by Sabre Rose
Sebastian talks to his father, but I’m unaware of what they discuss as I remain with my eyes fixed on Ryker. His gaze travels over my naked body held against Sebastian’s bare chest. He swallows as he takes in the red welts covering my backside. I want to reach for him. I want to tear myself from Sebastian’s arms and fall into his. The lines over his forehead deepen and he takes a step forward before closing his eyes and willing himself to stop. When he opens them, they are filled with so much unspoken emotion, my tears start again, slipping over my cheeks and falling to my chest. Ryker follows them as his hands clench into fists at his side. And then Sebastian carries me inside and Ryker is gone.
The loss of him is more painful than anything that Sebastian has done. As soon as Sebastian lowers me to the bed, I close my eyes and fall into a fitful sleep filled with the dramatic chords of The Phantom of the Opera and haunted by both Sebastian’s and Ryker’s gaze as I stand naked on a stage, illuminated by a single spotlight.
“Wake up.”
Someone shakes me. I feel as though I’ve only just shut my eyes but someone’s jerking me back awake, shaking my shoulder and whispering in my ear.
“Mia, wake up. It’s me, Daisy.”
I look up through bleary eyes to make out her smile hovering above me. But there’s a sadness to it this time. Almost as though it’s lopsided.
“It’s time to get ready for your performance.”
I sit up, the memory of the last few days washing over me. Lifting my hand to my throat, I clear it, testing its strength. “When?” I ask hoarsely.
Daisy’s eyes widen. “Your voice.”
“It’s just a little tender,” I croak out, unsurprised at the lack of sound coming from my throat. It’s what happens when you are made to sing for hours on end with few breaks.
She leaves my line of vision and knocks on the door. Cameron appears a few moments later. Daisy drags him over to my side, and I grab the blanket, pulling it over my nakedness. He catches a glimpse of my breasts and throws a wink my way, chuckling when I scowl back at him.
“We need a lemon and honey drink and a large bowl of hot water with some eucalyptus and a towel.”
“And where do you expect me to find all that?” Cameron looks down at Daisy, the top of her head only reaching his chest.
“In the kitchen? I don’t know. Go ask someone. She needs something to soothe her throat before she’s supposed to sing. She can barely speak.” She pushes her hands into his chest, attempting to shove him toward the door but he merely laughs at her efforts.
“Okay, okay.” Cameron lifts his hands and takes a step back. “I’ll go see what I can find.” Then he stops midway to the door and scratches his head. “I can’t leave, I’m supposed to guard you.”
Daisy rolls her eyes. “Well call someone else then. I’ve seen Ryker floating around the odd time with Senior, so maybe you could ask him.” Bending down to fluff with the covers of my bed, she casts a sideways glance at him. “Do you know where he went?”
“Who?” Cameron pulls out his phone from his pocket. “Ryker?”
“Yes, Ryker, you idiot. Who else would I be talking about? He vanished for weeks and then he suddenly appears again without a word and takes Iris away. We were just wondering where he went.”
“I don’t think it’s your job to wonder.”
“He took Iris away?” I interrupt their exchange.
Daisy nods, her bottom lip trembling, but then she straightens and places her hands on her hips, pulling her gaze away from me and back to Cameron. “And what exactly do you think my job is?” She walks over to my closet and pulls out my dressing gown, tossing it in my direction.
“Well,” a wicked smile crosses Cameron’s face, “from what I’ve seen,” he steps a little closer to her and she struggles to keep her face from breaking into a grin, “your job entails a little less of this.” He reaches out and flounces the edge of her skirt between his fingers. “And a little more of this.” He brushes his finger over the swell of her breast.
Feigning shock, she slaps him playfully. “Seb would have your hand chopped off if he knew you had touched me.”
Cameron leans close, whispering in her ear. “That’s what makes it so fun.”
