Oblivion (Alphaholes #4)

14. Evan

14

EVAN

I t’s an asshole thing to say, but money really can buy you almost anything you want. I know it’s true because right now, I’m watching Sammy and her mom climb into her dad’s BMW from inside the house opposite Sammy’s parents’ place.

While I was on the plane here last night, I had my lawyers reach out to the owners of the house opposite Sammy’s parents’ house to offer them an exorbitant amount of money for the use of their house for the next week. At first, they thought it was a joke, but when my lawyer assured them it wasn’t and had an extra ten thousand dollars put into their account as a sweetener, they packed up their car and drove away so fast it was almost funny.

The house is nice enough and very conveniently placed for me to keep an eye on my little wild one. Since I woke up, I’ve been expecting an irate call from her, demanding to know why she had my initials on an anklet around her foot, but my cell has been frustratingly silent.

I’m excited for her reaction to me being here. I want to see all her glorious anger and indignation at me being in her bedroom and attaching a piece of jewelry to her body without her consent, and her silence is infuriating.

For a while on the plane ride here, I did consider emanating Clay and putting cameras in her room, but in the end, I refrained. Partly because given my friend’s history, I thought she might expect that, and partly because I’m content to only invade her space when I’m physically in the same room as her.

Once her car pulls out of the driveway, I open the tracker app on my cell and watch the flashing dots move along the map. Once she’s far enough away, I slip into my rental car, open the garage door, and reverse out, making sure to hit the button to close the door as I start to follow after her at a distance.

Given the anklet, she must know I’m in DC, but as I’m guessing she will have searched for a tracker and not found one in her neck, I doubt she’s aware that I know exactly where she is and where she’ll always be for the rest of her life.

After suppressing my feelings for her for so long, it feels invigorating to finally accept that even though I’m an asshole and I’ll never deserve her, I’m going to make her mine anyway. At some point I’ll have to come to terms with the feelings of guilt that I’m sure I’ll eventually have over destroying her life, but right now, I’m riding the high of finally claiming her.

With all my shackles free, it’s taking all of my focus not to just take her. I don’t need a team of bodyguards or a convoluted plot that takes years to enact. I just need a split second—a moment of distraction—and I could make us both disappear. The case in my pocket has been refilled with needles full of ketamine, and not just enough to make her sleep for a few minutes, but doses that would last long enough to get us somewhere no one would ever find us.

But that’s Bastian’s, and maybe Hunter’s, style. Not mine. At least, not yet. That plan is my Hail Mary pass for if everything else goes to shit, or if Starling or the others try to take her from me. For now, I’m content to ensnare her, invisibly tethering her in silk until she’s entirely trapped. By the time she realizes she’s a prisoner, she won’t care, and I won’t have to destroy her to own her.

So, despite all the fucked-up, insane ideas that are luring me down the crazy rabbit hole, I’m staying in the light at the start of the tunnel. I’m biding my time until she’s naked in my arms, filled full of my cock, and wearing my ring on her finger and my name on her skin.

I’ve never admitted it out loud, but even though I regret hurting Starling so badly it changed her, I enjoyed the way we toyed with her life and corralled her until she was Bastian’s prisoner. It’s a fucked-up thing to confess, even to myself, but I liked blocking her attempts to get free. I enjoyed helping him control every aspect of her life. I liked systematically cutting off every person in her world so she only had us. Honestly, it wasn’t until I saw the wreckage our games had caused in her that I even considered that it was wrong to play with people like we did.

It’s not an excuse to say that our upbringing made us who we are, but it’s definitely part of the reason. My dad is a good guy. He loves me, and he provided for me in every way. But despite his cheerful demeanor and easy smile, he’s calculating and considered sometimes scarily calm, and he raised me to behave the same way.

We’ve never talked about it, but sometimes I wonder about his and Cassidy’s relationship. It’s clear he loves her, and she loves him, but how much did he manipulate her to create the relationship that he covets so closely?

She had a house when they met. She was independent, albeit flighty, erratic, and a bit of a kook. Now, she looks to my dad for everything. He plans her day, schedules her work, and organizes her book releases. He makes sure she eats, makes sure she takes care of herself, and doesn’t lose herself to her fictional worlds. He loves her deeply, but sometimes the level of control he has on her reminds me a little of how Bastian was with Starling when he first tricked her into coming to Kingsacre.

At first, I was in awe of the way my brother consumed Starling and made her his. After I saw Starling’s very visible, invisible scars, I started to wonder if wanting, craving, and needing that level of control was a genetic flaw that my dad passed to me.

