Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Eleanor
Be careful what you wish for.
W hen swimming in shark-infested waters, don’t bleed. Don’t panic. Don’t act like prey. Hold eye contact like you belong in their world, even if it makes you sick. Survival is the name of the game.
My blood slows and freezes in my veins as Jonathan spins around to face us, a wide grin stretching his face. I’ve caught him on camera numerous times over the last decade, but nothing compares to staring into the eyes of my enemy in real life. It doesn’t account for the grip on my heart as it trembles in my chest, struggling to beat. And it definitely doesn’t prepare me for his assessing gaze as my hip blazes with long-forgotten fire. He tilts his head like he’s trying to place me. If only the Force was real. I could make him believe I wasn’t the girl he was looking for, and he’d walk away, none the wiser. While I wait for the Force to tap me on the shoulder as a chosen one, I’ll have to rely on the many changes I’ve undergone in the last decade. I am not the malnourished vulnerable little girl he pinned and branded all those years ago. I broke my nose learning to ride a bike at eighteen, and the repair got rid of the bump on the bridge. The contacts shield the same startling blue eyes I was gifted by my mother, and my rich chocolate hair is hidden beneath the scratchy blonde wig. I might conjure familiarity, but I’m hoping the changes are enough to throw him off my true identity. If not? I’ll make sure to take him down with me.
“Christopher! It’s been a while,” Jonathan says. There’s a loud ringing in my ears as I hear his voice for the first time since he swore he would find and ruin me. My vision blurs for a moment before adrenaline dumps inside my veins, and my senses return crisp and clear.
He jerks his head at the man next to him. A newer recruit. I don’t recognize him from my time in the compound, or any of the people I’ve linked to his organization. The man takes off to the right, disappearing into the depths of the club.
“Can I join you and your lovely lady?” Jonathan asks, not waiting for an answer before he slides in next to me without an invitation. I clench my trembling hand into a fist and concentrate on breathing. My throat tightens as the worst of mankind brushes his thigh against mine, sandwiching me between a proverbial rock and the devil himself. I’ve never been in such a dangerous position. I curse the fact I didn’t wait for backup, or even better, call for it before I forged ahead. I could have placed a man of my choosing on the guest list and come as his plus one. Great strategy, Ellie, but too late for regrets. Now, I have to escape with my life. Jonathan is too close and too focused on me to risk removing the small tracking device from the hidden lining in my clutch and planting it on him, making my actual mission obsolete. Motherfucker ruined my plan.
“This is Grace,” Christopher says over the top of my head. “I found her sad and alone in the bar across the street.”
“Why sad?” Jonathan asks like he gives a shit. He always did get off on other people’s suffering.
“I lost my job,” I mutter. Damn, did I remember to sink into my southern accent? Get it together, Ellie.
“Oh, why is that?”
“I didn’t return my employer’s advances with the right amount of enthusiasm.”
“I doubt he was worthy of your attention, Grace. An incredible woman needs an incredible man. Mediocre is for the meek. Luckily you met my friend, Christopher. He is the sort of man you need to take your mind off your troubles.”
Yeah, and give me a whole host of new ones. “I could tell that straight away,” I say, glancing at Jonathan briefly before dropping my eyes. He will take it as a sign of submission, but I’m trying to avoid him figuring out who I am.
“Have we met?” he asks. Fuck. Stay calm, Ellie. He hasn’t recognized you—yet. But I shouldn’t hang around too long, in case he connects the dots.
“I’m sure I would have remembered.”
“Hmm. You seem familiar. Where did you grow up?”
Dangerous waters. Shark infested. “Military family. We moved a lot.”
Leaning into half truths is essential. Jonathan could always spot a lie.
“I see. And you ended up in Miami?”
“She’s a veterinary nurse,” Christopher supplies, feeding my lie to Jonathan. It rings with truth because that’s what Christopher believes.
“What do you think of my club?” he asks.
“It’s very sultry.”
His eyes spark with appreciation and something darker. “Have you been to the top floor yet?”
“Not yet. We’re loosening up with a little champagne before I show her the delights of the top floor.”
