Chapter 5: Calculated Torture
The roar of the crowd faded into a muted, buzzing static in Natalie’s ears. Her world had narrowed to the ache of the metal, the prickle of sweat between her shoulder blades, and Julian’s blue eyes holding hers from across the stage. He’d pocketed the key. The tiny, metallic click of it disappearing into his jacket had been the loudest sound she’d ever heard.
Safety was gone. It was just the gamble now.
Julian didn’t speak to the audience. He simply watched her, a slow smile spreading as he took something else from his podium. It was a simple strip of black silk. He let it drape over his fingers, the material limp and innocuous.
“For the final question, we require absolute concentration,” he announced, his voice smooth as oil. “No visual distractions. No reading the crowd. Just you… and the numbers in your head.”
He moved toward her. Natalie’s breath hitched. The instinct to shrink back was useless; the restraints held her fast. She could only watch as he stepped behind her. The studio lights glared in her eyes, then were extinguished as the silk settled over them. The world plunged into a warm, stifling darkness. The audience’s noise became shapeless, directionless. She was unmoored.
All she had left was sound and touch. The rustle of his suit jacket. The clean, sharp scent of his cologne. It was sandalwood and something colder, like frost.
She felt him lean in. His chest brushed against her bare shoulder. His lips were so close to her ear she felt the heat of his breath before he even spoke. It sent a violent shiver through her, one that had nothing to do with the chill of the studio air.
“The question is simple arithmetic, Natalie,” he whispered, his voice a low, private vibration that traveled straight down her neck to the base of her spine. “Listen carefully.”
She nodded, a jerky motion in the dark. Her mind clawed for focus. Arithmetic. Numbers. Just numbers.
“You have eighty-seven thousand dollars,” he began, his tone conversational, almost gentle. “Our fictional investor offers you a choice. Option one: a straight loss of thirty-three thousand.” His hand, warm and dry, settled on her hip. She flinched, the touch branding her through the thin material of her shorts. He didn’t move it. “Option two: a gain of fifteen percent of your current total.”
His other hand came up, fingertips brushing the sensitive skin of her inner arm. He traced a meaningless pattern there, his touch light and maddening. Natalie’s throat tightened. She tried to hold the numbers. Eighty-seven thousand. Loss of thirty-three. Gain of fifteen percent. Percent means… divide by…
“Calculate the difference between the two outcomes,” Julian murmured, his lips now grazing the very edge of her ear. His breath was hot. His hand slid from her hip, skimming down the outside of her thigh before coming to rest, a heavy, possessive weight, high on her inner thigh. His thumb began to move in slow, deliberate circles against the trembling muscle.
Her whole body seized. A gasp lodged in her throat. The numbers she’d been clutching like a lifeline dissolved into static. The sensation was everywhere—the rough pad of his thumb, the searing heat of his palm, the terrifying proximity of his mouth. It wasn’t pain. It was a hundred times worse. It was an invasion that her traitorous body responded to with a jolt of electric awareness.
“Focus, sweetheart,” he chided softly, his thumb pressing harder. “What’s the better financial decision? What’s the difference?”
She could smell him, feel the scratch of his stubble near her temple. Her mind was a white riot. Fifteen percent of eighty-seven thousand. She fumbled for the calculation. Ten percent is eighty-seven hundred… so five percent is… four thousand three-fifty… add them… The math was junior high stuff. But his thumb was circling, circling, a dizzying counter-rhythm to her racing thoughts. A thick, liquid heat pooled where he touched, a shameful echo of the ache she’d felt before. It was clouding everything.
“The… the loss…” she stammered, her voice thin and reedy. “Eighty-seven minus thirty-three is… fifty-four thousand.” The words felt clumsy in her mouth.
“And the gain?” he prompted. His other hand came up to cradle the side of her neck, his fingers curling around her nape. It wasn’t a caress. It was ownership. He held her still for his whispered words, for his touch.
“Fifteen… fifteen percent…” She was panting now, shallow little breaths. The numbers blurred. She saw his smile in her mind’s eye. The sand in the giant hourglass was hissing in her ears. Or maybe that was the blood rushing in her head. “Twelve thousand? No… wait…”
His thumb stopped circling. He pressed down, a firm, insistent pressure that made her knees buckle against the restraints. A small, choked sound escaped her.
“Time’s running out,” he breathed into her skin. “Give me an answer.”
Panic, pure and acid, washed over the confusion and the heat. She was losing it. The money, the freedom, everything was slipping through her fingers because she couldn’t do basic math while a man touched her. The absurdity of it was a slap. The vulnerability was a yawning pit.
“Fifty-four thousand!” she blurted, the first solid number that stuck. “The loss leaves fifty-four thousand. The gain… it’s…” Her mind was a blank, white screen. She had nothing. “The difference is… is…”
Julian’s hands withdrew. The sudden absence of his touch was as shocking as the touch itself. She swayed in the darkness, cold and utterly exposed.
The blindfold was lifted. The light was a physical assault. She blinked, tears of frustration and humiliation stinging her eyes. Julian was standing before her, the black silk dangling from his hand. His expression was one of faint, cruel pity.
“The fifteen percent gain would be thirteen thousand and fifty dollars,” he said, his voice booming now for the audience, clear and crisp. “Making a new total of one hundred thousand and fifty dollars. The difference between that and the fifty-four thousand from the loss… is forty-six thousand and fifty dollars.” He paused, letting the correct, unattainable figure hang in the air. “That was the answer you needed.”
He took a step back, his eyes scanning her ruined face, her heaving chest, the chains that now felt less like a choice and more like a sentence.
“You didn’t even get close.”
The finality in his voice was colder than the metal on her skin. The audience was silent, a held breath. The last grains of sand in the hourglass whispered down.
Julian’s smile returned, not triumphant, but deeply, disturbingly satisfied.
“Looks like we have a new prize,” he said.