Author's Comments: I must have psychological issues to want to write stories like this. Anyway, enjoy the results of my psychotic tendencies . . .

Chapter Five

Olivia hopped in a cab to keep Elliot from tailing her. She thought it strange that she knew where Tucker lived, even though she had never been to his place. And then, once more, she wondered why that was. Could it possibly be true what Elliot and the others were saying about him? It would explain a lot.

But she had to hear it for herself—from him. Because if any of it was true, if even one underage girl had been harmed because he had looked the other way, she had to be there to knock his teeth out. And if not, he was going to have some explaining to do, and maybe show her some alibis to prove to her he was not involved in any corruption in any sort of way.

She still could not believe what was being said about him, though. Many of these accusers were the same people who had gone after her for digging too deep. But not Elliot. She trusted that Elliot would not make up this business about a hooker being raped just to split the two of them up. Maybe the hooker was a plant, who knows? But she knew Elliot wouldn't go this far to intentionally play games with her heart.

Standing outside Tucker's door, she shifted her feet, staring down at her heeled boots, uncomfortably waiting for him to let her in. When the door creaked open, she stood there for a moment, taking in his stiff presence, sizing him up before she could confront him.

He stepped to the side, and she whooshed past him. Scanning the place, she didn't notice anything that would betray his home as a den of evil—no S&M toys or hanging harnesses. In fact, it was rather tidy, with pictures hanging neatly on a white-painted wall in the foyer. She examined one, a picture of him standing next to a beautiful white horse, proudly displaying a blue ribbon from its halter.
"I didn't know you rode horses," she said.

"All my life. What are you doing here, Liv?"

She turned to face him, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. "I have some questions for you, Ed."

"What questions?" His frame stiffened.

She planted her feet solidly. "There's been some new accusations. Horrible . . . accusations. Of rape. Borderline torture."

His gaze seemed to bore through her, cutting her in two. "Against me?" She didn't even have to nod for him to know the answer, because he looked away and sighed. "Who made these allegations?"

She mumbled, having a hard time getting her lips to form words. "Doesn't matter. Just tell me they're not true, Ed."

He brought his glare back to her, his eyes intense. "Who told you all this . . . Stabler?" Once again she didn't answer, and he practically spat the next few words at her. "What were you doing talking to Stabler?"

"What does it matter, Ed?"

"It matters." His tone forceful, he said, "Can't you see he's trying to drive a wedge between us?"

She shook her head. "No. He wouldn't do that. At best, he got bad intel—"

Tucker's hand flew up to punctuate the air. "You're defending him? Obviously his scam to turn you against me is working. And why would fall for it, Liv?"

He only stood a few inches taller than her, but his presence filled the room now, creating rows of goosebumps on her arms. "Ed, I just need to hear you say it, that it's not true."

He snorted, planting his hands on his hips. "Of course it's not true. They must have planted a prostitute to discredit me."

A wall came down between them in the silence that followed, and her heart began to pound. "I . . . didn't say it was a prostitute."

He only hesitated for a second before saying, "It wasn't hard to guess that little detail. I just assumed because of your operation . . ." Then he placed his hands on her arms, his fingers pleading with her. "Come on, Liv. Don't fall for their dirty tactics. I'm clean."

Her head bobbed up and down in short nods, and she said quietly. "It all makes sense now." She yanked away from his grasp, turning to the side and bringing one palm up to her forehead. It all came together like pieces of a puzzle. He liked horses. The prostitute had accused him of using a riding crop. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, trying to measure the distance to the door and his placement between her and it.

"Liv, just listen to me." He stepped square in front of her again, solidly facing her. Then he took one step toward her with his right foot, and before she could even flinch, he brought his fist up and connected it hard to her temple.

"Game over," she thought, just before a dizzying cyclone of darkness consumed her and drew her into unconsciousness.

Olivia didn't want to open her eyes, because her head pounded like someone was trying to escape from the inside of her skull. But she blinked several times, trying to bring her hand to head before realizing that she couldn't really move much of anything. And her arms, which were stretched over her head, ached from supporting the weight of her body.

"Ed?" she called out, forgetting the last few seconds of their conversation for a moment.

"Oh, you're awake?"

His voice came from behind her, but she couldn't turn her head, couldn't move, so she couldn't see him. She leaned her weary head back, and now she could make out a large meat hook bolted to the ceiling directly above her. Her hands were bound together with rope, which was draped over the hook, and all her weight pulled down against them, making the muscles in her arms groan. Her toes barely touched the floor, and she pushed up on them for a second to relieve some of the weight from her biceps.

She closed her eyes and sighed, only now realizing the severity of her situation. She was naked, except for her underwear, and she began to tremble, wondering what he had in store for her. But she opened her eyes once more, looking for any clues to an escape in her line of vision. Directly before her but several feet away lay a bed, with a missionary style frame, neatly made up with a navy blue bedspread, and she presumed this room was his bedroom.

She jerked against her restraint to get a feeling of how sturdy it was, but there was no budging. "Don't even bother. You'll never get off that thing. It's made to withstand the weight of writhing cow going to slaughter. Your puny weight is nothing, comparatively."

She bit back humiliation. "Ed. Can we just talk about this?"

He appeared in front of her now, shaking his head, carrying a menacing object in his hand. She knew very little about horses, but she knew this was no riding crop. He clutched a full-length horse whip, the whip part made of leather braided together, separating into smaller strips at the end. "Cat's out of the bag now, Liv. There's no going back."

"Ed," she said, eyeing the whip as her body broke out into a trembling fit. She could barely find her voice, and her words came out in a near-whisper. "Please. Nobody has to know about this."

"Oh, no," he said, advancing toward her with a ball gag in his hand. She writhed and twisted to avoid him, but he grabbed the hair on the back of her head and held it in place while he shoved the gag in her mouth. Then he backed up to admire her in her vulnerable, naked state. "I can't stop now, Liv. I've always wanted to do this."

She shivered, the cold air assaulting her bare skin. He backed up and stood to the side of her, planting his feet as he raised the whip with his right hand. She shut her eyes tight and clenched her muscles, but there was no preparing for the sting that cut across her back as the whip cracked across it. She moaned, but with her voice muffled, it was as if she had no voice at all. And then he brought the whip to her back again, and she wondered how long it took to die from a flogging, because obviously he would never let her go after this.