by Skye Warren
They paused outside the door. I heard the faint sounds of two men conversing—arguing. That gave me hope. Maybe it wasn’t Henri. No one would argue with him.
I heard a creak, and yellow light flooded the room from the hall, stinging my eyes. A single man walked inside, to Luke. Clop, clop. I recognized his gait. Henri’s gravelly voice muttered something from the center of the room. He always sent his men in first. What was different this time? Who still stood outside the room? This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
There was a thud, as if he’d kicked Luke, and an exhalation of breath.
“What’s wrong with him?” came a voice from outside. My pulse beat a rapid tattoo in my temple, though I struggled to place his voice. Low, male. Unsurprising in our current situation. There were women who held power in this industry—Jade, for example—but they were rare. Confident, impatient. Those also were hallmarks of a man in power.
“How should I know?” Henri snapped.
The strange part was the power dynamic. I had never seen Henri before with a man more powerful than himself, at least without a full-fledged power struggle. But in Henri’s voice, there was a tremor of uncertainty. A bit of subservience, which was why it took me so long to place. The Henri I knew would never submit, but now I wondered if that undaunted power was as much a mask as my own limitless capacity for subjugation, as if we had both played our parts to the fullest. As if we were each consumed by our roles. A social experiment, indeed.
The other man came into the room. It felt like déjà vu, like I should know him just by the way the air shifted at his presence. One of Henri’s men? An old client? But this felt older than that—ancient, like I had heard this story in an old fairy tale.
Before I could figure it out, Luke made his move. A sharp cry of pain was followed by the fast exhalation of breath, the hair-raising sounds of two bodies in combat. There were only two men, neither of them paid henchmen; it was better odds than we had counted on. I scooted around the side of the table. A quick glance revealed a blur of limbs and boots.
I dashed out of the room, thinking of going for help, of getting the car, of doing something. “Let me do this much,” he had said, and I was, but he would let me do something for him in return. Well, he didn’t really have a choice.
A shot rang out. I thought I heard footsteps. Bursting through the door, I sucked in lungfuls of outdoor air. The woods looked so peaceful. I headed for the line of trees, knowing that if either of them had followed me, I would be safer out of sight.
A flashlight chased my feet, and I stumbled into the woods, hiding behind a tree. I glanced around wildly. I would run to the car. I wouldn’t think about Luke, not yet.
“Michelle Ann Laurent, come out here this instant.”
The words rang out with crushing familiarity. My breath came shorter. I saw black spots covering the wintry foliage before me. I suddenly wished I had known. I should have. If Luke had wanted to show me mercy, he should have conked me on the head with that wrench. Anything to save me from this.
I thought of running again. It was what I had done in that hotel suite. What I had done for so many years. Why not keep going? Leave Luke behind.
Stepping aside from the tree, I said with as much casualness as I could muster, “Hi, Daddy.”
“You went too far this time.”
“Have I been a bad girl?” I smirked, wrapping the cloak of whorishness more tightly around me. Let him see what I had become, what he had made me. “Am I going to get a spanking?”
He came closer. “Don’t make me come get you. It will only make this worse.”
My laugh had a maniacal tilt, breaking cover. “How exactly could it get worse? Please explain that to me.”
“I let you have your fun. But you always knew you’d come home.”
He walked closer. Even in the twilight, I could make out the lines of his face, the gray of his temples. It made him more dignified. Objectively, I could see that he was handsome, to someone who wasn’t his flesh and blood. I hated it, the way beauty could be a privilege and a curse. The way it turned me into a commodity. No, he did that.
“Why are you here?” I asked. “Why now?”
“I’ve never left. How do you think Henri found you? I had trained you. You were mine, and I wasn’t going to let you go, working for a C-note a night. I told him where to find you. I told him to hire you. I’ve been here since the beginning, getting a twenty-five percent cut.”
I felt sick but strangely unsurprised. “Henri isn’t family.”
He frowned. “No, but he was useful. For a time. He always had a weakness for that Chinese bitch. He should have killed her.” His laugh sent chills down my spine. “And then he found the girl. You should have seen him, the proud papa. I almost bought him some cigars.”
A gasp escaped me. Claire was his daughter? “Then why did he pimp her out?”
“Henri is unoriginal,” he said flatly. “He tried to do the same thing I did, but he didn’t understand. I had groomed you from the beginning. So very early. He wanted to take a shortcut, and now look at the mess he made.”
“Groomed me for what?” I spat. “For being a prostitute? Are you telling me you were that hard up for money that you needed a few extra grand a week?”
“It’s not about the money you earned. That was nothing. This is a family business. How else were you going to run it if you didn’t understand it? I couldn’t just put you at the helm. They would have eaten you alive. But now…now you’re strong enough.”
“You’re delusional if you think I’m going to run your business. This business. It disgusts me. The whole thing disgusts, the men and the women and—”Me, me, me. I disgusted me, though I couldn’t tell him that. “The only reason I did it was because—”
“Because you had to? Because you didn’t know how to do anything else? Other people may buy your excuses but not me. You’re smart and beautiful. You could have done anything, but that’s what you chose to do.”
