Chapter 14
Sebastian Sterling
Penelope’s wooden movements and expressionless face scare the shit out of me as I follow her down the streets.
I slip my wallet back into my pocket—sans the black card I tossed on the jewelry counter with curt instructions to box up the last two rings she tried on—and lengthen my stride.
I scowl and lift a brow at the man eyeing Penelope’s purse.
He lifts his hands in the air, turns tail, and darts into the nearest alley, deciding Penelope isn’t an easy target with me looming behind her.
She continues onward, oblivious to her surroundings even when she turns and takes the stairs down to the subway.
I grit my teeth and allow a few people between us so our reflections aren’t in the same windowpane when the train pulls up, then push through the crowd and stand directly behind her, using my body as a shield so she isn’t jostled by the others.
She stares out the window with vacant eyes as the lights whizz by.
Worry eats away at my insides. Even after being locked in the server room she wasn’t this catatonic.
I don’t know what happened to trigger her. One moment she was studying the ring on her finger with a dreamy expression, then when I turned back around after ending my call, she was heading toward the door as white and lifeless as a porcelain doll.
Her words ring in my ears so loudly they drown out the noise of the subway. Although she delivered her declaration with painful clarity, the frozen tundra in her eyes told a story of despair and turmoil.
I don’t know why she’s hurting, and I have no way to help her beyond protecting her as she robotically travels through the city.
The apartment building she meanders into is well kept and clean, but nowhere near nice enough for the successful entrepreneur her brother always said she was.
I grit my teeth as my self-hatred grows.
She sacrificed so much to help her parents while her brother flitted around without a second thought toward them in front of me.
I was blind and stupid for not seeing the truth.
When she pulls a key out of her purse without fumbling around inside it first, I glimpse how deeply ingrained the need for control and safety are in her everyday life. Even without her faculties present, the safeguards she keeps in place ensure she opens her door without dawdling in the hall.
As she steps over the threshold toward safety, I turn to leave, but a masculine voice calls out from deep within the apartment.
Penelope doesn’t react. My senses heighten and wordless rage fills me.
I catch the door before it swings shut and watch with violence buzzing in my veins as Penelope slips off her shoes, picks them up, and disappears into a bedroom.
Even when her lock snicks into place, I step into her apartment and shut the door behind me.
The door opposite Penelope’s opens, and a man with water dripping down his skin and a towel wrapped loosely around his hips steps into the hallway.
“Hey, Pen, where were you, bitch? I called a million t—”
He must sense my fury because he freezes and swivels his head toward me in slow motion. The widening of his eyes—in both shock and fear—fills me with evil delight.
Who he is or why he’s in Penelope’s apartment doesn’t matter. He’s naked. He called her a bitch. He raised his fist to pound on her door.
He’s dying by my hands today.
I stalk forward with murderous rage priming my muscles. The fool glances down at the base of the door. His perfectly sculpted eyebrows lift.
I slam my fist into his defined cheekbone and follow through with a left jab into his solar plexus.
He grunts and stumbles backward. I follow and swing again. The coward drops to the ground and tries to crawl past me. I pin him against the wall with my leg.
Despite the overabundance of flesh—his towel lies strewn across the floor—I reach down and yank his head back by his hair.
“What are you doing in my woman’s apartment?”
He lifts a shaking hand and points at Penelope’s door.
“What did you do to her? I’ll kill you for hurting her, you monster.”
Given his position, his threat should ring hollow, but the fury and resolution in his vibrant green eyes pierce through my mania.
I sneer and pull his head higher. He grunts and glares at me.
“I would never hurt her,” I growl. “You, on the other hand—” I lift my fist.
He flinches but jabs his pointed finger toward the door.
A strip of white catches my attention.
He isn’t pointing at the door itself. He’s pointing toward the towel shoved under the jam.
“You’re a fucking liar. You hurt her. She’s only used that godforsaken towel once in the last ten years, and that’s when she met you again, asshole. Get off me before we lose her forever.”
Horror cools my hatred.
“Lose her forever?” I repeat like a dullard.
My arm drops as weakness spears through me. I turn for Penelope’s door, but the idiot wraps both hands around my ankle and jerks my leg toward him.
