Chapter 44 Kashton #5
Great. Just what I need. An audience. How the fuck did he find out? I haven’t told a soul. Especially Kashton. I’d never make him keep secrets from his brothers. I have so many that I will take to my grave. Hell, I will die to keep most of them, but I say, “Yes.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?” he demands.
I look up at my half brother through my lashes.
Our father hated him almost as much as he hated me.
I knew Haidyn was too good of a person to let him know who I was.
It would have only gotten him in trouble with our father.
I know he’s dead now, but telling him would open another door that I need to keep shut. For both of our sakes. “No.”
His face falls and the man that is six seven looks like a little wounded child. The anger fades, replaced with sadness and regret. “Why not?” he asks, his brows draw together. “I could have protected you.”
That’s why I never said anything. “Protect me?” I shake my head.
“We were all on our own, Haidyn.” Everyone was.
The guys had each other, but they still went through hell.
They were separated and tortured all because Ashtyn ran and fucked everything up.
Our father kept me away from Haidyn because he knew we’d get close and Haidyn would choose me.
That was one less thing he wanted to fight Haidyn on.
“And he’s been dead for years.” After the Spade fathers were killed, there was no reason to confront any of them.
I was free to move on with my life. I didn’t want to come back to this. Kashton changed all that.
“I’m sorry.” He runs a hand over his head before it drops to his side. “I’m sorry that Dad sent you to Dollhouse. I should have asked about you…the girl I picked to save.”
My head snaps up and I glare at him. Dollhouse? “How do you know that?” I demand. Stepping closer to him, I shout, “How do you fucking know about that?”
“Eve.” It’s Kashton who says my name, and I look over at him. He walks slowly toward me, but I see the sadness in his eyes as well. And Saint. He can’t even look at me. His hands are shoved into his pockets, his eyes on the floor.
What the fuck? “Where the fuck have you been?” I ask instead. I zero in on something in Kashton’s hand. It’s an envelope of some kind, and it makes panic rise. What could be in there?
“We’ve been at Dollhouse,” Haidyn answers. “We watched your tape.”
My stomach drops at his words, and I take a step back, feeling like someone has just punched me in the gut. No. That was too long ago. The videos have been destroyed. Evan promised me that they were no longer there. That they’re all ruined after a doll is sold.
“I don’t believe you,” I whisper, even though I do. How else would they know what goes on there? That everything is taped?
“Eve.” Haidyn steps closer to me. “Bill showed it to us.”
I shake my head. My dad? The man who said he’d protect me, give me a better life, betrayed me? Why? Have I done something wrong? Is he mad at me? One of my biggest fears is that I’ll let him down. It took a lot of time and effort to get me out of that hell. I promised him I would make it worth it.
“Angel—”
I push around Kashton, shove open the door to the stairwell, and run down them, ignoring Kash calling out behind me. I rush out of the front double doors and down the steps to my car. I don’t even look in my rearview mirror to see if he’s following me as I race home.
I enter my house. How fucking dare they do that? Angry tears roll down my face, and I wipe them away aggressively. I don’t cry—not anymore—but I’m pissed. Embarrassed. This is why I didn’t want to get close with Kashton. I knew better but allowed it to happen anyway.
Entering my bedroom, something gets my attention.
An envelope sits on the end of my bed. It looks identical to the one Kash was holding.
With shaking hands, I open it up and pull out the contents.
The first thing is a picture of me lying in the hospital bed when Bill saved me. I look like shit. Unrecognizable.
It was after I ran into Kashton on the Isabella. Evan punished me for that night. Bill found me six weeks later. I didn’t think I was going to survive much longer. If I didn’t commit suicide, Evan was going to kill me.
I toss it to the floor and look over the report of what had been done to me.
Everything my body survived at Dollhouse.
Is this what they read? They know everything.
Things that I can’t even remember. The drugs cloud your mind.
I guess that’s one thing to be thankful for. Months are missing from my life.
“Hey, sis,” a voice says softly from behind me.
My chest tightens. It’s like a fucking nightmare.
I turn around to see Evan standing in the doorway of my bedroom. “Did you do this?” I hold up the envelope. “Did you fucking do this?” I scream.
