Chapter Sixteen
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Stupid, confusing, irrelevant, rotten, no good feelings.
Azalea
Despite my best efforts, my face refuses to come off.
This is devastating news. For a multitude of reasons.
I cannot scrape the sensation of Malcolm’s mouth—half open—against my cheek away. His stubble lingers, prickling my flesh and my mind, while I stare, helpless, in my bathroom mirror at the angry red I’ve scrubbed into myself.
Ever since shakily making it home four hours ago, I’ve taken three showers. It’s past midnight, but I can’t bring myself to climb into my nice clean bed while the feeling of Malcolm’s arms constrict around me. Crushing. Commanding. Clinging like soot and ash and tar.
My stomach and my head hurt. My body’s on fire.
I have no idea what’s happening to me.
The last time he hugged me…we were in that hotel room.
It was after our first day at Fantasy Haven.
I was exhausted and angry and uncomfortable.
The sensations now are similar, but different.
It shocked my system before, but there was so much anger, I hardly paid it complete mind.
Now, in the past decade, I have been hugged twice.
By him.
A man who claims to love me.
A man who wrestles for his life and asks if I’m the one who’s okay in the aftermath.
With that thought, my other cheek deepens in hue until I can’t tell what I have and haven’t attacked. My arms lift, circle, and squeeze until I’m hugging myself in the mirror, deliberately aware it’s not the same thing.
And…what if…I love you anyway?
I won’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Even if I did believe it, it changes nothing. It doesn’t matter. So what if a monster loves me? So what?
A monster’s love isn’t real. It’s self-serving. It’s repulsive. It’s inconsequential and insignificant and inconsiderate. It’s unimportant.
I had a knife in my hand tonight, and if things had played out just a fraction differently, I’d have sunk that blade into Malcolm’s flesh.
Maybe I’d have even twisted it. Because I hate him.
And I know I hate him because when I let myself hate him, I feel it in every one of my cells. They vibrate with disgust and loathing.
They vibrate…and I…
I shiver at the thought of him.
My stomach turns over, and I sink against my counter.
“What…is wrong with me?” Bitterness coats my tongue, and I push my hair back, straightening as I do.
It’s late.
I need to sleep.
But I can’t bring myself to lie down, and I can’t make my brain shut up, either.
Worse, I can’t find my crystal heart, and I’m too exhausted to brave the chance she’s not in my car. I’m too exhausted to venture out again into this horrible night.
Dragging myself to my room, I settle down on the floor beside my bed and pull my phone off my nightstand. Leaning against the pure white wood, I swipe to my messages, to Malcolm.
Malcolm Swallow. Crow. Billionaire. Menace.
What if…I’m worse than anything you could ever hope to imagine?
What if I’m no different than him?
What if I’m worse?
I tap on the pictureless icon boasting nothing more than a C, and then I stare at his location.
Blinking, I lift my head off my nightstand and stare some more.
His location…does not update. It does not move. It remains perfectly still. Right here. On top of my very own building.
Malcolm lives here?
Where?
Which apartment.
Which…
Tense, I tip my head back and peer up at the ceiling, toward the penthouse. It’s the only place that remotely seems to fit his character. Which means…Malcolm Swallow lives right above my head.
I don’t know what’s scarier. That knowledge or the persistent sensation of his phantom arms closing in, like unrelenting vises.
?
“Ivory… Ivory. Ivory.”
Startling, I look up to find Iverson glaring down at me, face pinched, stone hard. Rubbing weariness away, I address him, “Sorry, sir. What is it?”
“When will the invitations be ready to send?” he asks.
Invitations… Right. Yes. “Um…” I check the stack of letters I’ve been working through for the past few days now. “I’m almost done, so soon.”
Curt, he nods, then he returns to his office.
In his absence, I sigh against the mound of gold-gilded blue envelopes before me.
Handling them is repetitive in a way that isn’t helping me stay awake at all, but I need to push through.
With this Flag Day wedding barely over a month away, this is a priority.
