Chapter 17 Harper-Rayn
HARPER-RAYN
Knight and I walk up the long driveway to Mom and Elias’s mansion after parking out on the curb to avoid them realizing we came together, though they’ve got to be pretty daft if they can’t figure it out.
I mean, how many times can you use the excuse We bumped into each other at the door?
Besides, Knight wasn’t even invited, so surely they’ll be wondering why the hell he’s here. One would think, at least.
His hand rests on my lower back, and despite our afternoon of wild, animalistic fucking, I know he’s still thinking about just how fragile I am.
But I’m not. I don’t think fragile is a word I would ever use to describe myself.
You know, except that one particular moment where I had a mental breakdown at work and had to be shot up with sedatives, but I do what I can to forget that moment even existed.
Reaching the front door, I let out a long breath.
I should have figured out a way to get out of this. Maybe a disease? The mumps, the plague, maybe I could claim that I contracted herpes from one of the bodies in the morgue. Mom would love that one. In fact, I doubt she’ll ever want to come near me ever again.
Knight lifts his hand to knock when I start pinching my cheeks. “What are you doing?” he asks, his hand pausing over the door.
“Making myself look sick,” I tell him, having no shame. “If she thinks I’m contagious she won’t come anywhere near me, and then I can use it as an excuse to get out of here early.”
“Good thinking,” he says, putting his hands to my cheeks and vigorously rubbing as I try to keep a straight face. “There. That should do it.”
I grin up at him, feeling smugger than I’ve ever been in my life, and the way his eyes sparkle with adoration has my chest swelling with love. “Alright. Just knock already,” I finally say. “The sooner we get in, the sooner we get out.”
Knight knocks on the massive door, and not a moment later, I hear someone on the inside. The door swings open, and before I know it, Elias is standing before me, a welcoming smile on his face, only it quickly fades when his eyes fall to his brother.
“Knight?” he asks, glancing between us. “What are you doing here?”
Knight shrugs. “Had the night off so figured I’d come to watch the game with my big brother,” he says. “But I ran into Harper at the door. She says you’re hosting dinner.”
“Uhh, yeah,” Elias says. “Nothing too fancy. Mae just wanted to put something together for young Harper, here. You know she’s been in the hospital.”
Knight’s gaze whips to me, his brow raised, surprise in his dark eyes. “No shit. You good, Morticia?”
“Fine,” I tell him, trying to hide a smirk. “Nothing but a scratch.”
“A scratch?” Elias scoffs, almost seeming irritated by the way I shrug it off. “I believe it was more than a mere scratch. Your brother said you’d been stabbed in the hospital parking garage. Almost died.”
“I’d barely go that far,” I say. “You know how Jonah likes to exaggerate the little things.”
“Right,” Elias says, his gaze narrowed in suspicion before he forces himself to put a smile on his face. “Either way, we’re glad you’re doing alright. Do come in.”
I offer him a tight smile, and just as we go to step over the threshold, my mother’s shrill tone comes from somewhere behind Elias. “Oh, is that Harper?” she says in a singsong tone as though she’s actually happy to see me.
She steps out from behind Elias, appearing as though she’s been there the whole time with a beaming smile across her face, only as she notices Knight beside me, her smile falters.
“Oh, Knight. I didn’t realize we were expecting your company,” she says, visibly trying to recover as she forces the smile back across her face.
“You weren’t,” Knight says. “I was just dropping in to see if Eli wanted to catch the game, but if you’re putting on dinner, I wouldn’t mind a plate.”
He offers Mom a forced smile before stepping right past her and clapping Elias on the shoulder. “Where are we in the game?”
Mom shoots her husband a haunting stare, and he awkwardly glances at Knight. “Uhhh, yeah. Of course.”
Knight just smirks and strides deeper into the house, making himself at home while I stand awkwardly in the doorway.
“Come in, Harper,” Mom says, trying to hurry me along before getting a good look at me and twisting her face in disgust. “What on earth are you wearing? Could you have not put in just a little bit of effort? You look as though nobody loves you.”
“Sorry,” I murmur, stepping into her open arms. “Not been feeling the best.”
