“The truth of the matter is that she remembered the incident, too. That night, when I was falling asleep, I heard the lock on my bedroom door being picked. I’d long since learned to keep it locked to keep my brothers away—or at least to give me a warning before they came in to do something unpleasant.
“It was just a bedroom lock. You know. The sort that can be opened with a pin. I shot straight up, thinking it was Robert coming to give me an unwanted birthday surprise. When I saw the shape of a woman, with long, auburn hair, I froze.
“It was Rose. She snuck in and closed the door. Then, she came to me and sat on the bed. I just stared. I did not know why she was there or what she was doing. She and I never shared a word past ‘Hello’ .
“’I was told it was your birthday yesterday’, she said to me. ‘Congratulations. You’re thirteen now. Almost a grown man.’
“Something in her voice put me on edge. Something was implied in that word, ‘almost’.
“’I’m here,’ she smiled, ‘to help you become who you are meant to be.’ She reached under the covers and took hold of me. ‘Little Jeremy.’”
“Jeremy…” I say, disgusted. “That’s…horrible.”
He looks up at me. “Is it? Or was she right? Was it what I needed?”
“No,” I say. “You were a little boy. She molested you!”
“That was just the start,” he admits. “It happened that way, every night she was over, for years and years. She called it ‘our secret’. She threatened to tell Hugh all sorts of vile lies about me if I said a word.”
I can’t even imagine Rose…the same woman…as a child abuser.
Jesus! No wonder Jeremy is so fucked up.
And I’ve now committed to him for good.
“So now you know,” Jeremy says. “That is who she is. My father’s mistress. My personal initiator into the world of sex. She’s intelligent and sly and manipulative—but I’ve stripped her of all that. When I took over my father’s company, I bound her by a contract not unlike the one I gave you.
“I turned her into my housekeeper: a position she showed so much disdain for when she was by my father at the top. I trained her to forget everything she was in the past. I trained her to become fully reliant on me.
“So you see? My intentions with you had a precedent: Rose. That’s why I was so confident of what I could accomplish. I’d already done it once. And now? Now look who she is: The person who cleans my toilets and washes my floors.” Jeremy gives a curt laugh. “What a long, awful fall from grace it must have been.”
“But you gave her a beautiful house,” I say. “Surely her life hasn’t been that bad. I mean, it’s nothing like what she deserves…”
“Isn’t it?” Jeremy asks. “After I had my initial fun, I understood that it wasn’t all about revenge. She’s earned my loyalty over the years. I still exert ultimate power over her life. But it is not so bad. At least, it wasn’t until…”
He trails off.
“Until what, Jeremy?” I prompt.
“Until the reunion with my father Friday night. They haven’t seen each other for…oh, it must be nearly twenty years.”
An uncomfortable feeling crawls up the length of my spine. “Jeremy?” I ask cautiously. “What did you do?”
His eyes shine. “I achieved my final vindication,” he says. “I’ve gotten the ultimate revenge.”
Alarm rips through me. “Jeremy,” I say again. “Rose. Charles. Your father. Where are they?”
He smiles at me then. “I can’t take you there,” he tells me. “But I can show you. Would you like to see?”
Trepidation of the worst kind pulses through me. “Do I have a choice?” I whisper.
“Of course.” Stonehart smiles. “But I suggest you hold off on making one until you see what I have to show you.” He stands and extends one arm. “Come, Lilly.”
I eye him warily and stand up. The bright sun outside is mocking. Deceptive.
Jeremy leads me up the stairs to our bedroom. He walks into the surveillance closet and types in a key phrase.
“I thought only I had access to the surveillance system,” I say, feeling decidedly on edge at this point.
“You do,” Jeremy says over his shoulder. “But these computers are not just linked to the cameras in this house. There’s a network of them through my estates all over the world.” He smiles. “You didn’t think I’d give all that up, did you?”
“To be honest…” I start.
I never get to finish. The images on the screen turn my body to ice.
