by Skye Warren
Chapter Twenty
Through the walls I can hear the soccer games that Mr. Alami watches every night. From somewhere a baby cries. The windows don’t close all the way. It smells like the smoke from the hookah lounge down the street. Our building is never quiet, never asleep, but no one came when Mama let out a short, surprised scream. They didn’t come when I yelled at the man hurting her or when he hit me.
He’s gone now. The bed stopped making that horrible creak. From the crack in the closet door I watched his shadow stand up and fix his clothes before he walked out the front door.
Mama’s shadow got up much slower.
I can tell she’s in pain by the way she’s hunched over, by the sniffles she probably thinks I can’t hear. She doesn’t come and move the chair locking me inside. Does she not know I’m here? Did she forget? I stay silent, my arms wrapped around my knees. I can tell my eye is getting big and swollen where he hit me, but it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t feel like anything.
There’s a high-pitched sound that I recognize as the pipes that are behind this wall. The shower is running, with its leaky spray and its hot water that runs out. Mama.
It feels like forever when she finally comes and lets me out.
I run to her, pressing my face against her warmth, her dress clean and soft—not the stiff uniform she wore home from the hotel, smelling of sharp chemicals, the one she wore when he came. We have to call the police, I tell her in French, my words too fast and too afraid.
She shakes her head, slow and sure. “Non. We call no one.”
I have grown up for seven years on these streets. No one trusts the police, but this is something very bad. This is what they are supposed to protect us against. “He hurt you.”
There is no mark on her eye. It was not that kind of hurt. “He’s a powerful man. Very rich. Staying at the hotel in the top floor. The penthouse.”
He may be very rich in the top floor, the penthouse, but he came into our rooms. “So he can do that and nothing happens to him?”
She looks away, hiding the tears. “Don’t, Hugo.”
Or maybe she’s looking away because she does not want to see my tears. “You are wrong,” I tell her, even though I’m afraid she’s right. Rich men and women can do anything they want.
The sheets on the bed are still rumpled, the pillows fallen off. It’s her bed, but I have crawled in at night to cuddle with her, when my cot in the main room feels too cold and sad. There’s only one bedroom, and it has never bothered me, never felt too small or too poor until now.
On the floor there’s something brown and flat. Something that does not belong.
I pick it up, feeling the very smooth material. Inside there is scribbled writing I can’t read. And money. So much money.
Mama gasps, “What is that?”
She knows what it is.
I know how to pick pockets. This one would be a prize, but tonight I’m not interested in the pink and green slips of paper. I’m looking for something with a picture on it. A name.
There is nothing except for a matchbox with a design on it, like stars.
And the letters L’ETOILE.
Mama takes the wallet from me, very quick, the way she would do if I had taken something I shouldn’t, if I had done something wrong. “We have to give it back.”
“At least keep the money.” I don’t know what we will do with the money. Buy food or a better lock for the door. Maybe a knife so I can stop another man who tries this.
Her eyes become dark. “I do not want his money. I’m not a kahba.”
For the most part Mama speaks French or the English she learned working at the hotel. That word is Arabic. It means the girls who stand on the streets. The ones who visit the lounge late at night and leave with American men. They would get to keep the money.
That’s what I learn that night.
Chapter Twenty-One
I wake up with a racing heart, as if something has gone terribly wrong.
Vaguely I remember the dream. The night I wish I could forget. The image of L’Etoile’s logo stamped into my brain. Decades later, and I still have the same fucking nightmare.
A sound comes to me, keening that makes the hair on my neck rise. Heavy shadows in the past keep me in the dark longer than I should be. I blink against the too-bright moon, struggling to remember where I am. Hands are grasping at my arm. An urgency pounds in my skull, too hard and too fast.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
The words filter through my blurry consciousness, making me snap to alertness. Beatrix. And she sounds like she did last night, afraid and trembling, only much worse.
My heart clenches when I look down at the sight of her. She’s curled up into a ball, clinging onto my arm like it’s a life raft in a wild ocean. Her wild hair sticks to the side of her face, her skin slick with sweat. “Oh my God,” she whispers, her eyes squeezed shut.
“Bea, I’m here. I’m right here.”
“It’s not enough.”
The words hit me like a ton of bricks, because of course it’s not enough. I would never be enough. “I’ll take you inside. Can you stand?”
We’re only a few yards away from the elevator. The dining area and large concrete pots with plants in them block our path. She shakes her head, burying her head against me.
I would rather convince her to come with me, but her whole body shakes violently. Small sounds of distress are coming from her, as if she doesn’t even register I’m here. I need to get her out of this situation and back where she feels safe—the penthouse.
She whimpers. “Hugo?”
Crouching over her, one hand on her arm, the other resting lightly on her head, I have never felt more helpless. This woman is suffering. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a physical punch in the stomach; it’s clear she’s hurt. And it’s my fault. I’m the one who brought her here. “I’m going to carry you inside.”
Her body relaxes only a fraction, but I’m in tune with her enough to feel it.
