Reclaiming lola valentin.., p.1
Reclaiming Lola (Valentino Empire #5), page 1
Reclaiming Lola
Valentino Empire Series
Kylie Kent
This book is dedicated to Lola and all the women like her, who fight through the darkness to find their missing light.
Contents
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Untitled
Relentless Devil - Ch 1
Where it all began
One
Two
Also by Kylie Kent
Please Stalk Me
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Author’s Note
I’ve never added an author’s note in front of a story before, but I wanted to give you all a little insight into Reclaiming Lola.
Lola’s story was never planned. She popped up towards the end of Brutal Princess and demanded that her story be told.
I can honestly say I’m so glad I listened to her. Because through writing Reclaiming Lola, I learnt that no matter how hopeless a situation may seem, there is always something worth fighting for. Sometimes, when everything seems bleak and like we’re alone, there is someone (even if it’s just one person) fighting for us. With us.
Lola shows us that even when our whole identity has been stripped away, stolen from us, we can find ourselves again. It might not be the same self we once were, but that doesn’t make it a lesser version.
Lola’s story is completely different from anything I’ve ever written before. It’s a raw, emotional, soul-searching journey.
When I say that this story has triggers, please heed the warning. It would not have done Lola justice if I held back and faded out the truly horrible things that happened to her. The story shows how Lola heals her mind and overcomes her Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
There are on-page flashbacks, which provide glimpses of horrors no one should ever experience. There is an on-page scene where everything gets a little too much for Lola, and she seeks an escape from life the only way she knows how.
Overall, I do believe that this is a beautiful story—depicting a young woman’s fight for herself—even if it will make you ugly cry and read through blurry, tear-filled eyes.
Prologue
I watch with dread as another new girl is shoved into the cell with me. “Thirty-six, this is five-hundred and thirteen. Keep your eyes fucking open and watch.” Sven—as I know him anyway—glides his dark eyes from me to the girl. They haven’t brought in someone so young before. Well, not since me, they haven’t…
I shove myself against the wall, wishing it would just swallow me up. I don’t know why they make me watch before it’s my turn. Why they always leave the girls with me after they’ve finished with us both. I don’t want to watch them do those things to a little girl. I can’t watch that. I don’t want to see it.
I’ve been here so long, and I’ve witnessed them do so many horrible things to so many women. But not a child. I don’t like seeing them hurt my fellow captives. I hate that there is nothing I can do about it. I’ve tried to stop them a few times. And each resulted in me being knocked out. Unconscious. And whenever I’ve attempted to close my eyes or cover my face, my captors will hold my hands down and pry my eyelids open, so I’m forced to watch.
Over the years I found a way to detach myself from the room. To stare blankly at the scene and go somewhere else in my mind. Somewhere more peaceful. Except I can’t do that this time. Because the girl they’ve just shoved through the door is just that. A little girl. She can’t be any older than I was when I was brought here.
It’s probably wrong how my first thought is: They’re replacing me. This is it… It’s my turn to be taken out of this cell never to return, just like all those other women. It’s my turn to be dragged back up those stairs, never to see this room again. I have no idea what they do with the women once they take them out of this cell. But I don’t imagine they just let them go.
Then the words the little girl is yelling with such ferocity, courage, pierce through my rattled thoughts. She’s saying my brother’s name. Promising that he’s coming for her. That he will make these men pay for taking her. I don’t want to be the one to break her hope. To let her know that if Neo knew of this place, then he would have found me.
Unless they didn’t want to find me. My family. How hard did they really look for me? I’m still in New York. I know that because I have walked the streets a few times. Recognized the smells, the city, the people… I’ve been right out front of my childhood home, followed my sister to a coffee shop, and watched from across the street as she worked.
I thought about yelling out, screaming that I’m here! I’m right here! Why won’t you help me? But then the promises my captors made would come to mind, the ones reminding me that if I ever escaped and went back to my family, they’d take her instead. And they wouldn’t be as… nice.
I laugh at that. Like they’ve been nice to me. If what they do within these four walls—if what I’ve seen—is their definition of nice, then I don’t want to know what they think mean is.
As I look at the little girl in front of me, I try to find the family resemblance, but there isn’t any. She’s insistent that my brother is her father though. That he’s going to save her. I can’t let these bastards do this again. I can’t let them take another member of my family. I won’t let them destroy this little girl like they’ve destroyed me.
Just as I’m thinking that they’re going to use her body, that there’s nothing I can do to help her, they turn to me. There’s two of them. But there doesn’t need to be, because I don’t bother trying to fight them off anymore. I learned a long time ago it’s easier to just lie there, let my mind go blank, and wait for them to finish.
