by Nora Flite
I stiffen in place. “You were involved with that?”
He cups his chin, resting his elbow on his knee. “You didn't know I was a shareholder in my sister's banking company? Of course I was involved with Franklin. Him and his buddies came to that little party because I pulled some strings. I wouldn't have showed up at all, but Silas made it clear everything was falling apart. I've lost so much, I wasn't ready to lose all my money and power, too.” He goes quiet, and I'm too busy digesting his words to interrupt. He glances back at me. “Lot's of things change, but men don't. Franklin wanted you. We had a vote. Mine was yes.”
I tremble, wishing I could draw myself into a tight ball in the seat. I want to shrink and vanish. I remember, now, seeing Vahn in the kitchen at the estate the night before I went to that pretend dinner. Was that what he was talking about with them? Were they discussing selling my body over wine and cheese in the kitchen?
I'm freaking out. I can't pull out of my spiral. “I hate you,” I say, lifting my head to glare at him. A flicker of amazement dances on the edge of my rage. “I don't know why I'm surprised. Of course I fucking hate you! You didn't just get involved in trying to sell my body, you hurt my sister, too. You abused her. You even cut her hair off! She's all twisted up inside and paranoid thanks to you.”
He presses his palms on his thighs. “I didn't make her paranoid. That implies she had nothing to be afraid of. All I did was make her realize that she wasn't invincible just because my son cared about her.”
I freeze, taken aback by his words.
Vahn's fingertips dig into his pants. “Oh. Did she not tell you about that? How she wrapped my son around her little finger the longer she stayed under my roof? I didn't even care that much, initially. She made him so happy. I thought, as long as he was smiling, he must be fine. I let her and Dominic surround him with their wants and desires and . . . and I wasn't paying attention.” His hands grip harder. I'm sure he's injuring himself, but his face is emotionless. “It doesn't matter now.”
As upset as I am, a tiny part of me throbs with sympathy for this broken man. “Vahn,” I say, my mouth dry, my voice a hush that the helicopter almost drowns out. “You're taking me back to Annie, aren't you?”
He stares at me. He says nothing.
“Silas agreed to let us go,” I insist, hoping to prevail to his logic. “He knows it's too dangerous to let Annie near me or my sister. You can't take me to her. She'll do something she'll regret. Something she can't take back.”
“No,” he says, glancing at his hands. He eases them off his thighs, flexing them. “She's going to thank me, I'm giving her and me a gift.”
“I'm not a fucking gift!”
“It's not all about you.”
I freeze on the seat. My eyes trail the helicopter's interior, and I understand something important—there's more than enough room for three people in here. If Vahn wanted to bring Kara with us, he could have. If he wanted to reward Annie, he would have brought us both. But he didn't.
Something else is going on here.
“Who are you really going after?” I ask nervously.
He cocks his head and smiles evilly. “You'll see.”
“It's Dominic, isn't it?” I say it and I instantly realize I'm right. I pull at my seatbelt, ignoring how my wrists burn as I lean towards Vahn. “Don't you dare touch him! Leave him out of this, he's suffered enough!”
His eyes widen. He laughs with hollow surprise. “You think he's the one who suffered? Him, not me, the one who let him stay under my own roof, allowed him to poison my own son with his ideas of what it means to be worth something?” He hunches towards me in the small space, shadows darkening him from his brow to his twisted smile. “Did you know my sister thought about getting an abortion when she found out she was pregnant with him?”
I shake my head side to side. I have no words.
“She came to me. We were always close. She had no one else to talk to about it, certainly not Silas. She said the pregnancy was an accident. I knew she was in love with your father and it was pathetic. Joseph left a week before she found out she was knocked up, you know. I told my sister that the man she loved was never going to come back to her, and that she should embrace the future in her hands at that moment, instead of the one that would never be.”
Images swim through my mind. All of them involving Annie's cold expression as she watched her own son. She'd looked at him with distaste when he was young, and she looks at him the same way now.
Vahn links his hands together, watching me over the top. “It's my fault that Dominic exists. It's time to take responsibility for that.”
He's going to kill him.
I know it in my bones.
“Please,” I sob, finding the source of my voice. “Please, please, you can't do this!” I start to scream, hoping whoever's flying the helicopter will hear me over the blades and just do something. Even crashing us into the ground would be fine. It'd prevent Vahn from meeting up with Dominic and ending his life.
He unclips himself and comes my way. From his pocket he removes a rag and loops it around my face, gagging me with it. As he ties the rag firmly, his fingers run over my hair. They touch the short ends. He rubs them between his fingers and it makes my skin crawl.
When he sits back down, I roar into the thick rag.
I scream until my throat is raw.
I scream until I lose my voice.
Vahn watches me through it all. I search his face, hoping to see a sign of emotion – of fucking humanity. It never comes.
- Chapter 24 -
Dominic
I'm locked in a prison of my own making. I've chosen to trap myself with wicked demons masquerading as humans - people who would destroy the last bit of light in my world. But if they're in here with me, they aren't out there, putting Laiken or her sister in danger. I'll suffer endlessly just for that.
