Chapter 2
E verly
My fingertips grazed soft sheets, and I battled to open my eyes, awash with the drug that had stolen my consciousness. My eyelids fluttered apart a few millimetres, and I glimpsed midnight-blue bedding. A dark wood frame. A brick wall beyond.
Connor’s bedroom?
Had to be. If I wasn’t furious at him, or as much as I could be of that negative emotion, I’d be thrilled at my location. After all I’d done to get to him, this was an opportunity I’d sought out.
My thoughts moved lazily though my body was flickering to life. I took a deep inhale, filling my lungs with the clean masculine scent that clung to the sheets. Heavenly. It took me back to teenage nights like a spectre stealing the past decade of pain neatly away.
I must have passed out again because the next time I woke, it was from a dream. I’d been in the hallway of my father’s home, the front door open and sunlight spilling in. My father showed a woman into the house, her suitcase in his hand, and her bright chatter filling the space.
I stood in a white-and-blue flower dress, with my shoulders back and a dutiful smile installed, maybe a little rigid, bouncing my gaze from the newlyweds to the person behind her. The son, taller than his mother, and more man than boy, though he was only a year older than me at sixteen, entered my home. He had a thatch of messy brown hair that fell into his blue eyes and a scowl that was the polar opposite to my welcoming expression.
After his handsome face, I took in his broad shoulders. Biceps under a band t-shirt. The beat of music from the headphones discarded at his neck.
Startled at my very first bolt of lust, I darted a glance at the adults, but they were wrapped up in themselves. My father squeezing his new love’s bottom and ushering her straight upstairs with no regard for me or even an introduction. If I’d had any faith, I would’ve prayed that his happiness be long-lasting. That it might change him for the better. But no god had ever answered me before, and I didn’t bother asking now.
Instead, I fixed my smile on my new stepbrother. “You’re Connor, right?”
Those eyes slashed to me. Skirted over me in a way I wasn’t expecting, and with interest piercing his obvious misery. My pulse sped up.
My father had associates who looked at me with a male assessment I’d learned to hate and fear. They’d done so from the minute I’d grown breasts I couldn’t conceal.
Their stares creeped me out.
Connor’s warmed my blood.
In a heartbeat, the awkward moment of meeting new family members, who to this point had been complete strangers, changed into something far nicer. I’d been fifteen and feeling things I never had before.
Or since.
The dream lifted, wakefulness returning. I flexed my fingers and then my toes, stretching out a leg so touch could inform me before sight did if I was alone. The bed was empty, and no sounds reached me bar the distant thud of music and an even fainter siren. Business as usual in Deadwater.
For a few minutes, I waited, breathing in the air of Connor’s apartment, and let the drug leave my brain.
I wasn’t sure how many hours had passed, but I’d gone to bed at ten, then had woken to a sound which had led me downstairs, investigating. That had probably been about midnight. There, the man had grabbed me, swiftly followed by Connor appearing as if by magic and rescuing me by means I couldn’t remember as he’d knocked me out. I racked my brain. What had the stranger said? A gang had ordered my kidnap? I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t that valuable.
Taking another cleansing breath, I sat up with my fingertips to my forehead for a moment as my brain spun in dizzy circles. When my vision settled, I took in my surroundings. Those red-brick walls met the spacious bedroom’s oak floors, and the room was comfortable with no clutter, but it was the window that pulled my attention. From floor height, it rose almost to the ceiling and was arched with the same bricks.
A dead giveaway to my location.
I was in the riverside warehouse where Connor worked, a huge red-brick-and-steel building previously used for shipping and at least eight storeys high. The ground floor was split between a vibrant nightclub on one side and an exclusive strip club on the other. Above that, a brothel operated, unadvertised but renowned and popular with the men of the city, including my father.
It was how I knew about the place. Father saw no reason to shelter me from his activities. I managed his membership and arranged bookings with his favourite sex workers, even ordering the women to his office or our home on occasion. I didn’t like it, but it was him I judged, not them. They were just earning a living.
Shuffling to the edge of the bed, I placed my feet on the soft cream rug below, wiggled my toes, then spotted the light bandage on my foot. I’d cut myself? Yes, on glass. He’d patched me up. I couldn’t even feel a sting.
I was still in the camisole and French knickers I’d worn to bed, though my silk dressing gown was missing and nowhere in sight. Connor must have taken it off me at some point.
I ran my hands down my thighs, regretting what he would’ve seen.
