Chapter 26 – Chrissy
Chapter
Twenty-Six
CHRISSY
Someone whispered my name in the dark.
At first, I thought it was Ben — or maybe Jacob — my brain was still a scrambled mess from the night before, from the punishment, from how my body still ached in ways I wasn’t ready to think about. But the whisper wasn’t warm or familiar. It was sharp and urgent.
“Chrissy. Wake up. We don’t have much time.”
My eyes snapped open.
Two silhouettes stood at the foot of my bed.
Number Two and Number Eight… two of the men who might or might not be the real Ben Stonewood.
Panic hit me so hard I shot upright, heart in my throat.
“What the hell are you doing in here?”
“Shh.” Two held up both hands. “You can scream if you want, but that’s only going to make him come faster.”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach.
“Who?” I whispered.
Eight flicked his eyes toward the door.
“Stonewood.”
Cold rippled through me.
“He doesn’t know we’re here,” Two said quickly. “But he will if you don’t get out of this room right now.”
“I… what the fuck are you talking about?” My voice shook. “I didn’t do anything wrong except — except —”
“Except get caught with the groundskeeper, right,” Eight finished flatly.
I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood.
“I already took my punishment for that. It’s over and done with.”
They exchanged a look, then Two stepped closer.
“Listen. We shouldn’t even be doing this, but we couldn’t stand by anymore. Not after what we heard last night, not to mention the nights before that.”
I froze.
“What exactly are you saying?”
Eight leaned in just enough that I could feel the heat of his breath against my cheek.
“That Jacob isn’t really who you think he is.”
The world went still. My pulse roared like a jet engine inside my skull.
“What?”
They exchanged another look, the kind you give someone right before you tell them Santa Claus isn’t real and the monster under the bed is.
“Jacob is actually Ben Stonewood,” Two said simply.
I laughed. It came out sharp and hysterical.
“No. No, you’re insane. Jacob is — he’s — he’s nothing like —”
“He’s exactly like him,” Eight said. “Because he is him.”
My chest tightened until I couldn’t breathe.
“Why would he — why would he pretend —?”
“Because he wanted you,” Two said. “He built this whole game to get you alone. To back you into a corner where you can’t say no to him.”
I pressed a trembling hand to my forehead.
No… no. I wouldn’t believe this. Jacob was sweet. Kind. Gentle. Conflicted. Real.
“Ben Stonewood is—”
“A monster,” Eight finished my thought quietly. “That’s why we’re here. We’re getting you out of here before he decides to ‘punish’ you again.”
I flinched.
Two nodded toward the hallway.
“Come with us. We’ll show you we’re telling the truth.”
I knew I shouldn’t go, but I pulled on a sweater and leggings and boots and followed them anyway because my anger, the betrayal ripping me apart, was stronger than my sense of reason.
They led me to the West Wing, an area that was off-limits to contestants, usually guarded and locked. But the security staff were all asleep and Eight slid a keycard into a panel and the door clicked open.
Inside was a room full of monitors, screens tracking every contestant, tabs of employee files, schedules, and security feeds.
And then I saw my name. There was a file labeled Christina Nicole Jones. I opened it with shaking fingers. My entire life was spelled out on those pages. Things I never told anyone. Things Ben Stonewood had no right to know.
A record of my grandmother’s nursing home bills. My assault and divorce mediation cases. My emergency contact list. It was a full dossier, like I was prey he’d been studying for God only knows how long.
My stomach twisted and I fought back a gag.
“No,” I whispered. “This isn’t — he wouldn’t —”
“He’s obsessed with you,” Two said. “Dangerously. We’ve tried to stay out of it, but after last night… we couldn’t let this keep going with a clean conscience.”
Eight nodded.
“You need to leave before he decides you’re not playing his game the right way… before he locks you in here for good and never lets you out.”
I backed away, shaking.
“He wouldn’t—”
“Chrissy.” Two’s voice softened for the first time.
“Please. The ice storm finally broke last night. The roads might finally be passable soon. Ben doesn’t know that yet…
he’s still asleep, for now. Probably exhausted after what we heard between the two of you last night.
