* * *
Of course, she had been different than the others. There was a reason Claudia was standing in his mansion, with the keys to an exotic car in her pocket. She was special. He’d told her that, after all the pain and the tests. He’d whispered it in her ear after she’d passed the final one and was given her freedom.
* * *
Now, Robert Hawk stared at the photo of Bell Hartley, one Claudia had taken as they’d left The House and gotten into Dario’s car.
* * *
It was a shame, really. Claudia had been prepared, at the onset, to protect the girl. She’d been willing to overlook the fling that would surely fizzle out. But this girl and Dario had taken things too far. The looks that passed between them. The way that Dario was chasing her around like a lovesick idiot. Overnights together, leaving Gwen alone. And the final nail in both of their coffins—the phone call that had gotten Bell on Robert Hawk’s radar. Now, there wasn’t any hope for her and Dario. She’d been forced to tell Robert everything and had watched his quiet fury ignite.
* * *
“We need to end this problem now, before Gwen is aware of it.” Hawk eyed her as if assessing her potential, and she straightened under his scrutiny.
* * *
“Do you want her brought to the warehouse?” She’d helped with that before. Drugged women with friendly shots at the bar, then helped them stumble to her car. This would be different. It’d be interesting to see how Robert Hawk treated a woman like Bell, who had done more than pick the wrong casino as her ticket into chains.
* * *
“No.” He shook his head. “There’s no point in training her. I need to send Dario a message, and her dead body will be more effective than her disappearance.”
* * *
She nodded at the decision.
* * *
“Do you think you can handle it?”
* * *
The question surprised her. He was a man who liked his own dirty work, especially when blood was involved. To put this trust in her… she nodded quickly.
* * *
He leaned back in his chair and eyed her. “I can’t do it. Not without Dario catching wind and ratting to the cops. But you…” he smiled. “You can be my secret weapon. He doesn’t know you at all.”
* * *
It was a reminder that stung. Gwen, whether she appreciated it or not, had been given the gold ticket of Hawk’s attention and pedigree upon birth. Claudia, she’d had to sweat, beg, and earn each and every step into Robert Hawk’s world.
* * *
“After this,” Robert continued, “you can meet Gwen. Pass this test, and I’ll set up a dinner, just the two of my girls. How would you like that?”
* * *
She nodded, emotion welling in her throat at the thought of sitting at a table with the two of them, as an equal. Finally, Gwen would know about her. Finally, Gwen would treasure her in the same way that Robert now did. “I can do it.”
* * *
He smiled at her. “I know you can. And what’s more, I think you’ll enjoy it.”
Twenty-Four
BELL
* * *
My car ate up the miles between Vegas and my parents’ house, the drive passing quickly in a mix of Beastie Boys and Sublime. I pulled up to the house around two and met my dad at the mailbox.
* * *
“Anything good?” I put my car into park and stepped out, watching as he slowly walked toward me, his hands thumbing through the thin stack of mail.
* * *
He finally looked up with a wry smile. “No Publishers Clearing House check yet.”
* * *
I shrugged. “Yeah. Me neither.”
* * *
He reached out an arm and pulled me into a hug, his shirt smelling of cigarettes and Old Spice. I lifted my chin and he kissed my cheek. “You look good, Bell. The big city agrees with you.”
* * *
“Thanks, Dad. You’re not looking too shabby yourself. Mom inside?”
* * *
He nodded, and we moved toward the house. I paused at the steps, letting him go ahead, and bent down, whistling to Rascal, who heaved himself out of the dirt and slowly made his way over, his back swaying, tail slowly wagging.
* * *
“Hey buddy.” I patted his side, running my hands over his skinny ribs and up to his ears, scratching them in a way he liked, his back foot lifting and pawing at the air.
* * *
“You coming?” Dad paused in the doorway, holding the screen door open, and I could hear the sound of water and dishes inside, the smell of fried chicken faint on the breeze. Rascal lifted his head and sniffed, and I bent down to kiss his muzzle.
* * *
“I’ll sneak you a piece later.” I straightened, patting his head and nodded. “I’m coming.”
* * *
Jogging up the stairs, I reached out and tugged at his T-shirt. “Happy Birthday, Dad.”
* * *
He grunted in response. “Nothing happy about getting old, Bell.”
