The Puppetmaster

by Linnea May

  “NO!”

  My cry echoes through the house, leaving a sting in my own ears and causing him to turn around to glare at me furiously.

  “Shut up!” he roars even louder, unable to evade my attack in time as I lay into him, landing a proper hit with my fist against his cheekbone.

  He may be taller, he may be stronger—but so was the guy back then. The guy who I thrashed senseless into a coma.

  Raad is so stunned that he lets go of me for just a split second, tumbling backward and I manage to free myself from his hold.

  I run away from him, but I’m stupid enough to head for the front entrance. The locked door stops my escape, which sends me right back into his arms. This time he’s not stupid enough to allow my fist to act freely. Instead, he grabs me by the wrists, crossing my arms in front of my chest and pulling them closely around my body, as if I were hugging myself.

  I’m twisting and turning, trying as best I can to break free, but he has me in a tight grip this time, securing my arms firmly around my body by using the leather strings. They are long enough to be snaked around my upper body twice, before he secures them in an unyielding knot at my back so that I’m restrained like I am in a straitjacket.

  I can’t move my arms and am entirely at his mercy when he picks me up, now easily containing me in his arms even as I fight and squirm in his rigid embrace, and he carries me up the stairs.

  I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe I was about to fall in love with this monster.

  He’s a murderer—or will be, thanks to me.

  I wasn’t the first puppet whose name he used to buy shares of that particular pharmaceutical company. In fact, it looks like he’s done this with every single puppet, always retaining a proxy on their accounts and their shares. I figured this out by going through the paperwork that was spread out in the open on his desk. That’s not what shocked me, though. To be honest, I didn’t even understand what I was looking at because I had no idea why anyone would want to do this.

  Why buy so many shares of one company using different accounts under different names—if he effectively ends up gaining control over them? Why didn’t he just buy all those shares under his own name?

  That part I still haven’t quite figured out, but I think I do understand why he needed the shares in the first place. I couldn’t get into his computer because it was password-protected, but his tablet was not. I looked up the company name whose shares he bought using our accounts and came across a bunch of very disturbing articles.

  There was one in particular that destroyed me. An article that was only printed a day ago. It revealed the true intentions behind Raad’s greed for profit, and the fact that he would stop at nothing for his own benefit.

  Not even if it meant that people would die because of him.

  I’m wailing and crying for help, torn apart by the horrible truth I learned about the man who has been my entire world for the past month, the mysterious master I’d dreamed about for years—the man I hoped would break me free.

  It was all a lie. He used me, just like he used all his other puppets.

  It all makes sense now. It all makes horrible sense.

  “Let me go!” I yell out, a new crest of panic rising deep within my chest when we reach the bedroom upstairs.

  He doesn’t respond verbally, but yanks the door open with one pull, storming inside and throwing me on the soft mattress of the canopy bed that’s been my place of solace and our playground for the past few weeks.

  “No!” I bellow again, as I see him marching back to the door in a rage.

  Struggling to get back into a seated position without the help of my arms, I drag myself across the bed, almost falling as I roll myself down over the edge before I chase after him. I reach the door just after he has slammed it shut. I sink down on my knees and burst out into a desperate cry when I hear the heavy lock turned from the outside.

  He has locked me in. Just like I feared he would.

  Raad tied me up and locked me inside my bedroom without giving even a hint of an explanation to what I just saw. He didn’t even try. He didn’t even have an elaborate lie ready to tell me, to defend his honor.

  His entire behavior is nothing but a loud admission of guilt—and it breaks my heart into pieces.

  Because I wanted to be wrong. I wanted to hear that it was all a misunderstanding.

  I wanted him to deny it. I wanted him to tell me that, no, he didn’t buy all those shares so he would own more than fifty percent of that company’s shares.

  And no, it wasn’t because he wanted to stop that company from obtaining a patent for a drug that could save thousands of lives.

  No, it wasn’t because he wanted to profit from this and secure the patent for that drug with his own company—thus gaining control over the price at which that drug would be sold on the public market.

  No, it wasn’t because he wanted a monopoly on that drug and sell it for an outrageous price, which would make him a hundred times richer than he already is—and possibly prevent thousands of people from ever receiving this lifesaving medication because they can’t afford it.

  No. It can’t be true.

  But that’s what the article stated. That’s the conclusion that could be drawn from the Puppetmaster’s inscrutable behavior of the past few years.

  Years he spent making his puppets dance for him so they would turn a blind eye to what he did using their names.

  Years he spent hiding in the dark, taking on the role of the mysterious and irresistible Puppetmaster, whose strings we all so desperately wanted to hang from.

  He made a fool out of all of us. He made us fall for him, only to cast us out into the world as clueless accomplices, leaving us dumb and dizzy with adoration for him, while he hid the monster he truly is.

  It all makes sense now. It all makes terrible sense.

  But the truth is so excruciatingly painful that I don’t know how I will ever survive this. It feels as if my heart has been ripped out of my chest and sliced into pieces.