If we move now, we can get you to the barn.
There might be something we can use for snow chains.
Salt. Something. But once he realizes you’re gone—”
I held up a hand and didn’t let him finish. Choking back a sob, I reached for the desk to steady myself, nails biting hard into the wood.
This wasn’t real. This had to be a nightmare.
I wasn’t going to believe these two assholes over Jacob, was I?
My gaze snapped to the desk I’d just been gripping.
There, in a heavy silver frame tucked in the corner — half-hidden behind a stack of files — was a photograph I hadn’t noticed before.
Three men stood together, arms slung casually over shoulders, grinning at the camera like they owned the world.
The older one in the center — distinguished, silver hair at the temples, sharp suit and sharper eyes — was the exact man from the massive oil portrait hanging in the east wing. Jacob Stonewood. Ben’s father. The one who’d built the empire and died under suspicious circumstances.
Flanking him on the left was a younger Henry, in his mid-thirties maybe, buzz-cut, broad-shouldered, the same unyielding stance and green eyes that watched everything now.
And on the right...
The young man with his father’s arm around him. Dark hair artfully messy. Sharp jaw. Piercing blue eyes that crinkled at the corners with that crooked, boyish smile — the exact one Jacob had given me when he stopped to help me with my flat ire.
In the photo, Jacob was maybe eighteen, unscarred, perfect, and handsome in a way that made my chest ache. A key fob for a Porsche dangled from his fingers, and his tailored clothes screamed wealth and privilege.
I wanted to scream.
Ben Stonewood and Jacob really were the same fucking person.
My knees buckled.
Two stepped forward and caught my elbow before I hit the floor.
The room spun. Every mark on my body throbbed in sudden, sick recognition.
Jacob’s gentle hands were the same ones that had bruised and choked me last night. Jacob’s soft voice was the same one to growl and force me to scream I was his perfect little whore. Jacob’s reverent touch was the same one that had marked me as his, over and over.
It had all been him, all along… one man playing both parts.
He was both the monster I’d feared and the mercy I’d craved, and I’d fallen for both, screaming his ownership loud enough for the whole goddamn house to hear me.
I fucking fell for it.
“What do I have to do?” I whispered.
Both of them exhaled in relief.
“Good,” Eight murmured. “Very good. Trust us. It’s your only chance.”
Trust them? No, but rage made my legs move anyway. Betrayal made me follow them through the silent halls. Fear made me reach the door leading outside.
I looked out at the storm-ravaged landscape, ice clinging to branches like crystal bones, the world glazed and deathly still, coated in a blanket of ice that could almost pass for snow, and realized that my odds of getting out of here without wrecking something were slim to none.
But staying? Staying suddenly felt like the greater danger.
I stepped out into the frozen air anyway, because whatever waited outside had to be better than what I’d just seen inside.
The wind nearly punched the breath out of me when I stepped outside.
Ice-laced air sliced across my cheeks, sharp enough to make my eyes water. The world had gone white overnight, frozen and glassy and treacherous. Ice clung to every branch and railing like someone had dipped the entire hunting lodge in sugar and then shattered it.
Two grabbed my elbow to steady me.
“Careful. It’s slick.”
“No shit.”
My boots slid across the porch as we moved into the storm frosted landscape. The cold cut straight through my sweater, settling in my bones, making my fingers ache.
Every time I looked back, the lodge loomed in the distance behind us like some monstrous, sleeping thing. Its windows stared blankly through the frost. Its lights were off, except one, flickering faintly in the West wing.
My stomach knotted.
“Are you sure we should be doing this?” I managed.
Eight didn’t slow down.
“Positive.”
“Why now?” I dug my heels in as much as I could on a sheet of ice, forcing them to stop. “Why today? Why not yesterday? Or before the storm hit?”
Two gave me a look that wasn’t quite sympathy and wasn’t quite annoyance.
“Because you didn’t need saving until now.”
I bristled.
“I never asked to be saved.”
“No,” he said. “But you needed it.”
My jaw clenched.
