by J. L. Beck
“There’s much we need to discuss, but first let me show you my pieces and the art of Shibari.” She stays seated, luxuriating in my panic.
I palm my jolting heart trying to flee my chest, and though I should blink at a minimum and escape what is my worst nightmare, I can’t turn away. These are not just any photos. No, these are special. Not because of who took them, but instead of who is pictured. “Cole… Warren…” I murmur, speaking their names out loud, wanting to peel the images from my mind.
“Yes, your perfect twins.” Eve sighs, as if she’s reliving the memories from the photos.
I involuntarily ball my fists, anger raging just below the surface. Another truth hits me, and her name is Envy. Seconds tick by, and another woman appears beside Eve, whispering something in her ear, and Eve stands, flashing me a slice of her leg from ankle to hip.
“I must step away, but have a look around. I’m sure you’ll discover a side of your men you probably never knew existed.” Eve smiles, but it’s at best a half-sneer with an evil edge.
I face Eve, squaring off with her, even though shivers race down my spine. As badly as I want to walk away, I don’t. “The three of us share everything in every way. That’s what it means to love someone….” I lie, and I think she knows, but I don’t back down. I can’t.
Eve excuses herself with a gentle nod, and I hate her. Thank fuck she can’t see me because my insides are a quivering mess. I know I should bolt, I’m craving fresh air so badly, and I’m almost hyperventilating. Instead, I let my feet carry me over to the wall where the photographs hang, if only to prove to myself if the guys can endure—even crave—the punishment Eve has performed on them, I’m strong enough to stand here and stare at photos...and in the back of my mind, someplace raw and hidden, I wish they were doing that with me.
One by one, I examine the black and whites, some in color, but Eve seems to like the monochromatic prints. There are various photos of War tied up, and the longer I scan the photos, I discover the ones where Cole’s doing anal with Eve as she’s hanging from the ceiling.
Each one causes a piece of my heart to break off, realizing how alike I am to Eve, wanting Cole and Warren, and how different because I’m lacking the adult experience she has with them. If they cared for her once, maybe even loved her, how can they look at me and not think of her? How can they truly love me when I'll never be this for them?
A muffled cry escapes my lips, and I cover my mouth. Am I really too vanilla for them? I mean, Cole’s proved that to me, and after what he did to me tonight, I’m sure he feels dirty, and maybe… I can’t stop the thoughts from coming. Maybe, that’s why he drank so much wine? Why he was so eager to play his old dancing part, as if he was acting? Why he chose tonight to take me from behind...
Every revelation comes tumbling down right then and there… It’s no wonder why they keep me at arm’s reach… And that gap can only widen if I suggest something so erotic...
I remind them of the one person they dislike most: Eve.
Chapter Twelve
War
Rage spirals inside me as Cole and I follow Maddie toward Eve’s gallery. When Maddie slips inside, my entire world falls away. I can see the photos hanging on the walls from across the street from Pierce’s Gallery. A blonde woman hangs suspended by a rope pentagon harness, but I don’t linger on her. I search the walls, knowing what I’ll see before I land my gaze on photos of Cole and me. “Eve’s going to ruin everything if we don’t stop her, Cole.”
The street crushes with cars, like every night, and holds Cole and me prisoner. Air rushes into my lungs, the subtle scent of Maddie mixed with exhaust and a clove cigarette long extinguished. I know the brand—Eve’s.
Cole snarls through tight lips, as if he’s ready to tear down her house and the world we left behind over a decade ago, but other than that, his hands lie still at his sides. I know he’s feeling the same anguish as I am, as trapped as the photographs that hold us behind glass. “Maddie’s image of us will be tainted once she sees the photos. She’s going to think that’s what we want from her, or worse, that we want Eve to dominate us like we once did when that’s far from the truth.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what she’ll think.” Cole steps off the curb the moment Maddie comes into view.
Fear reflects in Maddie’s eyes as she gazes at the images and hugs her body. I can tell she’s afraid, worried, consumed with emotion, and I want to go to her more than anything and tell her how wrong she is believing we returned to Las Vegas for Eve. It’s Maddie that we want. “We have to stop Eve before it’s too late.”
Cole pegs me with his hard stare. “I’ll talk to Maddie, and you make sure those photos get destroyed. I don’t want anyone, including Maddie, ever having to see them again.”
I nod and we dart across the street, ignoring the honking horns from several cars we dodge. As we pull open the door, in our haste to decide what to do, we fail to stop Maddie from leaving.
“Fuck,” I mutter softly, just as Eve appears from the back.
A threatening smile mars her high cheekbones, pinching her too-large eyes, the whites no longer bright but made yellow from the hard life she’s chosen. “Tonight’s on me…” She motions to the photographer waiting for his next model.
Cole gives a sign before working his powerful thighs as he jams toward the back where Maddie disappeared.
“Shall we, Warren?” Her black gaze stabs mine.