  I collapse in front of the locked door, choking on my own cries as tears forge a river down my face, not soothing the ache that rips me apart in the slightest.

  How will I ever live with this? How will I ever be able to forgive him—or myself?

  And do I even have to worry about any of this?

  Now that I know the truth about him, will he even let me… live?

  Chapter 46

  Raad

  I don’t know why I just did that. Why did I lock her away like that? What has gotten into me?

  She has gotten into me, that’s what.

  Alena’s pain, the reproach, the disappointment, the unbelievable guilt that’s now layered on top of what she’s already suffered for years—it was impossible for me to bear. I needed her to calm down. I needed her to be in a secure place where I knew she could neither run away from me nor hurt herself.

  I needed for her to stop crying and screaming at me like that.

  I needed a moment to think.

  And a moment to cool my temple. Damn, that girl knows how to throw a good punch. I knew that about her, but I never expected to be on the receiving end of one of her vicious fists. Her strike caught me by surprise, which is the only reason why she could land it so well in the first place. It really hit home, and if I don’t want to risk getting a black eye, I should probably put some ice on it.

  I head down to the kitchen and fetch an ice pack from the freezer to hold against my throbbing temple. She didn’t cut the skin open as was done to her back then, but I can still feel the impact of her punch. I pace up and down the kitchen, my pulse racing just as fast as my thoughts are.

  I need to do something. I need to fucking do something.

  Throwing the ice pack into the sink, I head back to my office, a drip of cold water running down the side of my face.

  I hate it when things don’t go as planned, and Alena breaking into my office and going through my stuff was definitely not part of the pla
n. I didn’t want her to find out like this—and I didn’t want her to come to the conclusion she came to.

  The same conclusion they all made. I can’t even blame them, because I know who I am and what I did in the past, and I had to play dirty to get ahead in this coup as well.

  I was forced to.

  I step into my office, pausing in the door as my eyes fall on the mess Alena left behind. A quick look over to the window tells me how she got in here in the first place. The door was locked, but for some reason, the window wasn’t.

  Is that why she wanted to come in here a couple of days ago? Did she plan all of this? Did she unlock the window while I was busy with the safe underneath the desk?

  That’s probably how it happened and I can’t help but be impressed, despite her betrayal. I wish she could have trusted me enough to just ask and wait until I was ready to tell her what she wanted to know. But I understand that’s a lot to ask of someone in her position faced with someone like me.

  Should I have told her from the start? Would she have played along?

  I go down on my knees and reach for the tablet that fell to the floor when I dragged her out of the room. And just as I suspected, she found exactly what I didn’t want her to see. The browser is still open, showing at least ten open tabs with articles and news about my deal—all of which depict me and my company in the worst light imaginable.

  What if she doesn't believe me? What if I tell her everything and she won't accept the truth after reading this?

  I let out a deep sigh, shaking my head as I get back up on my feet and put the tablet back on the table. My body appears to move on its own when I start cleaning the room with stoic motions, seemingly calm and collected, just as I always am. My hands aren’t trembling, my stance is strong, and my shoulders are pulled back—but my heart is racing and my mind is heavy with dread.

  Cleaning up the mess in this room is the easy part. I can gather the papers into a neat stack and put them away; I can close the browser tabs and pull the window down as if nothing ever happened.

  But it doesn’t change the fact that she’s up there, terrified and shocked out of her mind, restrained with the same strings that were supposed to give her pleasure and freedom, with nowhere to run.

  She hates me. She may never trust me again, no matter what I tell her.

  That’s why I can’t just tell her. I need to show her. She needs proof that this isn’t what it looks like. She needs to know all of it, including her involvement in this whole thing. Alena was always meant to be the only puppet in the know after all of this was over. I always planned to share my secret with her because I know it would take a burden off of her that would change her life.

  The truth.

  I can’t just walk up there and talk to her. Right now, she probably wouldn’t even listen to me. But I need her to listen. I need her to know.

  This needs to be prepared, and to do that I’ll need time. Just a little time.

  When my office looks just the way I left it the last time I was in here, I step back into the lavish entrance hall, pausing at the foot of the steps as I listen for her screams. But she has gone silent. I could hear her all the way down here after I left her in her bedroom, but it’s quiet now. Instead, as I walk up the stairs, I’m met with the same sound that called for my attention earlier when I checked on Alena.

  The cat is sitting in front of Alena’s room, meowing and pushing against the door like it did downstairs. When it notices my presence at the end of the hallway, it freezes for a moment before meowing at me.

  “You little traitor,” I whisper as I approach the animal. “First you tell on her and now you want to be with her?”

  The cat regards me with its usual face, somewhat grumpy and entirely unimpressed by me. It quiets when I stop before Alena’s bedroom door but doesn’t step aside, its eyes glued on me expectantly while I listen for any sounds coming out of her room.

  But there’s nothing. It’s completely silent in Alena’s room, which fills me with worry. It’s been less than an hour since I left her up here, and while I’m sure there’s nothing she could—or would—use to harm herself, the tense stillness still doesn’t sit right with me.