I try to block out the little girl’s screams and threats as they force her to watch them use my body. It’s harder than usual, because she’s so young and apparently my niece. It never takes that long really, for the men to be finished, and they never stay in here once they’re done. I wait for the men to leave. And then I scoot over to her.
“It’s okay. Don’t be scared. I’m going to help you but you have to stop yelling. We can’t have them coming back down here, okay?” I whisper to her.
She nods her head. “Okay. I’m Izzy, by the way. What’s your name?” she asks.
“I’m Thirty-six,” I give her the name I’ve known for most of my life.
“It’s nice to meet you, Thirty-six. When my papa comes for me, I’ll make sure he helps you too,” she says with a confidence I don’t share.
Why is this little girl trying to comfort me? I’m the older one. I’ve been here for a long time. I should be the one assuring her that it’s all going to be okay. Not the other way around.
I need to come up with a plan. I need to get out of this house unseen, and then back in before anyone knows I’m gone. I’ve done it a few times, three to be exact. I know how, but every time I do, my whole body literally shakes with fear. And I feel like I’m choking on my anxiety.
Then I look into Izzy’s eyes, and that’s when I know. I have to do this for her. She can’t succumb to my fate. I won’t let her.
Chapter One
Have you ever had a nightmare you thought you’d never escape? Only to wake up in a cold sweat with your heart beating so fast you fear it’s about to jump right out of your chest cavity?
That’s how I feel every second of every day. Trapped in a nightmare I can’t escape. One I can’t find my way out of. Surrounded by people who say they care, tell me they love me, with endless promises to never let anything or anyone ever hurt me again.
Yet I’m alone here. They think they know me, but they don’t. No one does. Because I don’t even know me.
I know my name was Lola. I know I had a family once. Loving parents. Two siblings: a brother, Neo, and a sister, Helena. And I know that Lola was the youngest of the three. Stolen in the middle of the night. Ten years ago. When she was just nine years old. Locked in a cell, taunted and assaulted by strange men who would come and go. Faceless monsters haunting both her waking and sleeping hours.
I don’t remember how long it took those men to replace Lola with #36. The name they gave me. I just know it wasn’t very long at all. I didn’t understand it at first. I tried more than once to tell them that my name was Lola. And more than once my innocent reminders were met with a backhand across the face. A correction.
After a few weeks, I realized what the numbers meant. Each woman they escorted down the hall and deposited in the cell had a set of numerals in place of their given names. They all looked at me with pity, but it was me who pitied them, as I was forced to watch what the men would do. How they would use the women and their bodies. Do things I was too y
I remember thinking that my dad would come for me. He never did. Then I stopped thinking altogether. It was easier to not have thoughts. It was easier to just do what I was told, follow whatever rules they gave me.
I knew that what I saw the men do to those women would eventually be done to me. I kept waiting for it. Waiting for the worst to happen. For years, all I had to do was watch. Until one day that changed, and I went from the one watching to the one being watched. I lost all concept of time while I was down in that cell. Neo tells me that I’m nineteen now, almost twenty, but it’s meaningless to me.
I’m thankful that he saved me. That after all those years trapped in that hell, my brother found me. He got me out. But it’s only because those men took his daughter, Izzy. She was why I had to make my whereabouts known to him.
I needed him to save her. To get her out of there. It took every last bit of courage I had to find him in New York City and pass him a slip of paper with a scribbly handwritten address on it. I prayed he would come for the little girl in time.
And he did. Except he didn’t just take her; he took me too. He piled us all on a plane and headed here. To this little island. I don’t know where we are, but it doesn’t matter. After all, my body could be on the other side of the world. But my mind… it’s still trapped in that cell.
“Lola, this is Dr. James.” My brother walks into the room he calls mine.
The space is luxurious, with the softest bed and blankets I’ve ever felt. But I haven’t slept on any of it. Instead, I find myself curled up on the floor every night, in the farthest corner of these four walls. The carpet is much more pliable than the concrete I’m used to sleeping on though. I look from my brother to the doctor at his side.
“He’s here to help you, Lola. Do you want to come out to the living room and talk for a bit?” Neo’s voice is gentle. Patient.
I shake my head in refusal and back myself against the closest hard surface, wishing it would swallow me up. I know what this is. I know what men want from women, from girls like me. I know because I saw many, many men come to meet me in the cell. They would look me over before deciding if I was worth whatever price they were asked to pay. Some even negotiated the exchange right then and there. In that cell. In front of me or one of the other women. Like we were cattle, worth our weight in meat.