She laughs and pushes him away before catching my eye and adjusting her expression into something more serious and nodding toward the mirror. “Take a seat and I’ll start with your makeup. Junior said he wants you to look glorious so glorious you shall look.”
Cameron shifts away as he speaks into the phone, opening the door and slipping back to his stationed position outside.
“And you warned me to be careful,” I say, my voice barely more than a whisper as I catch her eye in the reflection of the mirror.
She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.”
“It’s just a little harmless fun.”
“But it won’t be if Senior finds out.”
Daisy’s forehead presses into a frown as she dips her fingers into a thick cream. “You won’t tell, will you?”
I shake my head. “Never.”
“Because we haven’t done anything. It’s just a little flirting here and there, you know? Nothing meant by it. It’s just nice to, you know, nice to feel…”
“Normal?” I offer when she falls silent.
She shrugs and begins to plaster the cream over my face.
ryker
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
RYKER
I stand pressed against the wall until Junior drags her out of sight, and then, not wanting to waste any more time, I creep behind them, needing to see where he takes her. She stumbles to keep up with him and he storms down passageways, muttering obscenities under his breath and I follow like the pathetic excuse for a man that I am, unable to stop him. When the door opens to her room, he tosses her inside like a rag-doll and stalks in after her, slamming the door shut behind them.
I walk up quietly and press my ear to the wood. Mia’s sobbing and pleading with him. I can’t make out her words, but the panicked tone to her voice makes me want to tear the door off its hinges, barge into the room and beat the shit out of him like I did to Marcel. But instead, I stand helplessly listening to her tears as the sound of his belt slamming against her skin ripples through the door.
“Is that you Ryker?” Katriane’s voice floats down the hallway and I take a deep breath, attempting to push down the violence of emotions that threatens to overwhelm me. I need to get to her before she comes and hears the sounds that I am hearing and realizes how they are affecting me.
When Katriane Atterton walks, it’s like the world moves around her instead of the other way around. There’s a grace to her, a lightness to her movements as though she is carried by an invisible cloud. I force myself to walk toward her, though I obviously don’t hide the emotions from my expression as well as I hoped.
“Ryker, my dear.” She cups my face and the feel of her skin burns. “Are you okay? You’re positively seething, my dear. Did someone do something to upset you, hmm?” Her nails scratch through my beard and she tilts her head to see what’s behind me. “Don’t tell me you’ve been listening at the door.” Her eyes narrow. “You’re not obsessed with the whore too, are you, hmm?”
“With Junior’s little thing?” I laugh, then move toward her quickly, startling her so she takes a step back. Slamming my hand into the wall, I step close, barricading her in as her chest rises and falls and her eyes gleam with anticipation.
“No,” I lie. “I just happened to be walking by when the, ah…” I pause and lick my lips, forcing my eyes to flit down to her mouth. “When the sounds coming from that room caught my attention.”
Pulling herself away from the wall, she presses her body against mine, sliding both hands up my chest. It’s strange to see her without a glass of wine.
“Caught your attention, you say? So you weren’t spying on my son, hmm?” Her tongue darts out to lick her lower lip and her fing
ers curl into my chest.
“I didn’t even know it was the girl’s room.”
“But surely you recognized her cries? You were the one to train her, were you not?”
I swallow and Katriane’s gaze narrows on the motion of my Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
“Yes,” I say hoarsely as her fingers start to toy with the buttons of my shirt, releasing each one slowly until she must pull my shirt out of my jeans to open the rest.
“And you weren’t tempted?” Her hands splay over my chest as her mouth moves close and her tongue leaves a sticky trail of moisture over my nipple. “Hmm,” she groans.
“Tempted to what?” My voice lowers in pitch and comes out heavy, almost like a growl.
“Oh, Ryker.” Her hand slides down my stomach and dips beneath the waist of my jeans. “I’ve often thought of our time together. Often wondered why you haven’t visited my room again.” She squeezes tightly when her hand clamps around my dick and I find myself hardening, despite not wanting to have anything to do with her. She jerks me, sliding her hand up and down, forcing me to harden further.
