Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
I barely resist slamming the door shut to my room after the talk with my father.
The only saving grace is that Drew wasn’t there to gloat in my face.
That and I managed to get a good look at the safe as well.
While he had his hand around my throat, I stared over his shoulder, gauging the safe’s keypad.
“So finally Rapunzel has returned.”
I give a small gasp, my hand flying to my chest as I spin around toward the unexpected intrusion. Drew sits casually in one of the chairs by my window, his phone resting in his hand.
He’s dressed himself up in a black Armani suit and crisp white shirt. He believes suits give him more power. Make him seem manlier.
As if.
Drew may have the muscles of a man who spends hours in the gym, but he is a coward who would never use them. One punch, and he would be crying on the floor, begging for his mommy.
I’ve seen it.
“What are you doing here?” I rasp, my voice still hoarse from the swelling. Drew tilts his head before he stands from the chair. Depositing his phone in his pocket, he straightens his jacket before casually strolling toward me. I take an instinctive step back, only to hit the door.
“Where have you been?” His arms cage me in on either side.
“None of your business,” I snarl.
He chuckles, the sound mirthless. His eyes are narrowed down at me, face cold.
“You’re my fiancée, Bailey,” he sneers. “Everything you do is my business.”
A growl erupts low in my chest. “I stopped being your fiancée the moment you stuck your dick where it doesn’t belong,” I hiss. “Should have suspected it, though. Honestly, I should have known it was you the moment Brittany described the micropenis she was fucking.”
His hand snags in my hair, wrenching my head back painfully. It’s still tender from my father.
“Who have you been fucking, little Rapunzel?” he demands. “You think I believe for one moment you were out there mourning me cheating on you?”
I shrug a shoulder, keeping my body in a state of nonchalance. “Why do you care? You have that trailer park trash back at your condo, right? Is she kinda like Fun Dip? Stick your white pasty dick in and pop out covered in chlamydia? Because you sure aren’t coming out coated in sugar.”
Drew purses his lips, eyes darkening.
“You’re mine,” Drew hisses at me. “And when I stop wanting you to be mine, I am going to make sure the next man your father makes a deal with will fuck your shit up.” He smirks. “If there is anything left, that is.”
He tips my head back, his gaze running along my throat. It is no doubt bruised from my father’s steely grip. “Nothing a little makeup won’t fix. We need to make sure you are looking your best for the gala.” He chuckles to himself like he has told a joke. Is there something he knows that I don’t?
“Good to know where you stand on domestic violence,” I snap at him.
Another chuckle, this one darker, more dangerous. In all the years I have been with Drew, he has never been cruel. I do not think him capable. Not once has he ever raised his voice to me or given me a reason to think he would. But the look on his face now?
It is deadly.
“I have been too lenient with you, Bai.” He drags me away from the wall.
My hands automatically go to the wrist of the hand he still has wrapped tautly in my hair.
The pain is not erotic. It stings, the roots pulling from my scalp.
If he is not careful, he will give me a bald spot.
He pushes me into the vanity of the bathroom.
I groan as the marble countertop bites into my back.
Drew reaches into the shower, hitting a few of the elaborate buttons that turn the spray on. The bathroom immediately begins to fill with steam.
“That is going to change.” He turns to face me, his dangerously dark gaze boring into mine. “No more freedom. Little Rapunzel is going to sit up in her tower until she is needed, or she is going to feel what it is like to fall. Understood?”
Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I nod my head, afraid of what I might say if I speak.
He smiles smugly. “Good,” he steps back, eyes roaming my body. “Now strip.”
“Strip, Bailey.”
Kiernan’s voice rings in the air, my mind pulling me back to our first encounter.
I’d been scared. Petrified. But there had been something in Kiernan’s gaze at the time, a softness that told me he would never hurt me.
Drew doesn’t have any softness, and the warm memory of being in the shower with Kiernan washes away.
“What?” My brow furrows and my mouth falls open, stunned.
“I told you to strip.” His voice darkens, his eyes growing colder.
Folding my arms across my chest, I scowl at him. “Fuck you, Drew,” I hiss, going to brush by him. He is nothing but a show pony. There is no way in hell he will actually hurt me.
Oh how wrong I am.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” His eyes widen with delight as he snatches at my blouse, tearing it down the middle. I cry out as buttons go flying, their pings on the marble echoing loudly as my ears rush with blood.
He manages to shove my blouse down my arms, flinging it carelessly to the floor before the shock wears off. “No!” My screams fill the air, and I shove at his hands that are currently pulling my jeans down my hips.
“That word doesn’t exist between us anymore,” he snarls as he pulls at my clothes. Fuck, where is that training Seamus drilled into me the other day? Not that I expect myself to suddenly become Kill Bill, but being able to at least shove the bastard off me would be nice.
Where is the extra strength that comes with a shot of adrenaline?
Apparently, it doesn’t exist, and all those videos of people in distress lifting cars are lies.
“You will do everything I ask with a nod and a smile,” he hisses, grabbing my throat and slamming me into the wall next to the walk-in shower.
I claw desperately at his hand. It is not as harsh as my father’s had been, but the memory of having my air cut off still freshly lingers at the front of my mind.
“Or I will make your life a living hell. Understood?”
One sharp nod from me seems to satisfy him.
Drew rips the rest of my clothes from my body before yanking me away from the wall and shoving me into the shower stall. A sob rips from my throat as I hit the tile hard, my knees buckling beneath me.
“Now be a good girl and wash the filth from your body and meet me downstairs for dinner with your family in an hour.”
My chest heaves as I struggle to get myself under control.
I sit there, trapped. Shivering. Vulnerable.
How can he do this to me? What changed?
I don’t know how long I sit there under the spray. Long enough for it to turn cold and my lips to begin to tremble and my teeth to chatter. Drew left me alone, shaking his head with disgust as he swept from the room.
When I work up the strength to stand, I quickly soap myself and rinse under the icy shower spray before turning it off and grabbing for a towel.
It takes me less than half an hour to dress and dry my hair.
I pick up the clothes from the floor but leave the shirt laid out on the counter while I ball up the rest and throw it into the hamper.
My room is not a safe place for me. For all I know, my father or Drew could have bugged it or put up a hidden camera.
I doubt either of them would do something like that in the bathroom.
Turning on the tap, I dig my nail under the loose seam of my blouse and pray that the communicator hasn’t been damaged.
It still looks intact.
Sighing with relief, I hide it inside an unused cotton ball and place it behind a container where it won’t be seen.
I don’t want to risk using it until everyone is in bed.
Seamus told me that my father’s security shouldn’t be able to detect it.
I assume since I made it inside the house that it is fine.
Still, I will wait until there is little possibility of interruption before reaching out. I want to be safe.
Even if I no longer feel it.