“I told you Kashton would be a problem. He’d get too close. I had to show them, sis. They needed to see who you really are.”
“Show?” The video? “You…you told me you deleted them.” I’m shaking uncontrollably.
My other half brother, my boyfriend, and his friend all watched this man in my room train me to be a whore.
A year is a long time. What video did they watch?
How many were there? Everything inside of Dollhouse is recorded so potential clients can view the product.
There could be thousands of videos of me there.
It’s a way for them to make more money off the dolls. The ones watching have to pay in order to view the footage. That way Dollhouse can vet them to make sure they’re not getting caught by law enforcement.
He says nothing, and my throat tightens at his silent answer. “You’re a fucking bastard.”
Evan frowns. “He can’t love you, Eve. Not like you need.”
Do I believe that Kashton loves me? No. A woman like me can’t be loved. But I know that he wants to care for me more than anyone else ever has.
Fuck Evan for thinking no one else could love me. Kashton makes me feel…different. He’s helped me accept myself for who I am and what I like in bed.
Evan begins to laugh, and it makes me nervous. Does he know what Kashton has done? That he went to the Lords to request me as his Lady? “You’re a doll, Eve. My dolly.”
“I’m not yours,” I shout.
A smile spreads across his face. “You were when you were coming for me.”
Bile rises and I gag at the thought. “No,” I say in denial.
We share a mother—he’s my half brother—and we never had sex.
It was never physical. He might have trained me, but it wasn’t like that.
They use toys at Dollhouse. He makes it sound like he means something entirely different. “We didn’t…I wouldn’t have…”
“Oh, you did.” He nods his head. “You came all over my fingers, my face, and my cock.”
“You’re lying,” I say through gritted teeth. This is what they do. Lords manipulate you. They wait until you’re at your lowest and then kick you.
He removes his cell from his pocket and shoves it in my face.
A video starts to play. It’s of my cell at Dollhouse.
I’m on my knees, my upper body strapped in a straitjacket.
Other than that, I’m naked from the hips down.
Evan stands in front of me. One of his hands in my hair while the other is wrapped around the base of his dick.
My blood runs cold as the sound of his cock fucking my face fills the room.
“That’s it, dolly.” He smiles down at me. My eyes are glossed over as I stare up at him. He pulls out and I gasp in a breath. He slaps me hard but holds me in place by my hair before he shoves his spit-covered cock back into my mouth.
My eyes are unfocused and my mind is elsewhere, but it’s me.
He ends the video. Kashton was right. My stomach turns, and I place my hand over my mouth, gagging into it.
Evan laughs. “That sound brings back memories. I knew if I showed them a video, you’d come running home. You’re so predictable.”
I swallow the bile so I don’t embarrass myself more than I already have.
Turning to give him my back, I yank open the top drawer of my nightstand to grab my gun—I’m going to end this once and for all—but it’s not there.
“Looking for this?”
Slamming the drawer shut, I face Evan to see him pointing it at my chest. I give a manic laugh that makes him frown.
“Do it,” I say holding my arms out wide, and he snorts.
“Really. You’ll be doing me a favor.” He smiles.
“Do it, you fucking coward.” I’m shaking, and my adrenaline is pumping.
I’m embarrassed and ashamed. How could I have been so stupid?
He steps into me, the end of my gun pressing into my chest. “I’m the coward?” He cocks his head. “You’re the one who has attempted to kill herself twice and couldn’t succeed. You’re the coward, Eve.”
“I might have let myself down, but at least I don’t have to drug and rape women.”
Pain explodes in my face, and I’m knocked off my feet. I blink rapidly, lying on the floor while he stands over me, yelling. I can’t make out what he’s saying. It’s like I’m in a tunnel, his words echoing.
Touching the side of my face, I feel wetness and then see blood on my shaking fingers.
“Get up, you fucking bitch,” he barks, grabbing my hair and yanking me to my shaking legs.
When he lets go of me, I take the opportunity and run to the kitchen. My hand curls around the knife handle just as he comes up behind me, slamming my body into the counter. My knees hit the cabinets so hard the wood splinters.
“Come on, sis. Don’t be shy now.” He reaches around and squeezes my wrist, forcing me to drop the knife, and I scream in frustration. “You owe me for Haidyn, after all. Or have you already forgotten?”