Which is also why my body is tied up in knots, my usual calm gone, any ability to seduce or reason with her disappeared into the early dawn. Anxiety clenches hard around my throat, as if we’re connected, part of the same body.
That’s how it feels when I lift her in my arms, when she curls herself into me—like I can finally take a breath. Her hair tickles my nose, curls itself around my face. It makes me pull her closer.
I press a kiss to her head, already striding toward the elevator. “Almost there, sweetheart.”
“Sorry,” she whispers. “Sorry. Sorry.”
She’s apologizing to me? Mon Dieu. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
The elevator takes approximately twelve years to make its way up, even though it’s private for the penthouse suite. When the doors finally open I step inside and press the P button to return to her suite. We are now indoors, in a place that she’s been herself many times, but she does not relax. Instead she clings to me even harder, her arms tight around my neck, her hands clenched in my wrinkled shirt, as if these familiar places have become new and scary.
“Almost there,” I murmur on the twenty-four-hour ride down one floor.
The doors slide open, revealing the penthouse suite…that is full of people.
I recognize some of them as hotel staff. The head of concierge. Jessica from the front desk. A maid. And a man in a suit, directing them all with an angry and authoritative voice.
“Where are the police?” he demands, before turning toward us.
For a moment we stand there facing each other, this man who must control Bea’s life. The one who’s kept her in this tower, whether she sees it that way or not.
“Leave,” he says to everyone else without breaking eye contact with me.
The room immediately clears, hotel staff filing past me and leaving the way they came, silent and obedient. Meanwhile I move deeper into the room. Past the stranger, to the bedroom. It’s hard to let go of Bea’s trembling body, but I lay
her down on her rumpled sheets. This is where she should have been sleeping. Where she should have woken up, so that her body wouldn’t be flushed and trembling.
“Don’t go,” she whimpers, grasping my arm.
“But no,” I manage to say lightly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Her eyes meet mine, almost glazed from the terror she felt being on the roof. There’s pleading in her eyes, whether because she still wishes to apologize or because she’s worried I’ll abandon her like this.
“Who are you?” a voice asks coldly.
Without letting go of Bea’s hand, I turn to face the man in the suit. Only now, with Bea safely tucked in a place familiar to her, can I consider what I know. I thought I would know him immediately, on sight, this man from my nightmare. It seemed clear to me that I would, but now that I look at him I’m not sure.
The man in my dreams is ten feet tall with large muscles. He has a smile that’s terrifying, but those are the imaginings of a scared little boy. Now that I’m a man, this one looks ordinary.
Is it him? Or is it merely some other rich asshole with ties to this hotel?
“I’m Bea’s lover,” I tell him, because I want him angry. Well, he’s already angry. I want him frothing and helpless, the way I feel right now, unable to help the woman I care about.
“You’re lying,” the man says, his lip curled. “She doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend? Non. I am her lover. Surely you understand the difference.”
He snarls in a way that is almost, almost familiar. But his hair is peppered with white, his stance leaner than I remember. Is it him? “I don’t know what kind of scam you think you’re running, but this girl is under my protection.”
“This woman does not need protection against me.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Stop!” Bea is sitting up in bed, but only barely, holding up a hand as if to ward us both away. My heart breaks for her, that she needs to worry about this when she should be focused on herself. “Please, don’t fight. Edward, what are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” he says, taking a step forward which I block with my body. He isn’t getting near when she’s in this state. He gives me a dark look but stays on his side of the bedroom. “Maria came to do turndown service and you didn’t answer the door. She came in and you weren’t here.”
“I was on the roof,” she says, sounding exhausted. I’m glad she’s standing up for herself but it is sad that she needs to—against the man who was supposed to raise her.
“The roof,” he says, looking even angrier. “You took her there.”
Now I am the one exhausted. “Yes, and I can’t bring myself to regret it even seeing what it did to her. She should not be locked up like this. It’s killing her. Can’t you see that?”
A muscle in his jaw ticks. “The only thing I see is a leech. That’s what you are. You see a poor little rich girl and think it’s your big payday. Well, you aren’t getting a cent from her.”
Of course I already have her money, but I don’t want it. That’s the irony of my life. Getting what I want and then wishing I had something else. “Are you any better? Wanting to marry a woman thirty years younger than you. One you’ve helped hide herself away.”
It looks like a vein might pop out of his forehead. “She told you that?”
“I’m right here,” Bea says, cross now. “And I can’t believe you two are fighting over me like you’re dogs and I’m a bone. I want to be alone now. I need to rest.”
She does need to rest but not alone. Perhaps I can convince her to let me stay, once we are rid of this arrogant bastard with his Italian suit. I know that I can wrap her in her bubble—stifling though it is—and make her feel safe again. There are questions I should ask this Edward, confirmations to make, accusations to consider, but in the face of this unfamiliar man I’m more concerned with Bea. “I’ll stay with you tonight.”
And then the man gives me a look so imperious it looks exactly like it did when I was a child. “You are nothing but trash,” he says, his voice the same from my memories. “That much is obvious from looking at you. Not to mention hearing you. I recognize the accent. Marrakesh?”
It’s him. My heart pounds a war drum. “Tangier, actually.”