Three days have passed since Laiken escaped. I've barely slept, constantly concerned that my mother or father will slip off the estate and do something. I'm not even sure what. And when I realize they don't need to leave, that they can simply send someone for them, I begin hovering around them to listen in on their phone calls.
I follow my father to his business downtown.
I get as close to my mother as she'll allow.
Both of them tolerate me, but I think they know what's on my mind. Neither of them brings it up. It's like they want to forget Laiken and Kara ever existed. I'm fine with them doing that, even if it's an impossible task for me.
Walking through the quiet hallways of the estate, I find myself drawn to Laiken's bedroom. The first night after she left, I came here in the late hours, opening her door and peering inside, like I had to check that she hadn't reappeared.
I pull up short when I see her door is half open - someone's inside. Gripping the handle, I throw it open, startling a maid with a vacuum cleaner. “Sir!” she gasps, backing into the bedframe. “You scared me, I—”
“What are you doing in here?” I ask, my tone brisk. My eyes fly over the room, noting every tiny change—the blankets have been removed, they sit in a basket on the floor. The scent of lemons burns my nose.
“I was cleaning,” she says, still gawking at me.
“Why?”
“Sorry, I don't understand the question . . . it's my job, Sir.”
No. No, this is all wrong. I thought I was prepared for Laiken to leave this place, but to see her being erased before my very eyes is too much. “Get out,” I whisper.
She looks like she might argue until she glances at my shaking hands. She drops the vacuum cleaner and bolts out into the hallway. I'm alone in the room Laiken has slept in for the past six years.
I close the door on reflex. Once it's shut, I stare at my hand pressed against the wood. “Why did I close myself in her room?” I wonder. But deep down, I know the reason. I want to be alone in this personal space of hers.
The first place I wander towards is the bathroom. Leaning in the doorway, I reme
mber the night I stormed in here, ready to pry every bit of information from her that I could. My fingers dig into the doorframe. She stood right there and challenged me. I think, if Laiken had grown up to become a fragile shell of the girl I knew, I could have resisted her.
If she'd been weak, I wouldn't have been drawn to test her.
If she'd been selfish, I wouldn't have admired her determination to protect her father.
Instead, as she'd sat on the toilet seat, facing away from me, she'd enticed me with her solid backbone. She'd become someone I could admire. And then, when I'd planned to fuck with her head, make her believe I was going to hurt her, she'd placed her claim on me without even trying.
I clench my hand into a fist as I remember how soft her hair was between my fingers that night. It was the second time I'd ever touched it. The first had been when I'd snatched her braid to keep her from escaping.
This . . . this was different.
Hovering behind her slim neck, playing my nails through her thick hair, I'd almost forgotten why I was here. I was supposed to be pulling info from her, and instead, she was forcing me to face the part of me that was burning with desire.
I don't remember walking toward her bed, but I'm there. Gliding my palms over her blankets, I lean close and inhale. This whole place smells like her, but here, it's so intense that my eyes flutter.
I stretch out on the mattress, my head resting on her pillows. The blankets hug me as my weight settles in. This place is all I have left of her. It's more than a memory, less than something you can grasp. It's perfect for someone as broken as me. Ghosts are all I deserve.
She slept here, I think, turning my cheek to the pillow. It's silky on my skin, my beard scraping on the fabric so hard I feel the vibrations in my head. Did she ever dream of me?
I want to imagine she did. Especially after I took her virginity in the rain. My own thoughts had been clouded by that encounter not just as I slept, but also while I was awake. I remember how the air had tasted like lightning. Laiken had tasted better—like sweet sugar and something magical.
And the way she'd moaned my name . . .
As my legs flex, my back arching while her smell floods my nose, I know full well what I'm about to do.
I'm a man who's lost everything he cares for. I've given up so much.
Now? I want to be selfish.
Reaching down, I hastily remove my belt. My cock is already pushing violently against the inside of my pants. When I peel them open, my shaft flexes eagerly in the open air. It juts towards the sky like it's a dowsing rod searching for Laiken. It knows she isn't here. But in spirit she is—and that's enough to set me off.
Pumping my cock frantically, I'm assaulted by image upon image of that perfect woman. I think of how fast she was when I chased her. How strong she was climbing the fence. Ripping apart her golden dress.
Groaning, I bite her pillow and squeeze myself. My skin is scorching. The veins under my fingertips pulse—I'm on the verge of climax already. I'm not here to luxuriate or draw it out. I'm jerking myself off because I'm a desperate man hanging onto an idea of a woman who both belongs to him, and also can't ever be his.
But she said she was mine. I press my molars together and growl. And I told her she belonged to me. That I'd be her first . . . her last . . . and even now, knowing how terrible that fate would be for her, I still fucking want it.
I want Laiken.
I need her.
And in my bliss I forget, for just a delirious second, that she isn't here with me.
“Fuck,” I choke out, trembling as my balls draw tight. I come while gazing up at the ceiling she woke up to day after day after day. Raspy breaths explode from me for several minutes.
Sticky, hot come puddles around my fist. My eyes are dry, I can't tell if it's because I've drained myself of moisture when I climaxed, or because I'm examining every thin crack in the plaster above, committing it to memory the way I think she must have.
