by Emelia Blair
“They were horrified when they realized that you took advantage of me when drunk and then tried to push another man’s child on me.” Thomas gives me a sly look, running his finger over the edge of the desk. “Especially when I tried to talk some sense into you and you sent one of your numerous boyfriends to beat me up.”
I am not new to Thomas’s mind games.
He has been playing them since my father brought him home after the death of his parents. He slowly wormed his way into my parents’ hearts, and every time he would blame me for something that he did, I looked the other way, not wanting to be unkind to him because his parents were dead, willing to share mine with him. And sometimes he would be nice to me, play with me, enough to offset the way he filled my parents’ ears with lies about me.
A part of me chose to ignore that; it had decided to trust him.
That’s why it was so easy for me to accept his help when my parents kicked me out.
And that’s why it was so easy for him to control every aspect of my life in the few months I lived with him, the way he forced a sexual relationship with me, making me think that’s what I wanted.
The abuse came after.
“Well, I still have her, you dick. Guess you’re not as smart as you thought you were.” I grit my teeth and force my lips into sharp smile.
He doesn’t like that.
“I would watch my mouth if I were you, Evie.” Thomas takes a threatening step in my direction, and I falter.
That satisfied look in his eyes enrages me. “I’m not scared of you, Tom.” My tone nasty, I add, “I heard you pissed yourself when my friend came at you.”
I heard no such thing.
In fact, Elijah very politely refused to discuss anything of what occurred in that house after he sent me out.
However, by the paling of Thomas’s face, I feel a hint of shocked glee creeping into me.
He pissed himself.
The dark look that takes over his face is all too familiar and my satisfaction chips away to reveal fear that has still been hovering underneath.
I swallow. “Get out of my office, Thomas. And stay the fuck away from me.”
He covers the distance between us in four large steps, and suddenly he is looming in front of me, his face twisted into something ugly. I am shoved against the wall and my mind blanks.
For the life of me, despite all the self-defense lessons I took, I can’t remember a single one of them.
He takes another step forward until he is pressed up against me and I feel like I can’t breathe anymore, terror keeping me held hostage in its clutches.
“Your parents got concerned after seeing you on the news. All these attacks on you, on your apartment, on that little gay boyfriend of yours: they wanted me to reach out and tell you to come home. Of course, the little messages you keep sending them every week haven’t been helping. I deleted most of them, but your father heard one or two.” Thomas breathes against my mouth and I quiver, wanting to get out from under him. “I reminded them of what you did to me—a little guilt trip down memory lane. I reminded them that you were nothing more than a liar and a whore.”
I push at him, hating the tears that fill my eyes on hearing that, despite whatever Thomas convinced them of, they still loved me.
“Get off me,” I choke.
He presses me harder against the wall. “Of course, then you had to tell people that I tried to kill that bastard child of yours.” His expression became furious. “Someone approached my bosses with that information. I was fired, you little bitch, for offering to do you a favor!”
I try to kick out at him, my voice shaking and yet hints of anger creeping in. “I didn’t send anyone your way, you fucking shithole! Threatening to murder my unborn child isn’t a favor! And if you got fired, it’s probably because your bosses realized you’re a fucking psychopath!”
When he releases me, I hazily think that I am free and that he is leaving.
The heavy slap that knocks me back against the wall, splitting my lip open, comes out of nowhere, and I crumple to the ground at the force of it.
Lip and cheek burning as if they were on fire, my vision blurs and then there is a hand in my hair, gripping it painfully tight, forcing me onto my knees. “What was that? Say that again.”
I hear the warning in his voice, and this time the defiance in me rears its head.
Oh, I am fucking terrified. But I am not going to let him see that.
My lips twist. “Psychopath. I called you a psychopath, you tone-deaf turd.”
That insult is creative, even for me.
Another blow lands on my face and I welcome the pain, embrace it even.
It is clearing my head, reminding me that I am not going to be bullied any longer.
“You just don’t know when to stop, do you?” Thomas almost sounds pleased, and I feel disgust creeping up on me.
“Obviously, that would be a turn on for you, you shit-faced pervert.”
Thomas’s grip in my arm tightens, making my eyes water with the pain as he murmurs softly. “Someone should really do something about that pretty mouth of yours.”
I maintain eye contact with him. “Fuck you.”
The sudden release of his grip on me has me falling onto my hands and then the air whooshes out of me as his foot comes into contact with my stomach, the pain white hot and making me gasp out.
“I lost my job because of you, you whore!”
I try to fight back but he is bigger and he is stronger and I lost a lot of muscle mass and weight with the recent stress. Blows rain down on me and he is shouting and screaming, his words not reaching me.
I am no longer in my dance studio.
I am back in his house, cowering at the edge of the green carpeted stairs, trying to protect my baby, my back to that flowery wallpaper that I hate as I curl into a ball, taking in the kicks and punches.
Screams: his or mine?
I can’t tell anymore.
Oh, God. I’m sorry. I’m sorry!
It is the inhuman scream that jerks me out of the recesses of my mind.