* * *
I rolled my eyes, ducked under his arm, and entered the house. Across the living room, my mom turned from the stove, her face splitting into a smile, and she held out her arms for a hug.
I didn’t have an excuse, running off to Vegas to live a life of sin. I grew up right. We attended church, ignored Dad’s drinking, and prayed over every meal.
* * *
I didn’t have fancy things, but I had things. My clothes were second-hand or Walmart specials, but they were always relatively fashionable. We didn’t go on vacations, but we went to the movies on occasion, and to dinner enough times that I understood how to carry myself and didn’t look like a hick when presented with a salad fork or restaurant bill.
* * *
We were good. As good as a family could be when the father passed out by eight, missed work as often as he attended, and couldn’t get through dinner without a six-pack of Coors.
* * *
Then, that day happened.
* * *
The stable.
The police.
The statements.
The scorn.
The disbelief.
* * *
The shame.
* * *
And then we weren’t good. We were bad, for months. Dad drank more, they started fighting, and Mom and I stayed at my grandparents’ house as often as our own. There was a year where I didn’t know what was happening, a year where I met with a social worker and failed tenth grade.
* * *
And then we were better, almost better than before. Mom and Dad got back together, he quit drinking, and I started counseling. Met Elliot. Came out of my shell with the tentative steps of a newborn fawn.
* * *
And then, two years after I graduated, Rick and Lance walked into my diner. They were full of swagger and money and fun. When they dangled Vegas in front of me, I snatched it from their grasp.
* * *
“Pass the gravy, Bell.”
* * *
I passed the dish and watched Mom tuck a bit of silver hair behind her ear, her eyes on the dark liquid as she spooned it out.
* * *
“The chicken’s good.”
* * *
She nodded. “I made plenty. Enough for you to take some home to your boys.”
* * *
I smiled, thinking of Mom’s first meeting with Lance and Rick. She’d immediately labeled them as too thin, not properly taken care of, and in sore need of good women. Ever since then, she’d been trying to fatten them up, tame their wild ways, and get them married off.
* * *
She’d been unsuccessful.
* * *
Halfway through dinner, I realized something was wrong. They were uncharacteristically quiet, their questions less invasive, their conversations more on food and weather and less on nosing around my personal life. I glanced at Mom, who carefully scooped up some cor
n. I moved to Dad, who eyed his tea as if he wished it were stronger. “What’s going on?”
* * *
They looked at me with the wide-eyed innocence of the guilty.
* * *
“What do you mean?” Mom took an unusually large bite of cornbread.
* * *
"You guys are being weird. No one's asked me who I'm dating, or if I'm on birth control, or how my exams are going."
* * *
“Well, why—how are your exams going?” She asked the question through the mouthful of cornbread, and little specks flew out and peppered the table.
* * *
I waved her off and latched onto my father, a man who hid secrets as well as Rascal hid a bone. Which was to say that all you had to do was mention the item, and Rascal all but led you to it in an attempt to keep you away. “Dad. What’s going on?”
* * *
He lifted his eyes from his drink to me, then they ricocheted off to the right. “John Wright and his son got into some trouble.”
* * *
It was so unexpected that I sat back, a little of my breath lost with the impact of his name. “Another girl?”
* * *
He shook his head. “No, no. Not that kind of trouble. Someone roughed him up. Roughed both of them up.”
* * *
That wasn’t exactly a shock. The pair were assholes. They couldn’t walk into a place without offending someone, and they walked into a lot of places. I gave my best attempt at a casual shrug. “How’d you hear about it?”
* * *
Mom cleared her throat and leaned forward, gripping my hand. “Let’s not talk about this at dinner. Especially, not the details.”
* * *
Not the details? I pulled my hand from hers and stared at my father, willing the information out of him. “Can you just spit it out? What happened?”
* * *
He sighed, sitting back in his seat. “They were castrated. Got their balls cut off. And were beaten almost to death, according to Jimmy.”
* * *
Castrated? I unexpectedly laughed, the sound bursting out of me in a horrific bark of sound, something that startled both of my parents, as well as myself. I clapped a hand over my mouth, swallowing the cruel sound before it repeated itself.
