Color rises to Lydia’s cheeks and if my muscles didn’t feel like pudding, I would’ve jumped to my feet and demanded answers. I wave a hand instead. “Just imagine me jumping up and down and doing the whole girly squeal thing. Now spill.”
Lydia’s hands start to fidget and she tips back on her heels a little.
“Not much to tell,” she hedges. “We’ve just been texting a lot all week. We may have gotten together last night for a coffee that turned into dinner that turned into late-night drinks at her place…” She trails off and averts her eyes. “That turned into breakfast this morning.”
“Oh my God!” I drag my tired ass to my feet and hug her. When I pull away, she’s smiling even though she still looks embarrassed as hell. “So it’s good?” I search her eyes. “You guys were, you know,” I cajole, “compatible?”
“God,” she pushes me back. “Don’t ask me things like that!”
It’s my turn to laugh. “I forget how much of a prude you are.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “I’m not a prude about doing the things in the moment. Just, you know,” she waves a hand, “I don’t want to go through a play-by-play afterward.” She raises her chin. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
I bust out laughing at that. She glares.
“I thought you were too tired to stand up?”
I groan. “Don’t remind me.” I let out a dramatic sigh. “Unfortunately, I do have to drag this tired ass to work now. What’s your excuse? Why the hell are you here so early? Especially if you got to wake up in Red’s bed?”
Lydia glances down at her watch. She’s quaint like that. She still wears an actual honest-to-goodness watch instead of just her phone like the rest of us. She uses it for other things like keeping track of her heartbeat and timing distance when she jogs and things, but still.
“I’m teaching a spin class in ten minutes. Speaking of, I better go and get ready.”
“They all abandon me!” I make an exaggerated smooching noise as I kiss my palm and then pat her cheek roughly with it. “All right, hon. See ya later.”
She squirms away from me and makes a face. Now that I think about it, she and Shannon are a lot alike. They’ve only spent a little bit of time together, but I should fix that soon. I should call for another girls’ night. You know… erm, one that’s actually about the girls instead of hooking up.
“Remind me again why I’m friends with such a freak?” Lydia asks.
My grin only widens. “You know you love me!” I call after her as she heads for the locker room door.
“Yeah, yeah. Text you later,” she calls over her shoulder as she goes.
As soon as she’s gone, I start feeling the workout all over again. I think it was those box-jumps that really killed me. Ugh, I need a nap, but instead I have to go to work. No fair.
A quick shower helps loosen up my muscles, but I only feel more like laying down once I’m done. I drag my sorry ass to my locker, turn the combo lock and pull out my gym bag. The locker room is plenty active even though it’s so early. Lots of other people have the same idea as me—get in a workout before they start their days. I strip down without feeling too self-conscious since there are half-naked women all around me.
My work clothes hang crisply from the bar at the top of my locker. I quickly dress in the modest blouse and loose skirt that hits below my knees. No more sex kitten tight pencil skirts for me.
I’m just putting up my sweaty gym clothes in the breathable laundry pouch on the side of my bag when I hear the telltale alert tone from my phone that means I just got a text message.
I grab my purse and scramble around inside for my phone. At last my fingers grab onto the small, smooth flat surface and I pull it out. I touch the screen to wake it up and am surprised to see that I have two unread texts.
Usually the only one who texts me is Lydia and obviously, I just saw her heading to class. What if Jackson’s self-discipline has finally broken down and the texts are from him?
I click a little too eagerly on the text icon only to see the most recent is from Bonnie asking if I can pick her up some coffee on my way in this morning. She knows I like to treat myself to a mocha from the coffee shop on the corner on days I go to the gym before heading into work.
Stupid, stupid to think Jackson would text and get all excited about it. What the hell is wrong with me that I’m obsessing so much about a boy? I try to shake it off.
My thumbs go to my phone.
ME TO BONNIE: Sad u know my workout schedule just b/c it means good coffee for u.
BONNIE: is that a yes? *insert praying hands*
I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling.
ME TO BONNIE: Of course. I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress.
BONNIE: :)
I shake my head again as I look to the first text that initially came in before hers. I ignore the second stab of disappointment when I see it’s from an unknown number, not Jackson. It has a video attachment. What the hell? It must be a wrong number. Or some kind of spam.
But in the little window I see the start of the message.
UNKNOWN: We need to meet, Calliope.
My eyebrows furrow. Well, clicking just on the message itself without opening the attachment shouldn’t introduce any viruses to my phone. It seems like it could be from someone I know—though certainly plenty of phishing scams can find people’s first names, so that doesn’t always mean anything. I won’t click the attachment if it’s spam after all. I touch the screen to open the message.
And then almost drop the phone.
UNKNOWN: We need to meet. You pick the time & location. Else this video goes viral. – G
The first frame of the video shows beneath the message. It’s of me on my knees in the Gentry Tech conference room table. Conference Room B. My shirt is open and pulled down to my waist. Men are seated all around the table watching the show.
Me, on display.
My hands shake and my knees buckle. I sink to the ground in front of my locker. G. Gentry. My former boss and the organizer of and participant in my gang rape. He sent this.
