Chapter 24
twenty-four
-Brynn-
It takes me a few moments to recover. Sometimes it feels like I’m a different person, and I don’t even know what’s wrong with me. But the longer I stay in here, the more my memories start to haunt me.
Before I fall down that path, there’s a loud knock on the door. I don’t even know if I’m supposed to answer it. I do it either way, just to see one of Ares’s men carrying different boxes and bags.
“Where do you want these?” He asks, as I try to read the labels on the boxes and realize they’re all name brand clothes.
Maybe they’re his sister’s.
“Didn’t he tell you what to do with them?” I ask, since I have no clue where they’re supposed to go.
“Boss only told me to take them inside and make sure you know about them, ma’am.”
I don’t even know what throws me off more. The fact that the man is carrying more than a dozen boxes and bags that I’m starting to suspect are for me, or the fact that he just called me ma’am. I don’t even know if I should be flattered or pissed. I don’t like it either way.
“Just leave them here, thanks.” I gesture for the hallway, waiting for the guy to drop the bags there.
I don’t care how nice Ares is to me. I have zero intention of opening them. At least I didn’t, until I realized I’m still wearing his clothes. A pair of his joggers that are oversized on me, and one of his T-shirts, tucked in awkwardly.
I could go home wearing this, but they’re ridiculously long and don’t exactly pair well with the laced leather boots. He managed to ruin my clothes, so that’s not an option either.
That leaves me no choice but to grab the first box and take out a casual black dress, just long enough to hide my scars, and somehow exactly the kind I would’ve picked for myself.
It’s not elegant enough to wear to a cocktail party, but sexy enough to stand out in a crowd.
The top part is loose enough to wear off one shoulder—or both—while the bottom wraps around my curves in all the right places.
I want to be bitchy and say it’s something I should wear to his funeral. Maybe I would’ve felt that a few months ago, but right now I’m still fighting to impose that thought on myself for when the time comes.
I want to stop here, but there’s a box that catches my attention. A pink courier package that looks way too familiar to ignore. It’s from my favorite online store .
I grab the box, which is a lot bigger than what I’m used to—but then again, so are a lot of things around here—and open the lid. Inside are a few dozen pairs of fishnet stockings along with enough sexy lingerie sets to make me think he emptied their stock in my size.
That was... thoughtful of him. But also very obsessive, since I know he found the site by going through my phone and probably personal orders. I’m not sure if I should say fuck you or thank you.
I grab a pair of stockings and pull them on. There are a few scars on my legs I’d rather not have people asking questions about.
One day, I’ll get the scars lasered off, but only after I go after Ezekiel.
I guess I need them there to fuel my rage, to remind me how badly I need to torture him before I kill him.
And I can’t deny Ares’s method of removing them is more tempting than the laser, because he’s not just dealing with the physical ones.
It’s the mental ones he’s managed to erase.
Though I know we won’t have time for him to fix them all.
I don’t go through any other boxes. I’m not planning to look at the presents he picked out for me. This was only out of necessity, not some kind of pampering. Which is exactly why I fight off the curiosity and head to the other room to get changed.
I end up in the living room, and there’s no one around anyway. Just me and my dark thoughts, taking off the clothes I borrowed from Ares as I stare at the armchair where he sat the first night I came to his house. The night he marked me.
A chill creeps down my spine, and I wish I could take my eyes off the damn armchair. But I can’t. A trail of regret seeps in through every pore, the pain of losing something I never had, more vivid than ever.
I rush to change and leave this place, but as soon as I have the new dress on, I find myself in the back garden.
The outdoor couch is still made up like a bed.
His whiskey glass, still on the table. My ripped skirt, still on the granite floor.
It was less than twenty-four hours ago, yet it feels like a lifetime ago.
A lifetime where I deserved to be happy.
I just hope I’ll leave all my sins behind in this one.
I hurry to get out of the mansion, I feel that if I stay here a second longer, the walls could close in on me, and I’ll be a prisoner forever. Maybe even a willing prisoner.