“I needed the money.”
“Your friend needed the money, and you needed to be the one to give it to her, didn’t you? That’s your Achilles’ heel.”
“Friends?”
“Pride. You live for the gratitude, for praise. We all have a weakness. The only question is whether you let it rule you.”
“Do you?”
He paused before answering softly, “I’m afraid so. It’s you, actually, but you know that.”
Yes, I knew it. I remembered the way his footsteps would pause outside the door before he came in…much like they had earlier tonight in the cell. The hesitation wasn’t his conscience—it was his pride. He didn’t want to be dependent on a little girl. “And you’ve always hated me for it.”
His gaze flicked over me. “You look more like her.”
“Is that all? Would it have turned out differently if I had looked like you instead?”
“I hated her too.” He looked faraway. “That kind of power is unnatural.”
I remembered the story my mother had told me about the princess in disguise. This was the lesson my father would take from it, that a woman held unshakable power, over her father, over the men in her life. The tale looked different to each listener, the lessons it told a testament to our deepest desires.
The most important question came to me, one I had first thought when he came into my room with a bag of her melted-down jewelry. “Why did she leave you?”
“It’s dangerous too, that kind of power. I had to stop her.”
“You killed her.” The statement left me with the cold realization I had always known, or at least suspected. It was better this way, because she hadn’t left me on purpose. But worse, so much worse. My hate for him, previously shriveled and tucked away, pulsed with new life.
He smiled, a little vacant, a little sad. “I knew you were stronger than her. She couldn’t handle what I did, the way I supported our family. I couldn’t let you go the same way.”
“The devoted father,” I scoffed.
>
“You can’t question my devotion to you. From the moment she left us, I made everything about you.”
“It was wrong,” I said, knowing he would mock me.
But he didn’t. His forehead creased. He seemed uncertain, as if he had pondered this before. “I kept you from ending up like her. She was so sure of herself. She wanted to leave me, to take you with her. You wouldn’t have had a chance.”
I wanted to laugh, but it caught in my throat. What chance? “Is this how you’ve justified it? The excuses you tell yourself so you can sleep at night? If you were so concerned about my safety, why did you let me prostitute myself? It’s not exactly OSHA certified.”
“I got you off the streets. Off those goddamn online ads where any pervert could call you. Henri knew what would happen to him if you ever got hurt.”
“He hurt me, Daddy. Worse than you.”
“He paid for that,” he said evenly. “He’s probably cold by now.”
I blinked, turning to look at the building we had left. The gunshot. “Did you really kill him?”
“Yes, so you can thank me for saving that cop of yours. He was more trouble than he was worth too, always poking his nose where it didn’t belong. I think he figured it out, but I’m assuming he never told you that.”
My silence answered him. He hadn’t.
“He’s not who I would have chosen for you, but I think he loves you. The way I loved your mother.”
I swallowed—no, not like that. Luke had kept his suspicions from me to spare me pain. My father caused pain and called it love. “I despise you. You can’t understand how much I hate you.”
“I can,” he whispered. “I haven’t been able to live with myself since she died. And then you left. It’s been so hard, but I kept myself from going to you. Doesn’t that count for something? Doesn’t it show I care?”
I squinted, searching, as if I were looking for someone else inside him, someone who understood the wrongness of his actions and how very crazy he had become. I found nothing.
He pulled out a gun. I watched with a kind of disinterest. Would he kill me now? It didn’t quite make sense, didn’t fit with his plans for me to take over, to become stronger, but then, he was crazy. That was the problem I’d always had, a little girl trying to find the care and affections in the actions of a madman.
The metal met the palm of my hand as he pressed it there. He maneuvered it in my hand so that it pointed at his chest.
“It’s time,” he said. “You can do this.”
I recoiled, but he held me to him. “I’m not going to kill you. That’s…that’s suicide.”
“Murder,” he corrected gently. “It needs to happen. Otherwise you’ll never move on. You’ll never find peace.”
Himself. He was talking about himself.
I jerked my hand away, my finger nestled against the trigger. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Do it.”
“I won’t.”
A flash of anger crossed his face, and I waited for him to turn on me. He did, but not the way I was expecting. “I watched sometimes.”
My voice faltered. “What?”
“Half the hotels in Chicago have peepholes between the rooms if you know where to look. If you grease enough palms. Henri would offer them a hotel room free so we would get the right one. You were good at it, Shelly. I was so proud of you.”
I felt sick, like I really might throw up all over the gun, all over him and me and everything. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to rile me up, make me so angry that I pulled the trigger, but I was better than that—oh God, wasn’t I?
“I wanted to leave you alone.”
He was pleading now, for me to forgive him, for me to shoot him—it all swirled together in one sick melee.
“It wasn’t right, the way I couldn’t stop thinking about you. That wasn’t fair to either of us. I tried other women, other girls. Pretty ones with blonde hair. They even slept in your bed, but it wasn’t the same.”
My eyes burned with unshed tears. My finger trembled on the trigger. Almost.
A glint entered his eye. “Your friend’s little girl is cute. Not to my usual tastes, but I can see the appeal. It was my money that paid for her birth, wasn’t it?”
