Dreams dragged me down. Dreams of darkness and torment.
A single green olive in a martini glass appeared in the blackness, crystal liquid sloshing with rainbows. A cocktail stick speared the olive.
It screamed.
“Wait...” My fingers grew claws as I fought back to the surface. “I need to know something.” A question danced out of reach, frolicking with sheep, begging to be counted. There was something about Olive that was important. Something about Olive that I didn’t understand.
Olive...
“Hush.” His lips pressed against my temple. “Don’t worry. Everything will be over soon.”
Tallup...
A blackboard with chalk.
A teacher with evil eyes.
Olive and Tallup.
A little girl in front of class.
A child who looked like our teacher.
His daughter!
“No!” I shot upright, blinking slow, my mind a black cloak of exhaustion. “Olive...she-she’s your daughter.”
Gil went statue stiff beside me, understanding the rabbit I chased. “O...don’t. Please don’t ask things I can’t answer.”
“Tallup raped you.”
He trembled. “Go to sleep now, I beg you.”
“Please tell me...” I forced my bowling ball of a head up, searching for his eyes. I met them. I held them. I knew. “Olive—”
“Don’t.” Gil’s entire face cracked and crumpled. The lines around his eyes deepened. The crags in his forehead shadowed. He looked as if I’d killed him just by guessing the biggest secret he’d been hiding. The only secret that mattered. “Don’t.”
Our gazes tangled.
His denial blazed against my unspoken conclusion but the truth burned brighter.
Sleep tried to claim me again. “Olive...she’s hers.”
Gil shuddered as if he begged for any other solution than my life as currency. Any way to stop me from figuring out what he’d kept hidden. His head hung. His breath caught. He was trapped. “Olive is hers. But she’s mine too. I named her...for you.”
Tears beyond my control rained heavy and hard down my cheeks. I was allowed to hate him. I was meant to curse his very existence. I had no trust where he was concerned. No obligation in any form.
Yet, I cried for him and for me.
I cried for both of us because it wasn’t fake breakups, molesting teachers, or blackmailing murderers who’d broken us.
It’d been the lies.
The tricks.
The shadows that’d always surrounded Gilbert Clark and the ones he retreated to rather than staying in the light with me.
No matter what happened.
No matter if I died tonight, he died, we all died, this had died.
Us.
There is no more us.
His arms wrapped me in a cage, his love imprisoning me.
I tried to stop crying. To put aside my grief and wake up.
But slowly, stealthily, finality crept over me.
My eyelids no longer opened.
My brain no longer operated.
My head lay on Gil’s shoulder, needing support.
He clutched me closer as the final dregs of energy siphoned out of me. He stroked my hair and kissed my ear as I gave in to the cloud of unconsciousness. “Hopefully, by the time you wake up...this will all be over. You’ll be free. You’ll never have to see me again.” He angled my chin, his lips claiming mine.
I tried to pull back, to stop the kiss, to study his godforsaken eyes, but he caged me closer. He pulled heat and hunger from deep within, sending me into lullabies with his taste on my lips and his grief on my tongue. “I’m so sorry, O. So sorry for ever thinking I could make you happy. You deserve so much more. I love you. I love you with every fucking part of me, but I can’t stop this. At least sleep is a gift I can give you. The only thing I can give you.”
Voices were far away and not of my dream world as he lowered me down until I lay on the stage. My eyelids fluttered as he turned on the air compressor and the first lick of unwanted paint landed upon my skin.
But I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t fight.
Gil was an artist.
Art was his drug.
The creation of beauty helped him cope in the depths of his despair. He needed art to function, to survive.
And with his talent, he stole my function.
Brush by brush, he destroyed me.
Colour by colour, he sentenced me to die.
He snuffed out my survival.
He’d poisoned me so I’d sleep.
So I wouldn’t be awake when my purpose as his masterpiece was over.
Chapter Three
______________________________
Gil
-The Past-
“SO....”
I looked up from my untouched beer. My eyes met Justin Miller’s curious ones, and I wondered all over again what the fuck I was doing in a bar with him two weeks after the worst thing in my life had happened.
Olive had been taken from me.
Taken by someone I trusted.
I’d paid the first ransom.
The second had arrived this morning.
I’d been in my head, plotting and scheming, doing my best to figure out how to snatch Olive back when I’d bumped into my past on the street.
“So...” I gritted my teeth, tipping the pint to my lips and sipping wet froth.
Gross.
“This is random, huh?” Justin chuckled, glancing around the darkened pub that’d survived the days of witch trials, Saxon sieges, and sooty open fireplaces. The low ceilings made the dingy booths and low beams cocoon us like a cavern, while the stained glass windows refused to let twilight perk up the place.
The entire establishment matched my mood. My heart. My aching, useless soul.
I sipped again—despite my hatred of liquor—struggling to hold small talk when all I could think about was my daughter in the hands of my goddamn uncle. Why did I not see it coming? Why didn’t I do something before it was too fucking late?
Goddammit, Olive.
My chest spasmed as if a grenade had exploded and shrapnel dug into my insides, poisoning me, killing me.
How could I let this happen?
