His features soften, and I see tears start to well up in his eyes. “Bunny,” he takes a step toward me, and I take one back. He stops.
“Don’t!” I say, my voice trembling just like my body. “Don’t come near me, Avery!” I say and then run around him. I yank the door open and run down the hallway, almost tripping over my own feet. I make a turn and let out a scream of surprise when I run into a hard body.
“Whoa!” he announces when a set of large hands grabs my shoulders.
“Don’t touch me!” I cry, pulling away.
Tristan throws his hands up. And his eyes look over my body as if to check for bruises or blood. And I don’t care that I’m only dressed in underwear and Avery’s T-shirt. “You’re okay. I’m not gonna hurt you, Presleigh.”
I wrap my arms around myself, and his eyes soften, blowing out a long breath. I don’t miss the cut on his lip, and the shiner on his eye. “Did you watch it too?” I ask, my voice wavering.
He runs a hand through his hair, remaining silent. That says it all.
“Give me your phone,” I demand softly.
His brows pull together. “Presleigh, I can’t…”
“Please,” I beg, licking my lips and taste the salt from my tears. “I need to talk to someone.” He tilts his head to the side. “I need to talk to Chloe.”
He pulls his cell out of his pocket and dials a number before placing it to his ear. He turns his back to me and whispers into it. Too low for me to hear what he says. Then he hangs up and turns back to face me. “She’s on her way.”
“Here?”
He nods once. “She is still here in Vancouver.”
I look down at the floor, taking in a deep breath. My heart feeling broken all over again. How could Avery do this to me? “Thank you,” I whisper and then walk away, making my way to the formal living room. Not wanting to go back to his room. Not wanting to be so close to Avery.
I enter the cold room and fall onto the brown leather couch and stare straight ahead at nothing.
I watched the tapes of what Victor did to you.
Fresh tears run down my face. Eleven years and I had moved on. Or so I thought. I was doing better. I had accepted my fate and tried to make the best of a life that no longer meant anything to me.
I was seventeen and pregnant. I was going to be a teenage mother. We weren’t ready for a baby because we were babies ourselves. At least that’s what I told myself when I found out I lost it. But honestly, that was all I wanted. Avery and our child.
Beep …
Beep …
Beep …
The noise is too loud. The light too bright even with my eyes closed. My head pounds, and my face throbs. It hurts to breathe. And my sides—they hurt so badly. Between my legs …
Beep …
Beep …
“Stop … it,” I croak.
I feel pain, but I’m also numb at the same time. Lightheaded. Maybe I’m spinning.
“Presleigh?”
I hear my name and then feel a hand on my shoulder. I flinch from the soft contact, causing me pain.
“Presleigh, wake up.”
I open my heavy eyes and moan at the bright light. “What … happened? Hurt so … bad.”
“You’re okay.”
My head falls to the right, and I see a man I’ve known for years standing beside a hospital bed. My hospital bed. It’s Lance. He smiles down at me softly. “You’ve had an accident,” he begins. “A bad car wreck … you’re gonna be okay, but I have some bad news.”
“What …?” I groan. The pain making it hard to speak. Avery? Was he with me? Is he okay?
“We were able to save you, but you’ve lost your baby. And we had to perform an emergency hysterectomy.”
No! I shake my head as tears instantly sting my eyes.
“I’m afraid so. But you’re going to be okay.” He pats my arm, and I cry out from the rough touch.
He looks up from me to the door. I follow his eyes to see Mr. Decker walking in, and the memories come back like a fucking punch to my face.
I sob. “You did this …”
“I did,” he says, not even trying to deny it. He sits down beside me. “I’ve already spoken to Avery for you. And although he was pissed, he understood that you willingly aborted the baby.”
“Nnnooo.” I choke out.
He nods once. “He was more pissed than I expected, but he’s over it now. You’ve been in a coma for two weeks, after all. He’s moved on, and you should do the same.”
Two weeks? I’ve been in a coma for two weeks?