It’s part of the reason I’ve denied my attraction to Sammy so fiercely. I didn’t just help Bastian trap and control my stepsister. I enjoyed it. I liked it and craved it, and the first time I saw Sammy, I considered a million ways I could make her mine in a way that she’d never be free from.

I know that deep down, I don’t deserve Sammy. I’ll never be worthy of her, and because of that, I’ve paid penance for my treatment of Starling by punishing myself and refusing to allow myself to have the woman I’ve loved since the first moment I saw her.

Even now that I’m actively pursuing her, I know I shouldn’t be here, that I shouldn’t have let myself out of the tiny cage I’ve forced myself into for the last eighteen months. Only I didn’t free myself. I didn’t forgive myself or diminish my actions. Starling opened my door. She freed me and offered me absolution. She shucked off my chains and pushed me toward Sammy with carte blanche to become the monster I’ve spent the last eighteen months repressing. And if this all goes to shit, it’ll be as much her fault as it is mine.

After connecting my cell to the screen on the car, I watch the three dots on the tracking app come to a stop. When I check the address of where she is, I recognize it as Drew’s parents’ house. Even though I know she’s not there to see him, it still bothers me that she’s in his home.

The asshole—who will never be touching my girl ever again—got on a plane back to Massachusetts this morning. According to the private investigator I had look into, Sammy’s soon-to-be ex-fiancé, Drew is a member of the Omega Epsilon fraternity, and the Harvard chapter will be joining several other chapters from Ivy League schools across the country on their annual retreat for the next four days.

When I think about frats, I envision wild parties, salacious orgies, and general youthful excess that will become known as the members’ glory days when they’re old, fat, and gray. But according to my investigator, when the Omega Epsilons get together, it’s more of a political gangbang than a sexual one.

A scary number of local, state, and national politicians are Omega Epsilon alum, and their retreats are less debauchery and more of a networking event for the country’s next generation of wannabe leaders.

Parking just around the corner from Drew’s family’s home, I watch as Sammy, her mom, and a third woman climb into the car before they pull onto the road again. Not moving, I wait five minutes before I slowly follow again.

My girl spends the morning touring an ostentatious wedding venue with her mom and ex-future mother-in-law. Sammy looks cute, in a conservative way, but I’m more used to seeing her in leggings and a sports bra or sexed up to drive me crazy on a night out than the way she’s dressed now, like an expensive soccer mom.

Another call I made on the plane was to Sammy’s security team, who are now, at my request, all wearing body cams. Even though I haven’t been within a hundred feet of her all day, I’ve watched her follow the two older women through ballrooms and breakfast rooms before they all went and ate lunch at the country club they’re all members of.

Sammy doesn’t exactly look sad, but she clearly isn’t as excited as she was when she video-called Starling yesterday morning. Apparently, the moms are looking to start planning a wedding, but my girl doesn’t look like she’s itching to pick out flowers and napkin colors. Instead, she looks distracted and thoughtful.

Sammy’s not usually fidgety, but today, she’s been agitatedly crossing and uncrossing her legs and toying with her boots. Each time she does it, I can’t help but smile, knowing that she’s thinking about the anklet and my initials that are dangling from it.

Even though we lived in the same house for almost a year, we weren’t close. Starling is her bestie. Bastian was like her protective older brother. January, Clay, Hunter, and even Bunny were her friends, and I was…nothing. I was a one-night glitch that I pretended never happened. I was the angry, guilt-filled watcher, always at a distance, always different than the others. But I doubt she ever realized that watching her from afar is comforting to me. Wanting her and not allowing myself to pursue her has been my penance for so long that somewhere along the line, I started enjoying loving her from a distance.

No matter how much I wanted to, I’ve never crossed a line and become like the brothers. Until yesterday, I’ve never had access to her security team. I’ve never monitored her location or controlled her from a distance, corralling her in the direction I want her to go. I haven’t taken a tip out of Clay’s bag of tricks and put cameras in her bedroom or hacked into her cell phone, and I definitely haven’t emulated Hunter and blackmailed her.

Instead, I’ve simply forced myself to stay on the periphery of her life, close enough to see, but far enough away that wanting her is a constant torture I’d assumed I’d never be freed from.

Finally allowing myself to do all the things I’ve dreamed about doing for these long months is exhilarating. I feel six inches taller, my shoulders feel straighter, and my dick feels bigger, thicker, and harder. All in all, I feel like an animal finally released from its too-small cage, and it’s magnificent.

