Chapter Twenty-Three
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Stella
Z arah didn’t show me this part of the Lyndhurst. In fact, I don’t know if there are restrooms down this hallway, but Zane didn’t stop me. I must be going in the right direction. I find one around a corner, the room marked so discretely I almost miss it.
The brightly lit lavatory smells like raspberries, and I choose the handicapped stall wanting the wider space. I need to pull my dress up higher than normal—I don’t want my train to fall into the toilet.
I’m wet and swollen, and I wipe, my clit quivering against the soft toilet paper.
He’s in a good mood, and I wish we could have made love in the garden. I want to please him as much as he does me.
I finish and step to the other side of the stall before lowering my dress.
While I wash my hands, I study my reflection. My lip gloss is gone and my eyeliner is smeared, but my eyes sparkle and my face is flushed. It’s the look of a woman in love, and I definitely am. I can’t wait to get back to Zane’s side and spend the rest of the evening holding his hand and letting him introduce me to all the other guests who have come for the second cocktail hour. I think Zane and Zarah know everyone in the city.
I hurry down the plushly carpeted hallway, but I’m turned around and by mistake don’t go the direction I came. I’m lost, and I stumble upon a grand staircase that leads to the sleeping rooms on the second floor. I search for a wall plaque that will tell me which way to go to reach the ballroom.
An angry voice carries to me, and instinctively, I tuck myself around a corner and out of sight. I learned at a young age to gauge people’s moods. You could earn a slap or worse if you have the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Just do what I say.”
It’s Ash, and he sounds livid.
“Why tonight? Can’t I have one evening of my own?”
Zarah. She’s crying.
“Because, you fucking whore, I said so.”
I press my lips together. I knew Ash was an asshole. It doesn’t matter how vehemently Zane denies it. I clutch at the fabric of my dress in vain. Finally, I have the proof I need for Zane to believe me, but I left my phone in my purse on the table where we ate dinner and I don’t want to leave Zarah to go get it.
Carefully, I peer around the corner.
She’s standing on a step making her eye-level with that rat bastard, and he grips her arm. Even from here, I can see the marks he’s pushing into her skin.
He shakes her. “Do you know how much money the princess of King’s Crossing is worth? Do you have any idea how much I sell my fiancée for?” Leaning into her face, he says, “A cool million a night. You can spread your sweet little thighs for that much.”
Tears stream down her face. “He hits and kicks me. Please, Ash.”
I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood. Ash is pimping Zarah out. I should tell Zane, but he would never believe me. I know he wouldn’t. I step back. What Ash does isn’t any of my business and I turn to go, but Zarah is my friend.
“I told him to leave your face alone. Now go.”
I lean against the wall, my heart pounding erratically. I peer around the corner.
Zarah’s standing on the landing between the two sets of stairs. Her shoulders are shaking, and a keycard shines in her hand. She’s wearing the red dress she bought at the vintage boutique, and her bronzed skin glitters, despite her pallor. She’s beautiful, the heiress of Maddox Industries. Twenty-one years old in a couple of weeks.
Worth a million dollars a screw.
And whatever else they want to do to her.
Ash leans against the gleaming wood bannister watching Zarah trudge up the carpeted stairs.
If I wait any longer, she’ll be gone. A victim of abuse. Rape. God knows what else.
“Stop!” I step around the corner, my chin up. Don’t let him see your fear. “Ash, let her go.”
His eyes take on a dangerous sheen, and a huge pit forms in my stomach.
He smiles, but I’ve never seen anything more lethal. “Stella. To what do I owe this surprising pleasure?”
Zarah stops on the second floor and stares down at me.
“I heard everything. Let her go, and I won’t tell Zane.”
Ash laughs. “Are you serious? Oh, she’s serious. Zarah, your little friend thinks she can stop me from selling your sweet pussy. How brave...” He steps toward me, putting himself directly in my path. I don’t dare back up. I can’t let him see I’m scared. He already has the upper hand. He wraps his fingers around my throat and applies just enough pressure to hurt. “How stupid.”
My nostrils flare. He smells like a bar, but his hard eyes are sober.
“Zane won’t believe a goddamned thing you tell him.”
I blink, and sweat slides down my back.
“You know I’m right, don’t you? Why would he believe a little slut off the street that he’s known for two weeks? I’m his childhood friend who’s in love with his sister and has made a promise to love and protect her until death do us part. He’d kick your ass to the curb before he believed a bad word about me or my family.”
My eyes water. He’s cutting off my air supply, and bright dots explode in my vision.
“Ash, leave her alone!” Zarah screams.
His grip tightens, and his gaze never leaves mine. “No. Go do your fucking job.”
I wrap my hands around his wrist to try to loosen his grip and let me breathe, just a tiny bit. Tears start to drip down my cheeks. I’m no match against his strength.
The light shining from the chandelier above us dims.
This is the way I’ll die.
