“Why am I naked, Brett?” I ask in a small voice.
He comes closer to me in the darkness. All I can see is the whites of his eyes and his teeth as he sneers at me, reaching towards me and running his fingertips down my forearm. My skin erupts in shivers and I shrug him off.
“Stop that, please. Where are my clothes? Help me, Brett. Please,” I beg him.
“No, no, darling,” he says. “I’m done helping you. Now it’s your turn to help me.”
I’m startled as the lights suddenly come on. I look around the space I’m in, my heart pounding and my head throbbing. I’m in my own bedroom; nothing too scary about that. Brett is kneeling next to the bed, and his friend, the one that Stacy liked, is sitting in an armchair next to the door. Stacy is smiling at me from his lap.
“Stace,” I manage to get out. “Can you get me some clothes?”
“Nah, you’re good,” she replies lazily, and I shiver once again. That’s when I see them for the first time.
The cameras.
“W-what’s going on?” I manage to choke out.
Finally, Brett gets up from his spot at the foot of the bed. Giving me a patronizing look, he throws a hoodie at me, one with our college’s logo emblazoned on it. I put it on quickly, smoothing my hair over my chest to cover myself up more.
“Please tell me what’s going on,” I whisper.
“What’s going on is this,” Brett begins, and my skin prickles. “You’ve just been filmed fucking two guys at once.”
I stare at him for a long time, unable to comprehend what he’s saying.
“You fucked me and you fucked Jack over there.” He points to his friend who waves at me with a grin. “You put on such a good show, little Lola Grace. Like a real slut would.”
“What… what have you done?” I ask him.
“What have you done, LG?” he grins in my face. “What would mommy dearest say if she knew you fucked two college guys on film? We could leak the footage any moment we wanted to, you know that, right?”
“But, I…”
“Don’t waste your words, darling, it’s all on here,” he taps the camera, and I look away, feeling hot tears in my eyes. I’m slowly putting the puzzle pieces together and the horrible reality of what happened is sinking in.
“Why would you do this?” I ask. “Why would you do this to me?”
“To you?” Jack rolls his eyes and Stacy, my best friend, giggles on his lap. “We did it for us, you selfish bitch. Always thinking about your fucking self.”
He shrugs Stacy off his lap and approaches me. I shrink away from his touch when he reaches forward to touch me. I hate him. I hate all of them.
“I do have to say, you’re a spectacular slut though, Lola Grace,” he tells me with a grin. “I can’t wait to re-watch the little movie we made with you as the star, darling.”
“What did you put in my drink?” I ask them all, but they ignore my questions completely. Instead, Brett begins to talk again, and I drink in his features, wondering how the hell I got him so wrong. He’s a monster. I don’t know how I’m holding the broken pieces of myself together. One wrong move and I’ll fall apart.
But I can’t let them see. I need to stay strong until they leave me alone.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen, Lola Grace,” Brett tells me calmly. “You’re gonna do a few favors for us. Like a donation to the college to make sure I graduate on time.”
“And a donation to my trust fund,” Jack grins.
“And to my shopping fund!” Stacy giggles excitedly.
“You’ll get money from your mom, and you’ll make sure to keep this quiet,” Brett continues while I watch him in shock. “You’ll do all this, and the movie will stay our dirty little secret. One wrong move, and we’ll show it to everyone. So anyone who wants can see what a dirty whore the mayor’s daughter is.”
“What have you done?” I whisper, though I’ve figured it out already. My eyes try to find Stacy’s, but she looks away every time, refusing to meet my gaze. Jack and Brett, however, are looking right at me. I finally notice the bulge in Jack’s pants.
He’s back on the armchair, stroking his fucking cock through some khaki shorts. And Brett is only wearing his boxers, I’ve only now realized.
A pain in my core is becoming more and more obvious as realization quickly sets in.
They drugged me.
They fucked me.
They filmed it.
And now they’re blackmailing me.