Sweet little Olive who’d I’d named after Olin. Adorable little Olive who’d named herself thanks to a children’s book I’d found on the bus in the first few weeks of parenthood. A dog-eared, well-loved edition of Popeye The Sailor Man.
I’d flicked through the pages, my heart aching at the images of Popeye in love with a feisty, perfect woman named Olive Oyl.
All he cared about was making her his.
Just like I’d done with O.
I’d read the tattered book to my nameless daughter as she’d cooed on my lap. She’d wriggled and blown bubbles each time I said Olive Oyl.
By the time the story was over, I knew what her name was.
Justin cleared his throat, dragging me back to the present. “So...are you a house painter or an artist...or something else?”
I scowled at my colour-stained hands. The clues of my trade. The signs of my failure. “Uh-huh.”
“What do you paint? Houses? Canvases?”
“Doesn’t matter.” I shrugged, my eyes trailing to the door and the street beyond. I had twenty-four hours to come up with the second payment. I had the cash. I had more than enough. Ever since I hit success with body painting, I’d squirrelled away every penny to pave a golden path for whatever Olive wanted to do when she was older.
Those funds had been for her college, travel, or passion dreams. Not to pay a fucking bastard not to kill her.
My mind once again lashed tight to my daughter. I couldn’t do much else these days apart from think about her, worry about her, stare at my goddamn ceiling at night and hate myself for failing her.
“Not very talkative, are you?” Justin chuckled, taking another sip. “How about we start with easy questions?”
I resented him fo
r dragging me back. I hated this. I refused to live in this world where Olive wasn’t with me. I’d rather live in my memories where she was safe and happy.
My memories also held moments of another girl I’d loved.
O.
I growled under my breath.
Two loves of my life.
Both stolen.
“What did you get up to after school?” Justin asked, successfully breaking me from my past.
I forced myself to sit there, to give a generic answer of ex-schoolmates. “Nothing of interest.”
How could I tell him that I’d run from school and never graduated? That the weeks following my disappearance with a baby hadn’t been easy. That I’d managed to find a small studio apartment by paying cash and three months’ rent in advance—almost all my father’s ill-gotten money gone, just like that.
I spent the next week educating myself on how to feed, burb, clean, and soothe a newborn.
I kept her alive by some crazy miracle.
“Well, I went on to get my master’s in accounting. Loved math enough to make it my career.”
I grimaced. “Good for you.” I didn’t bother pretending to be interested in my beer. Alcohol repulsed me. The taste and smell were utterly repugnant after the beatings Dad gave me thanks to the violence found in a bottle.
“So...I’m going to say you’re an artist not a decorator. That fair to assume?”
“Assume away.”
“Okay then...how did you start making money with your art?”
I doubted the truth would be a good answer. To admit that while Olive slept, I painted. That I created a few original pieces, while others I copied previous masters, doing my best to have something worthwhile to sell on street corners for coins. Olive had rested in the satchel I’d stolen, and I’d swallowed my morals as I used her as a tool to open the wallets of dog walkers and women with their own children.
That was how I began.
But not how I became rich.
“Lucky break.”
“Yeah, I’d say.” Justin grinned. “You’re living the dream that most never get to achieve.”
I coughed on a morbid laugh. I stifled the urge to fucking cry. “Yep, living the dream. That’s me.”
The worst kind of nightmare.
Olive...I’ll figure this out.
Somehow.
My daughter had eclipsed everything in my life.
If something ever happened to her...
I’d die.
Plain and simple.
Her place in my life was absolute. She’d been the only reason I’d survived after walking away from O. If I didn’t have her, I would’ve slipped so deep and dark into the shadows, I wouldn’t have cared about anything.
She was the reason I was still functional as a human being.
Take her away for much longer and...I don’t know what I’ll become.
“When you left school suddenly, I figured you’d been given an opportunity you couldn’t refuse.” Justin clinked his beer glass to mine on the bar. “Scored a deal before even graduating, huh?”
My hands clung to my pint glass, squeezing to the point of pain.
Fuck, what am I doing?
I shouldn’t be here.
I should be at my warehouse painting another commission to keep idle hands busy and broken minds out of trouble.
Then why did you say yes to a beer?
Justin must’ve heard my thoughts as he asked, “Look, mate, if you don’t want to catch up, then why are we here?”
I stiffened.
O.
O and Justin.
I need to know.
A crest of history and heartbreak crashed over me, and honesty that I could no longer hide spilled out in a snarl. “How’s Olin, Miller?”
His eyes widened, eyebrows shot up as he shifted uncomfortably on the barstool. I held his stare, not giving him any reprieve.
That was the reason I’d said yes to catching up for old time’s sake.
She was the reason.
The only fucking reason.
I’d lost Olive just like I’d lost O.
The pain of that was brutal...two bleeding wounds in one.
Turned out, I enjoyed torturing myself with unfixable things.
“Olin and I...” It was his turn to swill a mouthful of beer. He was older with weathered lines and age that no longer graced us with teenage youth, but his voice stayed genuine and truthful. “We broke up pretty much the week you vanished from school.”
I froze.
