Chapter Thirteen
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Raine
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My sister has just stepped out of the shower when I enter the room we share and is putting on track bottoms and a hoodie.
"You need to leave," I tell her urgently, as I remove her suitcase from a top shelf.
"Help me pack your things. You have to go now." Since I didn't unpack the clothes people had brought here from my apartment, all my clothes are still in my suitcase. Summer, of course, took full advantage of the walk-in closets and now possibly has way too many clothes to fit into her bag.
"Just take the clothes that belong to you, and nothing else."
"Riane," Summer cries. "What's going on? Why do I have to leave? I love it here."
"Listen to me," I say, taking her by the arms. "I can't trust them anymore.
Please, just get your things. I've asked Donovan to take you to the mall.
Go to Lizzy's, pick something, and tell Donovan you need to try it on.
He won't know there's another way to exit the changing rooms. Call Bianca and stay with her until I come and get you, okay? "
Donovan, the bodyguard, will have no reason to assume we'd want to leave and deliberately put our lives at risk, but he doesn't know what I know. Summer will be safe with her friend Bianca for a little while.
For once, Summer sees the sheer panic and fear in my eyes and listens to me. I usher her toward Donovan, waiting at the door, eager to talk baseball with Summer, since it's a shared interest between them.
I barely have enough time to strengthen my resolve when the door slides open and I'm staring at all three of them.
They fill the doorway, suffocating me. My body does the abhorrent thing of tightening and going hot at the sight of them, but I fight it with all my might.
My pulse spikes higher, and I sharpen my fear into power.
"Raine," Conrad says. "What's going on?"
I grab the file I tucked firmly under my hand and pull out one of the photos, holding it up, my grip tight enough to crumple the edges.
"What is this?" I say, my tone hard and unforgiving. Was I just a pawn in some stupid game they were playing? Was the man in the clown mask who told me to call him Joe working for them? Why? Why would they do this to me?
My voice wavers to a thin line before I can stop it, but then I harden it with my anger. "What the hell is this? You let your men take pictures of me?"
The words burst out, louder now, my fury at a breaking point. "In my apartment? With my sister? While I was in the shower? You're sick—"
"No," Alec cuts me off, his voice low, controlled in a way that makes my stomach twist.
Conrad takes a step forward, his eyes locked on mine as if he's trying to hold me in place. "Our men did not take those pictures of you."
Theron's jaw tightens, a glint of danger flashes in his dark gray eyes. "No man will look at you like that."
"Not without dire consequences," Alec says, and the threat in his voice sends a chill through me. For a moment, I'm flabbergasted, lost as to how this confrontation is going.
"Then who took these pictures of me? And why? Why do you have them?"
"We did," Conrad says.
If I felt violated before, my privacy invaded by some strange man, the same should still apply now that I know it was them who'd taken those pictures of me.
"I don't understand... why? You knew who I was before I entered the auction.
Was this some kind of sick joke? A prank?
Does the man with the clown mask work for you?
Did you tell him to tell me how..." I don't finish the sentence.
I'm still too embarrassed to admit aloud someone I didn't know told me to my face I was ordinary and forgettable.
"What is going on?" I demand. "Why are there pictures of me everywhere? Why were you watching me?"
"We got a message," Conrad says.
My brows pull together. "A message?"
"No sender," Theron adds. "No trace."
Alec's eyes stayed on mine, unwavering. "Just a name."
"Whose name?" I asked, even though I already knew.
"Yours."
"That doesn't explain anything," I snapped. "You got my name and decided to spy on me?"
"We needed to know who you were," Conrad said.
"And who you belonged to," Theron continued.
"We checked everything. No ties. No affiliations. No connections that posed a threat to us."
"We decided to monitor you until something changed."
"And then," Conrad said quietly, "you showed up at the auction."
"What about Joe? Is he working for you? What did you plan to get out of this, except what? To humiliate me? I'm a nobody."
"You are not a nobody. You belong to us now, until the end of eternity, whether you like it or not," Alec said.
"As what? A prop? A useless possession?" I asked bitterly. I really don't want to hear the answer. And why am I so fixated on that? I couldn't be stupid enough to think they might actually eventually like me. Oh god, Raine, I wailed internally at how pathetic I am.
"Why didn't you tell me about all this? That you stalked me for months before you saw me. And how did you get my DNA?”
“From your hairbrush.”
“What? How?”
“From your bedroom.”
“You broke into my apartment when I wasn’t there?”
“No. You were asleep.”
I stare at with such incredulity, my mouth won’t close.
How dare they infiltrate my life that way for no reason.
"It's all irrelevant. Again, you belong to us now. You are under our protection. That is all that matters," Theron said.
Before I could scream at them that this isn’t normal behavior, that they’re psychos and I want nothing to do with them again, a voice cuts through the room. The door slid apart so silently we didn't even hear it open.
"Hello."
I froze.
That voice.
Low, smooth, with a jovial lilt to it. But the familiarity of it flipped my stomach.
I turned slowly, dread pooling heavy in my chest.
A man stood in the living room like he'd always been there, like he belonged in this space as much as they did.
No mask of a clown this time. But I didn't need it to recognize him. It was him. The man, the consultant who orchestrated the whole virgin auction thing. The one who said he worked for a mafia boss.
I was right. He did work for them. Or else, why would he have been here? And everything became even more unclear.
Behind me, the atmosphere was wound so tight, the air seemed to have escaped. I glanced back at Alec, Conrad, and Theron.
They looked... momentarily shocked. Actually shocked. As if they were looking at a ghost.
The man's lips curved. He was thoroughly amused, and loving every second of it.
And then, almost in unison, their voices broke the silence with one word.
"Uncle."