A horrified face that is so achingly familiar.
And then it is almost a blur as I feel the rush of air.
Another scream.
The sound of flesh hitting flesh.
A pair of hands lifting me up.
There are two of them.
I know this face; baby blue eyes look at me in anger, but not aimed at me.
He is saying something.
Dazed, disorientated, I can’t stand straight, my legs unable to take my weight.
Zayn.
I look around for Zayn only to see him hunch over somebody, hitting them repeatedly.
I push away this other man and stumble towards him, not caring about the blood spilling down my face, my hand stretched out, a broken moan escapes my lips. “Zayn.”
He freezes.
And then I collapse.
And he is there, lifting me up, holding me, whispering something in my ear.
And all I think, at that moment, is that he smells like home.
19
Zayn
I stare at Eve’s unconscious form lying so damn still on the hospital bed.
The last time I kept guard on her like this was when she had succumbed to the fever.
Rage still courses through me, the monster inside me furious, demanding blood.
Philip showed up at my office and invited himself to lunch.
Maybe it was a good thing he was there.
When I entered the studio, the sounds had not registered in my brain till I walked inside to see a man kicking Eve, who was just curled up around herself protectively, making sounds that I never want to recall again as long as I live.
Thomas Richards is fighting for his life in the other room, two policemen guarding his door.
I hunch over in the chair, my fingers clenched in my hair as despair overtakes me for a few moments.
The doctor said she had severe internal bleeding, three ribs broken.
She had nearly hemorrhaged on the operating table. They managed to save her.
They said that she was lucky to be alive, that the kicks were well aimed, as if to inflict maximum damage.
Despite everything they did, Eve still hasn’t woken up.
Philip and Fergus are outside, with Henry. Agatha is managing the reporters keeping them at bay.
Charlotte and Sarah took Mila with them. Ian is with them to keep reporters away who are sniffing around.
How could I have let Eve go anywhere alone?
I should have looked up Thomas instead of trying to run around winning her damn trust!
Now she is lying unconscious, her body beaten, not waking up, and I don’t know what to do.
A quick text from Agatha has me glancing at it.
“Don’t check the news.”
I have no plans to.
I don’t know how many hours have passed.
Philip looked in on me once.
Ian called.
Fergus gave me some company.
But nobody could tell me when Eve would wake up.
I want to go into the other room and kill the man who put her in this position.
It is quite late when the door opens again.
I don’t look up, not caring.
A basket is put in front of me.
“It’s been twenty-four hours and you haven’t eaten,” a familiar voice tells me.
I am out of my seat instantly, grabbing my father by the lapels of his suit, pushing him up against the wall, snarling, “You said he wasn’t a threat! You said you were keeping a fucking eye on him!”
Despair, grief, and fury are an odd cocktail of emotions, and I want to hurt this man before me.
My father doesn’t look perturbed in the least.
He does look tired, though. And angry.
Although the latter he hides well.
When he nudges me off, I find myself letting go, and I slump back in the chair, suddenly drained, knowing that even he, despite all the power he wields, couldn’t know everything.
“You said she was safe.”
Elijah walks up to where Eve lays unconscious, and in an uncharacteristic display of emotion, he smoothed back her hair.
“He slipped past the men I’d set on him. They became too relaxed when he never deviated from his daily routine.”
He turns back to face me, and his eyes are cold as ice. “They’ll be paying for that mistake for a long time.”
When I don’t make a move to touch the basket, he sighs and walks over to take out the contents: sandwiches, something to drink.
“Henrietta made your favorites. She’s distraught.”
I watch him from the corner of my eye as he occupies the chair next to mine. “You don’t seem distraught.”
“I don’t have that luxury.”
When he holds out a sandwich to me, I consider declining but then my stomach grumbles and I snatch it from him.
“Tell me everything you know about Thomas. I’m done with the lies and half-truths. What the hell happened with Eve in the past?”
Elijah steeples his fingers together, quiet for a few moments before saying, “I knew Eve worked for you. And I was aware that she left her job very abruptly.”
I scowl. “Spying on me?”
“Keeping an eye,” my father corrects. “When I ran into Eve at the hospital a few months later, it was by accident. I was visiting someone. It was hard to miss that she was pregnant. At the time, I didn’t know if it was yours or not, but the timeline seemed to match up when she mentioned she was five months pregnant. I couldn’t be sure, however. I could see, though, that the past few months had taken their toll on her. She had lost a tremendous amount of weight, not something that is healthy for expecting mothers.”
My lips thin at that.
“The bruises on her arms caught my attention. Fresh marks over old ones.” Elijah’s eyes grow dark. “Men who enjoy hurting women and children are the lowest of lifeforms. Your Eve was a nervous wreck, not unexpected of someone who was being abused so badly. She burst into tears when she spilled my coffee on me.”
My fist clenches at the idea of someone abusing Eve, raw, helpless anger making me want to into the next room and finish the job.
