CHAPTER SEVEN
Ella
U nder a sharp winter sun and during brunch at my favorite Upper West Side bistro the following day, I give my best friends a rundown of my Trans-Continental activities with a hot stranger. Capping off with the fat wad of cash his bodyguard left me.
“You did what?” Hannah blurts.
“ How much?” Val’s eyes widen.
“Was the sex any good?” Hannah doesn’t wait for me to answer questions one and two, just starts firing off more.
“You could have been killed,” Val scoffs.
Funny, I hadn’t considered for a moment that Balor would hurt me. Living with an abusive boyfriend taught me all the signs. Balor exhibited none of them.
“Well, I survived, and since I’m sort of rich right now, brunch is on me, girls. Cheers!” I lift my mimosa and clink the glass to each of theirs. “Besides, I can step off the curb and get hit by a bus.”
“Have you heard from Wesley since you’ve been back?” Val asks, making the sick connection from getting hit by a bus to my abusive ex.
Or she drew the short straw.
“No.” I shake my head.
I’d met a handsome cop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, just over one year ago. But on Valentine’s Day, Wesley didn’t give me a box of chocolate, he gave me a black eye—the first of many—for coming home late.
It was followed by a sincere, emotional apology.
I took the route of forgiving and being supportive, especially when he admitted to a drinking problem and promised to go to meetings.
He whisked me away on a romantic weekend in Vermont, but when we got back, everything I owned was moved out of the apartment I shared with Hannah and into Wesley’s house.
The committed gesture threw me off since we’d only started dating. But I bought into the ruse. Every bit of it. I believed every word. I stupidly thought I was in love. His parents were dead and he had no family. I wanted to help him. I knew being a cop was difficult. Having the strength to take what he dished out from the stress of police work made me feel like I was helping him do his job better.
I thought of my mother and how she sacrificed so much to help people in a dangerous country.
Things were good with Wes for about...two weeks after I moved in with him.
He kept drinking and started cutting me with a knife, branding me as his.
“Now who will want you?”
Every ugly incident was followed by apology after empty apology.
Trapped in his world, I lived in fear every day and considered how to escape. How to tell someone. How to ask for help. I worried that with him being a cop, no one would believe me. Conventional ideas got tossed out the window.
I lost my job teaching special ed at a private school after missing so much work. That plunged me into a pattern of co-dependency.
Because I usually had a black eye, swollen lip, or a slight limp, I kept my distance from my father all those months. If Dad saw the bruises, he’d strangle Wes. Or bankrupt him by using his cyber skills to hack into Wesley’s accounts. Dad’s side programming gigs always sounded downright shady, and I was afraid that Wesley’s retribution would reign down not just on me, but Dad, too .
When my father mentioned his company was sending him to Sydney for a six-month assignment, I saw the chance to save myself. I packed a small bag, showed up at his apartment with a busted lip, and begged him to take me with him.
He wanted to kill Wes, but Dad knew better than to mess with a cop. You mess with one, you mess with them all. My father’s dark secrets in the wrong hands would hurt him.
It pained him to have to protect his sketchy life over my well-being. But I understood. Going after Wesley was a lose/lose decision.
Six months in Sydney helped me recover, and toward the end of our stay, I gave dating another try. That bad date had soured my mood, but being all dressed up on the plane led to Balor noticing me. And talking to me. Even if he mistook me for an escort. He gave me the greatest night of my life.
Not only hadn’t I been afraid, but my mind also opened to the unbelievable pleasure I could receive from a man’s hand without the fear of pain.
Now I have all this extra cash to throw around, but I don’t have to worry about rent. Not that freeloading is my brand. Having nowhere else to live here in New York, I agreed to move into Dad’s luxury apartment in Midtown Manhattan. He thinks I’m broke. I can’t explain where my sudden wealth came from. Plus, I don’t feel comfortable living alone yet.
Even as a cop, Wes can flash his badge and tin his way into any building. I feel safer living in a high-rise with top-notch security and an intercom system to give me a heads up.
But I can’t be afraid of my ex forever. I’m not his girlfriend anymore. It’s not a he said/she said domestic dispute. I’m a civilian. And if he bothers me again, I won’t hold back reporting him this time.
I doubt he’ll go near me. I kept my phone, my socials, and my email. There’s been no messages. It’s like he disappeared. Wes doesn’t use social media. Most cops don’t—to avoid retaliation.
Except for an email he uses for work, he’s nearly off the grid.
“Are you going back to Fredricks Elementary?” Hannah asks, knocking me out of my thoughts.
“They filled my spot again. I can apply in a few months for the next school year. My dad got me an assistant job with his new boss.” I stick my tongue out to signal my distaste for the pity position and working for some hot-shot data security manager as his assistant.
“Your dad got a new job?” Hannah asks.
“A week before we left Sydney, he dropped a bombshell on me,” I say, pushing the quiche around on my plate. “He quit his job at World Trade Bank and got hired by a private company here in New York. Said his new boss recruited him at a technical conference he went to about the global outage right before Christmas.”
“That outage was unreal,” Val says, clutching her phone.
“I know.”
“A new job will keep you busy.” Hannah smiles.
I can’t move back in with her since she lives in an unmanned building, and Wes knows Hannah still lives there. I would never put her in danger.
“When do you start?” she adds.
“Next week when Dad gets back.” I exhale.
“It won’t be that bad,” Val says.
“Easy for you to say, you bake cookies out of your apartment, taste test your products, and make a killing.”
The girls keep talking, but I begin getting stressed about where to deposit the money Balor gave me. I heard banks track transactions over ten thousand.
I’ll have to open several accounts, or keep several thousand tucked away in my bedroom. Who knew having money could be this exhausting? Thinking about the money leads me back to thinking about Balor.
God, I can’t get him out of my head. I’m considering asking my father to do a little hacking to find out Balor’s last name from his Sydney to L.A. flight info. I just haven’t come up with a reason why I need to know the name of some random guy who sat next to me on the plane.
Since Wes, he’s been very protective of me.
If Dad finds out Balor mistook me for a hooker and then left me in a hotel, my father would destroy him with a single keystroke.