Chapter 4
FOUR
Val hit send on an email to the project manager in charge of her assignment for the state treasury. She’d been tasked with finding out who’d slipped through the back door into their servers and was helping themselves to money the governor had set aside for Children and Youth services.
Those fuckers were going to get their asses raped in prison for what they were doing; stealing from at risk and abused kids—they fucking deserved everything they got in retribution.
Pushing her hair back over her head, she pulled the hair tie from the messy mop of a bun, and redid the whole thing to recapture the hair that had slipped from its confines throughout the day.
Nope. Don’t think of hair ties.
She couldn’t, not when, if she did, the tears would come again.
She decided to give Red a chance to explain, to tell her that what she thought wasn’t true, that he really was just filming the steamy stuff for his fans, and then escorting those women to the door.
You’re such a fucking idiot—that man is banging them, and you’re the desperate dumbass that thinks he’s saving himself for you.
God! That voice was such a bitch!
But I ain’t wrong!
Grunting, she peered at the time on her monitor and groaned. It was just after 8 PM, and she hadn’t stopped to eat all day, which was probably why her stomach was gnawing on her uterus. She felt like shit, her heart and mind in turmoil all night, and so sleeping or eating hadn’t even registered. On the upside, she’d finished her assignment two days early, which meant she had two days to kill.
And I can spend that whole time eating my weight in chocolate croissants, and bawling at episodes of This is Us , just to feel something other than my own personal despair.
Her chest squeezed, making her breath hitch.
God, she just needed to get this over with.
Her mouth dry, a lump in her throat no amount of swallowing could defeat, and her hands shaking, she picked up her cell.
Five missed calls. Eight missed texts. Two missed video calls through their private Discord-like chat room. She’d built that room using her own code so that she could keep things locked down tight. She knew Red was an incredible cyber warrior, so she worked especially hard at making sure he couldn’t crack through the system and reveal things she didn’t want revealed.
Like her face.
Shaking her head at her own foolishness, she opened the recent text string. The first one was sent the night before.
MyHeartisRed: Goodnight, my Daisy. Sweet dreams.
She’d turned her phone off, so she hadn’t seen it; she’d known he would text, and as battered as her mind and heart was, she knew the temptation to fall right back into old habits would be too strong. So, she turned off her cell, loaded up Crunchyroll, and spent the endless night binging Black Clover . Asta was an adorable OP badass, but Val preferred his guild captain, Yami—dark, jacked, brooding, and powerful as hell.
Yum.
Val had turned her phone back on that morning because she was expecting calls from her associates regarding her assignment.
There was another text from that morning at 7 AM.
MyHeartisRed: Good morning, my Daisy. I hope you slept well.
She hadn’t answered that one, though the urge to write “fuck you” in all caps rose with a vengeance. After that, she’d wrapped herself in work and tried to ignore the successive pings throughout the day. Thankfully, when she got into something for work, something that required loads of data, she could put on mental blinders. That meant she hadn’t been tempted to check her phone until now.
There was another text sent two hours after the good morning text.
MyHeartisRed: You okay, baby? You haven’t answered my last two texts. Are you sick?
Another two hours later.
MyHeartisRed: Seriously, Val. I’m worried.
MyHeartisRed: I know you’re probably headfirst into that assignment, but don’t forget to stop and eat.
MyHeartisRed: You okay? Have you eaten?
MyHeartisRed: Val, baby, you need to call or text or something.
Three hours after that one, the most recent and final one came through.
MyHeartisRed: This is bullshit, Val! Where the fuck are you?
She knew he cared about her, even just a little bit, and those texts were proof that he thought about her.
Does he think about me when he’s banging all those women?
God! She just needed to talk to him, get it all out, and…well…she had no freaking idea what she would do then.
She loved him, from the depths of her goddamn soul, so it killed her to the depths of her that he didn’t love her back. That he’d lied to her.
Sighing, she looked down at herself, taking in her braless breasts, her loose black tank, her black pajama shorts, and her fuzzy gray and black socks. When she dove into work, she liked being comfortable, and why the hell should she strangle her tits in a bra when she had no desire to see anyone in the outside world for a good, long while. At least she’d showered that morning, that was something.
Readjusting herself in her ergonomic desk chair, she held her cell in her shaking hand and texted.
Val: Can you get on?
She knew that he knew she meant to get online and log in to their shared chat room, one she’d named: Redrum, a play on his name and her favorite fun time beverage.
Seconds later, her answer pinged on the computer screen, making her heart race.
Fuck. This is it. But I need to know for sure….
Damn, how na?ve could one woman be?
No, not na?ve, hopeful. She was too damn hopeful.
