“It was nothing...”
“I meant in snagging this one.” Naomi winked, trying to lighten the mood of the room. “Nicely played.”
Shayla laughed and grabbed Luke’s hand. “Yeah. It kind of just happened.”
“You can tell me all about it at another time,” Naomi said. “But I’m starting to clear my head a bit more, and there are some things I want to set straight. I asked you to come because I know that you took my position.” Her gaze shifted downward. “I’m worried that you might end up in some of the same...problems.”
Shayla looked confused, but didn’t contradict Naomi. “I’m listening.”
Naomi took a deep breath, gazing out the window. “I know that I’m the only one responsible for the way I’ve turned out. I’m not a fool.” She turned back and smiled wryly at the pair. “But I also know that there were factors pushing me to the actions I took.”
She was every bit as calm and composed as the room around her. Luke wondered if all the rooms looked like their inhabitants. Perhaps high tech gadgets strewn across the surfaces of the more jittery patients, their hands constantly reaching from one thing to the next. Maybe in the rooms of those crippled by depression and mental anguish there would be dark drapes and bottles of water in the bed, on the floor, beside the window, left there by their despondent inhabitant carelessly, then forgotten about.
Naomi started to speak again, and only the briefest twinkle in her eye gave away how much it pained her to do so. “Anthony was the one who suggested it. Well, pushed me to it. Did you know we were a couple?”
Shyla shook her head, shocked. “I knew you were close. I didn’t realize you were actually a couple.”
Naomi snorted. “Close. We were never close. The only thing that man has ever been close to is the devil when he sold his soul.” She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, trying to regain her composure. “He was really sweet at first. We started up around the time I started at KTMA. He wanted to keep it quiet at work, said it was personal.” She smiled wryly. “Just between him and I.”
Naomi picked a stray thread off of her mustard yellow cardigan. She examined it in the light and let it fall, drifting to the ground.
“I found out much later that he wanted to keep it quiet because it left his options open to sleep with whomever he pleased behind my back. By then it was too late, though. I was too far gone.”
“Too far gone?” Shayla’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates.
Naomi nodded. Luke noticed how she subtly clenched her fist, though she tried to hide it beside her in the armchair. “It started out simple at first. We’d have wine together on an evening, and he’d ply me with it anytime I had a bad day. Or a good day. Then just any day. I never noticed that he didn’t drink his.”
Shayla interrupted. “But he said you were hooked on cocaine, not alcohol.”
Naomi was clearly sensitive about the subject, and the look on her face made it clear that she resented the ungraceful way Shayla had interrupted. Luke knew that wasn’t like Shayla, and that she was just on edge because of her own experience with Anthony. He wondered whether Shayla would tell Naomi or not. Nevertheless, Naomi slid back her calm expression and inclined her head toward Shayla’s direction.
“The alcohol didn’t last long. I had a figure to keep in mind, and there are so very few things one can accomplish while they’re drunk. Besides, I was happiest in that mild stage of buzzed, when the world seems just right but hasn’t begun to blur at the edges.”
She hardly sounded like any alcoholic Luke had ever met. He supposed that’s why she wasn’t in here for that.
Naomi must have caught his expression. “I’m an alcoholic now, I won’t deny it. I still yearn for it all the time. I can almost taste the wine on my lips just talking about it. If it were up to me, I would’ve stayed with the booze. I was happy there, if lowly functioning.”
“Anthony made you give it up?” Shayla cocked her head to the side. “But I thought it was his idea?”
Naomi shook her head. “It was his idea of a gateway. He made it out that I had done wrong to myself. That I should be ashamed. He told me that I needed to stop before things got out of control.” She chuckled darkly. “I didn’t realize that things would always get out of control with him. Would continue getting out of control.”
She took a moment to take in a deep breath, stirring the dust motes in the air around her. Lit up by the sun as she was, Luke could see why she was made for TV. She glowed from their attention and the backlighting. Everything about her screamed storyteller. It was something he’d noticed about Shayla, too, though he’d never heard her tell a story of her own. He vowed to remedy that.