“I…” I stutter, my eyes watering. “I’ll get you the money. Just don’t show anyone what you did. Please.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Brett grins at me. “Good for you, Lola Grace. We’re gonna be expecting the first paycheck next week, and you better be on fucking time.”
I shiver and pull the duvet around me. The touch of its fabric against my skin is familiar, reassuring and distasteful at the same time. “Get out,” I say quietly. “Get the hell out.”
“Don’t worry, we won’t overstay our welcome,” Jack says with a laugh, pulling Stacy off his lap. I try to find her eyes with mine once again but she stubbornly looks away. My best fucking friend. Betraying me like this.
I really am alone in the world.
They head for the door leading out of my bedroom as I realize Stacy must’ve helped them get in here. She knows where I keep my spare key—under the flowerpot in the lobby.
“Thanks for the ride, darling,” Brett grins at me before shutting the bedroom door behind him. Jack gathers all of their filming equipment and Stacy sucks on her fucking lollipop like nothing just happened. I want to cry. I want to punch someone. But mostly, I just want to scratch my skin off.
When they’ve finally all left the room, I allow myself to think of Max.
Max, who sees me as an innocent little thing. Max, who would be so disappointed to know what I have done. Max, who will never want me if he finds out about what I did.
I crawl into a ball on the bed, letting a small sob escape me, but I don’t let myself cry. That little sob is all I’m letting out.
I let a few minutes pass with my cheeks still dry and not a single tear escaping my eyes. Once I’ve finally stopped shaking, I slowly pick myself up from the bed and drag my limp body into the bathroom.
Then I scrub my skin raw.
10
Max
Weeks pass. I see Lola Grace sometimes, but not as often as my mind and body crave. She acts differently around me these days, for which I am both grateful and incredibly fucking jealous. I want her to want me. Want her to crave me. But at the same time, I know we need to stay as far away from one another as humanly possible.
We have the obligatory fake family dinners and I try to reach out during those, but she makes it plenty clear she doesn’t want anything to do with me, and at some point, I start to give up—as much as I hate admitting that.
There’s no fucking way I’ll stop wanting her. No way I’ll stop thinking about her flesh against mine, skin on skin, lips on lips. But if she doesn’t want that, there’s no way I’m forcing myself on her. I’ll just have to move on, even if it wrecks my black hole of a heart.
The memory of Lola Grace admitting her abuse is still fresh in my mind, as if it all happened yesterday. I still want to hurt the goddamn bastard that her mom used to be married to, but with him six feet under there’s really not much I can do save for spitting on his grave. And that’s exactly what I plan on doing. So I confront Annabel about her late husband one day, as discreetly as I can. Which is to say, not at all.
“Where’s your first husband buried?” I ask her.
“We scattered his ashes,” she replies during our stilted breakfast at another fancy restaurant. The things this woman does to be seen are endless, and I’m getting damn sick and tired of the farce we’re a part of. “Why do you care, anyway?”
I give her a long look over the food we’re having, feeling a huge lump in my throat. I wonder if she really is that fucking clueless. I’d li
ke to think if I had a child, I’d notice what was going on with her. I’d notice when she got upset or when my ex-fucking-husband tried to molest her. And most of all, I wouldn’t let her live on her own like a goddamn exile.
Part of me wants to rile Annabel up, while the other half is just telling me to deal with this shit quietly and not cause a scene in public. The last thing I need right now is to upset Annabel and ruin the deal she has with my parents.
“Let’s talk on the way home,” I murmur in response. Annabel’s sharp, beady eyes, which remind me of that of a crow, stay on me throughout the rest of our breakfast together.
Finally, when we’ve finished and are sitting comfortably in the back of her ride, she turns to face me, giving me a sweet smile. The woman is such a damn snake, and it’s becoming more and more obvious every minute, every hour I spend with her.
“You wanted to talk to me about something?” she asks me in that fake sweet voice.