This morning, since I couldn’t sleep anyway, I went down to my car, searched for my crystal heart to no avail, dozed, and waited for the penthouse elevator doors to open. When they finally did, Malcolm stepped out, crossed to his personal garage, and got in his SUV.
It was all the confirmation I needed.
I have lived a single floor away from Malcolm Swallow for who knows how long.
I began working for him two years ago, and shortly after the paychecks started coming in, I moved to my current apartment. I have no idea if this is a coincidence or if I need to add stalking to his list of heinous crimes, but either way I don’t know how to feel about it all.
He’s so close.
If I could get access to his apartment without cameras seeing me…
Stiff, I shake the thought from my head.
There’s no way. The elevator is the only access point I know about, and it’s heavily secured.
Cameras everywhere. A key’s required to even make it run.
And even if I were to find the emergency stairs, no doubt there’d be dozens more cameras all over them.
I would absolutely be caught if I tried to stab him in his sleep.
…but would Junction be able to send someone to pull it off?
After these past two weeks of missed and failed opportunities, I’m not convinced Junction knows what he’s doing. And if neither of us knows what we’re doing, maybe I should pull out while we’re ahead.
It wouldn’t be terribly difficult.
I’m positive I could tell Malcolm the situation with zero repercussions.
He’d believe me if I lie and tell him that I was gathering information, and he’d probably laugh his head off if I tell him the truth instead about how I was really, really hoping there’d be an ounce of competence in his murderers.
He’s very…
Something.
I don’t know.
It doesn’t matter.
The only thing that matters is that my crystal heart is still missing.
I drag my attention to the spot on my desk where she should be. The empty space stares back, and a knot forms in my stomach. She’s not in my car, so that means I must’ve misplaced her downtown. Maybe she fell when I bent to get that stupid knife.
I should know better by now that despite my noble intentions, karma isn’t my friend. With sleep deprivation breathing down my neck, I can’t shake the feeling that my world is about to end.
Something worse is going to happen.
Everything is wrong.
I’ll never be okay again.
But my impending doom is certainly no excuse to stop pushing through my work, so I shove letters in envelopes, carefully address them, and set them in neat stacks. One by one by one by—
“Dove.”
My chest clenches.
I go still.
A finger lands on my desk—right where my crystal heart is meant to be—and I follow the arm up, up, up to Malcolm’s eyes. Mouth firm, he says, “Where is she?”
I blink.
He…
He can’t be serious.
Lousy emotions mingle with exhaustion, and I can’t control myself. My eyes burn, and tears form. I whisper, “I don’t know.”
Malcolm’s hand closes into a fist, and he circles my desk, dropping to his knees beside my chair. “How long has she been missing? You had her last night, didn’t you?”
Numb, I nod.
“Okay.” He taps my knee and straightens. “Clear my schedule for the next few hours.”
“Huh?”
He glances back at me on his way to the elevator. “I’m going to retrace our steps last night.”
Huh? “But…we were downtown. Anyone could have found her by now and taken her home.”
Unruffled, he says, “Then I’ll start searching homes.”
The elevator arrives while I stare, and stare, and stare. He steps in and turns, facing me.
His eyes warm when a smile lifts his lips, and he tucks his fingers in his slacks pocket. “What’s that expression mean, darling dove?”
Arms. Tight. Strong. Around me. Still.
No matter how many showers I take.
No matter how hard I scrub or how long I soak.
It wasn’t like this before, in the hotel room, after he pulled me to his chest. It was different then. Because then was before.
He’s gotten inside my head now.
And I have no idea what to do about it.
“I…” My voice hardly sounds like mine, but I manage to force it from my throat. “…don’t know.”
“Hm.” Malcolm’s head tilts as his smile grows. “Maybe you’re starting to like me or something.”
No, definitely not that. Let’s not be ridiculous.
The silver doors begin to close, and the last thing he says is: “Don’t worry. I’ll find her. Even if I have to turn this city upside down to do it.”
A tear falls from my eye, and I stare at the closed doors for a long, long time. Exhausted.
Shaking my poor tired head, I drop my attention to my task and mutter, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Unfortunately, I’ve never known Malcolm Swallow to be anything but.