The only thing that will make all of this even better is when Sammy is finally mine.

I’ve parked my rental in a far corner of the country club parking lot, far enough away that she won’t know she’s being watched, but close enough that I see the moment Sammy slips behind the wheel of her dad’s BMW that she’s been driving while she’s been home.

I shamelessly watch as Sammy drives past me on her way out, then I stare at the tracking app, watching the dot that represents her get further and further away. When I’m confident that I’m far enough behind to stay hidden, I finally start my car and discretely follow them, never getting close enough for them to notice. Not that she’d know it was me in the car, even if she realized she was being followed. The car I hired has a privacy film over the windows that’s just see-through enough not to be illegal but still ensures that most people who look at the car will think the sunlight is reflecting off the glass and obscuring the view of the person inside.

Soon, I won’t bother hiding from my wild one. I’ll enjoy watching her search for me, but not yet. Instead of dropping Drew’s mother at her house, they all return to Sammy’s parents’ house. Once they’re all safely inside, I pull onto the driveway of the house opposite theirs, hit the button to open the garage door and drive straight inside.

Killing the engine of the car, I wait until the garage door closes before I climb out and enter the house. The refrigerator was full when the owners left, so I help myself to a beer, carrying it into the front room where I can watch the neighbors come and go.

When my cell beeps, I pull it from my pocket and glance at the screen.

Starling

How’s it going? Sammy texted me this morning and told me about the anklet??? She said she woke up wearing it. Why didn’t you wake her up and talk to her?

Sighing, I contemplate how to reply. I think this may be the first time Starling has ever texted me outside of a group chat. I’ve desperately wanted her to want to talk to me for years, and now that she does, I don’t even know what to say.

Me

Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.

Starling

What’s the plan?

Clicking into the box to type a reply, I exhale, then hit call instead, wondering if she’ll pick up.

“Evan?” she says as she accepts the call.

“You answered.”

“You called,” she says, like she hasn’t ignored every call I’ve ever made to her before.

“Look, I know that you want me to bring Sammy back, and that’s exactly what I’m planning to do. But that won’t be tomorrow. It won’t be in a week. It might not even be in a month, but unless she truly is lost to me, I promise I’ll bring her back to us.” Then, before she has a chance to say a word, I end the call.

Exhaling, I stare down at my cell and wonder how much I just pissed her off and realize, right now, I don’t care. Starling might be my sister. The things I helped do to her might be the reason why I’ve been punishing myself, and her offer of forgiveness and her willingness to allow me to do whatever I need to do to bring her friend home might have been the catalyst to me finally pursuing Sammy, but Starling isn’t my priority right now.

I love her, and I want a sibling relationship with her, but my wild one needs all of my focus and attention, and I refuse to split my concentration between my sister and my woman.

Dropping my cell phone to the couch beside me, I prop my feet up on the coffee table and consider my next move.

It’s late, or I guess early depending on your perception of time, when I push out of my seat. The sun will start to rise in the next half an hour, so I slip from the back door of the house I’m staying in and keep to the shadows as I jump through several of the neighbors’ yards, eventually crossing the street and reversing my journey until I land in Sammy’s parents’ backyard. Slipping into the house through the mudroom window that I left unlocked just for this purpose, I leave my shoes beneath the window and pad barefoot up the stairs.

Holding my breath, I let myself into her room and close the distance between the door and her bed. Instead of silk pajamas, tonight she’s wearing a huge T-shirt that’s ridden up on her thigh, showing the simple cotton panties she has on beneath. Her one leg is hooked over the comforter, and the anklet I attached to her body is still in place, my initials dangling from the chain.

By the time she’s mine, I’ll have claimed her and branded her in a much more permanent way than a simple piece of jewelry that could be removed, but for now, I like seeing her wearing my name.

My eyes drop to the panties that are hiding her pussy from me, and my dick pulses, the ache of longing to be inside of her making my balls throb with need. It wouldn’t take much effort to pull my dick out and cover her in my release. If I was quiet, I doubt she’d wake up. She wouldn’t even know I’d been here until she woke up with my dried cum on her skin. But that feels like too much right now. Soon, there will be a time when I don’t hold back, but a single chain won’t be enough to bind her to me just yet.

Pulling the small jewelry box from my pocket, I open it and glance down at the earrings that are nestled against the black velvet. The emerald studs are simple, elegant, and engraved with my initials. The two letters are small enough that unless you’re searching for them, you’d struggle to notice them, but I know they’re there.