I see Charles. And Rose. And Hugh. They are all three in tiny, separate rooms. They are all three in stark white strait jackets.
All three wear black collars around their necks.
I recoil immediately. “You monster,” I breathe. “What have you done?”
“So far?” he asks. “Nothing. But next…?
He presses a button. Rose, Charles, and Hugh start convulsing. Writhing, horribly.
Jeremy Stonehart has turned the current on.
“No, no, stop!” I scream. “Jeremy, stop it! Don’t!”
He raises an eyebrow at me and calmly hits the button again. His prisoners go still. Charles sags. Hugh falls over. Rose vomits all over her front.
“How could you?” I gasp, horrified. “How could you do that? How can you show me this and expect me to stay with you?”
“I expect nothing,” he tells me. An evil glimmer shows in his eye. “Except for your unwavering loyalty. You know too much to be allowed to simply go.”
“You’re sick.” I feel nauseous. “You’ll never have that. Never!” I look at poor Charles. He’s completely innocent. He’d never hurt a fly!
“A shame,” he says. “You’re stuck with me, Lilly. And if those are your true feelings…?”
He sneers. “Well, you should have killed me when you had the chance.”
The End,
Uncovering You 9
Uncovering You 10:
The Finale
by Scarlett Edwards
2015
Edwards Publishing
Book Description:
They say love conquers all. I know that vengeance destroys.
Jeremy put the gun in my hand and told me to shoot. I let him live.
Now, the repercussions of that choice are staring me straight in the face. Rose, Hugh, and Charles, all deep underground, all shackled with collars.
Dear God, what have I done?
Reader Warning:
Uncovering You 10: The Finale contains scenes of intense emotional and physical abuse. Readers with sensitivity to such subjects are advised to proceed with caution.
Author’s Note:
This book is told from both Lilly and Jeremy’s perspective.
Passages from Lilly’s perspective are preceded by the header:
LILLY
Likewise, Jeremy’s passages are begun with:
JEREMY
Enjoy The Finale!
Scarlett
April 2015
Chapter One
LILLY
I stare at the three screens, completely aghast. There’s Charles. And Rose. And Hugh.
“You have to let them go!” I plead.
Jeremy looks at me. He smiles. “I don’t have to do anything. Yet you hold unparalleled influence over me. Would you like them released?”
“Yes!” I exclaim. “A thousand times, yes!”
“Knowing now who they are? Knowing what they’re guilty of?”
“Charles isn’t guilty of anything!”
“Charles was an unfortunate casualty. You saw how he attacked my father at dinner. That sort of behavior cannot be tolerated.”
“Then fire him! Cast him out! But please, for the love of God, Jeremy. Don’t use the collar. Nobody deserves that. Nobody can survive that!”
He looks at me. “You did,” he says quietly.
I shake my head. I’m trembling. Fear, revulsion, and utter helplessness create a vile concoction
that consumes my insides.
“Not without scars,” I say. “Not without emotional damage. You said it. You told me. It’s abuse, Jeremy, it’s almost torture! And, and what you just did—shocking them, for no reason at all—Jeremy, that is torture! You have to let them go. Please. Please! I beg of you!”
His chest rises and falls on a deep exhale. “You know why I put them there, don’t you?” he asks.
“No!” I say. “No, Jeremy. I have no idea. But if you let them go, I won’t even ask. Let them go, and we can forget this. We can…”
“No.” Jeremy interrupts me mid-sentence. “No, Lilly, we won’t be forgetting anything. You and I…we’re not going to lie to ourselves anymore. We won’t delude each other. So, you ask me to let them go? I’ll do it. But you claimed you want to understand me? This is the first step. You cannot shy away from unpleasantness. I will let them go… after I tell you why they’re there in the first place.”
“Is that a promise?” I ask. I’ll indulge him by listening to his reasons, but I have to know that afterwards he’ll do as he says. “Do you swear you’ll let all three of them go? Do I have your word, Jeremy?”