I wonder how much I’m worth to my brother. How much he is getting out of this deal… It’s not surprising that my brother would be doing this to me. It’s what men do. It’s in their nature. They can’t help themselves.
I look over at the man claiming to be a doctor. He’s young with kind eyes, but I’m not fooled by him or those eyes. I know they will change, and I’ll see the real him as soon as we’re alone. As soon as he hands over the payment.
“Okay, I’ll leave the door open. If you need anything at all, Lola, just call for me, okay?” Neo approaches like he’s going to reach out for me, and I shrink away. He stops. I see sadness in his features, in the way his brows draw down, but what does he really expect?
He told me I was safe here and he’s already sold me off. Just like those men used to do. My surroundings might be nicer, but the exchange is no different.
I watch my brother walk out the door, and I make peace with what this is. I lift the soft cotton dress I’m wearing over my head, revealing my naked body to the man in front of me. His eyes widen as he stands there and stares for a moment. Clearing his throat, he simply says, “Please put your dress back on, Lola.” He then proceeds to sit on one of the little sofa chairs on the other side of the room.
“W-why? Don’t you want to see what you’re buying?” I ask him, unsure what I’m supposed to do here.
“Buying?” he questions. “Lola, my name is Dr. James.” His voice is calm, steady. “I’m a psychiatrist. Your brother brought me here to help. I’m not here to buy you. Please put your clothes back on.” He never once breaks eye contact with me, and he maintains that soft, calm tone. He sounds different from what I’m used to, has an accent I don’t recognize.
Bending down, I pick up my dress and slip the material over my head. I look up and he sends me a kind smile. That same kindness still in his eyes.
“Please have a seat, wherever you’re most comfortable, Lola,” he says.
“Thirty-six,” I correct him quietly.
“Pardon?”
“My name isn’t Lola. It’s Thirty-six.” I sit on the floor, in the corner, on the opposite side of the room. I don’t do it consciously. It’s just where I find myself. If Dr. James thinks it’s strange, he doesn’t comment as much. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t attempt to bring his chair any closer to me.
We sit there in silence. I watch as he pulls out a notepad and pen. “How have you been sleeping since you arrived on the island?” he asks me.
I look to the floor, where I still have the blanket I pulled off the bed. I don’t answer him. I don’t know why, but right now, I don’t want to talk. I just want to sit here and be.
“Lo…” He starts to say my given name before stopping himself. “Are you sleeping on the floor?” he attempts to clarify.
This time, I nod my head. “Where else would I sleep?” I ask, confused. I know there’s a bed, but that’s not for me. It’s too nice to be for me.
“The bed?” he says.
My only response is to shrug. I am way out of my element here. I don’t know what he expects of me. He says he’s here to help, but I don’t think that’s possible. I’m beyond repair. The Lola my brother is trying to save, to bring back, is long gone. I don’t think they’re ever really going to find her.
Chapter Two
I’ve been practicing for years. But no one has ever left me speechless before. Lola Valentino has been able to achieve that in seconds—the moment she pulled that dress over her head. She actually thought I was here to buy her… What the fuck has happened to this poor girl?
I had to remind myself that she is, in fact, a very damaged patient. One I’ve been hired to help. I had to tell my cock that he shouldn’t be hard at the sight of her bare skin. I’m sickened with myself for getting so fucking turned on. I shouldn’t be her doctor. I should go out there and tell her brother that I can’t help her. That he needs to find someone else.
Except, when her haunted eyes lock with mine, I see the silent plea there. Please find me. Please save me. That’s what they’re telling me, even if she doesn’t verbalize it. But this girl wants to be saved.
I’ve seen enough patients to know when they’ve totally given up. Lola Valentino has not given up. Not yet. I will find a way to bring her back from the depths of the hell she’s trapped in. Her brother gave me a very brief rundown of what happened to her.
Kidnapped at the age of nine. And only just located a week ago. She’s almost twenty. She’s been gone for over ten years. He didn’t say what happened to her over those years—I’m not sure he even knows himself—but it’s not hard to make an educated guess. She’s been sleeping on the floor, but I can see the dark rings under her eyes. I know she’s not sleeping well.
I withdraw the bottle of sedatives from my pocket. “I’m going to give you some sleeping pills. They will help you get the rest your body needs,” I tell her.
She shakes her head from side to side. “I can’t go to sleep,” she says.
“Why not?”
“Because that’s when I see them. When I close my eyes, that’s when they come back for me.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, but I hear every word.