“So he took away my wine and I cried. I begged. But he had me so under his thumb that I knew I had to submit. What was I going to do? Complain to my friends that my secret boyfriend had taken away the fuel of my addiction? And I was too terrified of him to drink anything behind his back. He was obsessive. He followed me places. He smelled my breath. He looked through my things.” She glanced down at her hands. “It didn’t mean I didn’t try, at first.”
Shayla reached out and gently laid a hand on Naomi’s. “What happened?”
Naomi looked back up. “I got a punch to the gut. I threw up everything, everywhere.” She scowled. “When I was finished, he came to me and told me he was sorry. That this was his fault and that he would fix it for me. He slipped a bottle of pills in my hand and said they would accomplish the same task, but that I wouldn’t gain weight. I wouldn’t become undesirable. And I wouldn’t lose my job.”
Shayla gasped, horrified. She pulled back her hand like Naomi had burned her. Luke felt like his insides were burning too. Everything in him ached to get up and go to Anthony’s house right now and kill him. Maybe he didn’t know this Naomi woman at all, but Anthony had his sights set on his Shayla now. He wanted to end him before he got the chance to even try.
Naomi’s eyes hardened as she looked at Shayla, and Luke could see why. She was gaping like a fish, a face of pure disbelief on her face. She couldn’t believe that Naomi had stayed with him. Probably that she’d fallen for him in the first place, either. And Luke couldn’t blame her. After his experiences with the greasy fucker himself, it was difficult to imagine any situation where a person could put up with that.
Naomi wasn’t having any of it. “You have no idea what it was like,” she snapped. “Either of you.”
Shayla recovered quickly. “Naomi...I didn’t mean to...I don’t—”
“You do.” Naomi flexed her hand and forced it onto her thigh, open and splayed.
Luke felt the heat of Shayla’s shame, and it was accompanied by his own. After everything he’d been through in life, he had no right to judge this woman.
“I’m sorry for snapping,” Naomi said after a moment, her voice more even. “I’m still quite irritable from my withdrawals. And I’m furious at myself.” She took a deep breath, even as Shayla tried to protest that she had nothing to be sorry for. “No, no. You’re right to be skeptical of my character.” She sighed. “I am too.”
Shayla still hung her head in shame. “I guess I just never saw Anthony in the light that you did.”
Naomi smiled ruefully. “And I hope you never do. Because the light I saw him in was so false but so bright. He was my protector, saving me from myself. While I had fallen into a hole of darkness, he brought me mercy and forgiveness.” She shook her head. “I took the pills like a goddamn olive branch and swallowed them down greedily. In no time at all I was hooked, happier to wind my days away in that blissful, fuzzy state than I was anything else. I stopped going out and seeing friends. I stopped going out in general. All Anthony’s idea, of course.”
“But why?” Shayla furrowed her brow. “Why did he do that?”
Because he was a masochistic bastard, thought Luke. But Naomi had a different explanation.
“I don’t know if you’ve had many conversations with Anthony, Shayla, but that man lives and breathes power.
He can’t get up in the morning if he doesn’t think he’ll have the chance to subjugate at least one person throughout the course of the day. He couldn’t get it up in bed if he wasn’t in complete control.”
Shayla’s hands began to tremble, and Luke thrust out his own and grabbed them. He wouldn’t let her find that out on her own. He simply wouldn’t. Luke would go to prison for Anthony’s murder if it meant never letting Shayla find out what kind of monster Anthony Blake truly was.
Naomi picked up on the shift in the air, and stared at Shayla quizzically. “Don’t tell me he’s got you too?”
Shayla sniffled. “I—” She broke off, her head diving between her hands. Luke reached over and pulled her to him, sliding her into his lap. He didn’t care that their intimate embrace had an audience. He only felt the dull wracking sobs of his tiny firecracker as she curled against him, broken. The only thing stopping him from getting out of that chair and raging all the way to KTMA right now was her weight on his thighs. He held her there for both of them.