Blindly, I reach for my purse. My hand goes inside and I dig around. I’m hardly breathing as I drag out my headphones. My hands tremble so hard I can barely get the cord in the small jack at the top of my phone.
It takes about four tries before it finally goes in. I bring one of the earbuds up to my ears and jab numbly at the play button with my other hand.
“Tell us, whore, how much you want it.” Gentry’s voice. Only the bottom half of him is in the video’s range of vision.
But me. All of me. There. Completely exposed. The worst day of my life.
On screen, Gentry’s hand reaches around and grabs my ass.
But it’s the words that next come out that have me covering my face in horror.
“I want it,” says the girl on-screen even as she ducks her head in shame.
“What was that?” Gentry asks.
She repeats it louder, “I want it.”
No. No no no no no no no no no no—
“And what do you want, whore?”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Are you hungry for my cock?”
“Yes.”
NO!
“Ah ah ah,” he chides, waving a finger in the air. “I want to hear you say it. Are you hungry for my cock?”
There’s a long silence and I want to beg the girl in the video to get off that damn table and run for the door. Run. Run! Maybe she wouldn’t have made it, but at least she would have fucking tried.
Instead, she replies in a stilted, monotone voice. “I’m hungry for your cock.”
The video cuts and disgusting manly grunts and the slapping of flesh fills my earbuds. Of course Gentry edited out the part where I said no, where I said stop.
I yank it away from my ear and then run for the toilets. I barely make it there in time before emptying the contents of my stomach. Just when I think I’m done, I’m reliving it again in my memories. All of them viol
ating me. One after another, barely waiting for the last to finish before the next one grabs me.
I throw up again even though there’s nothing left in my stomach except acid. It burns its way up my throat. My eyes and nose run. I flush the toilet and then slump back against the stall when I’m finished.
I grab some toilet paper and wipe at my mouth and nose.
My phone vibrates in my hand and I jolt at the feel of it. I drop the vile thing to the ground. I’m shocked I didn’t drop it back by my locker. I— I can’t—
My mind blanks for a long minute.
Just…
Nothing.
“You okay in there?”
I blink hard and look up at a middle-aged woman peeking in the stall. It’s not like I locked the door behind me. I was just aiming for the toilet.
My whole body is still shaking and I look down at myself. Thankfully there’s no vomit on me. I had good aim at least. But I’m hiding hunched in on myself on the floor of the bathroom stall in the women’s locker room.
“Are you sick?” the kindly woman asks. She’s lean and looks to be in her mid-40s with short cropped brown hair that’s going gray. She looks down to the phone near my hand. “Is there someone I can call to help you home?”
My hand shoots to the phone and I grab it before she can touch it. I click the button for the home screen without looking at it. “No,” I bark out too sharply. “I’m fine.”
She looks a little taken aback, but her eyes are still soft. She reaches a hand down to help me up. Right. She’s just trying to help. I take her hand and attempt a smile. It probably comes out like a grimace.
She walks with me back to my locker. I continue trying to assure her that I’m fine and in a strange way, it helps. Putting on a facade for her helps me pull myself back together. Enough so that when I finally convince her I’m okay, I have the strength to look at the new message that came through on my phone.
God, please just let it be from Bonnie asking for something other than her normal caramel macchiato.
It’s not from Bonnie.
It’s another message from my rapist.
GENTRY: Who is going to give custody of a child back to a woman who begs for cock and then fucks a room full of men? Message me back to meet or this goes viral.
My legs threaten to give out all over again.
Fucking bastard. He already stole my soul. Now he thinks he can take everything else? What the fuck does he even want from me?
I want to ignore the message. I swore that man would never have any power over me ever again.
But he has this video. Goddamn him. I think about what my sister said about hell and devils earlier. She has no idea. I’ve met the devil in person and his name is Bryce Gentry.
There’s no other choice.
Then I shake my head. No. I’ve fallen into Gentry’s traps by that logic too many times in the past. How many stupid decisions did I make because I convinced myself there was no other choice? I won’t do it again. I refuse. I fucking refuse.
At the same time, I need to know what it is my enemy wants. It won’t do to be blind where he’s concerned. And so, although it makes me want to go throw up again, I text Gentry back.
* * *
Three hours later, I have on the outfit that’s the closest thing I own to armor—a black turtleneck, some camo skinny jeans and my steel toed boots—and I go to meet my rapist. I called in sick to work earlier. Which in all fairness wasn’t even a lie.
I went straight home after the gym and threw up again. Luckily, today was one of the rare occasions Shannon had a face-to-face meeting with a client who was in town. I have no idea how I would have answered her questions about why I looked so shell-shocked and pale.
Since getting the message, I’ve been trying to physically and mentally prep myself for this meeting. It had to be today. I couldn’t handle putting it off and being tortured knowing it was coming. I’m a rip-off-the-Band-Aid kind of girl.
So I armored up and here I am, walking into a busy open plaza at noon on a Thursday. Oh and of course I accessorized. There’s a knife strapped on the inside of my boot. This little lady rarely leaves home without one.