My reasoning is correct; the nefarious shit takes place on the floor above us. I glance up through my lashes. Sex? Torture? My brain surges, planning my escape route. I don’t want to get trapped with these men in a room. I might know several ways to kill someone, but enough of them in one place, with the same goal, will overpower me. I’m skilled, not stupid.
Jonathan’s knee presses against mine, and my heart skips a terrifying beat. I turn to look at Christopher. “I already told you, I’m not into being shared.” I enunciate each word, to convey my wariness at what he’s suggesting.
He grins, his eyes glassy and overly confident. Men like him need to know they are the only thing important in a woman’s world. He leans forward and brushes his lips against my ear. “Of course not. Jonathan is simply friendly. I would never let another man touch you as long as you are mine.”
There is the crux of the matter. As long as I’m his. I’m not actually his. I never will be, but it’s an indication of what becomes of the women he’s broken down and discarded. Forgotten fodder for Jonathan’s vast trafficking ring or worse if Christopher decides to let his true demons out to play.
“Do you have family locally, Grace?” Jonathan asks, his voice carefully controlled.
I almost roll my eyes at the blatant dig for information. “My mother passed, and my father is absent.” Truth. The fact I am sitting with the reason for both of those things isn’t lost on me.
“I see.”
Christopher and Jonathan share a look over my head as I pretend to take another sip of the bubbly liquid. At least they don’t feed me a lie of how they could be my new family. But I do need them distracted so I can achieve what I came here to do.
“You know, I’m a little tired. I think I’m going to call it a night,” I say as I put the champagne flute down.
“But the night is young,” Christopher says with a wave in the air like he can wash away someone’s exhaustion.
Jonathan leans over, his cheek touching mine as his warm breath falls against my ear. “We can organize for a little pick me up?” he suggests in the persuasive voice he used to manipulate all of us. Charles Manson. Jim Jones. David Koresh. They all have one thing in common: the ability to command. Their heavy gravitas twisted as a recipe used to control the masses and make people wild with the need to be in their vicinity. It’s all part of their plan. Offering their lives, their devotion, their very breath. They revel in their control, manipulating every part of the lives blindly placed in their hands, and relishing in being able to get them to endure what would break most people. My mind flits to my past.
Dark water moves in front of me, a silent, heavy presence waiting to claim my sin. Jonathan’s hand grips my shoulder, steadying my trembling.
“Confess, and I will absolve you of your sins, Eleanor.”
I lick my lips and draw in a steadying breath. I miss the days when sin was treated with lashes. I’d long learned to compartmentalize pain to where I no longer felt it. The second Jonathan realized, he switched up his techniques. It doesn’t matter how much I try to detach from reality, my body’s physiological response can’t be controlled. I need to breathe to live.
He sighs at my silence.
The heavy metal shackles around my wrists and ankles clunk against the cracked tiles as I shift. I’ll definitely have bruises later. My gaze flicks around at the men surrounding us, bearing witness to this cleansing. What was my great sin? Pleasure? Perceived pleasure? “Sins of the flesh,” Jonathan called it.
As women, our virtue is all we hold that is precious in this world. Without it, we are worthless, but in less than a year, I will be wed to one of the men staring at me with covetous gazes, more than ready to take and destroy my innocence. Joke’s on them; my innocence is lying in tatters on the floor of the classroom where we were taught to follow the commands of the men and punished for hesitating even a breath. It was swept away in the wind during a particularly brutal whipping in the center of the compound for all to see. It was decimated when I realized not even my private thoughts were safe in the confines of a journal—which broke so many rules. We weren’t meant to read or write, Jonathan ensured that.
Knowledge is power, and power is only for men.
But tonight, I stand at the edge of a large pool facing my mortality, not as a consequence of hesitation, but because I flushed when Marc paid me a compliment. Attraction is in our nature; it is part of our chemistry. Mama taught me that. Mama taught me lots of things.
The problem is I’m not promised to Marc. My fate hasn’t yet been decided.