“Do you want to hear one of my fantasies?”
Fuck. There seems to be no way out of this. Katriane works me slowly, her fingers cold but determined as I fight the urge to simply submit to her advances. “Sure,” I manage to croak out.
“You.” She licks my chest again, across my left nipple. “And Cameron.” She moves to lick the other one. “Together.” She shoves her hand downwards, causing me to strain against the material of my jeans. “With me.” Removing her hand, she buries it into the material of my shirt. “Just the thought of it alone has got me all hot and bothered.” She jerks a handful of my shirt. “Come. You’ve got work to do.”
“Wait.” I stop, desperate to think of any way of avoiding this. In the end, I decide attack is better than defense and shove her against the wall.
“Why wait?”
I let a smirk of what I hope comes across as wickedness cover my face. I slide down her body to my knees.
“Why hide?”
Lifting the folds of her dress, I dive beneath them and breathe against the apex of her thighs, nipping the material of her underwear with my teeth until she’s making these short sharp gasps. Then I push the material, wet with her juices aside, and insert a single digit, finger-fucking her until she comes undone, panting and groaning, her hand clutching my head through the material of her skirt.
She looks at me dreamily as I get to my feet, her eyes glazed and lazy. Stepping forward, she digs a finger into my chest. “Good boy,” is all she says before walking away on shaky feet.
As soon as she’s out of sight, I slump against the wall, sliding until I hit the ground and let my head fall into my hands. My life before Mia existed just to keep Senior happy and Everly safe. But now, it feels like there are two parts of me being ripped asunder. The part that’s a fucking caveman who wants to kill Sebastian and everyone else for what they’ve done—what they are doing—to Mia, and the part that urges me to stay silent and do everything I can not to risk their fury more, bide my time. Wait.
I want to say I’m strong.
I want to say that I don’t let tears fall.
But to say that, I would have to lie.
I fall asleep, pressed against the wall, until I’m woken by the sounds of someone fumbling with Mia’s door. I scramble to my feet and slip into the next open room, gently closing the door. Footsteps pad down the carpeted hallway and I peer through the open crack of the door to see Sebastian, completely naked, sauntering down the corridor with a satisfied smirk. For a moment, I allow myself the fantasy of envisioning wiping it from his face. I imagine pounding my fist into his nose until it is a bloodied mess.
But then I think of Mia.
And I think of Everly.
And I know what would happen to them if I ever allowed myself to fulfill that fantasy, so it vanishes from my mind.
Pushing the door back open, I slip down hallways and out the door into the darkness of the night. Lifting my eyes to the room I now know belongs to Mia, I will her to come to the window and look at the stars, but she doesn’t.
“I need you to get this to her.” I press the note into Cameron’s hand.
He opens it and looks over me curiously. “I’m not sure how you expect me to do that.”
“Look,” I take a step forward, hoping my honesty will sway him, “You’re right. I like the girl, I like the girl a lot and I’ve got to see her. I just need a few moments alone with her to make sure she’s okay. You know I wouldn’t be asking unless I was desperate.”
“He hasn’t called for me. I can’t just walk in there.” He nods to the closed doors of the music room.
“Tell him Senior sent you. Tell him what time he’s got to leave for the wedding. Tell him something, anything, just get this note to her, okay?”
Cameron plays with the piece of paper. “Why can’t you do it?”
“Because the little shit hates me and would be suspicious the moment I opened the door. I don’t want to get her into any more trouble than she already is. Just do this one thing for me, okay? I’ll make it up to you. I’ll owe you a favor.”
Cameron sighs, admitting defeat and walks toward the doors. “Fine. But I’m holding you to that promise of a favor.”
“I just need to get her down with Senior’s girls so I can see her. That’s all. That’s it. Nothing more.”