He stands and leans over, whispering in my ear, “Stay away from him, Presleigh. Or I will come back and get you. And next time, I’ll kill you like I did that fucking bastard child of yours.”
I sob into my hands, leaning over on the couch. A soft hand lands on my back, and I jump up, almost falling off the cushion. I look up to a set of soft green eyes and blond hair.
“I’m here,” Chloe says.
And I throw myself against her chest as though she’s been my best friend for years. She hugs me while I cry so hard that my sobs shake both of our bodies.
“Let it out,” she whispers, her hands slowly running up and down my back. “I’m here for you, Presleigh. I’m here for you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
AVERY
Nineteen years old . . .
“WHERE IS BUNNY?” I ASK Tristan while we stand in the kitchen of our father’s house. We’re having one of our usual parties. Things get rowdy, and when the cops show up, I’ll answer the door with a smile on my face and assure them that I’ll turn the volume down. But they won’t touch us. Their boss is always over here down in the cellar with my father. There are a lot of fucked-up men in this town.
He’s leaning up against the wall with a girl by the name of Jamie standing between his parted legs. Her head is tilted back with his tongue down her throat. I roll my eyes and yank her from him.
“Hey …” she protests.
“Have you seen Bunny?” I demand, ignoring her. She gets on my nerves. My brother just fucks her to pass the time, but she thinks it’s love. She’s also an idiot like all the others he takes to bed.
“No.” He wipes the taste of her lips off his. “Well … I did see her earlier up in the game room. She was playing pool with Mitch.”
I fist my hands and spin around. Mitch. That fucker is still on my shit list. He knows it too, just doesn’t care.
Opening the door to the game room, I look around. “Where’s Bunny and Mitch?” I demand when I don’t see them.
“They went outside.” A girl by the name of Brandie answers me without looking up from her shot at the pool table.
“Motherfucker …” I slam the door shut and run down the stairs two at a time. Grabbing the banister at the bottom, I leap over the last three. Pushing drunk kids out of my way, I make it to the back door and onto the terrace. More drunk kids litter the backyard. Some already passed out on the lawn furniture. Others playing basketball on the courts. Some standing by the bonfire that we started earlier. “Bunny?” I yell.
“Over on the side of the house,” Scott, a guy who’s friends with my older brother, Vaughn, calls out with a nod of his head.
I take off to the side of the terrace and hear her voice. “Oh God,” she cries out.
“Presleigh …”
“What the fuck is going on over here?” I interrupt Mitch, jumping over the railing and landing next to them. Before they can answer, I grab the collar of his shirt and yank him back from her, shoving him to the ground.
“What the hell?” he asks, looking up at me.
“Bunny …?”
She leans over, vomiting into the bushes. Walking up behind her, I grab her blond hair and pull it off her face. “What the hell happened?” I demand.
He throws his hands up in the air. “You deal with her.” Then he walks away.
She falls to her knees, and I go with her while she dry heaves. “Hey, it’s okay. Let it out.” I rub her bac
k. She had too much to drink. I knew I shouldn’t have let her friend make her drinks. Bunny never drinks to begin with, but she wanted to tonight. I should have never left her alone.
When she’s finished, she leans back on her heels and looks at me. “Sorry.”
I smile at her. “It’s okay. If I remember correctly, you have taken care of me plenty of times on nights like this.” She laughs softly. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed.” I stand up and lift her into my arms. She cuddles against my chest.
“I tried to find you,” she whispers, “but when I saw you in the kitchen talking to your brother, I didn’t wanna bother you.”
“You’re never bothering me.” I make my way through the crowd of people and get her up to my room. After she uses the bathroom and brushes her teeth, I help her undress. I lay her down in the bed, and she opens up her arms, inviting me to join her. Removing my shirt, I do so without thought.
She sighs, closing her eyes when I snuggle up to her. “Why did you sound so mad?” she asks me with a yawn.
“I thought …” My words trail off at how stupid it sounds now.