Blinking would help, but I resist the urge with all my might. If I shut my eyes, the flash of black will disconnect me from this moment. I want to lie here in my sweat and seed and think only of Laiken. Her sweet smile lifted my spirit. Her sly grin woke my black desires.
My eyes are burning now; I still don't blink. Control yourself, I think while gritting my jaw. It's the least you can do for her. Control. That word is the fucking embodiment of whom I struggled for years to become, an idea I tried to form myself around.
If you have control, you're in charge. It means people listen to you. Respect you. That they hear your voice and know you exist and they'll never be able to forget you're right in front of them. They won't wish you were never born, or wave you off while they kill themselves, or cry at you over the phone because they can't see you only want to keep them safe.
She didn't cry because she didn't understand, I correct myself sullenly.
Laiken cried because she loved me.
I blink.
And then I don't want to open my eyes ever again.
SOME TIME LATER, I step out into the hallway. The early sun streams through the rows of windows. It's empty—no maids around to check on me, or to give me wary looks, like they know what I just did in Laiken's room.
I shut the door behind me securely. On impulse, I twist the lock, hoping it will signal to everyone to keep out of the room and leave it untouched. Part of me knows that place isn't hers anymore; that her energy will ebb from the floor and walls and bed as time goes on. But for now, I'm too torn up inside to consider that happening.
I start to walk forward then I halt. The red rug beneath my shoes seems softer today. Focusing on how the plush material spreads around my black shoes, I get an idea. Pulling my shoes off, then my socks, I set my toes experimentally on the rug. The fibers encase my foot. Each step I take across the rug brings me bliss. And anguish.
This was what Laiken wanted from me when I was a teenager - to just enjoy the wonderful things right under my nose. She'd recognized that I was holding myself back constantly, always afraid of upsetting my parents. I'd been consumed with becoming the man my father wished me to be. But she'd seen from the start that his goals weren't my own. That beautiful girl, she knew me more than I knew myself.
“Dominic, what the hell is this?”
Lifting my head, I see that I've walked all the way to where my father's study is. He stands there with his thumbs looped in his pockets, face pulled together by wrinkles and disapproval. He stares at my feet, then right into my eyes.
I wait for the shame to rise up.
It never comes.
Shrugging calmly, I wiggle my toes. “What's it look like?”
“Like you're humiliating yourself by waltzing around without any damn socks or shoes on. This isn't a beach vacation. I guess I shouldn't expect you to take anything serious, though, hmm?”
Down the hall, I see the ghost of Laiken from another time; a lanky girl as she runs around the corner, right before slamming into me. I can hear her bell-clear laughter in my head. “Actually, the problem was me taking everything too seriously.”
He scrutinizes me before waving at his study. “Get in here.” Following him, I'm barely inside the room before the door clicks violently behind me, the motion stirring the hair on the back of my head. “Your mother is acting like her world is collapsing, I won't let you start going off the deep end, too.”
Ever since Laiken and Kara left, my mother has drawn in on herself. She alternates between moping in her bedroom or out in the preserve. Wyatt has returned to work twice, and each time, he's driven back off the property, refusing to work with Annie stumbling around drunk.
I'd fought away my desire to talk to him about Laiken. I know myself too well. If he told me anything about her that worried me, I'd be unable to stay near my parents.
And I have to.
Silas is staring at me—did he ask me a question? I pull myself taller, unsure how to talk to him . . . how to interact at all. Something feels off and I can't put my fing
er on it. “I'm not sure what you want from me,” I mutter.
“I want you to pull yourself out of your misery and start acting like a man. You haven't done a damn thing to help out around here. I wonder if you actually care.”
“I'm the one that stopped Mom from seriously hurting Kara, maybe even killing her. That would have been far worse for us and our business than anything I can imagine.”
His lips curl in mocking kindness. “Ah. So you want me to thank you.” Drawing in a breath, he circles the desk, angling for me. He approaches until I can see every hairline crack between his eyebrows and on either side of his scowl.
He's spoiling for a fight, but again, everything feels wrong. Like I'm drinking fruit juice that's started to rot but isn't quite there. “I don't want anything from you,” I start to say, my words going unfinished as a rush of understanding takes my voice away from me.
Each time I've been in his study over the years, I've felt degrees of dread. Sometimes it was great enough that I would tremble right in front of him. Other times, I'd keep myself stoic on the outside while enduring waves of nausea. It's always affected me. Always.
This time, as I square off with my father, I feel . . .
Nothing.
“It's gone,” I whisper in amazed surprise.
“What?” he asks quizzically.
Looking him over, I start to notice all the little ways he's changed through the years. When I was young, he had his struggles with his health, but it was still no chore for him to drag me by my hair into this very room. He'd barely break a sweat holding me down so he could beat the soft parts of my body no one else would see.
He'd been bigger, stronger, but it was always more than just that. In my psyche, I'd thought he chose to hurt me because I was a failure. I'd been sure on some level that I deserved it. If I hadn't, why would he do it? And why would my mother never stop him?