In addition to the self-defense classes I’ve taken with Lydia, I signed up for a knife training course that a hiking and survivalist group was offering. It didn’t take much batting of my eyelashes to get the instructor to show me how to defend myself with the knife along with the survivalist stuff—I played the little woman all alone in the big city card.
As I walk through the plaza and take a seat by the central fountain, I assure myself I’m safe. Perfectly safe. Even if I didn’t have the double-bladed knife in my boot, there are tons of people milling around. Gentry can’t do anything to me here. All I have to do is scream.
My vocal cords almost vibrate in memory of all the times I’ve shouted NO! in Lydia’s self-defense classes. I might have officially graduated, but I still stop by from time to time to help out and brush up on my own skills.
I’m ready for this. I can see the fuckhead face-to-face without pissing myself. Today is nothing like that June afternoon. Hell, I’m nothing like that pathetic woman I glimpsed on the video this morning.
And Bryce Gentry can roast in hell if he thinks he’s going to somehow control me with it.
But then, unbidden, I hear their grunts in my mind. I remember the bruising grip of Gentry holding me down. I remember how painful it was each time another man—
“Miss Cruise, how delightful to see you again.”
That voice. My eyes snap up and there the bastard is. That charming, easy-going grin. He’s wearing his expensive gray suit, the one with the slight silvery sheen to it.
He sits down beside me. Too close. I can smell his cologne. Too heavy. Too much.
Oh God, the smell. It takes me back there. I’m back there, choking. Choking on what he’s shoving in my mouth. I said no. I said red. I said stop.
But he shoved himself in my mouth and the other man, he—
I can’t breathe. I can’t—
“Miss Cruise, is something wrong?” Gentry sounds so genuinely concerned. How can he do that? He’s a monster but he hides it so well. It’s terrifying. That he can just walk among the rest of us and it’s impossible to see before it’s too late.
I scoot away from him on the bench to put as much distance between us as possible. I’m probably not doing a good job of hiding the horror on my face. I wouldn’t give a shit, except I imagine he’s enjoying it.
“You’re a sociopath,” I finally whisper.
He tilts his head to one side as if contemplating my statement. “I don’t know about that. I just have certain…” He strums his fingers on his knees, “appetites. And particular goals. Which you are going to help me obtain.”
I’m already shaking my head no. “You can go fuck yourself.”
His hand slips out and grabs my forearm. “I’d be careful what came out of that mouth if I were you.” His voice is cold. He’s dropped the Mr. Congeniality act. “Or did you forget I hold your son’s future in my hands. I can ruin you with the click of a button.”
I jerk my arm out of his grasp even though it takes so much force I know it’s going to leave a bruise. “And what exactly do you think I’m going to do for you?” I need to get this information and then get the fuck out of here.
“You’re going to get me the navigation algorithms to Jackson Vale’s newest drone prototype.”
For a second I’m speechless. As in, I genuinely can’t come up with any words. Soon enough though, I find my voice again. “You want me to commit corporate espionage for you?” I choke out. “No way.” I move to stand.
“I’m hungry for your cock.”
I looked down in fury to see he’s got his phone out and has pushed play on the despicable video. I smack it out of his hands and the phone clatters to the ground.
Gentry laughs. “Oh I’ve got plenty more copies where that came from.”
“Wait a minute,” I cut him
off. Fury is warring with rationality right now, but I can still manage a bit of coherent thought. “Why is it so important to get Jackson’s drone anyway? You’ve already got your own under contract with the DoD. Unless…” I look back up at the man I despise and put two and two together. “Oh my God. Do you not have a working prototype?”
The vein in Gentry’s forehead jumps and I know I’ve guessed right.
“But how…?” I’m speechless for a moment, my brain spinning a mile a minute. “The DoD doesn’t just give out defense contracts without a demonstrated working model.” I feel my eyes open even wider. “Unless you blackmailed or bribed someone there just like you’re doing here.”
Another vein jump. He did. Holy shit, he did. He has a who-knows-how-many-million-dollar deal on the line with the federal government and no product to show for it. Did he initially think he could develop it in time or did he plan on stealing it all along?
“Holy shit,” I whisper, sitting back.
Gentry’s ice-cold eyes fall on me. “Like I said, I hit send and that video goes viral. With copies specifically emailed directly to your ex, his lawyer, and the judge presiding over your case. Do you really think the judge is going to give precious Charlie to a mommy who participates so enthusiastically in gang bangs? After watching that, it’s not a stretch to argue you were involved in prostitution and—”
I punch him.
It’s not nearly as satisfying as I would’ve liked, but it does feel good. I used good form like Lydia taught me when making my fist so I’m only wincing a little as I shake out my hand. Gentry cries out like a little girl and grabs at his nose, bending over on the bench.
When he pulls his hand away, it’s covered in blood. “You broke my nose, you cunt!”
He moves like he’s going to grab for me but I’m up and off the bench, ready to scream my head off.
The next second, a loud chuckle comes from Gentry. He’s gotten control of himself and settled his civilized mask firmly back in place. The brief glimpse of the real Gentry is buried once again.
Break So Soft: Break So Soft Duet Page 14