He places the blade between my legs from behind, and I stiffen when I feel it run up the inside of my leggings.
“You think I raped you?” He chuckles. “Stupid bitch. You let me do whatever I wanted with you. You think he fucks you because he loves you? No. He loves fucking you because of how I trained you. I made you the whore you are.” The knife comes to a stop, pressing against my pussy.
I gasp for breath, trying to spread my legs farther to keep him from cutting me.
“Now…be a good dolly and beg me to fuck you.”
With his hand in my hair, he bends me over, shoving my upper body onto the countertop. I bite my tongue, determined to not make a noise.
“I can’t wait to remind you of how much you enjoyed it.” He lets go of my hair, pulling down my leggings to expose my ass.
I seize my chance to grab a second knife from the block. “Fuck you.” I push up and slam my head back, connecting with his face.
He groans, stumbling away, but recovers quicker than I can move. Fisting my hair, he yanks me back, dragging me to the bedroom. I kick and scream the best I can. Twisting in his grip, I take the knife and swing, successfully stabbing him in the side.
“Motherfucker,” he hisses. “Fucking bitch.”
I’m thrown onto the bed, and he gets on top of me. I continue to kick and scream so loudly my lungs burn. I’m in survival mode and not thinking clearly.
He flips me over so I can’t fight him, yanking my leggings all the way down my kicking legs, knocking my shoes off in the process. My nails dig into the bedding, trying to get out from underneath him, but all it does is pull the blankets down. I can’t get a good grip.
This isn’t like the times I fought men at the motel. I wasn’t prepared for him to be here, and he was counting on that.
Taking a handful of hair, he buries my face into the bunched sheets, trying to suffocate me. My heart races as I try to breathe. My lungs burn and my strength weakens by the second. When my body relaxes, he yanks my head up, and I gasp.
“You begged me, sis. I will say this… You were hard to train at first, but in the end, I broke you. Guess I can’t take all the credit, though, huh? The Spades had you before I did. You arrived already begging to be fucked. You didn’t give a shit who the cock belonged to.”
He lets go of me, and my head falls down onto the bed.
I try to get my bearings. My breathing is erratic, and my vision is blurry.
My leg burns, and I feel something wet and warm underneath me on the bed.
Did I pee myself? I did it once at Dollhouse, thinking it would keep them from wanting to go near me. They didn’t fucking care.
I hear him unzip his pants, then he’s tossing me onto my back.
He rips my T-shirt off my heaving chest before wrapping his hand around my neck, squeezing it so tightly my eyes feel like they’re going to pop out of their sockets.
“It’ll be like old times, Eve. You on your knees and me fucking your face. ”
A single tear falls from the corner of my eye, and he leans down, licking his way up my cheek, and I cower away from him. “Don’t worry, sis. I’ll make sure he sees all the tapes…new and old.”
I reach up, grip the handle of the knife in his side, and yank it out. He sits up, screaming, and I go to stab him again, but something hits me in the side of the face, making me see stars for the second time.
“Goddammit,” he growls, getting off me.
I roll over, cradling my face, and fall off the side of the bed with a thud. It momentarily knocks what little air I had left out of me.
Blinking, my eyes begin to focus, and I look up to see him just as he stands over me. He grips my right ankle, and I twist in his grasp, slamming my free foot into the side where I stabbed him.
He drops me, and I scramble to the bathroom door since it’s the closest. The bloody knife is right by it. I could throw it at him, but that will just give him an advantage—a weapon to kill me with—and I don’t know where my gun went. I’m assuming he still has it.
So I quickly crawl on my hands and knees over to the bathroom door, grab the knife, and slam the door shut behind me. Getting up on my knees, I lock it and then fall backward.
I cradle the knife to my chest, trying to catch my breath.
He can get in. That piece-of-shit lock isn’t going to save me, but it can give me an extra few seconds to catch my breath.
When he gets in, I’m going to have to decide: try to fight him off or kill myself before he gets an advantage over me.
He came prepared and probably has drugs on him that he’ll shoot me up with.
I won’t be that woman again. I’ll die before I allow him to touch me. Tightening my hands around the handle, I hold the knife to my neck. If he gets in, I won’t have more than a couple of seconds.