Silently and carefully, I remove the small hoops she has in her ears and replace them with the studs, grateful that she’s lying on her back, and I don’t have to drug her again in order to get them in.

Once her ears are adorned with my gift, I open her jewelry box and remove every single pair of earrings in there, slipping them into the identical box I purchased just for this reason, then putting the box into my backpack.

Sammy hates not wearing earrings. She told Starling once that she feels naked without them in, and now, unless she takes a pair from her mother, her only option is the ones I’ve put in her ears.

It’s another small way of binding her to me and another invisible loop of chain that she won’t notice until it’s pulled tight.

When sunlight starts to filter through her window, I press a barely there kiss to her lips and leave the same way I came in, taking the same path back through the gardens until I slip back into the house I’ve borrowed and finally allow myself to sleep.

After a few hours, I force myself awake just in time to see a brand-new car being delivered to Sammy’s house. The navy-blue Tesla is sleek, environmentally friendly, and boring.

In Cali, Sammy drives a sporty Mercedes convertible that she drives too fast with the roof down and designer sunglasses covering her eyes. My wild one is free and uninhibited and…wild. She’s most definitely not a sensible, mid-sized-car kind of a girl, which can only mean one thing. She didn’t buy this car for herself.

It takes one call to find out that Drew purchased this as an engagement present for her. Apparently, as well as being boring, he also doesn’t know her at all, and I’m a little disappointed that he’s not here to see the less than enthusiastic reaction I’m confident his gift will get.

Sammy, perfectly put together in a pair of tailored wide-leg pants, a button-down with a fitted vest over the top and a pair of nude pumps, forces a fake smile to her lips as she follows her mother down the driveway to look at the car.

When her cell rings, I wish for the first time that I had access to her cell phone, and decide that as much as I didn’t plan to cross that line, knowing how she interacts with Drew will ultimately help me separate them.

Grabbing my own cell, I type out a quick text to Clay.

Me

I need a program so I can clone Sammy’s cell and be able to listen to her calls and read her messages.

His reply is immediate.

Clay

You sure about this? It’s definitely crossing a line.

Me

Carte blanche, you were there.

Clay

Starling may have approved all of this, but Sammy might not be as open to the invasion of her privacy.

Me

I’ll handle Sammy. Do you have a program?

Clay

Of course, I’ll send you a link. Download the app, then you’ll need access to Sammy’s phone to be able to sync it.

Me

Thanks.

Dropping my cell, I concentrate on watching as Sammy’s dad slowly exits the house and joins his wife and daughter as they all look around the car. I’ve never met Sammy’s family. She knows all of our parents, but anytime any of us mentioned coming to DC or meeting her family, she immediately rejected the idea.

She’s openly spoken about how her life here in DC is very different from the one she’s created for herself at school. But it still doesn’t explain why she’s trying to keep her friends and her parents away from each other.

Her dad looks tired and old. He’s not exactly a spring chicken at sixty-five, and it’s clear to see that although he might be out of the hospital, the heart attack he suffered a few months back has definitely taken its toll on his health. Her mom is five years younger than her husband at sixty, and despite having lived in Washington, DC, for nearly thirty-six years, she still dresses like a classic Southern belle.

According to the background check Bastian did on Sammy and her family back when Sammy and Starling first became friends, Sammy’s mom is originally from a town near Savannah, Georgia. Her family owned a small plantation, and according to some research, Sammy’s parents’ marriage was arranged to try to bring wealth back to the Hartleys’ dwindling family fortune.

Despite it not starting as a love match, they’ve been married for over thirty years and seem, at least on paper, to be very happy together. Although not as wealthy as they once were, the Hartleys have a great reputation, and Sammy’s dad’s business success has refilled a lot of the family’s coffers. From what I’ve found out so far, if his business continues to flourish, then in a couple of generations, the Hartley name could be back where it once was in terms of wealth and prestige.

After some encouragement from her mom, Sammy gets behind the wheel of the new Tesla and drives away, returning five minutes later and pulling into the driveway beside the BMW she was using yesterday.

Sammy’s smile is very clearly fake, and I scoff lightly as I try to figure out how to get rid of her new boring car and replace it with something I’ve bought for her.

The next few days pass in relative peace and quiet. The BMW is parked in the garage, and Sammy starts driving the Tesla, a now familiar disappointment flashing across her face every time she sees the car.