I take a cab back to my place, hoping to feel some kind of comfort. But home doesn’t feel like home anymore. It has barely felt like one since Elias is gone. Now it just feels like I’m walking into someone else’s life.
Once this is over, I need to get an apartment. Maybe even move to a whole new city and start over because right now, all I feel is trapped.
If I survive.
Ares’s scent still lingers on my skin, like something permanent. Something that feels like it will cling to me forever. Something I don’t want to ever let go of. That’s why I don’t shower. I already showered earlier anyway, and now I’m just afraid that the last trace of him will disappear.
I hate myself for not being strong enough to chase him away from my mind, especially because, at the same time, I couldn’t live with myself if I did.
It’s a few hours before I get a text from 404.
Empire Street 432, Cynthia Aaron.
It’s almost 3 a.m., too late for me to go survey the place. And before I get to text 404 for more info, I receive a PDF file from him.
There’s a picture of Cynthia attached to the file.
We’re the same height and build, but that’s pretty much the only thing we have in common.
While I’m a brunette with dark eyes, she's a redhead with baby blues and a failed nose job.
Something I can easily fix with a visit to a professional makeup artist.
I know a guy from when I used to work at the club who does stuff like this for movies. It won’t be so hard to get the resemblance, or at least to get me to look more like her, and less like me.
I’ll pay him a visit first thing in the morning, then I’ll follow my target to watch her routines and figure out how to get close.
I scroll through her file, looking for some more info about her. Anything to help me with my plan. It seemed much easier in theory. But now that I actually have to do it, I realize just how many things I need to account for.
But what interests me most is why she got chosen for this.
What was her crime?
I scroll further down her file and read the summary of her trial. She got accused of child porn. Both boys and girls, all between five and ten. I feel like gagging just reading this, but I force myself to go further.
I have to know who I’m supposed to impersonate, even though right now, I’m seriously considering texting 404 and demanding him to find someone else.
I can’t even pretend to be such a person. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so I keep reading. She pleaded innocent, claimed she was a victim herself, and said everything had been orchestrated by her boyfriend at the time.
Strangely enough, he backed up her statement. And while he got twenty-five years in prison, she walked away with parole.
Now for the off-the-record version of events, she was in on it the whole time, and her boyfriend only protected her so he’d have someone on the outside still producing money, and helping him make his life in prison a lot easier.
Prison isn’t exactly like what you see on TV.
If you have enough money, you can pay off the right guards even in high-security facilities.
Money can buy you the royal treatment. You can even have your own cell and a lot more privileges.
But most of all, you need protection because pedophiles don’t get an easy life there.
According to the file, Cynthia is suspected of continuing to abuse children for the sake of good revenue, but several police searches were conducted at her apartment, and they turned up no evidence.
She even intended to file a lawsuit a couple of months ago for police abuse.
The investigating team dropped the charges after the Police Chief declared she wouldn’t face any more searches without a rock-solid reason.
And since her face doesn’t appear in any of the leaked child porn out there, it’s nearly impossible to charge her with anything.
The only thing they have on her is an OnlyFans account—which isn’t a felony. She can do whatever she wants with her body, as long as she’s a consenting adult and people pay the subscription to watch her perform.
Right now, I’m impersonating a possible child offender with an OnlyFans account that has her pussy on display twenty-four seven, and I don’t even have the bank account to sustain that.
I can also see here she did some athletics back in high school, and a couple years of martial arts. At least I have one thing in common with her. I’ve been doing martial arts for the past year, so that’s a test I won’t fail.
I start early in the morning, and after I make sure I grab my gun, I head straight to the makeup artist I mentioned.
It takes him a couple of hours to get me to match the photo, but as soon as I put on a red wig and blue contacts, I realize the resemblance is stunning.
I snap a photo of myself, which I send to 404. He’ll need it to upload my profile pic, just in case someone can tell the difference. I get a ‘thumbs up’, which tells me everything’s clear, and I should move on to today’s list—keeping track of Cynthia. Then I get another text from him.
404: Ask her for the meeting details. I don’t have those.
Ares distributes the tasks among his men to make sure everything stays under his control.
Me: On it.