“What?” she asks, her heavy blue eyes open staring up at me.
I run my hand through her blond hair. “Nothing.”
“Tell me,” she urges.
“It doesn’t matter.”
She sits up, the covers falling to her waist, showing me her bare chest, and I instantly get hard. “I would never hurt you, Avery.”
I smile up at her. “It’s not you I worry about.”
She lets out a long sigh. “But you don’t trust me.”
I sit up as well. “That’s not it.”
“Then what is it?”
“Men … things I’ve seen …” I pause. Her father may do just as much damage as mine, but Bunny has never seen it firsthand. Thank God. Women aren’t allowed down in my father’s cellar unless they are naked and cuffed. And I would never let anyone hurt her like that. Over my dead body. Letting out a sigh, I cup her warm cheek, and she leans into it. “I just wanna protect you.”
She smiles at me. It’s lopsided, but it’s the most adorable smile I’ve ever seen. She wraps her arms around my neck and moves to straddles my hips. My hands run up and down her bare back. “Know what I want?” she whispers against my lips. “You to make love to me.”
I take another drink from the bottle of scotch and fall onto the end of the bed. That was the night she got pregnant. We were always careful, but that night, we weren’t careful enough. Her parents had already passed. She and Preston were living with us to finish out school before we all went on to college. I had this thought in the back of my head that someone was going to take her from me. And in a sick and twisted way, I thought it was going to be Mitch. He liked her. Wanted her. He watched her at school. When he came over. Every time he was in a room with her, his eyes were on her. And I was jealous. I wanted to show them that she was mine even though everyone already knew it.
But I lost her anyway soon after that. I believed what my father and Lance told me because it was my biggest fear come true. And I think they knew that.
A knock comes at the door, but I ignore it. Seconds later, it opens, and Tristan sticks his head in. “She’s downstairs talking to Chloe.”
Good. I nod and take another swig.
He plops down beside me and takes the bottle from me before taking a big gulp himself. “Do you have a plan?”
“Kill them.” They ruined us. They ruined her. I should have known something was off when I saw her at the club in New York. That was not my Bunny. But people change, so I never thought about it. She went from an angel to the fucking devil in a matter of minutes. Or so I thought.
Nineteen years old
I walk into my father’s house with Preston behind me. “Not sure how I feel about going there,” he informs me. “I mean, it’s got potential, but I’m not sure it has enough to make me happy.”
I roll my eyes, removing my jacket. We just got back from a week of looking at colleges, but it didn’t matter. Because I’m not going to Stanford like my father wants me to. The only reason I went with Preston was to pacify him so he’ll get off my back. He may want me to run the family business, but my father believes a man is nothing without a degree. Good thing I don’t give two shits what he thinks anymore. Bunny is pregnant, and I’m gonna be a father. It’s earlier than I had planned, but it’s all I can think about. Me and her. Our child. My family. I’m gonna lie to my father and tell him I wanna stay here another year and help him out. He’s not stupid. He’ll know Bunny is the reason, but he’ll allow it because he likes to show off to me and my brothers. Plus, Vaughn hasn’t gone to college yet, and he’s two years older than I am. He just hangs around like a fucking leech. So if my father tells me I need to go, then I’ll question why Vaughn hasn’t been forced to go.
As far as a career and a future, all that matters is that I’m with Bunny. I’d rather live with her in a box than in this mansion of filth.
My younger brother, Tristan, walks down the stairs. His hair a disheveled mess and all he wears is a pair of gray sweatpants. Our housekeeper’s daughter walks behind him. He still fucks her. He says she’s a good lay, but I think he’s got a soft spot for her.
“Is Bunny upstairs?” I ask him.
His eyes meet mine when he hits the landing and frowns. “Not that I know of.”
“Where is she?” I ask. I told him to watch over her while I was gone. I wanted her to go with me, but she didn’t wanna miss a week of school.