Swallowing, she clicked on the icon to enter the chat room.
As always, the camera was turned off on her side, but on his side, she could see everything.
His camera came on, and there he was in all his beautiful, sex god glory, sitting at his desk, bare-chested, colorful tattoos gleaming in the shallow light from his desk lamp. His dark hair was damp, and there were droplets of water collecting on his shoulders. He’d just taken a shower.
Did he take it alone?
Dammit!
“Val, what the fuck?” he began, his velvet voice sharp with what she wanted to believe was concern.
She shrugged, even knowing he couldn’t see her.
He must have sensed her reaction before his brows furrowed. God, she loved his face, and she more than loved that she—out of all the women who stalked him online—knew what he looked like behind the red devil mask and occasional balaclava.
Yeah, but the women he’s fucked have seen way more than just his face.
Stung by her own inner voice, she bit her bottom lip to hold back a whimper.
“I was busy,” she replied, a half lie, her voice tight. “You know how I get when I near the finish line.”
Red leaned forward, knowing she could see him on her screen, and peered right into the camera, right into her. His gray-hazel eyes were darker than usual, harder than usual, and there was something shifting in their depths that made her heart skip.
Was that…was that fear ?
“I know, but this wasn’t just you being busy, Val, this was…,” he grunted, thrusting his thick fingers through his damp, mussed hair, “this felt like you were ignoring me.”
Because I was , she wanted to blurt, but she just barely held her tongue.
Because her brain liked to retain everything she saw and heard, she was methodical, linear, had to think and present information in an organized fashion, and she knew that if she wanted to get everything off her chest, to get to the bottom of what was going on, she needed to put all her data in the correct mental column.
With great effort, she dragged her gaze from the man she loved to settle it on the bedpost behind him. That fucking bedpost.
Tears scorched the backs of her eyes.
A new black hair tie.
The blonde.
He’d fucked the blonde.
What more do you need to know to see that you mean jack shit to him, that his promise meant nothing?
She had to know it all!
“Come on, Val, talk to me,” Red pushed, his large body tense, the width of his broad shoulders taking up most of the screen now, blocking out her view of the bedpost that was silently smirking at her from behind him.
Shaking her head to clear the rush of tears, she replied, “We do need to talk.”
If it was possible, he tensed more, raising his hand to scrub at his freshly shaven jaw.
“Yeah? What about? About why you were avoiding me today?” he asked, his tone slick with annoyance.
She huffed, rolling her eyes. Like he had a fucking reason to be annoyed.
“Let me paint a word picture for you,” she began, the data lining up in her brain, the lines of emotional code filling her mind, page after page.
On the screen, his brow furrowed again as wariness hardened his gorgeous face. With that cut jaw, that wide, kissable mouth he hid behind a mask from everyone online, she was looking at something fantasies were made from. Thick dark eyebrows, wide gray-hazel eyes that were striking against his sun-kissed skin, a long nose with a wide base that seemed a little too big for his face but only added to the rugged allure of him. His cheeks were cut from glass, his neck was thick and decorated with tatts, and his dark hair was shorn at the sides but left longer on the top. He often used his hair as a sort of prop during his videos, letting it fall across his forehead to shade his eyes, only adding to those sexy as hell “bad boy” vibes viewers loved.
She loved it, too.
He pursed his lips, dropping his chin, his gaze still on the camera, staring at her though he couldn’t see her.
“Wait…you’re not going to explain why you ghosted me today? Why didn’t you at least answer when I called? I know you heard it.”
She had; his ringtone was “Dirty Mind” by Boy Epic; its sensual beats and sizzling lyrics made it hard to ignore. But she had, because she had to .
“Humor me, please,” she asked, hating that there was a plea in her voice. The man didn’t deserve her supplications.
Again, he pursed his lips, but this time he fell back and crossed his thick, veiny arms over his chest, hiding his muscular perfection and vivid tatts from her hungry gaze.
Focus, hussy!
“Fine. Go ahead, paint me the word picture—whatever the fuck that means.” Oh, so he was getting pissed. Well, fuck that!
Fuck him!
Gritting her teeth, her nostrils flared, anger finally rearing its head. All last night and all that day, she’d been wallowing in sadness, uncertainty, hurt, grief, and anxiety. But now…anger had arrived.
Welcome to the fucking party, bitch!
Leaning back in her own chair, she crossed her arms, mimicking his look, knowing he still couldn’t see her. Which was good, because she had a feeling that after this chat…she’d need the anonymity.
You already know this is all going to shit.