“I did,” I groan in response, running my hands through my hair. I’m feeling more like an impostor every day, especially in the goddamn monkey suits she has me wearing. And the worst part about all of it is being so fucking weak, unable to break away from this woman and the clutches she has on my family and me.
“About your ex,” I continue. “What was his name, anyway?”
“Darren,” she replies, looking down at her hands. She wants to appear demure and sweet, but I can see right past her act. The way her vision doesn’t cloud over, but instead remains cool and calculating. The way she looks at me from her peripheral vision, trying to ascertain how much trouble I’m going to cause for her.
A lot, Annabel. A lot of fucking trouble.
“You’re aware, of course, that he acted inappropriately towards your own daughter?”
I never was one to beat around the bush.
Annabel gives me a cool look, one of a viper. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” she spits out, while simultaneously giving the driver orders to start the car. I hate her cool efficiency, the fact that she considers this conversation another one of her damn transactions. Just like me, and just like her own daughter. How Lola Grace came from such a woman, I’ll never have an earthly idea.
“It’s my fucking business,” I get out through gritted teeth. “When that man might’ve put his hands on her. When he tried to touch her inappropriately. She’s only eighteen years old, for fuck’s sake.”
“Don’t you fucking think I know that?” she spits in my face. “Eighteen fucking years. Sweet and young. Forever reminding me of my own age. Stupid damn girl. She never should’ve told you.”
“So you admit there was something going on,” I say. I want to strangle her for not doing anything, and my hands tighten on the armrest in the car. “You knew he was abusive, and you didn’t do a fucking thing to help her. Your own daughter.”
“Shut up,” she replies. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Darren loved only me, and we both know that much. A girl of eighteen years old is no competition for me.”
“You keep telling yourself that, you witch,” I grit at her. “The way that you see her as fucking competition and not even your daughter speaks volumes for itself.”
She glares at me in the same moment her phone starts to ring. She picks it up and gives me a triumphant look when we both see her daughter’s name flashing across the screen. Fuck. Lola Grace never calls.
I feel my chest tightening at the mere sign of seeing her name, and hate myself for showing Annabel my weakness. She answers the phone smugly. “Hello darling, what’s going on with you?”
I watch Annabel’s self-centered expression turn paler. Her eyes grow wider and her hand flies up to her mouth as she fires a barrage of questions over the phone. They’re all unclear, just asking about times and places. I can tell something is seriously off when she covers the mouthpiece of her phone with her palm and barks a new order at the driver. We’re going to Lola Grace’s apartment.
My dick bulges at the mere thought of seeing my kitten again. I haven’t been in her presence in a week, and I am feeling the loss like a fucking bullet. But I mustn’t show either of them. Obviously something’s off. My heart pounds as I wait for Annabel to get off her phone and tell me what is going on, but by the time that happens, we’ve already reached Lola Grace’s apartment.
Annabel cuts off the call and I ask what’s going on right away, but instead of answering, she pulls me out of the car and grips my lapels. “You’re a fucking lawyer, right?” she barks at me.
“I mean, I guess,” I manage to get out. “I passed the bar, I haven’t exactly been practicing.”
“You’re about to fucking start,” she informs me. “This could be incredibly damaging to my career. Make sure you deal with it, any way you know how. I need to recover from this shit, and it better not even come out in the first place.”
My complexion pales, but there is no time for questions as Annabel drags me upstairs to Lola Grace’s door. Standing in front of her apartment, I’m assaulted by scents and memories of the girl I so desperately want, and when the front door flies open, reality comes crashing down hard.
Lola Grace looks tiny. Her eyes are huge and red-rimmed, and her hands are shaking. She’s wearing a simple white dress that makes her look innocent as fuck at the same time as making me want to ravage that tight little body of hers. I need to grip the doorframe to fucking steady myself before I fall over. I need to get a grip on myself.
“What have you done, stupid girl?” Annabel breathes, and Lola Grace shakes in the doorway. Her mother barges past her into the apartment and we all huddle around her small dining room table.
