by K. V. Rose
Frowning, I turn to see what the fuck she’s looking at.
The goddamn alien documentary, a cartoon spaceship spinning on the ground of what’s supposed to be earth, then blasting straight up into the air. Rolling my eyes, I turn back to her and see she’s smiling, flashing her white teeth, the gap between the front two making my dick hard.
“You like this shit?” I ask her.
She doesn’t even look at me. “Yeah,” she says, still staring at the TV. “Me and Danik used to watch conspiracy and alien stuff a lot.”
The mention of her brother has me clenching my fists. “Have a drink,” I tell her, nodding toward the glasses and the rum. Without waiting to see if she’ll do as I said, I walk across the room to grab the remote and my gun from the nightstand.
But my phone is lighting up.
A text message from the same number that just called me.
Feeling every muscle in my body tense, I grab my phone. Enter the passcode.
At first, I don’t know what I’m looking at. I blink a few times, staring at my screen. But then it hits me, and I feel as if I’m choking. There’s a sour taste in my mouth, a burning in my throat.
I want to drop the phone.
I want to… I look up, see Addison watching me, and I have the sudden urge to run to her. I want to grab her. To make sure she’s still real.
I don’t move.
I look back at the phone in my clenched fist, my thumb over the screen.
Glassy eyes stare up at me, deep brown, but dull and unseeing. Blue-tinged skin marked with bruises, visible teeth marks along her jaw. And just below her chin, Evora’s body is cut away. Only her detached head stares up at me from my phone.
As if on autopilot, I dial Jameson’s number. He doesn’t answer.
I call him again.
The line rings and rings.
Clenching my phone in my fist, I pace the length of my bed, my stomach twisted into knots.
Fucking Jameson.
I take a deep breath, set my phone on the nightstand.
I grab my gun, the remote, and I make my way over to Addison.
I force Evora from my mind.
I left her last night, and I should have known better. I should have known but...I tell myself it doesn’t matter. I lost Dante. Evora was worth less than he was.
It doesn’t fucking matter.
The only thing that matters is Oliver, and when I have him, this will all be over.
Even still, even pushing everything aside, I can’t stop the anger and disgust that coils in my gut, the image of Evora’s head flashing back into my mind.
Addison shuffles over to the very corner of the couch as I approach, grabbing a soft grey blanket thrown along the back of it and wrapping it around her shoulders, almost like a cape. I see her eye the gun warily.
I set the remote and the gun on the marble table, then pour us both a drink, capping the decanter before I offer her a glass.
She doesn’t take it. “What’s wrong?” she asks me quietly.
Evora’s head morphs into Addison’s.
Then Oliver’s.
My stomach churns.
I force myself not to think about it. Don’t fucking think about it.
“Nothing. Take the drink.”
She angles her head to me, brow furrowed as she looks between the drink and my face. “It’s like, eight in the morning.” Her voice is soft. Wary, as if she thinks I might have poisoned it. She should know that if I ever intend to kill her, her death will be far more violent than poison.
Again, I see Evora’s head. Oliver’s. Addison’s. Again, I push it back.
And to prove to Addison that the drink isn’t poisoned, because she’s fucking stubborn, I down my own drink, set my glass on the table.
Her eyes go from the drink still in my hand, to me, then back again.
Slowly, she reaches for it, her fingers brushing against mine as they curl around the glass.
She brings it to her lap, the blanket covering her crossed legs.
“Drink it, don’t use it as a prop.”
She looks down at the rum. “I never really drank much before.”
“The way you were with Zeke, you could’ve fucking fooled me.”
She flinches with his name, and I wonder which part about that night bothers her the most.
I hook one arm around the back of the couch and watch her eyes shift to my torso. For a moment, her gaze turns heavy, her lips parted.
She might hate me, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t attracted to me. Still, with my shirt off, only low-slung shorts on, I know she can see most of the scars along my body. I don’t like it.
I’m not ashamed of them, but I don’t want her pity, and women often tend to feel just that when they see where I’ve been hurt. What they don’t seem to think about is that for every scar I have, I gave dozens more.
Looking back down at the glass, she brings it to her lips and drinks.
Watching her wince is amusing, her nose wrinkled up, eyes half-closed. But then she takes another drink, brings her free hand to her throat, where it must be burning.
I see Evora’s throat in my mind.
What was left of it.
Don’t think about it. Nothing personal, just business.
Addison makes to set the drink back against her thigh, but I shake my head.
“Finish it.”
She glares at me, the glass halfway between her mouth and her lap. “I don’t want to, Max.”
As if I fucking asked. I cock my head as I stare into her defiant eyes, her jaw set, brows furrowed. After everything she saw me do last night, after everything that happened to her, she thinks this is a good time to defy me? My eyes trail down past hers, to the thin cuts along her throat.
I force the photo from my mind, once again.
I focus on Addison. Real. Whole. Alive.
She’s paler than she was when she first came here, considering going outside hasn’t been high on her priority list, or something I’ve let her do much of. But she’s beautiful, all the same.
And she’s alive.