If Ash can sell Zarah, then he’ll have no qualms about killing me. One well-told lie, and Zane wouldn’t ask any questions.
Zarah, knowing she doesn’t stand a chance against Ash and his power, turns.
He tilts his head, studying me.
Suddenly, he lets me go, and I crumple to the floor, the luxurious carpeting soft under my hands and knees. Painfully, I drag in ragged breaths. My throat burns.
“I’m willing to negotiate.”
“No. Whatever it is, no.” Zarah rushes down the staircase and drops to the floor beside me. “She’s nothing,” she says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders as I wheeze.
The spots fade, but a pain slams through my skull and it’s difficult to swallow. Lifting my head, I meet his eyes, and I clench my hands into fists to keep myself from flying at him, from tearing the disgusting smile off his face.
“She’s hardly nothing. I have plenty of clients who would love to play with Trailer Trash Barbie, and pay a good price to do it. I admit, I’ve thought about it once or twice myself.”
The thought of having sex with Ash nauseates me and my stomach churns. I push back the urge to vomit. “Come on, Zarah,” I rasp. “Let’s get out of here.” I stand and tug her to her feet. We don’t have to listen to a second more of what this lunatic has to say. Zane will believe both of us.
Ash lets us shuffle a few feet down the empty corridor. “You don’t get it, do you?”
I stop and look over my shoulder. It was stupid to think he’d let us go, and tucked into the back of the hotel, there’s no one around to help us. Everyone is at the party.
He laughs. “How the fuck do you think I can force my sweet fiancée to do what I want? How do you think I’ve made her spread her legs? What did the last job do to you, sweetheart? You couldn’t walk for two days.”
I cover my mouth and moan her name between my fingers. “Zarah.”
Ash ambles to us, casually straightening his bow tie. “How do you think I can make Zarah do that? Any ideas, Stella?”
I scramble to process what he said. Why would Zarah allow herself to be abused? Because she loves her brother more than anything. He’s her only family. “To protect Zane.”
Zarah grabs my hand and squeezes my fingers.
“That’s a partial answer, and you guessed it quicker than I thought you would. Gold star. There are some wheels turning in that pretty little head of yours after all. Let me fill in the blanks. I have something on Kagan and Lark that would destroy Maddox Industries and leave Zane nothing but broken. Humiliated. He’d be a pariah, driven out of the city with nowhere to go. All Zarah has to do is obey my every command, and I’ll keep the information buried.”
“Is it true?” I ask Zarah. Her mascara is streaking down her cheeks, and vaguely, I think she looks like a hot mess in a horror movie, running from an evil that can never be stopped.
“Yes,” she whispers. “I did it to save Zane. His reputation.”
I don’t believe him. “What is it?”
“You are in no position to demand explanations. But, to take, one must give. Do you know why Kagan and Lark were killed?”
My mouth dries. This goes back to Kagan and Lark’s plane crash?
I shake my head.
“He was caught betraying the United States of America. Selling arms on the black market to guerrilla war leaders. The wrong person found out, or the right one, it seems. Homeland Security took the plane down. That’s why the FBI didn’t find anything during their investigation.”
My heart beats painfully beneath my ribs. Quinn was right all along. Kagan Maddox was involved in some very nasty things and was killed for it. Lark, collateral damage.
“Now, Zane really is my best friend. He’d be a disgrace if the truth ever came out. That would be tragic, don’t you agree?”
I nod. I think of Zane’s handsome, boyish face. The love shimmering in his eyes. How he laughs, how he makes love.
I can’t let him find out the truth.
Painfully, I try to swallow. “What do you want?”
“If I can’t have Zarah, I’ll make do with you. All of you. You’ll never step foot outside, ever again. Tonight will be the last time you’ll ever see Zane. You will belong to me, and you will do what I say every moment of every day for the rest of your life.”
“No!” Zarah screams, and she launches her tiny body at Ash, pummeling his chest, her fists bothering him not at all.
He easily backhands her, and the crack echoes through the static buzzing through my brain.
Zarah falls to the floor, sobbing, holding a quaking hand to her cheek.
I’ll be Ash’s slave.
So Zane can be free.
“What if I say no?”
Ash shrugs. “Then I keep Zarah. Her pussy is a goldmine. I can’t lose.”
I can’t subject Zarah to a life of misery as Ash’s whore. The things she’s already tolerated...the pain, the abuse...it would go on forever. Until one day she wouldn’t be able to take it anymore and she would find an escape the only way she knew how. Zane would die without his sister.
And who am I? A girl who grew up in foster care. A woman who has no family. Who will miss me besides Zane? He’ll get over me soon enough. Marry someone more worthy of his love and position in the city. I’m nothing.
Nobody.
I help Zarah to her feet. Her cheek is puffy and red, and tears wet her face.
“I have a couple of requests of my own.”