“If you touch that door, she’ll never speak to you again,” he warns.
I pause with my hand an inch away from the knob.
“She will take her laptop, the emergency bag she keeps on her bottom shelf, her purse off its hook, and leave without a backward glance. You will never, ever see her again,” he says.
The thought fills me with despair. My knuckles burn as I lower my arm to my side.
“How do you know this?” I growl.
“I’ve been her roommate since college.”
For a moment, his words make no sense. I peel my stare away from Penelope’s door and glare at the man kneeling naked at my feet.
Although he’s in good shape, he’s clearly never been to the gym a day in his life, but he isn’t weak. He’s bigger and stronger than Penelope, and if he went to college with her, then he’s probably several years older than her, too.
College. She graduated high school when she was fifteen. He moved in with a fifteen-year-old girl.
I shift my weight and reach for him, ready to slam his head against the wall.
“I’m gay! I never touched her!” he exclaims.
Skepticism and relief flow through me. I curl my fingers into a fist.
“She’s my best friend. I’d be dead if it weren’t for her.”
The worship in his tone is too much. I cock my arm.
“I fucked your personal assistant last weekend!”
I pause. Still braced for a blow, he lifts his hands in the universal sign for surrender and rambles on as though the more words he says, the more likely he’ll survive.
“She chastised me for, like, an entire three minutes, which is an eternity when it’s from her, but then she forgave me and made me choose her clothes for her next day of work, and I swear she’s like my sister.
There’s zero sexual chemistry between us.
We only moved in together because we needed to escape our crappy home lives and we trusted each other in a way only people who share the same bullies can ever understand, and I—”
I snarl, spin on my heel, and stomp to the kitchen in hopes a glass of water will clear my head. When it doesn’t, I turn on the faucet and splash cold water on my face.
The freezer compartment on the fridge opens right beside me. I curse and lash out. Penelope’s roommate squeaks and jerks away, but not before he tosses a popsicle onto the counter.
Not a fancy popsicle either. No, a tube of plastic filled with a mixture of frozen sugar water and innumerable artificial dyes and flavors.
I haven’t seen a Freeze Pop since probably elementary school.
Like a savage animal, I rip it open with my teeth and push the top half of the concoction into my mouth. The instant brain freeze shocks me out of my spiraling thoughts.
A bag of frozen green beans lands on the counter.
“Sorry, you get the bag of second-rate veggies. The peas are for my face,” he grumbles.
I quirk a brow and shove the second half of the popsicle into my mouth as he takes out not one but two bags of peas and presses one to his cheek and the other to his chest on top of his shirt.
I’m no stranger to naked men—I’ve spent countless hours in locker rooms—but I breathe a silent breath of relief at his baggy pajama shirt and pants set. Nudity adds a visceral element to violence and sets my stomach to a slow roll.
“You took those punches better than a lot of men have in the past,” I say around my frozen tongue.
He shrugs and shuffles to the far side of the island.
“I’ve had plenty of practice,” he says with dry humor.
I shake my head and crunch through the flavored ice with my teeth.
“She must not care about you if she ignored the sounds you made when I punched you,” I scoff.
Peter rolls his eyes and shakes his head.
“She couldn’t hear. As soon as she locked her door, she put on her headphones, turned on her music, stuck the towel under the door, and put all her devices in a special lockdown program she created,” he explains.
“What kind of program?” I ask.
“The kind we can’t beat unless we want to pay thousands of dollars in fines for calling emergency services and wasting their time.”
I hiss as I scrape my bruised knuckles on my pocket, but I pull my phone free.
“I’ll pay millions if it’ll bring her back to me,” I growl.
“She’ll never forgive you for abusing the system. Her dad collapsed from delayed complications about a week after he got home from his first stay at the hospital. She would’ve lost him if EMS hadn’t been so quick.”
I swallow as bile and emotions clog my throat.
“Then I’ll sit outside the door until—”
“I tried that. Hell, I camped out in the hall for weeks, but it only made her more reclusive.”
“How reclusive?” I manage through the ball of dread threatening to consume me.
The popsicle sits like a block of ice in my stomach.
He sighs, shifts the bag of peas against his face, tosses the other on the counter, and runs a hand through his wet hair before responding.