“Come on, Addison.”
I watch her swallow.
“Get drunk with me.”
She stares at me for several seconds, as if she’s looking for the trick in my words.
I smile at her. “Just take it all at one time.”
Her cheeks flush pink.
“Hurts less that way.”
I see a reluctant smile form on her lips, then, surprising me, she does just that. She downs the entire thing.
Immediately, she covers her mouth with the back of her hand, wincing and thrusting the empty glass toward me.
I take it, my hand over hers.
She coughs, sticking her tongue out and shaking her head, but when I take the glass with my free hand, and thread my fingers through hers, she grows quiet.
Keeping my eyes on her, I lean over and set the glass down.
“Come here.” I pull gently on her hand, nodding toward my lap.
She frowns, unmoving. “Max, I don’t think—”
“Don’t think.” I tug her hand again. Evora flashes in my head again. “Listen.”
She doesn’t move for a long moment, and I know what she’s thinking. She’s thinking that if she gives in, she’s fucked in the head. That if she enjoys any part of being around me, she’s broken.
There was a time I was able to disappear into my head when my father came for me. The first time I was raped for disobeying him, it wasn’t by a man.
It was with a stick.
It wasn’t one of my father’s guards on the other end of it.
It was my father.
That pain was blinding. Deafening. It was louder than my screams. So loud I didn’t hear my own tooth crack when my father hit me for crying.
It lasted for what felt like hours.
But after a while, I wasn’t there anymore. My face was in the dirt, and I was breathing in the earth. I was tasting blood in my mouth, but e
ven that faded away too. I was…gone.
As far as bad experiences go, it wasn’t so bad after that.
The worst, though…the worst is what Addison feels right now.
The worst was when I stopped fearing what my father wanted done to me, and when I started to like it. The worst was when my own body betrayed me, and my mind couldn’t stop it.
When Addison reluctantly comes to me, settles herself down in my lap, her back to my chest, every muscle in her body is tense.
When I grab the blanket she’d been using and drape it over the both of us, and she leans her head back against my chest, careful to avoid my shoulder, I know she hates herself.
She can’t stand the thought of finding solace with a man like me. It makes her feel dirty. Shameful. And yet despite all of that, she’s still right here where I want her.
I didn’t see it then, when I was a kid. I didn’t see my stupidity and my shame as what it was—brave.
It’s bravery.
It takes fucking guts to find peaceful moments with someone who holds your life in their hands. It’s not for the faint of heart, looking for comfort in your own personal demons.
Maybe it’s ignorance, and maybe it means you’re fucked in the head, but it’s also a sort of strength that you only know if you’ve lived it.
We’ve both done that.
Evora tried to do that too.
I bring my arms around Addison, holding her close to me and breathing in her sweet scent as she looks toward the TV. My chin is against her hair and I close my eyes.
She’ll do this with Jameson too.
Maybe he’ll be good to her.
Fuck, for all I know, he’ll love her.
If she could make me remember all the things I want to forget, if she could touch some part of me that I thought was long ago dead, she can do the same to any man.
Even a man like that.
Even one that’s hurt someone I love.
Don’t think about it.
“Are you okay?” I ask her, whispering the words against her ear.
She tenses, brings the blanket up to her chin. “What do you mean?”
I touch her face, marred with bruises, turning her head to me. She shifts in my lap, so she can see me, her legs stretched out on the couch.
“Last night.”
I watch her swallow. I watch her wonder why I’m pretending to care.
But I’m not really pretending.
“Are you okay?” I ask again.
She averts her gaze, and I tip her chin up.
“Don’t look away from me, Addison.”
Reluctantly, she meets my eye. “I-I don’t really want to talk about it, Max.” She hiccups softly, then clamps a hand over her mouth, her cheeks flushing pink.
I take her hand in mine, bring it down to her lap. “Did they hurt you?” I glance at her throat. Remember how her shirt was cut off of her body. Her shorts, too. Hot anger floods my veins as I think about what could have happened, and I remind myself of a horrible truth. That’s not the worst that’s happened to her. And it won’t be the worst to happen.
And for a moment, for the first time since she’s been here, I imagine it. The impossible.
Leaving this town with her. Disappearing to the ends of the earth. Protecting her.
But Oliver’s screams ring in my mind. I see him on his knees, the desperate way his body clenched as he tried to stop the swaying that comes so naturally to him. I hear him grunt with pain. His nose break beneath my father’s fist.
I failed him.
I can fix it.
I just have to give her up.
And I won’t risk her head. She might become a slave, but she’ll live. She’ll live.
She holds her gaze on mine. “Not much,” she says, finally answering my question.
I swallow down the lump in my own throat. “Not much?” I thread my fingers through hers and I know she’s shocked at the touch. I know she’s probably thinking about all the ways I hurt her.
She furrows her brow but doesn’t look away from me. “He touched me,” she admits, sounding despondent.
“Touched you how?” I try to keep the anger from my tone, but my words come out clipped and her eyes widen as she tries to yank her hand from mine. I hold her tighter.