She began, “Picture this…you have a large, beautiful cake. This cake is handcrafted perfection, a marvel of culinary decadence, something meant to be given to someone special, someone who will actually appreciate it, someone who will cherish it.”
Confusion etched his features. “Okay….”
She cleared her throat and continued. “One day, you meet that someone special, and you want to give her that cake…the problem is…there are pieces missing, pieces that you cut out and gave to other people, pieces that were meant for someone else but, because you wanted to make all those people happy, to bathe in their praise, to see the look of pleasure on their faces, you gave those pieces away. Piece by piece, the cake is eaten, and finally, when you meet the one that cake was actually meant for…there’s so little cake left it’s really only smears of icing, not much more than what would fit on a fingertip.”
Something burned in his eyes, something she knew was anger.
Oooh, he was definitely getting what she was saying.
“So, Red…what do you give the special person when there’s nothing left? What is there to offer her when all you have to give is a single smear of icing?”
On the screen, Red cursed, shoving his fingers through his hair again, pushing it off his forehead.
“Val…what the fuck are you talking about?” he ground out.
Shaking her head sadly, she replied, her voice pained, “You know what I’m talking about, Red.” She bit back a bitter curse. “Your icing smear, what’s left after everyone else has had a piece of your cake…isn’t enough for me.”
His expression hardening, he narrowed his eyes at the camera. “Turn on the fucking camera so we can talk about this face to fucking face—better yet, give me your address so I can spank your ass for this shit.”
Spank her ass? For this shit ? For what shit ? For finally calling him out on his shit ?
Once again, fuck that, fuck him!
“Did the action stop when you turned off the camera?” she sneered, that welcomed anger sharpening her voice.
“Is this really about fucking cake, Val? You think that because I have a past that you and I can’t have something special? Fuck that, Val!” he snarled back, his bare chest, neck, and face growing red.
“First of all, a past means past , as in not yester-fucking-day . Second, answer the question, RedDevilDog . Did you walk them to the door, or did you fuck them ?” she snapped, her stomach roiling, churning, her heart aching, already knowing the answer to the question. It was written all over his face. It was in his eyes.
The guilt.
The rising anger.
He felt guilt, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to believe it was his right to do whatever the hell he wanted.
He was single, that’s what he’d say. They weren’t anything, not yet, she was dragging her feet, she was making up excuses, she was pushing him away, she was making him wait….
It was all true.
But there was a reason .
This exact reason. She wanted to trust him, but how could she when he continued to show her that he wasn’t worthy of that trust?
I’ll wait for you, my Daisy….
Bull-fucking-shit!
“Come on, Val! You know me, you know I’m a fucking man with fucking needs,” he ground out. And there it was—the manwhore excuse of the goddamn century. “My dick needed some love, so I wasted yours.” Or “I needed to blow off some steam, so I blew up your heart.”
She nodded, knowing he couldn’t see her, then she replied, her voice flat, “True. You have needs.”
He growled, the sound both angry and wounded. “Damn right, I do. You know I want you, that I want this to be serious between us, but I can’t just wait around for you to be ready to step the fuck up. You want to hide behind your screen; you’re too chicken shit to come out of hiding and give me a fucking chance.”
She was silent, her heart pounding, her lungs constricting, her throat thickening. She squeezed her eyes shut, the tears still escaping down her cheeks.
She really was a chicken shit, caught up in her fear of rejection, of falling in love with a man who’d take one look at her and run for the hills. And this was her punishment; having her heart broken by a man who didn’t value her or her feelings.
Cut him off, make him bleed!
“Val?”
She forced air into her lungs, and swallowed, begging her body not to give out on her just yet.
Not yet.
“You’re right,” she admitted, her voice shaky. “You’re right.” As she repeated the words, they got stronger.
“Valentina, you and me, we’ll be good together, you know that. You feel that,” he spoke, a desperation in his voice. “I want to give you what you need, I want to be the man you need. You just have to trust me, you have to come to me, show me who you are. I want to see you. To touch you. I want you to be the one in my bed. Those women…they don’t mean anything. They’re just placeholders until the woman I really want is in my arms.”
More pieces of cake cut out and given to the unworthy, leaving nothing but smears of icing behind.
She deserved more than icing!
“They will never be who I actually want—you and me would be forever, Val,” he declared. “You just have to trust me, baby. I only want you.”
Every word he spoke was another galvanized steel spike driven into her chest.
I’ll wait for you….
Trust me….
He wanted her trust, but he wasn’t willing to show her that he was trustworthy . To earn her trust. To prove to her that, once she’d given him her heart, laid herself bare before him, that he wouldn’t break her, betray her, kill her heart and soul.
Trust me….
And now, she never would.