“Yes, that sounds right.” A smirk, which seals his fate.
And then I’m on top of him, taking him by surprise. I’m not seven years old anymore. He can’t throw me off like I’m a pest to be disposed of. Can’t lock me in the closet this time, not with my hands wrapped around his fucking throat. His eyes are wide, mouth open as he struggles to take in air.
“Paulette Bellmont,” I say between gritted teeth. “Perhaps you remember her. She was a maid in a hotel. You stayed in the penthouse. Do you recognize my accent now?”
His mouth closes and opens, like a stupid fish. There are choking sounds.
“What are you doing?” Bea is beside me, tugging at my hands, not nearly hard enough to pull me away; nothing could pull me away. She looks shocked, horrified. Like I’m the monster instead of this asshole on the ground. “Let him go.”
For a moment my fingers loosen. When Bea asks me to do something, I wish to do it. When she wants me, I wish to deliver. It goes beyond my regular desire to please women. Beyond any sense of professional duty. This is about Beatrix, a woman I never deserved to even touch.
Much less love. God, I love her. In the riot of emotion inside me, this much is clear.
But I have been waiting my whole life to do this.
“You followed her home one night,” I say, my voice hard, my hands tight around the neck beneath me, pleading with Bea with my eyes to understand. “She did not hear you. Perhaps because the street was busy and loud, like always. Or because she was tired from working for twelve hours straight.”
Bea’s rose-colored lips part in surprise. “What are you talking about? You know Edward?”
“You pushed your way in the door after her. Attacked her. The only thing you did not know is that she had a child living there. A small boy. Too weak to properly defend his mother.”
“No,” Bea whispers, horror in her green eyes.
Only then do I look down at the man whose skin has turned mottled red. I don’t want to kill him—not yet, anyway. I want him to hear this, and the dead never listen. “You locked me in the closet.”
I see the memory dawn in his red-rimmed eyes. Yes, he remembers now. There may have been other maids he hurt. Other women he followed home. But he remembers the screaming boy he trapped in the closet with a wood-worn chair, its hemp cords fraying but its frame sturdy enough to hold me in.
“And then you raped her.”
“She was nothing,” he rasps, which is a fatal error.
Perhaps he sees that when I squeeze hard enough to take away his air. He makes a terrible sound, like the back of a car scraping against the road. His eyes roll back, and I’m looking forward to the moment he becomes silent. I did not plan to become a murderer for this, but at the moment the rage swirls around me like a firestorm. The only thing left to do is burn.
A soft crying sound prods at the edge of my consciousness. It’s Beatrix, begging me to stop. “Please,” she says. “Stop this. Hugo, please.”
For a moment it seems that I can push aside her pleas as easily as I did before. As easily as this Edward pushed me aside when I was a child, but she is not a poor little rich girl no matter what he calls her. She’s a woman, strong enough to call me back from the brink of madness.
Slowly my hands loosen, but they’re made of cement. It feels like cracking to pry them away from where they’ve hardened. When they finally release, I stumble back with the force of it.
Edward collapses on the floor, coughing and choking as he tries to breathe. As he tries to live.
Did I make a mistake? “A man like him deserves to die.”
Bea kneels on the floor, her hands clasped together in futile prayer. Or maybe not so futile. She bent me to her will
, after all. It makes me resent her, even while I recognize how much power she has over me. I would not change it if I could, but I hate that she wants me to let him be.
Her eyes are solemn. “A man like you doesn’t deserve to be a killer.”
Don’t I? I hadn’t thought I deserved anything at all. Definitely not the delicate woman who just pulled me off my mother’s rapist with the force of her will alone.
“Then he gets away with it,” I say, my voice dull.
It had always been coming to this, hadn’t it? Mama knew. Even then she knew.
The rich can get away with anything. Even now most would consider me a rich man. I could probably hurt a poor maid in this hotel and get away with it. How sick is that? I never would, but it does not change the potential. How does it stop? How does it ever stop?
“No,” Bea says, urgent. “We can tell the police. You witnessed it. We can—”
A short shake of my head. “That long ago? And my mother is dead now.”
She gasps. “Did he…?”
“No,” I say with a bitter laugh. “It was cancer who finished her off. But I’m not sure she ever really lived after he hurt her. She was far too busy looking over her shoulder for that.”
“God.” She looks at Edward like he’s someone she’s never seen before. “How could you?”
He has only recovered enough to get words out one at a time, coughing each one out, spitting it at her feet. “You. Believe. This. Piece. Of. Trash.”
She stands up, holding herself with a remarkable poise considering only thirty minutes ago she was having an anxiety attack on the roof, curled into a ball. “I notice that’s not a denial. Did you do it, Edward? Of course you did. I can see it in your face.”
He snarls at her. “You. Fucked. Him.”
I move to stand in front of her. She may not want my protection in this, but she’s going to get it. “Don’t speak to her that way. In fact don’t speak to her at all. Be grateful she let you live, because she is the only reason you’re able to take a breath right now. Be grateful and get the fuck out.”
“You can’t kick me out. I own this hotel.”