Naomi’s face was blank, but she was trying too hard. Luke knew that it was taking everything she had, everything she’d learned here, not to crack in the same way. It was happening all over again, she must have thought. Anthony’s cycle repeated, like a night terror without the mercy of morning.
“I didn’t know,” Naomi said, her voice hoarse.
Shayla leaned up against Luke’s bracing arm, wiping under her eyes. She was trying so hard to be brave. It broke Luke’s heart.
“You couldn’t have. It’s a new thing.”
Naomi looked questioningly between them. “And he’s okay with this?”
Luke snapped. “Of course I’m not okay with it. Anthony’s trying to blackmail her.” Us. But he couldn’t reveal that to Shayla now. It would break her.
Naomi nodded with understanding. “I want to help.”
Shayla shook her head grimly. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do,” she said. “Even if Anthony backs down from what he has on me, he’s not the only one with ammo.” She looked up at Luke. “I know that if the Reapers MC have the video, then somebody’s been trying to rope you into this to.”
He smiled lightly down at her, brushing away one of her tears with the pad of his thumb. “I didn’t want to add to your problems.”
Shayla shook her head. “I want your problems.”
Naomi interrupted them, her eyes widening. “Reapers MC?” she asked. “The ones with those big oaf brothers?”
Luke’s eyes slid over to hers hesitantly. “How do you know that?”
“Anthony was working with those bastards,” she said. “It’s where he got my drugs. He was helping them ‘rebrand’, he used to say.”
Luke looked down at Shayla. “I think I have an idea how we’re going to get out of this mess.”
Chapter 9
THE GUYS TOOK THEIR sweet time to arrive. Shayla was a bundle of nerves that even Luke’s massaging touch couldn’t iron out. She kept peppering him with her insecurities, terrified that his plan would backfire and that she’d be worse off than before. Luke assured her that wouldn’t be the case, and did his best to ease her troubled mind.
It didn’t help much.
Naomi wasn’t doing much better, and it broke Shayla’s heart. The woman was enthusiastic about helping Shayla out, and getting her revenge on Anthony, but it was all too clear to everyone just how sick the thought of coming clean to the whole world made Naomi. She had as much to lose as the rest of them, Shayla realized. Before, Naomi could have quietly gone through her time in rehab and reentered the world with her reputation untarnished, save for among the few who knew her at KTMA. She could have moved, started again. The mistakes she had made weren’t tied inextricably to her name the way they would be with Shayla if that video aired.
At least, they hadn’t been.
But Naomi was taking a huge chance, one that Shayla would not be quick to dismiss. She was potentially sacrificing her future happiness in order for Shayla to have a shot at her own, and for Anthony to get his just desserts. Shayla had never seen someone be so strong. She only hoped she would have the opportunity to pay Naomi back.
It was like the three of them were in the trenches together. Though the engines of the Reapers revved menacingly in the distance, they buckled down with their heads together and worked out a plan that might very well save them. Or be the death of them.
Shayla wasn’t ignorant to the fact that there was a real possibility of their plan backfiring. They might be able to do some damage to their opponents, but would it be enough in the end? It was no longer a question of who got to hurt who more. One side of the war had to be demolished. They could take no prisoners. They could sign no peace treaties. And there were no points left to tally.
Shayla greeted Pierce and Bernard at the front of the building with a nervous smile, Luke standing behind her reassuringly. He smiled and shook the hands of the men who’d made him famous, and they beamed at the man who’d given them their big breaks. While Pierce and Bernard hadn’t been given the same accolades that Shayla had for their work on the Trojan MC featurette, they’d certainly had their name tossed around in a few influential circles.
The air in Naomi’s room was tense as they set up. She had changed into a light floral sundress and a blue cardigan that brought out the color of her eyes. She’d also insisted on spending half an hour in the bathroom doing her makeup and hair. She said she’d rather die before going on television looking like she did.
