.

"She'll be another victim" Chloe Macready stated softly as he passed her in the corridor.