Questions roared for answers. I had no right to ask. She wasn’t mine. But all this time, I’d soothed my agony by convincing myself O was with a guy who would protect and love her—even if it wasn’t me. All the days and nights that I gave my all being a father to a kid who would never have the upbringing I did, I promised myself that Olin was better off without me.
That she was happy...with Justin.
“What happened?” I swallowed hard, fighting to get my voice into some semblance of calm.
Justin rounded his shoulders. “Well, eh, I knew she still had feelings for you. I mean...that was what drew me to her. To help her get over you.”
“Gee, you’re a real saint, Miller. A goddamn hero.”
He held up a hand. “Look, you knew what O was like. She was so sweet to everyone. So kind and helpful. She helped me once when I locked my keys, wallet, phone—all my shit basically—in my car. Everyone else had gone home, and I was stuck like an idiot. She called a locksmith and waited with me until he’d popped the lock. I offered to drive her home but she said you’d be waiting for her. That you’d make sure she was safe.” He whistled under his breath. “Even then, I knew she was head over heels for you. And she deserved to be happy. Not that I understood it. The sweetest girl in school with the meanest boy?” He drank again, rolling his eyes. “Didn’t get that at all. But we were friends, and I was there for her when you made her cry.” His gaze flashed bright blue. “I hated you for that by the way. Thought you were a right git.”
I yanked my hands off the bar, curling them into fists between my legs. “I broke her heart, but you took advantage of her. You jumped straight into her bed.”
True anger highlighted his normally rational face. “Fuck you, Clark. It wasn’t like that. I offered to be her friend, that’s all. To be there for her, seeing as you refused to be.”
My eyes narrowed. “Don’t give me that bullshit. I caught you two kissing. I saw your goddamn hand up her top.”
His gaze filled with calculation, doing math on our past and forming conclusions he shouldn’t have. “You sound as if you’re not over her.”
“It was years ago.” I looked away, wishing everything was different. Wishing O was mine, and Olive was safe, and I’d never made such a fucking mess of everything.
Justin muttered, “Yeah, but time doesn’t matter when hearts are involved.”
My eyes flickered to the exit again, weighing up the options of running. Olin wasn’t with him. He couldn’t provide me with any comfort knowing she was happy or safe. She was out there. Alone. Somewhere.
My back tensed. “Why did you break up? If you were such good friends, what went wrong?” My voice had way too much bite, but Justin ignored my temper, being gracious with his reply.
“She was hurting. I’m not going to deny that we kissed a few times or that I asked her out for real. I seem to like damsels in distress. It makes me feel good to help them.” He shrugged. “Still does if I’m honest. I’m with a girl right now, Colleen, who I found crying at a bus stop after her twat of an ex broke up with her at the movies and drove off with her handbag. I took her home, gave her a shoulder to cry on, and asked her out the next day. I dunno how it happens. I see someone hurting, and I have to help.”
“You get off on helping?”
He scowled. “It’s not sexual. It just...makes me feel like I have purpose. Like life isn’t all about me.”
I had no reply to that. How could I respond to someone who I’
d nursed a teenage hatred for? I couldn’t hate him because of how genuine he was. I couldn’t despise him for taking O away from me when I’d been the one who pushed her into his arms. They were similar. They were both good people. And I was the bad guy all over again.
I wanted to punch him in the jaw. “O was never a damsel in distress, you idiot. If you think that, then you didn’t know her at all.”
Justin blinked. “Yeah, you’re right.” He took another swig, his beer rapidly vanishing. “After we broke up, O threw herself into dance. Became obsessed with it. You know her parents weren’t really in her life, and the moment school finished, she left and joined a troupe in London. I didn’t see her again.”
London?
Had our paths crossed when I’d lived there with my infant daughter? Had we walked the same streets and not even known it? Had I brushed past her and not realised my soul-mate had been right there?
Fuck.
The gnawing, clawing pain of missing Olive tangled with the hot poker of loss from O. I grabbed my untouched beer and shot it down my throat. Alcohol wasn’t welcome in my world. But my world had become unbearable.
The nights were the hardest while I lay unable to sleep in Olive’s bed, smelling her favourite strawberry body wash, hugging a pair of her small pyjamas, wondering if she’d been fed and hugged, showered and tucked into bed.
I needed something to numb that pain. To slam a door on the horrors and grant silence from the nightmares.
Maybe beer could grant that peace.
Maybe that was why alcoholics abandoned their life for the numbing prostration that liquor provided.
I struggled for something to say. Justin kept looking at me far too intently—almost as if I was his next victim in his ‘gotta help someone in need’ crusade.
“Well, I’m glad she followed her dreams.” I pushed away my empty glass, feeling sick to my stomach. I had ransoms to pay. Daughters to save. Ex-girlfriends to forget.
I couldn’t fucking afford to drink.
Justin nodded slowly. “How about you, Clark? Everything okay with you? You don’t look so good.”
I couldn’t hold back the cold snort. “Me?” Fuck, what a loaded question. My life was completely out of bounds. No one must know that I’d failed my daughter. The child who was born of rape and threats.
The Living Canvas Page 4