The report of the gun was loud in my ears, but it rang instead with she’s mine, she’s mine too. Had he really said that part, or had my mind filled in the blanks? He lay on the ground, unseeing. He jerked. Was he dead?
I rifled through his pockets. His wallet fell open to a school picture of me. I smiled brightly in the picture, my teeth a little too large for my face. I found his cell phone and dialed 911. A gurgling sound came from his throat. I had become what he wanted me to be—a murderer. I hadn’t wanted to, but now…now I couldn’t find any regret. Couldn’t find any feeling at all. Not even the chill of the wind could touch me. When the operator confirmed that ambulances were on their way, I returned to the building.
Luke met me in the hallway, half dragging himself against the wall. I ran to help him.
“You’re okay,” he slurred. He seemed delirious with the pain and blood loss.
Gently, I laid him on the floor. “I’m okay. Rest now.”
His head was pillowed on my arm, tucked against my breast. My cheek lay against the concrete as I took comfort from him. I needed it, after the confrontation with my father, needed to know I was still alive, and that Luke was too, but just this. Just holding him was enough.
Chapter Fifteen
The paramedics split us up, bringing us to the hospital in separate ambulances. I let them poke and prod at me. They were determined to do a rape kit on me even though I told them it didn’t matter, it had never been rape. But I could tell by the doctor’s expression that she didn’t believe me, and so I spread my legs obediently and let her touch and didn’t make any jokes about charging her by the swab.
The police questioned me, and I explained that the sex between Luke and me was consensual, since they’d find it in the lab report anyway. The two men exchanged a quick glance but kept their professional cool. They told me he was recovering well—but I knew it couldn’t be too well if he hadn’t come to see me yet.
The minute they were out the door, I wanted to leave in search of him. But the nurse must have filled my IV with something that put me to sleep. And they thought I didn’t understand consent, I thought drowsily.
I drifted in and out of a dreamless sleep. When I woke up, the room was still quiet, but I felt someone there. Allie. She was curled up on the hospital bed at my side.
“Hey,” I said, though it came out more like a croak.
“Hey yourself.”
I read how bad I looked in her eyes. Sad. But not too sad, which meant I’d be fine soon enough. Good, because I never could trust those damn nurses.
“How are you feeling? Hurting? Thirsty?”
“A little of both, but wait, don’t go yet. I just want to lie like this.”
She looked shocked. She knew I didn’t like touching. “Are you sure?”
“I’m working on it.”
She grinned. “I’ll take it.”
Colin came in, holding Bailey in his arms. She squealed at the sight of me, but he held her back.
“No,” I protested. “I want to hold her.”
He eyed the tubes coming off me with clear doubt.
“It’ll be fine,” I assured him.
Bailey nestled between us, showing her frustration at my prolonged absence by smashing her face into mine until neither of us could breathe. She grabbed fistfuls of my hair and made a nest for herself in the crook of my arm. My lungs burned, my bruises ached, all of it too much and just right. I looked over her auburn curls at Allie, who watched us, her eyes bright. It was in her eyes, the soul-deep relief.
Over.
It was really over. There was no one to find me and force me back into the life. No one to hang over me like a heavy cloud. Even if they put me in jail for my part, I would have felt nothing but gratitude.
That wouldn’t happen, though. The cops and the doctors veiled their pity behind professionalism, but the letter V might as well have been stitched across my hospital gown.
Victim.
And well, maybe so. I needed to take responsibility for every trick I had turned. It was the only way to stay sane. But as much as I would have wished it, I couldn’t deny the truth of my father’s words. He had trained me, and I had performed like an obedient bitch—so was it a hapless struggle or a choice? The way of the world or a sin? I wasn’t sure it mattered anymore. I would never again have that pause outside a hotel room door. I would never again hear those unwelcome footsteps pause outside mine. Over.
Well, shit. “What the hell am I going to do now?”
Allie laughed, a little watery. “You’ll think of something, and I’m sure it will make me want to pull my hair out, but it will be awesome.”
“So basically I’m three years old like Bailey.”
She nudged my foot through the sheet. “You are like my kid. And other times you’re like my mom. That’s what best friends do.”
I lowered my lashes, and she gave me the moment I needed. Looking away, I said, “Speaking of kids, how’s the girl? Did you visit the kennel, take her out for a walk?”
I was referring to the email asking her to keep an eye on Claire. I trusted Philip, but a little oversight never hurt anybody.
Her face screwed up. “Not exactly.”
“Not exactly, you didn’t check on her?”
“We didn’t just take her for a walk. We took her home.” At my alarmed look, she reassured me. “Nothing happened. They were driving each other crazy, and Philip asked Colin to watch her. So she came back to our house. It was completely safe. No one even knew she was there. You know Colin wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”
“I’m surprised he wanted to help Philip. Or that you did.”
“Hmm.” She paused, thoughtful. “I would have said I was doing it for her. But the truth is, I felt bad for him. I think he is really desperate for someone to love him.”
I glanced at Colin, who stood just outside the room, visible through the half-raised blinds. “Yeah, well, he can join the club.”