A sick feeling fills my gut, and I don’t skip a beat. “I want the photos of Cole and me. All of them,” I order gruffly, not wanting to have a lengthy conversation. Maddie’s the only thing that matters and the only reason I’m here.
A frown forms on Eve’s face, her red lips falling flat and making her thin cheeks appear gaunt. “Sorry, Warren, but those photos aren’t for sale,” says Eve, as if those specific pictures hold up the building’s walls.
Maybe they do, at least in her mind. And as I scope out the place where I once saw adventure and rebellion, a way to test my limits and fate and all that shit I once thought meant something, I discover it leaves me flat. The only thing that mattered was finding that person who losing terrified me to the point I couldn’t breathe. Now I know that’s Maddie. “Name your price.”
“That’s tricky… You see, they remind me of a time when I was happy and flourishing with life, when I had everything I could ever want.” She steps closer and runs a single finger across my shoulder and down my arm.
I clench my fist, while my other hand slips into my jacket where my checkbook sits. “We all know that money is all that matters here, so be honest. Tell me, what’s it going to take to make these photos disappear?”
Eve smirks, leaving me as she glides to the wall. She runs her hand along the bottom of the nearest framed picture, the one where I’m bound, gagged, and hanging inverted by a gunslinger harness. “Why do you want to hide something so beautiful? Something that can still lure customers, like all the others.” She fans out her hand.
I narrow my stare at her and unleash the words at the tip of my tongue. “Maddie is the love of my life. Of Cole’s life. Nothing you say or do will ever change that. These photos? They’re of us, and since we didn’t give you permission to display them…”
Fear spikes in my belly at the thought of her doing something unspeakable with them, like sending them to Maddie, one at a time, day after day after decade. I shudder at the thought.
“You don’t know what you’re saying, Warren. Neither of you love that girl. Neither of you have changed. That little twerp is a stand-in for the taboo you’ve always craved. She’ll grow old with time, and you’ll grow tired of her simple ways, but these photos of us… Artistic. Erotic. Timeless...” She moves toward me.
I step back out of instinct. I don’t want her touching me again. Not when it’s Maddie’s hands that should be on my body—only Maddie’s. “These photos are wrong.” I gather my thoughts because I’d do anything for or to Maddie, and after witness the pleasure written on her f
ace after tonight, I believe she wants more than she’s been asking for. “They’re wrong because they no longer represent that part of my life, a time I never want to relive. So name your price, and I’ll take them off your hands. If you don’t want to sell them, then I’ll get our lawyer involved. One way or another, those photos will be mine.”
“Your bride to be doesn’t appreciate my talent or your tastes. She’ll never marry you now. How could she when she believes I’m a monster, and then witnessing her own.”
A gut-punch feeling knocks the wind out of me. Eve’s dead right. I can still picture the look on Maddie’s face, and I pray like hell that Cole has caught up to her and convinced her this isn’t us. There’s no way we’ll leave Maddie alone in the city by herself.
“Five hundred thousand dollars,” she says without pause.
I stare at her—really stare—examining her features, the fine lines around her mouth, lips made full by surgeries, and her nose...the way the tip is peaked. Fake. Nothing like Maddie who bleeds wholesomeness. What had I ever found attractive in this woman?
“Five hundred K it is.” I write the check out and sign my name across the bottom before handing it to her. “I want them delivered to my storage unit on the outskirts of town,” I order, rambling off the address before turning away from her and in the direction of the door. I don’t spare Eve another glance.
“You really didn’t come here to play did you?”
I chomp the inside of my cheek, hating the way the word “play” makes me feel. I’m not a perfect man, but one that has sinned a fair amount in my life, but when it comes to one person, and the future that we have, I’m willing to make changes. I’m willing to give up a past that I know can never be my future.
“No, I really didn’t come here to be with you, Eve. We came here for Maddie, and even if you don’t believe in love, we do, Cole and me. So please, leave Maddie alone. Because next time, there won’t be a check waiting for you. You won’t have a chance to buy yourself out of the problem.” I force my voice to stay calm, even though I’m on the verge of exploding.
As I walk out the door, I’m certain this shit is in my past, and my future is right in front of me. I pull out my cell, finding Cole’s name before pushing call. Bringing the phone to my ear, I prepare for the worst. This might be the one mistake we can’t come back from.
Chapter Thirteen
Maddie
Regret prickles at my skin, and I run through the house, the mansion the twins said we needed so badly. How stupid could I have been to believe they wanted me?
Tears sting behind my eyes, and I feel the sudden urge to destroy everything in front of me. I grab the nearest item and toss it. The vase shatters like glass as it slams against the marble flooring, just like my heart, cracking into jagged shards. “I’m stupid, so stupid!” I cry, the echo amplifying the silence of the house, which only mounts the raging inferno inside me. I’ll never be good enough for them. I’ll never be the woman they want. I’m just a reminder
I stare at the ring that rests on my ring finger, the very symbol of our love. “I hate this place!”
Screaming does me no good, and as I descend down the hall, a strange panel to my right is ajar and calls to me. Secrets. Everyone I know has secrets.