She shakes her head. “Max, I really don’t want to—”
“Touched you how?”
“He put his hands on me.” She takes a shaky breath. “Where he shouldn’t have.”
My blood boils, and I think about his nose cracking under my foot. I think about stabbing him in the groin, and how I should have cut his dick off instead.
“Hey,” she says quietly, tugging on my hand. I realize I’m staring at the wall and turn my head back to her. “It’s not the worst thing that’s happened to me.” She offers me a soft smile with that twisted confession, and I feel sick in this moment, realizing that she isn’t trying to goad me.
She’s a little tipsy, otherwise she might’ve never spilled that truth.
“Addison.”
She smiles again, tracing her thumb over the back of my hand. I grip her hip tighter, pulling her closer. “It’s okay, Max.” She sighs, a soft, quiet sound. “It probably won’t be the worst thing that’ll ever happen to me.”
My stomach churns. “You know if I had a choice, if I could do something else…” I trail off, because I’m not even sure I believe myself.
“It’s not personal,” she repeats my words to her from the soundproof room as her eyes flick up to meet mine, “it’s just business, right?”
My chest tightens with those words and I fucking hate that I feel a crack in it. In the armor I’ve resurrected since I was a child and I needed it to survive for me and Oliver both. I hate that I’m thinking maybe there’s another way.
I hate that I don’t want to do this anymore. I hate that I almost wish it was her that betrayed me, because it would make this so much easier.
But I know it wasn’t her.
She hasn’t had any contact with anyone outside of these walls. I have no excuse to send her off into a life of fucking misery anymore, not where her own character is concerned.
But there’s nothing to be done.
If I don’t give her up, they’ll come for her anyway.
Evora was a message of just that.
And if that had been Oliver’s head, I’d have probably killed her myself for costing him his life.
No. I can’t keep her. She has to go.
“You want another drink?” I ask her, whispering the words against her skin, trying to push thoughts of her future from my mind. Of her past.
She presses back against me, bringing us even closer. “Sure.” The word is lazy on her tongue, and it makes me smile.
It’ll be easy to get her drunk.
And drunk people tell more truths. She didn’t betray me, but maybe she knows who did.
I put my hand on her thigh as I lean toward the table, one arm reaching across her for the glass. She laughs at the awkward way I’m moving with her in my lap, and she picks up where I left off, pouring the rum into the cup in my hand.
She fills it to the top, some of it sloshing over the side, dripping onto the marble table.
Cupping it in both hands, moving mine aside, she leans back with me, cradling the drink to her chest. Then she turns to look up at me through her lashes. “Want some?”
“You first.”
She smirks at me, brings the glass to her lips and winces as she swallows.
“You can do better than that, love.”
She rolls her eyes, and I dig my fingers into her side, yanking her closer. Her eyes meet mine with that movement, then she takes another gulp, her brow furrowed. Surprising me, though, she drinks more, and by the time she’s done, nearly gagging as she holds the cup toward me, it’s half empty.
If she’s not careful, she’ll black out before I even get to have her again.
I take the glass in my fingers, reluctantly letting go of her with one
hand. I finish the drink, relishing in the way it burns all the way down. Before I can do it, she plucks the glass from me and sets it on the table, a little heavy handed.
Then she turns in my lap to face me, wrapping her arms around my neck.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she asks me quietly.
I just wait, gripping her by the waist, my hands under her shirt.
“I think you’re beautiful.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” I ask her, leaning down close, pressing my brow to hers.
She bites her lip, but doesn’t say anything, just like I didn’t.
“I am beautiful.”
She blinks at me, her mouth dropping open. Then she laughs, closing her eyes as she does and tightening her hold around my neck. Her chest brushes against mine, and my fingers dig deeper into her soft skin.
I can smell the rum on her breath, and when she opens her eyes again, they look a little glassy.
“You’re not really going to do it,” she says softly, some of the spark leaving her face again, our brief moment of lightness gone.
I run my hands up her side, grazing my thumbs against her breasts. She squirms but doesn’t look away. “Do what?”
She glares at me, pouting. “You know what, Max.”
I shift my hands, palm her breasts and squeeze gently.
Her eyes flutter closed, then she moves, positioning her knees on either side of my hips so she’s straddling me. I don’t answer her, and she keeps her eyes closed, as if not hearing the words will change things between us.
As if it won’t be true.
“Why, Max? Is it really…the money?” She still doesn’t open her eyes. I wondered how long it would take her to get to this question.
I wondered if I would tell her the truth. But I won’t. I can’t. That pain—losing Oliver, failing him when I was the only one left to protect him—it’s too much. Not even Mamie knows. And if I tell her about him, then I have to tell her about me. And that’s a shame I will never voice.
“What if I didn’t do it?” I ask her instead, ignoring her question.
Her eyes flash open, and I can almost feel the excitement in her body, the hope welling up in her chest. She opens her mouth but doesn’t say anything. I stroke her nipples with my thumbs, feel them pebble beneath my fingers.
“What if I kept you instead?”
Her chest rises as she inhales, holding her breath.