“I took her out for coffee instead. At that point, even if she hadn’t been pregnant with your child, I would have intervened. Afterward, I looked her up; it wasn’t hard to get access to her medical records. She had listed your name in her obstetrician’s file on her. However, she hadn’t listed an emergency contact, which I found odd. Further research revealed that she was staying with Thomas Richards, the family lawyer.”
I can’t keep still, restlessness and agitation on hearing how bad Eve had it making me want to get rid of this energy. I move over to her and run my fingers through her hair.
“Who is this man? Why did he…?”
“His parents died in a car crash. Eve’s parents took him in, as a ward. They didn’t adopt him. But from what I understand is that Thomas has a penchant for manipulation. And Eve’s parents are slightly old-fashioned.”
I turn to look at Elijah. “What does that have to do with this?”
“He fed them lies. Half-truths. Eve had an inheritance that she was to receive on her twenty-fifth birthday. He made sure she never got it. He gained control over it, justifying to her parents that she was growing unstable. They trusted him. More than they trusted her. So, when Eve was kicked out for getting pregnant and whatever else he convinced them of, he offered to take her in, and since she had nothing to her name, she accepted.”
An anguished sound escapes me. “She could have come to me!”
My father studies me. “Could she? She thought you had cast her away.”
I stare at the woman lying so still before me, and I have the urge to both shake her and shower her with so much love that she can’t take it. I know that there are parts of her that Eve is holding back from me but now I am starting to understand why.
“She was pregnant, scared, homeless; Thomas took advantage of that. He entered into a sexual relationship with her.”
“He raped her,” I snarl.
Elijah shakes his head. From what I understand, he took advantage of her grief. I don’t know the particulars of that relationship. But I do know that he beat her up, continuously. He wouldn’t let her leave the house and if she did, it was only for her weekly checkups.”
His fingers tap on the plastic arm of the chair he sits in. “He starved her too. Just enough that the doctor would be difficult to notice. And if the latter did, it was explained away by Eve.”
My hands tighten on the metal railings, my voice guttural. “Why is he still alive then?”
Elijah watches me, carefully. “Do you want me to take care of him?”
I hesitate, the word ‘yes’ stuck in my throat.
Something moves on my father’s face. “I confirmed everything before I made a move. I spent thirty minutes alone with the man in his house. He still bears the marks of my visit. I extracted everything that belonged to Eve in that time, and I made sure he would never bother her again.”
I pace along Eve’s bed, unable to stop myself from touching her, from assuring myself of her presence. “If you were so thorough, why did he go after her?”
If Elijah heard the sneer in my voice, he ignores it.
“Three days ago, Thomas Richards was fired from his law firm,” Elijah said slowly. “He was up for the position of a partner in the law firm he was working at. Four days ago, the Board of Directors of Reiner Law received a package from an anonymous source detailing Thomas’s actions against Eve Taylor, including the fact that he had threatened to murder her unborn child. There was a voice recording of Eve from the day the social worker had shown up.”
My jaw tightens on hearing the words that Eve screamed at the woman who came to rip our family apart. She refused to talk about it later, telling me she didn’t want to think about it; that our daughter was safe. And I was so desperate to
please her that I made a conscious effort to put it aside from now.
I should have found out everything there was to know about this. Even if she ended up hating me for it.
At least she wouldn’t be unconscious in a sterile hospital bed right now.
“Hospital reports, the release of Eve’s inheritance at a much later date than when it should have been, damning information that no one should have been able to get their hands on; all those things were in that package. It didn’t take the board more than a day to come to the decision to let him go.”
“A good Samaritan?” I ask darkly.
Elijah studies his shoes thoughtfully before meeting my gaze. “Or someone who had gained an understanding of Thomas Richard’s psyche and decided to wind him up and watch him go after Eve.”
I give my father a disbelieving look. “You still don’t think it’s him who’s been doing all this?”
“No, I don’t,” he says, calmly. “Too many things are not adding up. The blonde woman, the motivation.”
“He had motivation—”
“Thomas Richards had no motivation to go after Eve. He knew he was being watched. I sent him a reminder every month of that fact. He wouldn’t have gone after Eve unless he had stood to lose everything and more. He had been manipulated into this. Somebody wanted to see him go after Eve and hurt her.”
“You’re saying there’s still someone out there?” I whisper hoarsely.
Elijah stands up and faces me. “You’ve become too soft. In your affection for Eve, you’ve become too lax. You should have been able to see this. I’ve always told you to never let your emotions cloud your judgment. You should have taken care of Thomas the minute you heard about him. You should have looked into Eve’s past if it meant protecting her.”
“I wanted her to trust me!” I bark, his harsh words hitting me below the belt.
“And look where that got you.” Elijah narrows his eyes. “Eve knows the kind of man you are. You know the kind of man you are. If you can’t even protect your own family, what use are you?”
I flinch, and my father continues, ruthlessly. “I have provided you resources, training. I can do everything but do what you’re supposed to do. I kept your woman and your child safe for you, all these years. A few months in your presence and so much damage has been done to them.”