Mom immediately pulls away from me, her face scrunching as though I’m diseased. “Oh,” she says, lifting her hand to my forehead as she takes in my reddened cheeks. “You look dreadful.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Come on,” she says. “You can make yourself comfortable in the living room. I’ll fetch you some lemon tea and an Advil.”
I nod, and Mom quickly scurries away, leaving me alone with Elias, and as I turn my attention back to him, I find his gaze lingering on my body.
A chill sails down my spine, and as he reaches for the door and pulls it closed behind me, his gaze lazily makes its way back to my face, a sickening smirk lifting the corners of his lips.
His tone lowers to something I’ve only ever heard in my worst nightmares. “Right this way, kitten,” he murmurs, his sickening smirk turning into something a little more sinister.
I suck in a breath, horror blasting through my veins and draining me of all color as Elias turns on his heel and starts stalking toward the living room.
He gets a few steps ahead before glancing back, that harrowing stare coming directly to mine and making me realize how foolish I’ve been.
How did I not see it before? How could I have not recognized the evil within his stare?
“Now.”
The fear captures me in a choke hold, and I find myself following him, terrified of what might come if I were to be alone with him right now.
Is he that confident that nobody will find out?
That he could drag me away in a house full of people and assault me while everybody goes about their day?
What was he expecting would happen? He’d rape me and then I’d sit at his fucking dining table with a smile on my face?
Fuck no.
I just need to find Knight and get out of here. He might not believe me, but he’ll understand. He’ll see the fear in my eyes and know that we need to leave.
My hands shake as I follow Elias, and I don’t doubt that he thinks I’m too fucking broken to speak, too haunted by his words—Who’s going to believe you now? But he’s got another think coming.
As he leads me through the mansion, it occurs to me that if Elias is my attacker, the man who choked me in the back of my car and assaulted me in the bed I share with Knight, then he knows I’ve been living with Knight.
He knows we’re together, and the fact that Mom hasn’t bitched me out about it means that Elias has a few dirty secrets of his own.
He leads me straight through to the house, and his back stiffens when he finds Knight standing in the center of the living room with the TV remote in his hand. But Knight’s focus isn’t on the screen when we walk in; he’s staring at Elias.
His gaze narrows, watching his brother, and the tension immediately rises in the room.
I glance between them, realizing that this is so much more than just about me and Knight.
My heart races, and without a word, I step around Elias and walk straight into Knight, turning so that my back is pressed right against his chest, and my stare locks on Elias, daring him to even try to touch me now.
Knight’s hand falls to my hip, and despite not understanding just how deep this runs, I know he’ll have my back.
Seeing he doesn’t have the upper hand, Elias forces a calm smile, pretending as though the tension in the room doesn’t exist. “Make yourself at home,” he tells us. “Dinner should be ready soon.”
Elias turns on his heel and stalks out of the room, and it’s clear as day that that didn’t go down how he’d planned, but I don’t waste a moment dwelling on it as I whip around with horror in my eyes, gaping up at Knight with an urgency I haven’t felt since the moment I raced out of our home, sprinting away from the masked stalker.
“What the fuck was that about?” Knight asks, his dark stare searching mine.
“We have to leave,” I tell him, already pulling on his hand. “Now.”
“Doll?”
“Please, I’ll explain it in the car, but I can’t be here. I—”
“Hey,” he says, immediately pulling me into his arms, his hand roaming up and down my back as he holds me tight. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”
“No, you don’t—”
“What the hell is this?” My mother’s voice comes tearing through the living room. “Get your hands off my daughter.”
Fuck.
I spin around to face my mother, finding her holding a glass of lemon tea with an Advil in the palm of her hand and her disgusted stare locked on Knight’s hand on my waist. Then just as I go to try and put water on the fire, Elias steps back into the living room, his hands buried deep in his pockets and a cunning smirk on his lips.
“Oh, haven’t you heard, darling? It seems your daughter and my insubordinate brother are an item. ”
“What?” my mother spits, looking at me in a new light, horror in her stare. “No. Absolutely not. I forbid it.”
I scoff. “Mom, I’m twenty-eight. I hardly give a shit what you forbid. Yes, Knight and I are together, and that’s not about to change just because you don’t like it.”