Gilded Secrets (The Gilded Key Society #6)

Prologue

Laila

I hold my breath in the dark and wait.

Every night is the same.

And every night I find a way to escape.

If not physically, then mentally.

I have a safe place I fall into and there I can hide away from the monsters of this world. Or at least the monsters in my world.

I wait.

Shadows cling to the dark corners of my room. I watch the bleakness.

I lay under my covers, trembling from what I know is coming. Terror inches up my spine slowly stealing my ability to move. But not yet. I still have time. I think. My eyes dash to the clock on my night table. It’s barely nine. The help hasn’t gone home yet. The steel clamp keeping my lungs from working loosens. They can’t leave until the last of the dinner plates have been washed and stored away.

I wait.

I lay in the middle of the bed. Just beyond the large windows, an autumn storm rolls over Seattle. Wind whips around the edge of the building causing an eerie howl to bleed through the steel and glass.

But nothing masks the sound of his footfalls pounding against the polished marble outside my door. For every step he takes, I move a foot in the opposite direction.

“So soon?”

They pause and so does my heart.

“No,” I hoarsely beg the darkness. I grip my blankets tightly until I can’t feel my fingers. Never in my fourteen years have I wished for someone to die, but for once I would love my prayers to be answered.

I know it won’t always be like this, but for now, I have to survive. I must survive. I can’t leave my mom alone with him. She was wrong to marry the demon after my father died. Good looks only go so far, but she didn’t bother to look deeper than skin level. He promised her the world after she lost hers. And now I’m the price of her gullibility.

There’s a small lamp in the corner of the room. The tiny lightbulb swallows some of the darkness but I’m nowhere near close enough to be touched by the shimmering gold.

While my father was alive, I never feared the darkness, but now I can’t stand being in a room where it clings to everything. The closet, the space beneath my bed, and every corner. The door I’m never allowed to close. If I defy his orders the wrath of my stepfather is unbearable.

But I did once and went as far as to lock it one night. My mother was in the hospital the next day after falling down the stairs.

I never closed or locked the door again after that and my mother never tripped down the stairs.

All I have to do is survive a little longer. For her. Then I can get us both out of here.

My door creaks on the hinges and my hand flies to my phone under the covers. Why I don’t know. There’s no one to call. No brother, no uncles. No family. No friends who will dash to my rescue. And the police? What a freaking joke. They won’t believe a child over the man who slips them blood money under the table.

I tried that too. Once. I learned the hard way not everyone in uniform cares about right or wrong when money is involved.

The only person who can possibly help fight back the demon is passed out in her room from “happy cocktails” as my mother likes to call them. She’ll wake sometime in the morning blurry-eyed and unaware of the nightmares I live through so she doesn’t have to. It’s the same every night.

I wait.

The door inches open little by little and my voice suddenly fails me. Who is there to hear my screams anyway? I open my mouth to force air into my frozen lungs. Sliding farther up the headboard I turn myself into a tight ball.

The creaks stop a moment and the gaping darkness on the other side of the door holds the demons I fear the most. He will be oiling the hinges soon. He usually does it every third week of the month.

Has it already been that long?

I scoot back on the bed until my back hits the headboard and drag the covers over my legs as a shield. It never works, but I have to try.

The small lamp casts sharp angles of light and dark across his face. Power, greed, and thirst for the blood of everyone who defies him is the only thing this man cares about. And isn’t what he’s about to take all about power? The might he wields over those weaker than himself. It’s the only reason he married my mother. I see him for what he is. Why doesn’t she? She came with a pedigree dripping in mafia blue blood. He didn’t. She came with inherited wealth and a name people respect. He had none. All he brought to the table was his ability to smooth talk a grieving woman out of her fortune.

Everything is an object to him to manipulate and use. Me and my mom. The massive bank account she no longer has control over. I know. Glass walls are not as soundproof as he thinks. Living under his roof for two years now has taught me more than I should know in my fourteen years.

The glow of the cigarette in the night is the only sign of him just standing outside my door like a deranged freak.

“What the fuck are you running from, Laila. You know it’s only me.” His belt hangs open and I watch as the amber coloring of his drink glitters in the soft light of my lamp before he kills the bulb. His footfalls turn silent when he steps over the threshold and expensive marble turns to carpet. I’d loved it once, but now it helps mask his deceit.

“I told you about the lamp.” His lips curl back in anger and I scurry deeper into my hole. His stench chases me—cigarette smoke and whiskey. My stomach churns with revulsion.

“I’m sorry. I forgot,” I boldly lie. It’s my way of fighting the darkness for as long as I can.

“Last warning. You know what happens when you disobey my orders.”

His voice is gravelly and smoky. I shudder from the crawl of chills scaling my body. Its sound will haunt me until the day I fall into a cold grave. The more he breathes out the more my room fills with the smell of putrid cigarette smoke and expensive whiskey. It wafts over the room, churning my stomach until I’m nauseous. He’s always meaner when he drinks.

“Please get out. My mom—” I keep my teeth from chattering but just barely.

“—is dead to the world and you know it,” he says. He releases the belt from the loops but the loudest sound is the teeth of his zipper releasing.

His laugh is cruel. Cold. Heartless. The fucker. It reaches into me and extinguishes the last rays of hope I foolishly cling to.

My mind immediately tries to reject what my eyes tell me is true as a tall mass moves through my dark room.

The edge of my bed dips with his substantial weight. What my mother sees in him is beyond me. She’s the one who brought the money into the marriage. All he added to the union was cruel intent. Money doesn’t keep out the monsters. It only hides the presence of their evil better.

Tears burn the back of my eyes but I swore long ago I would never let this man see me cry.

“You shouldn’t be here. Don’t you have a whore? Go bother them.” I hold my head high and defy the beast leaning over me with all the fight I have in me.

The animal in him notices and sneers.

I don’t feel as brave as my words.

“You know what happens when you fight me.”

Dark piercing eyes spear through me as he clamps a hand around my throat and holds me captive against the headboard. His touch moves to my head and he suddenly fists my hair. Fear tumbles through me but I shove it into a closet in the back of my mind.

I will survive.

He drags me to the bottom of the bed. My soul cracks into tiny pieces of broken hopes and dreams when he flips me around and jerks my pajama bottoms down to reveal me to his harsh touches. And more.

He jerks my head back and I swallow my scream. “Why should I have whores when I can have you. When your mother married me, I got two women for the price of one.”

Acid hits the back of my throat.

“You’ll make the perfect breeder for me if your cunt mother can’t get her shit together. Just a little longer, princess, and I’ll have you on the throne beside me and that belly round with my child. Soon. But not tonight.”

I’d rather die. He’s left me untouched. But there are other ways to take from a woman.

I slam my eyes closed and escape to my Garden of Eden. Here no one can touch me. Not him, not his demons, not anyone.

I cling to my hope and feed it with prayers of mercy. It won’t be long before I can drive a knife into his heart.

I wait.