The apartment is clean as ever, almost clinically so. Lola Grace is shaking as she sits down at the table. She doesn’t offer us a drink. She just sits down and folds her hands in her lap, trying to conceal how badly they are shaking.
“Start at the beginning,” her mother commands her. “Tell me everything that happened.”
Lola Grace refuses to look at either of us as she begins to tell us what’s going on. And with each word out of the girl’s mouth, I break a little bit more. As the full story comes to surface, I want to fucking die. And I want to strangle more people than I did before, even knowing full-well I’ll never get my hands on them.
“There is a video going around,” Lola Grace admits, chewing on the bottom lip. Her gaze is firmly fixed on the table in front of her.
“What kind of video?” her mom barks. “Tell your stepfather what you just told me over the phone, you stupid fucking girl.”
I’m about to tell Annabel to shut the fuck up when Lola Grace’s eyes connect with mine. I see the pain there, so obvious and so damn heartbreaking it nearly splits my heart in two.
“I filmed a movie,” she says softly.
“What kind of movie?” I ask her, my heart beating painfully slow in my constricting chest. She looks right at me, but it’s like she’s not even at the same table. Her gaze pierces through me until there’s nothing left of me but burning ash and bones.
“With two guys,” she says softly. “They fucked me.”
My heart fucking stops as the world stops spinning. I look at her, but it’s like she’s not even in the same universe, let alone sitting at the same table.
Annabel launches into a fucking tirade and I try desperately to connect my gaze with Lola Grace’s. I try so hard to make her come back to me, to help me understand what in the ever-loving fuck is going on. After a few long moments, her eyes finally come back into focus through the red mist I am seeing before me, and her gaze fixes on mine.
I don’t know what she’s trying to ask of me, but her eyes are pleading. Sad, so incredibly sad, and pleading for me to understand. My hands tighten into fists and I can’t hold back. I get up from that fucking table and I punch a hole in the wall in Lola Grace’s kitchen. Annabel shrieks, and my gaze is fixed on Lola Grace as blood pours down my knuckles.
If someone hurt my little girl, I’m going to make t
hem fucking pay.
After setting me up with a bag of frozen peas, Lola Grace begins to explain what happened. That she was seeing a guy—no names are ever exchanged, even though I’m fucking desperate to bash this dick’s head in—and he and his friend suggested she be the star of their movie. Things got out of control after that, and now someone’s got ahold of the video and is threatening to leak it to hurt her mother’s career.
“Is this why you’ve been asking me for money?” Annabel asks her daughter, and Lola Grace gives a small nod. I know fuck all about this, and my hands tighten even more as I realize both of them have been hiding things from me.
“You foolish fucking girl,” Annabel snarls at her daughter, and the first tear comes running down Lola Grace’s pretty face. I want to kiss it off her cheek, and I need to know how this fucking happened. But there’s no way I can get to the bottom of this with Annabel here. Finally, my moment arises when she excuses herself to go and talk to her campaign manager about this disaster.
I lean over to Lola Grace, who is once again refusing to meet my eyes.
“How did this fucking happen?” I ask her. “You weren’t seeing that guy, were you? Did someone fucking force you, Lola Grace? Is this shit even real? I’ll crack their skulls open, I swear to fucking God.”
“No,” she shakes her head vehemently, tears welling in her eyes. “No one forced me. I wanted to do it. But I can’t give them more money without mom getting suspicious.”
She locks eyes with me, begging me to understand, but I don’t have a fucking clue what it is I’m supposed to do here. “You have to help me,” she says softly. “Make this all go away. It was a moment of fucking weakness. Just make sure it’s swept under the rug.”
“Why did you do it?” I ask her the burning question on my mind. “Why, Lola Grace? What about me? How could you sleep with someone else, baby?” I’m getting fucking desperate as I reach across the table for her hand, and she snatches it away from me. She doesn’t meet my eyes.
His Brat: A Dark Bad Boy Romance Page 9