Cameron sort of nods, or sighs and then he opens the doors, striding in confidently just as he would if he were really delivering a message from Senior. It worries me a little. He’s too good at deception.
A lifetime passes before he comes to find me again.
“Did you do it? Did you give her the note?”
Cameron grins and nods. “Of course I did because I’m a fucking legend. He didn’t suspect a thing but get this.” He screws up his face in amusement, stepping closer. “He makes her call him Maestro.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
RYKER
Senior has installed a picture of one-way glass to watch the girls without them knowing. I’ve found him more than once watching them as they flounced around their rooms with boredom. I think he gets some sort of sick satisfaction from watching without their consent, a voyeuristic tendency. I’ve caught him before at one of his parties, allowing one of the gentlemen the use of his rooms, or his girls, only to watch them from the darkness. It’s fucking creepy. But it’s where I find myself now, watching Mia interact with the girls as Cameron stands nearby. With the family gone, I know I could walk inside without the fear of getting caught, but I don’t trust any of these girls. I’ve witnessed them turn against each other without a moment’s hesitation to win favor with Senior. They would tell on me without a second thought. I don’t blame them. Anything to make their lives a little easier.
Daisy is the one tugging Mia around the room and introducing her to the two others, Iris and Lily. They are so different when they think that Senior’s not around. They are bold and blunt, the need for pretense gone. The one he calls Lily eyes Mia over suspiciously, almost with a hint of jealousy, but she doesn’t say much to her, choosing to turn her attention back to her glass of wine. White in contrast to Katriane’s red. Everyone knows the two women despise each other, but no one knows exactly why. Katriane treats the other girls with indifference, but with Lily, she turns to venom.
Cameron glances toward the picture when he leads Mia toward the bathroom. I slip from my position and into the room he agreed to take her to, lowering myself to a chair, my skin prickling with exhilaration at the thought of seeing her again, this time away from Junior’s prying eyes.
“Ryker?”
My heart pounds simply at the sound of my name on her lips.
“Mia?” I get to my feet, the distance between us vanishing as I wrap my arms around her, inhaling her scent, relishing the way she feels within my embrace, running my hands over her hair as though somehow it will make everything I’ve done to her okay
. I want to sob against her and spill out my apologies. I want to lie to her and tell her that everything will be okay. I would lift her up until she wrapped her legs around my waist and push her against the wall, devouring her with my lips. I want. I want. I want…
But what I want doesn’t matter. I would give my life if it meant she would be happy. But as she dissolves in my embrace, wrapping her arms around my waist and clinging to me tightly, it’s only unanswered questions that float through my mind.
Does she fear me?
Does she forgive me for what I’ve done?
Is she hurt?
What has he done to her?
“I thought I’d never see you again.” Her voice is muffled against the fabric of my shirt. When she lifts her tear-stained face to meet my gaze, my heart breaks. “I’m so sorry.” She hiccups, her eyes moving to my shoulder. “I thought it was the only way I could get away. I thought that—”
She’s apologizing for hurting me. She’s saying sorry to the person who kept her trapped within a cell and demanded things of her that no one should demand. With guilt pulsing through me, I take her face between my hands, willing her to feel the truth behind my words.
“Shh, it’s okay. It’s exactly what you should have done. It’s exactly what I would have done. I just wish it had worked.”
She swallows a half-hearted laugh. “Me too. But are you okay? Is your shoulder okay?”
Even after everything, she’s still worried about me. I don’t want to tell her the truth. In this case, it doesn’t matter. “It’ was nothing,” I lie. “I’m fine.”
But she doesn’t believe me, her soft eyes swimming with unshed tears.
“It was nothing,” I say again. “Don’t even give it another thought.” I run my hands down her arms, skimming them over her flesh like I’ve done a thousand times before, but this time it’s different. This time it’s not me who has her trapped. It is him.
“What about you? Has he hurt you?”