“You don’t know me,” I muttered.
I wasn’t sure if I meant them or Ben or both.
Eight shrugged like the details didn’t matter.
“We know enough.”
We trudged forward again, crunching through patches of ice, slipping over patches of frozen ground. The wind howled against the side of the barn in the distance.
A sick feeling twisted in my gut. There was something about their urgency and the way they kept glancing at each other.
The pale, jittery looks on their faces bothered me.
They were scared, but not of the storm. They were afraid of Ben, and I knew I should be, too.
What the hell had I agreed to when I clicked accept and entered his Game?
“Almost there,” Two called over the wind.
The barn loomed like a dark shape carved out of the ice. Its roof wore a thick white blanket and sagged under the weight. Frost glistened across the big sliding doors, making them look welded shut.
I hesitated at the threshold.
“Inside,” Eight insisted, pulling one door just wide enough for us to slip through.
Cold air rushed in behind us like it was chasing us. I stumbled into the dark, boots slipping on the frozen concrete. The faint scent of hay, old oil, and winter-damp wood wrapped around me.
“Where… where’s all the equipment?” I asked.
Ben’s family was old-money wealthy. I expected everything from tractors to chainsaws to a fleet of ATVs.
But the barn was… sparse, too sparse.
There was a ladder, a few crates, a tarp-covered mound in the corner, a shovel, an old workbench, and a toolbox. That was it.
No trucks. No tractors. No plow. Nothing that could help us escape through a storm.
My pulse stuttered.
“What exactly are we supposed to be using to get out of here?” I asked.
Silence answered me, so I turned back to face them.
Two and Eight stood shoulder-to-shoulder, blocking the door.
Their expressions had changed.
There was no fear in their faces, now. No, there was just blatant hunger, and something darker.
“Guys…?” My voice cracked. “What are you doing?”
Two advanced first, his smile slow and wrong.
“You didn’t actually think we were doing this out of the goodness of our hearts, did you?”
Eight laughed, the sound soft and mean.
“Ben Stonewood gets everything he wants. Always. Money. Power. Women. But he can’t have everything all to himself. Not this time.”
Ice flooded my veins.
“Stay away from me,” I warned, backing toward the workbench.
They stalked forward in unison.
Two’s eyes dragged over me with an entitlement that made my skin crawl.
“We’ve been watching you since the first night. You didn’t belong to him, then, and you don’t now. We heard you screaming how you were his whore, but why let him be greedy? If you’re really such a good little whore, you won’t be satisfied with one man for the rest of your life, now will you?”
“Stop—”
“The way you looked at Ben when he was parading around as Jacob…” Eight sneered. “The way you’d do anything for that scarred fuck when you thought he was some sweet, lovesick groundskeeper? Fucking sickening.”
“Disgusting,” Two echoed. “Some rich bastard thinks he can play dress-up and own people. Well… he doesn’t own everything.”
I bumped into the workbench.
Panicked breath tore out of my lungs.
“Ben will—”
“Ben won’t do shit,” Eight snapped. “He doesn’t even know you’re gone. And even if he did—” He grinned, teeth bared. “—we can handle him.”
Fuck. I’d let the wolves lead me out of the lodge, and now I was fucking trapped with them.
Panic flooded me and my mind told me one thing.
Run.
But there was nowhere to run.
Two lunged first.
I grabbed the closest thing I could, a rusty wrench, and swung it hard. It connected with his arm. He cursed, stumbling back.
Eight grabbed my wrist. I jerked away, heart pounding so loud I thought I might black out. My boots slid across the concrete, searching for traction.
“LET GO OF ME!” I screamed.
He didn’t. He shoved me back, knocking the wrench from my hand. It clattered across the ground, echoing through the barn.
Then he reached for me again, and I—
I screamed, loud, raw, full-body terror ripping through my throat.
It wasn’t a ‘help me’ scream. It was a ‘fight to survive’ scream. A ‘Ben will hear me’ scream. An ‘I’m not getting raped and dying in this goddamn barn’ scream.
Both men lunged for me at once, and all I could think was: Ben, please hear me.