“I don’t know—”
“Last time I saw her was yesterday morning,” she interrupts him. “We left for school, and she was in the kitchen talking to Vaughn. We offered her a ride, but she said she wasn’t feeling well.”
No surprise there. She’s had morning sickness. I pull my cell out of my pocket and call her number. It goes straight to voicemail. “Hmm …” I do it again. By the third time of the same thing, I start to get nervous. “Bunny?” I call out, running up the stairs. “Bunny?” I enter my room to find it cleaner than how I left it, but again, no surprise. The maid cleans it. I walk into the bathroom and notice her toothbrush isn’t where it normally is.
Rushing out of my room, I run down the hall to the last room on the left to her door. “Presleigh?” I bark out, barging in. And my heart stops. The pink comforter and white sheets are stripped from the bed. All the drawers to her dresser are open and empty. “What the fuck? Presleigh?” I yell, and then I’m running again. Down the hallway, stairs, and to my father’s office. It’s empty. I shove open the door that leads to the cellar, and I jump down those stairs and run through the tunnel. I come to a stop when I see my father standing in the middle with Lance next to him. A woman lies on a table. Face down. She has bruises up and down her legs, and she bleeds from open cuts on her back. My presence cuts off whatever conversation my father and Lance were having and silence follows, letting me know that the girl must be sedated.
My heavy breathing is all that is heard. I take a step toward them. “Where is she?” I demand and immediately look around the cellar to see if she’s in here.
“Son …”
“Where the fuck is she?” I shout.
Lance looks at my father. “You have to tell him.”
“Tell me what?”
My father turns to me. “She left, Avery.”
I start shaking my head. “She wouldn’t have just left. What did you do to her?” I shout.
“It’s true,” he says. “She left yesterday morning.”
I run a hand through my hair. She tried calling me yesterday morning, but I was asleep with the time difference. I tried calling her back, but she never answered. I didn’t think much of it and just figured she was in school. And then came home to sleep. She’s always tired. “No,” I say. “She wouldn’t—”
“Mitch was here,” he interrupts me, and I fist my hands at my side at the sound of his name. “He came over, and they talked for a little bit. Then she packed up her stuff …�
�
“She’s not even eighteen,” I snap. “You can’t just let her leave.” She has to finish school.
“Avery …”
“No!” I roar. “That’s not possible.” It doesn’t make any sense. I take a step back and start dialing her number again. Straight to voicemail. She’s shut it off.
My father pulls his phone out, and after pressing a few buttons, he holds it up for me to see. It’s a video of her walking into the game room. She comes to a quick stop when she sees my brother Vaughn and Mitch playing pool.
“Hey, babe.” Mitch greets her.
She takes a step back, her eyes widening for a brief second.
Vaughn laughs. “It’s okay, Pres. Mitch told me your little secret.”
“What ...?” Her wide eyes go back and forth between them.
Mitch tosses his pool stick onto the felt and then walks over to her. He grabs her face and presses his lips to hers. The video ends.
“She wouldn’t do this …” I swallow. “We are …” I stop myself. No one knows. We didn’t wanna tell anyone. It’s our little secret.
“The baby?” Lance asks.
My head snaps up, and I stare at him in disbelief. “What did you just say?”
“The baby. Avery, I … She had me …” He stumbles, looking for the right word.
My father steps forward. “She had it aborted, Avery.”
No. “She would never—”
“I did it,” Lance interrupts me.
“What?” I ask, trying to understand what they are saying.
“I performed the abortion yesterday afternoon.”
My chest tightens at his words. “She wouldn’t …” But how would they know about it? It was our secret. But it has to be … my legs threaten to buckle, and my father places his hand on my shoulder.
“She didn’t belong here, Avery. She didn’t want to be with a man who was like her father.” His words stab me in the chest. ’Cause she had said those words before. Not that way, but how many times did she beg me to help these poor, innocent girls, and I never did a fucking thing but play my part.
She left me with absolutely nothing but a broken heart. Of all people to hurt me, I never thought it would be Bunny.
SLAUGHTER Page 30