“Yes,” he tells me, without hesitation, and with utmost conviction. “You do, Lilly. My life is yours now. Just as you asked.”
“I didn’t,” I start, then cut myself off and shake my head. “Just tell me why, and get those vile collars off their necks!”
He raises both hands and steps away from me. “I cannot from here,” he says. “We will have to fly to them. But don’t you worry, Lilly. They’re safe. The collars can only be switched on from this computer.”
“’Safe,’” I mutter, under my breath. I can almost laugh. “How long have they been there, Jeremy? Who’s been feeding them?”
“Ah,” he says. “That might be another technicality you take issue with.”
I don’t need him to say anymore. “You let them starve?” Fuelled by frustration, my shout comes out louder than I intended.
“You make it sound so awful,” he muses. “The truth is, the human body is extremely resilient. Even in times of extreme stress. They’ll survive, and emerge more or less the same as before.”
Just like me? I think. I hold my tongue.
Instead, I step between Jeremy and the computer. It makes me feel more secure, somehow, knowing that I’m in his way. Even though he can easily force through me, I don’t think he will. Not because it’d be unlike him, but because of the condition he let himself fall into after breaking my arm. Abstaining from further violence was part of his remorse. Maybe, as time passes, he’ll be more prone to doing it again…but he wouldn’t now. Not this soon.
“Tell me then,” I say. “Tell me, and we can go to them and let them go. Why are they there?”
“My father? Well, he did many things to me that would warrant his position there. Rose? It could be argued that she did, too.
“But that is not the reason why, Lilly. The truth is simply that I could not have knowledge of events that transpired at dinner Friday night get out. Not until I knew where I stood with you. Not until I offered you…the gun.”
A horrible thought occurs to me. “If I had pulled the trigger,” I gasp, “and you died… what would have happened to them?”
Jeremy settles his gaze onto me. “What do you think?” he asks softly.
I swallow. “They would have… starved.”
“But you would be free,” he whispers. “There would be no loose ends. Do you understand now, Lilly? I put them in that trap…
“For you.”
Chapter Two
LILLY
Jeremy calls Simon. Fifteen minutes later, we’re in a helicopter, being flown away from the city. Another half hour finds us over vast swaths of forest. Uninhabited land. I see a clearing up ahead where we touch down.
Simon, it seems, is multi-talented. And holds a lot more of Jeremy’s confidence than I first suspected. Could he have helped Jeremy with my abduction, with the transportation of Rose, Charles, and Hugh? Almost undoubtedly.
I decide not to ask.
He doesn’t follow us off the chopper. Instead, he leaves the blades spinning and takes off again as soon as we’re a safe distance away.
I look around and see nothing but trees and valleys. “What is this place?” I ask, after the roar of the helicopter’s engine has faded enough for us to speak.
“Undeveloped land that I own,” Jeremy says. “A secret resort, of sorts.”
Well, the nature is nice. I think. I say, “Let’s free your prisoners.”
Jeremy winces. “I wish you wouldn’t call them that.”
“That’s what they are, aren’t they?” I ask. “Or is ‘hostages’ more like it? We’re not mincing words anymore, remember?”
Jeremy looks me up and down. “We’ll see,” he says, and then he takes my hand.
On instinct, I immediately yank it free. “Not until I see Charles and Rose and Hugh safe,” I tell him stubbornly.
He spreads his hands. “As you say.”
I follow Jeremy into the woods. There’s no sign of a path. Less than thirty yards in, I feel like, if he left me alone, I’d get hopelessly lost.
Jeremy is surefooted. He does not hesitate once as he leads me through the foliage. Some indeterminable amount of time later, I see sunlight shining, up ahead, onto yet another clearing.
We emerge. My breath is suddenly taken away.
There is a huge, rectangular sort of house constructed entirely of glass and steel. It looks perfect, flawless, newly built. There are young saplings around the edge of the clearing. Other than that, there no evidence of any disruption—the type that comes from building something like this in such a remote location.