  Neither does the thought of leaving her all alone for as long as it will take me to prepare my defense. I worry about her and I feel terrible for what happened. Fuck. I can't leave her in there all by herself.

  My eyes fall on the white furry thing at my feet, surprised to see the cat still sitting there, weirdly close and continuing to stare up at me.

  “Fine, you check on her,” I hiss in a whisper, hurrying to unlock the door before I can change my mind.

  I open it just far enough for the cat to slip through, which it does within an instant.

  Then I close it again, making sure to lock it securely before I leave.

  Chapter 47

  Alena

  I’m not alone when I come to. Salwa is napping close to me, nestled against my chest as I lay on my side, curled up in a fetal position, a crust of dried tears covering my face.

  The shock of my discovery and the hysterical outburst wore me out so much that I couldn’t help but doze off. My entire body was drained from what happened, the pain running so deep through my veins that I couldn’t feel anything but the despair that this revelation about Raad brought upon me.

  I lay down on the bed as best I could, my arms still in a tight bind around my body when I drifted off to sleep. The light has changed outside, dusk settling over the city with warmth and honey-like sunlight.

  My shoulder hurts from sleeping on my side like this, and when I shuffle to turn around, Salwa lifts her head, releasing a faint meow as she glares at me before lowering her head back down.

  I let her be and fight my way back into a seated position. He let Salwa in to be with me. That means he must have been up here, maybe even inside the room.

  But he didn’t do anything. He didn’t wake me to talk to me. He was probably glad that I was asleep so he wouldn’t have to face me.

  That fucking coward.

  I never thought I’d ever think those words about him, but that’s exactly what he is, a coward.

  And what am I? What do you call a person who fell head over heels for a criminal of the worst kind just because she thought he was attractive and promising? Oh, and so mysterious.

  Of course he was mysterious, and of course everything surrounding him was cloaked in darkness. It’s enticing as much as it serves as a protection. Because people at The Velvet Rooms—and especially his puppets—can’t know that he is Michael Raad Brower, the owner of the company about to potentially ruin a lot of lives by denying them access to a lifesaving drug.

  I press my lips into a thin line, tortured by fear and rage as I replay those things in my mind—before I startle at a sound coming from the door.

  The lock, to be precise.

  Salwa lifts her head next to me, seemingly just as tense as I grow when the door slowly opens. I know it’s silly, but having her sit next to me soothes me immensely, even though I know a cat could never protect me from anything Raad might do to me.

  He steps in, looking awfully handsome in a black shirt and dark denim jeans, something I rarely see him wear. His black hair is ruffled a bit and not gelled in place like it usually is—and he looks at me with an expression that confuses me to no end. It’s not the domineering, always-in-control kind of face that I know so well. It’s also not the sinister smile laced with delicious menace when he was about to do something naughty to me.

  His expression is soft, neither smiling nor frowning nor anything in between.

  I don’t know what to make of it, because I’m not sure what I’m seeing on his face. If I didn’t know any better I would even go as far as to call it repentance.

  He’s holding a thick black folder in his left hand when he walks toward me. A content smile pulls at the corner of my mouth when I notice the shade around his left eye that’s been placed there by my fist.

  “Let me gue
ss,” I snarl at him, unwilling to allow him to speak first and talk me into the ground. “It’s not what you think it is? Or… I can explain? Or some other lame intro before you reveal an elaborate lie in front of me?”

  Nothing on his face speaks of any kind of reaction to my welcome. He looks stoic, coming to a halt just before the bed, about three feet away from me.

  “Or did you come here to bribe me?” I proceed, jutting my chin toward the folder in his hand. “Another nondisclosure for me to sign? Another contract? A promise to pay me some of your bullshit money so I will keep my mouth shut? I can tell you that won’t work, because I’m not—”

  “It wasn’t your fault!” he cuts me off in a surprisingly loud voice.

  I recoil with bewilderment, my eyes whipping up to meet his with a silent question written all over my face.

  “What?”

  “That guy back then, the one who you defended yourself against,” he says. “What happened to him wasn’t your fault. His heart didn’t just give in because of your fight.”

  I stare at him in disbelief. Why is he bringing that up now? Of all the things I anticipated him to say, this was the last thing I would have thought of.

  “What the hell are you trying to do?” I retort, shaking my head. “How… why are you saying this?”

  I’m too stunned to move or say anything when he comes closer, taking his seat right next to me on the bed. Salwa, however, gets up on her feet and meanders over to me, taking her seat in my lap while casting him a disdainful look. Raad regards her with a raised eyebrow before he looks at me.

  “May I untie you?” he wants to know. “Your arms must be hurting.”

  They are, but I would never admit that to him.

  “Yes, you may,” I say instead, raising my chin defiantly while he reaches around me to find the knot at my back.

  I can’t suppress a sigh of relief when the strings are loosened and I can finally move my arms freely again. I stretch, rolling my shoulders as I cautiously move my sore arms, the strings now hanging idly from my wrists.