If only it had been one of my better weeks, when I’d been to the gym and eaten well. Then again, he’d always told me he loved my body exactly how it was. It was his words I played over in my mind when hearing my father’s jibes, or if I went into a boutique to enquire about a cute dress only to be told they didn’t stock my size.
Connor had liked me, then. Made me feel better about myself. I didn’t want to know his judgement now.
Easing to my feet, I crossed the room to peer from the window, my palms to the cool panes of glass. The city sparkled, and Deadwater River gleamed from the lights along the cobbled walkway that led to the centre of town in the distance ahead. Below, people were leaving the clubs, in groups or staggering along solo, and the lack of queues outside told me it was late. Or early, rather, on Sunday morning.
If anything else had happened at my house, if the security team I hadn’t called had somehow shown up, or if my father had been alerted, I had no way of knowing. I’d left my phone upstairs, and there it would’ve stayed.
A strange sense of peace filled me. I was in the eye of a storm, unable to see the surrounding danger, but also unable to move on. Not until I’d spoken to Connor.
It hurt a little that he wasn’t here watching over me while I slept, but at the same point, why would he? After what I’d done to him, he hated me.
I turned from the stunning view and moved back to the bed. A piece of paper on a bedside table caught my eye. I hadn’t noticed it when I woke but picked it up now from where it waited next to a tall glass of water, condensation beading on the outside.
DRINK ME, was written in capital letters.
My heart thumped. An instruction, left for me. Come to mention it, my mouth was as dry as a bone. The cold water slid down my throat, waking me further.
I took another drink and turned the paper over, but there was nothing on the other side. Folding it, I strolled around the bed, curious about the home my ex-stepbrother had created for himself. The reason I’d wanted to see him was out of worry over him, but his home was nice. Decent quality sheets. Heavy furniture. It was masculine but tasteful and tidy. There was no art on the wall aside from a collection of knives, some of which I remembered him having years ago in his bedroom in the mansion.
I drifted over to them, taking in the blades, some revealed, others sheathed, the weapons held on supports drilled into the brick and the sharp edges facing down. On the blunt side of one, something perched, out of place. I squinted. Another piece of paper.
I carefully pinched it free.
DON’T TOUCH, he’d written.
An unladylike snort of amusement left me. He’d always been obsessed with knives, as long as I’d known him, but had never let me near them. Clearly that hadn’t changed.
Turning, I glimpsed a bathroom through an open door, the exit to the hall beside it. I stepped inside and used the facilities, checking out the single grey bottle of bodywash/shampoo inside the powerful-looking shower, a solitary toothbrush and paste in a holder on the sink, and a complete lack of bottles and packets in the cabinet.
No regular girlfriend staying over, then. Disquiet passed over me along with relief. I’d wondered about that, too. Worried about who he loved. How often.
On the back of the bathroom door hung a hoodie. A third piece of folded paper waited in the hood.
WEAR ME.
This was in danger of being cute—something that didn’t go with Connor at all. At least not the version of him he presented to the world. It didn’t strike me as some routine he put on for all the women he had stay over, though perhaps I’d find more that directed me to the door and kicked me out.
The hoodie’s fuzzy interior made me shiver as I suddenly felt the cold. It was September, and though the days were still warm, the nights were long and damp. I exited into the hall and passed closed doors to enter a big, open-plan living room and kitchen. Only the pendant lights over the counters were on, the rest of the space in deep shadows.
Another wall of knives gleamed.
I hesitated at the edge of the room, nervous but determined.
“Hello?” I called.
No answer came. Fine. I’d find him.
I’d wanted to be here. I had good reason to go hunting for him in the warehouse.
A couple of weeks ago, I’d overheard my father mention Connor’s name on the phone. Not his real name, but the gang name he used. Shade . Because he was a man of the shadowy night, apparently.
Father had some kind of deal with Shade, I’d gathered, and that knowledge had driven me to distraction. After all I’d sacrificed. After I’d lost him for the purpose of keeping him safe and earned his hatred in reply. After everything I’d done to set him free, he’d still wound up in my father’s clutches, and that was unbearable.
My mind spiralled.
Why had he come to my house? He didn’t know about the supposed gang threat to me until I did. If he hated me so much, why come in with all guns blazing?
Or perhaps all knives glinting.
Indignant, I moved to the front door. Connor might have kidnapped me, but I was the one who’d demand answers.
But another piece of paper waited on the latch.
DON’T EVEN TRY.