The night the car arrived, I let myself into her bedroom and uploaded the program Clay sent me to her cell and synced it with mine. Now, every time her cell rings, so does mine, and when she answers, I hear every word that’s spoken both by Sammy and the person she’s talking to. Her texts, both incoming and outgoing, appear on my cell, and I have access to her internet history every time she looks at a website or searches for anything.

It’s a gross invasion of her privacy, but I just don’t care. Her life is mine now. Her business is my business, her worries are my worries, and this way, I’ll know what she needs without her having to tell me she needs it.

Two nights ago, I removed some of the preppy clothes she’s been wearing and replaced them with things that I’ve had made for her. As much as I’d rather she dress like she does in Cali, I know that filling her closet with miniskirts and sexy dresses would be a waste of time. So, instead, I found designers who make classic, conservative but sexy clothes and commissioned some things for her.

So far, I’ve left her new jeans, a couple of dresses, some shirts, a new coat, and a sexy, Mad Men -inspired skirt that I can’t wait to see her in. Every single thing I’ve gifted her has my monogram on it at least a dozen times. Every time she wears them, she’s covering herself with my name.

I also took some of her shoes and replaced them with beautiful new pairs, all adorned with—you guessed it—my initials. I actually considered taking the string of pearls she’s worn every day since I got here and changing them for a string with my monogram on, but I decided against it. I overheard her tell Starling once that even though she hates the idea of being the type of woman who wears pearls, she still loves that the ones she owns have been worn by several generations of her family before her.

Instead, I swapped out the emerald earrings for a pair of black and white diamond ones, putting the emeralds into her empty jewelry box.

Soon, everything she wears and owns will have my name on it, each item capturing her with yet another barely visible strand of chain.

By the time Drew returns, I’d almost forgotten he was even in the picture. Apart from daily good morning and good night texts, they haven’t spoken, exchanged dirty photos, or done anything that would hint at them missing the other while they aren’t together.

The lack of contact feels strange to me. If Sammy were mine, I doubt I’d be able to go more than an hour without speaking to her. There’s definitely no way I’d care about spending four days in the woods with a group of wannabe politicians when I could be balls deep in my girl, keeping her full of my cum and drunk on orgasms.

After the first two days with little to no contact, I got curious about who Drew was keeping in contact with, so I arranged for Clay’s cloning program to be put on his cell too. It turns out that Drew is way more boring than I expected. While he wasn’t talking to his fiancée, he was talking to his mom, his dad, and his PR team, who are all very excited about how his potential ratings will be affected by his engagement and subsequent marriage.

The decision to buy Sammy a new car was decided after careful discussion with his PR team and after some polling was done on constituents in the town where Drew’s dad is currently the mayor.

Sammy’s upcoming transfer to Harvard, their decision that she would major in English literature, live with Drew’s cousin, and the delay of their wedding until after they’ve both graduated have all been minutely dissected and polled multiple times.

It’s bizarre to me that Drew is planning his and Sammy’s future based almost entirely on the opinions of the people he’s hoping will elect him as mayor when his dad decides to step down from his post.

Not once has he asked my wild one for her input. Instead, he’s discussed it with his dad, his PR team, and even a friend of his dad’s who was the lieutenant governor for the state of Idaho a few years ago.

Drew is planning his future, and much like the step-by-step plans he’s made to help him climb the political ladder, Sammy is just an item he’s checked off his to-do list, alongside his planned internship for next summer and his intention to volunteer for the next county government’s election campaign.

The realization that Drew doesn’t want Sammy because she’s Sammy, and simply because she comes from the right kind of family and will produce the right kind of kids—two boys, followed by two girls—selected in a lab from the eggs he already plans to have Sammy freeze, is mind-blowing to me.

Not once in all the conversations he’s had about his future has he ever spoken about Sammy as anything more than a pretty prop to stand at his side. His team has all agreed that once she graduates Harvard they should get married and immediately start making babies.

Sammy said she wanted to leave Kingsacre because she needs to actually find a job one day, but according to Drew’s plans, Sammy’s only job will be arm candy and baby factory. Beyond that, his team has decided that her dedicating her life to supporting him is the only job she’ll ever require.

Finding out all of this information has confirmed my assumption that by removing Drew from her life, I won’t be ending a life-altering love story for Sammy. This has also lessened some of the guilt I’d felt when I first decided to take my wild one from her fiancé. Now I know how much he doesn’t deserve her. All of my reservations about breaking them up have gone. I just have to decide how much of a bang I want to make when I implode their relationship and steal her for myself.