Anger clings to my insides, and I bypass assorted construction tools lining the hallway. I push open the door. My gaze roams over every aspect of the room. A poster bed butts the far, black-painted walls. Rings hang from the ceiling, and chains extend from the wall to the floor.
I cover my gasp, enter the room, and close the door behind me. That’s when a mural of Warren, Cole, and Eve rises up and knocks the wind out of my soul.
The three are painted on the wall, tangled in each other, laughing. Mocking me. Tied up and twisted and subdued. Panic grips me in a way I’ve never experienced. Nausea slams into me, and I throw up, heaving until there’s nothing left inside me—not even hope for us.
There’s a huge chest off to the right of the room, and I’m tired of being lied to and treated, as if I’m too good, too provincial. I will strength to fill me and, finding my courage, I open the top that creaks like it’s a crypt, even though I’m afraid to discover what’s inside, even though I’m afraid to face the facts.
I catch a glimpse of a whip and step back, letting the chest lid fall, and wouldn’t you know it, the hinge is one of those locking hinges that hold the chest open, as if allowing all the skeletons to spill out and crawl towards me. “Who are you?” I cry out, knowing there’s no one to answer me. I’m marrying strangers, men I thought I knew but who I haven’t the first clue.
My eyes catch on the ring then, and I know what I have to do. I rip the ring from my finger and toss it into oblivion, the ding of it hitting against the wall and pinging to the floor as loud as a gunshot ringing in the night.
I’m nothing to Cole and War. Nothing but a fool.
I’m no one’s fool. Rage blazes through me, and I race from the room, going straight for the sledgehammer propped against the wall in the living room that was left behind by the construction workers. I drag the hammer across the marble, the steel head raking and etching the marble. I stalk the hall, worming my way toward the secret room Cole and War kept from me.
The room that I want destroyed.
“I’m nothing to them. Not a friend. Not a lover. Not a fiancée. Never a wife.” My words bounce off the walls, and I lift the hammer. With a grunt, I raise up the weight and then swing the handle down, the head striking against the mural, and dividing the threesome by a jagged crack that crawls up the wall. I want to destroy them. The image of them together. The woman who ruined everything. The woman who drove a wedge between us.
Over and over again, I work the weapon, striking the target until I’m covered in white dust and the image is obliterated like my life. But where I expect release from what I’ve destroyed, a wall of sadness rises inside me, deepening the betrayal I’m feeling.
The hammer falls from my hands. My arms ache and my muscles are on fire, and for the umpteenth time, I dry heave until I fall to the floor on all fours.
But as the dust clears, something sparkles from the corner of my eye. Lying against a bamboo cane is my ring. Ten fat, ridiculous carats…
Carrots…
I reach for the hammer, but something hangs me up. A thought that I’m the guys’ carrot, their sugar and their babe. I know as a veterinarian, winning trust and love is easier with carrots, with treats and sugar, as compared to a stick.
Their past is the stick. Eve is the stick, and she beat them into submission.
I roll back onto my heels, and memories of the three of us fill my head. Memories of laughter and triumph and fighting to be together. Not because we were forced but because we chose this path. Because we’re perfect for each other, only I couldn’t see that, blinded by my own fears and judgements against myself. I’m the one who has to take a moment and stop blaming the guys for what happened in their past. Clearly, they’ve changed and are changing. I need to join them.
I crawl toward the ring, grinding my knees against the chalky grit, and clutch the ring to my chest, as if it’s my heart and holding it is the only way to breathe hope and life into my soul, into our future.
I slide the ring back onto my finger, pledging never to take it off. “God, they have to be worried sick about me. I have to help them. Find them. Tell them I don’t hate their choices and I respect them in all things. I’ve been their reasoning for keeping me in the dark because they feared my judgment. Me,” I whisper, wiping the sweat and the tears from my cheeks.
“Babe. Fuck.”
“Sugar, whatcha doin’…”
I twist to face the sound of Cole and War’s voices, both so choked with emotions, I lose it. Tears rain warmth down my cheeks and muddy my face as a thought propels into my mind. We all have hidden monsters, and the only way to destroy the beast is to fight. Keep fighting. I’m ready to battle for my men in all things, and I'll never stop until that thing is l
ong buried. Maybe not forgotten, but far, far away in a grave where I choose when to visit, or to walk away and never look back. I form words that spill from my lips, “Don’t worry, I was cleaning house. But now I need you both to do the same.”
Chapter Fourteen
Cole
Maddie gazes up at me, love in her eyes like every time she’s looked at me since she was five years old, and I don’t deserve her love after the shit that just went down. But I’m not in control of her feelings and emotions. She is. She’s all grown up, making decisions, and I’m gonna let her make this one, even if she decides she’s walking away and leaving us with nothing but the clothes on our backs. I’m giving up control if that’s what it takes. War’s agreeing, too, sitting with his head hung low on the other side of Maddie, both of us unsure of our future together.