* * *
It wasn’t funny. It couldn’t be funny. But that’s how my mind handled it. I didn’t think about the look in John’s eyes as he had held me down. I didn’t think about the way they’d encouraged each other, the feel of their sweaty skin against mine, the smell of their breath, the painful invasion and my choked begs that only seemed to encourage them more.
* * *
Someone had cut their balls off.
* * *
My hysteria faded a little and I swallowed, trying to respect my mother and calm my emotions. “Who did it?”
* * *
Dad shrugged. "They don't know. No one had heard from them for a while, and John's wife finally called the police. They found them on a dirt road, ten miles outside of town, covered in blood and dust. They were trying to walk home and didn't make it."
* * *
“But they’re alive.”
* * *
I’m surprised that mattered to me. After so many nights of wishing them dead, I was shocked to discover that it did matter to me. I liked the idea of a ball-less Johnny better than the idea of a dead one.
* * *
He nodded. “Yep.”
* * *
I examined his expression, then my mother’s. In prior mentions of my rape, they’d always carried the same looks—a mix of regret and guilt and pain. But now, they looked almost relieved that something—perhaps karma—had handed my monsters their punishment. I wondered what my own expression gave away. Did it show the relief I finally felt, knowing that they would never be able to rape another girl?
* * *
After dinner, I curled up in one of Mom’s afghans and studied. I worked through two classes, then set aside the books and watched Andy Griffith with them, lasting through three episodes before I nodded off. I woke up to the smell of Dad’s brownies and struggled to sit upright. My father could cook three things, and brownies led the short list. I inhaled two and a half and a giant glass of milk, debated politics with Dad, then bagged some brownies to go and kissed them both goodbye.
* * *
I was in my car, heading home and thinking over it all, when I first thought of Dario and the chance that he was behind John and Johnny’s incident. I hadn’t told him about it, and Google didn’t show any history of it when you searched my name. Dario shouldn’t even know about it, but by the time I pulled into my driveway, I’d convinced myself it was his handiwork. I picked up my new phone, scrolled to his number, and sent him a text.
* * *
“We need to talk.”
* * *
Maybe I was wrong. But maybe, probably, I wasn’t.
Twenty-Five
I pulled into The Majestic with a sharp squeak of tires and didn’t pay attention to the woman in yoga pants who stretched against the entrance gate, her eyes recording everything about me by the time I inserted my gate card and pulled onto the car elevator.
* * *
When I blew into the suite, Dario was waiting by the window, his cell in hand. He turned slowly, his head lifting, eyebrows raising, and I watched as he pushed the phone into his pocket.
* * *
His gaze moved over my knee-high boots and thin sweater dress and his mouth curved upward in appreciation. “You needed me?” Three simple words he managed to make into a sexual invitation.
* * *
I dropped my keys on the entry table and crossed my arms over my chest. “I went home today.”
* * *
He nodded slowly, his head tilting to the side as if remembering something. “Right. For your dad’s … birthday?”
* * *
“Yes.” I snapped out the response and moved into the kitchen, wrapping a hand around the fridge handle and yanking open the stainless-steel door. The shelves were fully stocked, tiny clear cases holding a variety of fruit, salads and sandwiches. My hackles rose at the convenience of it all.
* * *
“Want to guess what I found out?” I bent over and pulled out the drink drawer, grabbing a bottle of beer and using the edge of the counter to pop off the top.
* * *
He gave me a slow grin, the sort that burned cities and broke hearts, the sort that almost crumbled my resolve. “No idea.”
* * *
“Really?” I tilted back the beer and finished half of it. Swallowing, I scrunched up my face and tilted my head to the side. “Absolutely no idea?”
* * *
I walked over to him and walked my fingers up his chest.
* * *
He trapped my hand with his and looked down at me. “If you have a question, just ask it.”
* * *
“Cut the balls off anyone lately?” I almost said their names and what they’d done to me. But if I was wrong, this wasn’t a story I wanted to tell. And if I was right…
* * *
“Yeah.” His face hardened, but those eyes softened, a push-pull of emotion that ran my emotions through a grinder. “And I’d do it again.”
* * *
“Why?”
* * *
He shrugged and gently pulled my beer from my hand, finishing it off. He was so big, so strong. I was close enough I could feel the warmth of his body, near enough that we brushed against each other when we moved. With him, I felt untouchable. Protected. Loved.
* * *
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