Shayla smiled at that. It was heartbreaking to her that a woman as strong and goal oriented, with such a fierce drive, could be taken in by Anthony Blake. She understood it, though. She hadn't, at first. She’d resented Naomi, really, though she could barely admit it to herself.
If Naomi had never fallen under Anthony’s spell, then Shayla would have never wound up beside him at that desk. But there were problems with this resentment that went far beyond just being wildly unfair. She would have never met Luke, if it weren’t for Naomi. She might have seen him in passing, sure, if the story had still gone the same way. But she wouldn’t have gone for dinner with him, and she most certainly wouldn’t have agreed to spend any more time with him than necessary. Shayla wondered how many times in life she’d been the blockade to her own happiness. Her attempt with Luke couldn’t have been the first time.
Finally looking like her old self, Naomi resumed her seat by the window and beckoned for Shayla to join her. She’d gone lighter on the makeup, Shayla saw, probably anticipating that she’d need to look at least a little bit pathetic for anyone to take her seriously. That was fair enough.
Pierce got into position with the camera and talked them through the best angles for them to go through with their faces and bodies to appeal best to the camera. They listened with rapt attention, and for the first time Shayla felt like she was an equal to Naomi. She was meant for this kind of work. She felt a kinship with the woman across from her, both from Anthony and the camera. In both areas, Naomi was more experienced. Shayla hoped that she’d only ever get more experience with one.
When the camera began to roll, Shayla smiled at Naomi and they began to chat. They talked like old friends, not like interviewer and interviewee. The conversation was informal and comfortable, both of them clearly at ease even though the subject matter made them both wildly uncomfortable.
Naomi detailed everything that had happened during her relationship with Anthony. The way his manipulation came disguised as love. The way he acted like his mental and physical blows were meant as kisses. She recanted it with the same detail and clarity as she had the first time with Shayla, but both of them had had more time to steel themselves against the emotional turmoil of the subject matter.
When Naomi began to talk about her addiction was the first time her hands began to shake. Shayla wasn’t sure whether it was from withdrawals or from pain, but when her own hands began to tremble at the thought of how she might have shared the same fate, she knew. What a horrible thing, to hav
e lost control of yourself to another person, but to the wrong person. People lost control of themselves all the time. That’s what love was, wasn’t it? But when you loved someone, you had better hope to god that they were worthy of it. Because only the people you love had the potential to harm you like Naomi had been hurt.
That was one area, at least, Anthony could never hurt Shayla. It was some bitter comfort, but it came at the cost of sadness for her friend. Because Naomi had loved Anthony; that much was clear. And the anger she felt now at him was mixed in with so much anger at herself, and Shayla could almost feel the sting of betrayal as if it poked at her the same. She couldn’t imagine Luke doing anything like that to her. She couldn’t imagine having to face the reality that the person she loved would bring her such harm on purpose, never mind at all.
Realizing in the middle of an interview—with a woman who was doing her best not to cry on film—that she loved Luke Cinder was inconvenient.
Shayla tried not to let Naomi’s words drone out as she turned the thought over in her mind, testing it like a smooth stone she’d picked up from the water’s edge. It fit there, in her palm, as if it had been made to rest in the depression between her thumb and the side of her hand.
Naomi was talking about the later stages of her addiction now. Anthony had even controlled when she went into rehab. He hadn’t put her there himself, of course. That would have been too kind. But when he was finished playing with her, presumably bored that she was so easy to control (Naomi’s words, not Shayla’s) he’d dropped her like a stone.
Naomi’s family had been there to pick up the pieces, even though she’d pushed them away before. Without them, she said, she didn’t know what she would have done. What she would have become.
Shayla tried to focus. Her eyes swam with tears of her own. So many of them were for Naomi, but she had enough of her own reasons to cry. The two cried together, as dignified as they could. They passed tissues between themselves and kept talking. It hurt like hell, but it was going to be damn good TV. They both knew it.
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