“So?” Jeremy asks. It’s the first word he’s said to me in a while. “What do you think?”
“I think you ruined something beautiful for me,” I say. “Knowing who you’re keeping in the basement.”
Jeremy, for some reason, gives me a little smile. “Don’t be so quick to judge.”
Before I can ask why, he’s striding away, toward the front doors. I have to run to catch up.
“First thing we do when we get inside,” I tell him, “is let them go. Right?”
Jeremy sighs. “They’re not dogs to be released from kennels,” he tells me with a touch of impatience. “It has to be done delicately, Lilly. How do you think they’re going to react to seeing me again?”
“Not my problem,” I tell him. “You made your own decision. Now it’s time for you to face the consequences. You have a promise to keep to me, remember?”
“I never forget.”
He opens the door. Cool air greets me as I enter.
The glass door closes and locks itself with a beep.
“Now where?” I ask Jeremy. “Which way to the basement?”
“Now,” he says, pausing in the middle of the floor and taking out his cell phone. “I have to make a phone call.”
I stop cold, disliking surprises, especially from Jeremy Stonehart—especially now. Trepidation starts its slow pound through me.
He brings the phone to his ear. “Hello? We’re here. You can come down.”
The pounding becomes a quickening pulse, racing in time with my heartbeat.
“Jeremy?” I say, taking one step toward him. “Who did you call…”
The words are stolen from my mouth as a procession of three people starts down the stairs.
My jaw drops. I’m speechless.
I stare.
Rose is front and center. To her side is Charles. To the other is Hugh.
She beams at me as she descends the stairs. The two men don’t look particularly happy to be near each other. But they’re there! The three of them are there—not in strait jackets, not with collars around their necks, but in clean, presentable clothes! Hugh’s in a dinner jacket. Charles is wearing a white dress shirt. And Rose is wearing a simple black sheath dress.
All three have some lingering injuries from the fi
ght: A nose splint for Rose, a black eye for Hugh. Scratch marks for Charles.
Jeremy turns back to me and winks, offering a crooked, schoolboy smile. “Surprise,” he says.
“Your CGI program,” I breathe. “You fucking bastard, you tricked me!”
He laughs. A rich, full laugh, filled with confidence, filled with ease.
I don’t know if I should be pissed or not. I mean, I think I should. But seeing Rose, Charles, and even Hugh, here together, unbound and free, with no evidence of abuse at Jeremy’s hands, fills me with such gratifying relief that I…can’t. I can’t be mad at Jeremy.
But I sure as hell can pretend to be.
I huff past him, intending to go straight to Rose. Now that I know who she is, what she did, and her place in all this, I definitely need to talk to her. But he catches my unbroken arm and holds tight.
“Wait,” he says. “I have to explain myself. Certain things I told you at the mansion still hold true. I could not have information of events at dinner coming out. So I ushered Rose, Charles, and Hugh here. Look around you before you judge. They’ve had access to everything that you see. I just could not permit them to leave before settling things with you.
“Rose,” he nods at her as she and Hugh and Charles come up beside us, “has taken on the role of peacekeeper. Charles—” Jeremy looks at him, “—has offered a sincere written apology to Hugh for his conduct that night. And Hugh? Well, he understands his place in the world, in relation to you, a whole lot better now.”
“If I may speak…?” Hugh begins.
Jeremy does not even glance his way. “No, father,” he says, “you may not.”
A flicker of rage crosses Hugh’s face. Then it’s replaced by a meek, placid mask.
“The video simulation,” Jeremy continues, “accomplished three things. First, it proved to me your continued capacity for compassion, Lilly. You knew what Hugh had done in his life. I told you what Rose did to me when I was young. She and I have moved past that, long ago—” he looks at Rose, who gives a tight nod, “—but your knowledge of that is fresh. Still, you begged me to let her go.”
Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) Page 95