Victory shines in his eyes. “I’ll do what I can.”
I can’t know if Ash will keep his promises. He may not, but I’m counting on honor among thieves, a mentality criminals hold dear. Make no mistake. I know Ash is a criminal and deserves to be thrown into a prison cell for the rest of his pathetic life. “Leave Zarah alone. Break off your engagement and let her live her life.”
“Done.”
“And never release that information. It will break Zane’s heart.”
More than my disappearance will.
“Done.”
I feel hollow inside. Numb.
Zarah moans my name and starts to sob.
The deal’s unbreakable. There is nothing she can do.
I turn to her and brush the tears off her cheeks. “Be brave, Zarah, and live a good life. Find your passion and make Zane proud of you.”
She grabs my wrists. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do. Zane needs you. More than he needs me. Protect him and keep him safe. I love him very much, and I’m doing this for him, for his future, okay? Help him forget me.”
“He’ll never forget you, Stella, nor will I.” She leans into me and whispers in my ear, “I will find a way to get you out. I promise on my life.”
I hug her hard. There won’t be anything she can do. If there was, she would have done it for herself.
“This is touching, but we have to go.” Ash grasps my upper arm and yanks me toward the back of the Lyndhurst.
Zarah watches us, a blank look in her eyes. She’s going into shock.
I wish I was.
I feel everything and nothing at once, and I’m lightheaded but strangely, my footsteps are leaden. My skin burns as if it were on fire, but inside I’m cold as ice. The pain is everywhere and nowhere at all, and I barely process Ash pushing me into a waiting limo.
I don’t know where we’re going, and I’m in too much pain to care. From this moment on, my life is not my own. What happens to me now doesn’t matter.
We stop in front of my apartment building.
“Pack what you need. You have ten minutes. If you want it, don’t leave it behind. You’re never coming back.”
I scramble out of the limo. I don’t have my key, but I leave a spare under the welcome mat that lays in front of my door in the hallway.
I try sort through what I want to bring with me, but my mind blanks. When I don’t pay my rent, they’ll clean out my apartment and lease it to someone else. There’s no one to give my things to—the landlord will likely donate everything I own.
In my bedroom, I hang my dress up in the closet and change into a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt leftover from the life where I truly belong.
I dig a backpack out of the closet and choose the things I want to keep. My birth certificate. My social security card. The photo of my mother holding me in the hospital.
Racing around the living room, I throw things into the bag. The picture of me and Maryanne at my high school graduation. A couple of knickknacks I’ve picked up along the way. It strikes me as sad I can store all the possessions that mean anything to me in a small backpack, but my entire life has been like that.
Risking Ash’s anger, I sit at the kitchen table and write a quick note to Zane. I slide the paper into an envelope and put a stamp on it, and on my way out the door, push it into the outgoing mailbox in the worn-out foyer.
I hope Ash didn’t see me, though there’s nothing in the letter that concerns him. If he finds it, no harm done. I don’t want Zane to look for me, and after he reads my letter, he won’t. He’ll hate me too much.
The driver lets me into the limo, and Ash glares, his eyes hard and his lips pressed into a thin line. His hand twitches on his thigh, and I know he’s suppressing the impulse to hit me. I took too long, but I was willing to pay the price.
“Let’s go,” he barks.
I sit on the bench and cower against the door.
What I signed up for is sinking in. He can do whatever he wants to me. He can sell me like he sold Zarah. He can make me disappear, and not one person will care.
I remember how I would turn myself off whenever social services placed me in a bad foster home. A mom too stressed to be kind, a dad whose favorite way to discipline was a whip of his belt against my backside. I would blank out and live inside my head where I had a family that loved me. A caring mom who would read me a bedtime story and tuck me in and I didn’t have to worry about where I was sleeping. A cheerful dad who would go to work in the morning, come home in the evening, eat dinner with us and ask me about my day.
Now, pinned under Ash’s hateful stare, I withdraw and turn off my mind and heart. It will be the only way to survive what’s to come.
At Black Enterprises, we step through a doorway that’s hidden behind a bookshelf in Ash’s office. His hand at the nape of my neck is almost affectionate as he pushes me into a carpeted and dimly lit hallway. He unlocks a door revealing a large suite, and an enormous picture window looks over King’s Crossing.
He stares across a city I’ll never see again. “You belong to me, Stella Mayfair. To do with as I please.” He traps me against his chest and presses his lips to mine.
I don’t jerk away.
There’s no reason to fight.
“You are nothing but my possession. Completely and irrevocably. Remember that.” He holds my hand and gently pulls Zane’s ring off my finger. My last tie to the only man I’ll ever love. “You won’t need this anymore.”
I stare at my bare finger. My eyes remain dry. There’s no point in crying.
He leaves me alone, the door clicking behind him like the lock on my heart.
I rest my forehead against the cool glass.
This is my room.
This is my life.
For the next five years, this is my hell.