Jonathan jumps into the pool, fully clothed in his white pants and shirt, like he’s the Messiah. Two men grip my arms and lift me into the water. The weight of the shackles drags me down to the bottom with no hope for escape. My heart thrashes wildly in my chest as I suck in a shocked gasp at the freezing cold liquid surrounding me. My chin settles on the surface as I gaze at Jonathan.
“Your defiance only brings you pain,” he declares. “I will bring you to heel, Eleanor.”
Good luck with that. I know how to touch myself in the middle of the night and escape this world, if only for a moment of utter peace. Somehow, Jonathan knows I’ve clawed this slither of control, of escape, of pleasure that steals my breath and locks my limbs, away from him. It’s the opposite of what I’ve been taught. And I’ve never been happier.
I swallow the knot of anxiety as he watches me tip my head back to avoid swallowing the water. “Confess.”
I bite the inside of my cheek and glare at him. He sighs like he’s exasperated, but I see the hint of excitement in his eyes. He slams his hand down on my head and pushes me under. I fail to take a deep breath beforehand and panic flares in my chest as I inhale liquid too.
His fingers tangle in my hair, and he drags my face out of the water. I gasp in much-needed air, choking as tears stream down my cheeks hidden by the water surrounding us.
“You are making this more difficult than it needs to be,” he snaps before repeating the dunking.
My chest burns, my stomach twists, and my limbs become heavier until, after what feels like an eternity, he pauses and tilts his head as I fight to stay conscious. Perhaps he will kill me. It would be the ultimate escape from a life full of pain.
He leans forward, his cheek brushing mine as his lips graze my ear. “Confess, or I will allow every man in this room to ruin you, Eleanor. Then you will be worthless in my community and removed. You will be left adrift in a world that will reject you. Your mother and brother will never see you again. You will be ruined for this life and the next. The devil has a special place in the pits of despair for those without moral direction. You think this is bad? Wait until your soul is being tortured for an eternity. Now, confess.”
The devil has long since stopped scaring me. I know Jonathan is, in fact, Satan in disguise. But to lose access to my family? The only people to care and love me for all I am, and am not? That is a true threat.
I drag my bottom lip between my teeth and will feeling into the numb flesh. Jonathan pulls back and arches a brow at me.
“I confess,” I whisper, my tongue heavy against the words.
“To what?”
“To being tempted in the ways of the flesh. For reacting to a man not deemed to be my future husband. To having impure thoughts and coveting a man’s affections.”
Jonathan’s eyebrows pull down as he studies me. “Good, Eleanor. I cleanse you of these sins so you may once again walk in purity and become the woman you are meant to be for our community. You are destined for great things, Eleanor.”
What is he talking about? Great things? “I am?”
He grins, causing my blood to freeze in my veins. “Of course. You are destined to be mine.”
I refocus with a hard blink. I can’t afford to blank out in a room of vipers. Christopher chuckles at something Jonathan says, and I glance down at the table. There’s a line of white powder on a silver tray. Oh, how dignified they make their illegal recreational drug use look. I’m not clueless to how sex trafficking works. I lived around it for years. They get the victims hooked on drugs, which keeps them under control and pliant, almost passing as willing participants.
I rarely drink, never mind taking drugs. I refuse to give up control. If I do drink, it has to be somewhere I deem safe, not in a club with a bunch of evil men.
“Help yourself, Grace,” Jonathan urges. “It will help shake off your lingering tiredness and depression from the day.”
“No, thank you.”
“Suit yourself,” he grinds out as I fail to follow his command.
Two suited figures emerge before the table, saving me from Jonathan’s games. The first one is the man from earlier. The second… Holy fuck. No. Eyes the same startling color as mine gaze back at me. A frown forms between his brows as he stares, his gaze dropping to my mouth, down my body, then jerking to the side of my face. What is he looking at? My heart thumps fast in my chest, like a hundred hoofbeats thundering through my body. My brother blinks. Once, twice, and I clock the exact moment it dawns on him who I am. My hand raises, touching the bite that left a permanent indentation at the top of my ear, and I drag my hair over my ear. Fuck.
I need to get out of here. Now.