Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Anton
T he room is wrong—stretching and shifting like it’s alive. The wallpaper melts, streaks of dark green bleeding into brown, and the air reeks of metal and sweat. She’s lying there, face up, her head lolling to one side, hair sticking to her damp face. Her arm hangs limp as another man climbs on top of her.
“Mom!” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. It echoes too loudly, like shouting underwater. No matter how hard I try, my legs won’t move. The threadbare carpet feels like quicksand, pulling me deeper, keeping me rooted in place. I struggle harder, chest burning, heart pounding so loudly it drowns out everything else.
I want to go to her, but I can’t. Not with the way Jerry holds me tight. The rough hands on my shoulders are strong as iron. I twist, kick, and scream, but he won’t let go. His face is shadowed and blurred next to mine.
But I can hear him laughing .
His low, raspy chuckle makes my stomach churn.
“Watch,” he hisses, his breath hot and foul against my ear. “This is the life she chose. And this is going to be her fate night after night until you do what I want. Do you understand me, street rat?”
My mother’s chest rises and falls, but too slowly.
Too shallowly.
There’s a needle still buried in her skin.
Her lips are blue.
Her eyes flutter open for a split second, glassy and unfocused, as the man above her pumps his hips ruthlessly. I try not to look, but I can’t block him from my periphery.
I squeeze my eyes shut tight, trying to block everything out. But I can still hear.
Jerry’s laugh.
The squeak of the bed.
The stranger’s grunts as he fucks my mother.
A strangled gurgle.
I open my eyes.
My mother.
I swear she looks at me, her mouth moving like she’s trying to say something—but nothing comes out. Then her eyes close.
I scream again, louder this time, begging her to wake up. To fight. To stay. But Jerry only laughs harder, the sound sharp and cruel, slicing through me like a knife.
The room tilts, the colors bleeding faster, the shadows swallowing everything. Her face is fading, her body sinking into the bed like it’s eating her whole.
My muscles burn as I fight harder to get to her, but it’s useless. I’m strong, but Jerry is always stronger. His grip tightens, pinning me in place.
“Stop!” I beg, choking on the word, tears streaming down my face. “Please—don’t do this! ”
The needle falls from my mother’s arm, hitting the floor with a deafening clink. Her eyes stare vacant at the ceiling.
The room starts to spin.
Jerry’s laughter is back again—a horrible, gut-wrenching sound that rings in my ears as the room dissolves into darkness.
I jolted upright, gasping for air. Sweat clung to my skin, cold and sticky, and my T-shirt was plastered to my back. My heart pounded so hard it hurt, each beat echoing in my ears. I pressed my palms to my face, trying to steady my breathing, but the images wouldn’t leave.
Her lifeless body.
His laughter.
The sound of that goddamn needle hitting the floor.
It all clung to me like a second skin.
My chest heaved as if I’d been running for miles. The room was dark, the only light coming from the illuminated city below, but it was enough to remind me that I was in my bedroom at the penthouse.
I wasn’t there.
It wasn’t then.
That was another time and place—a nightmare best left buried.
Nonetheless, I still felt sick. My stomach churned, twisting itself into knots. My hands shook as I reached for the glass of water on the nightstand, but I couldn’t hold it steady. The water sloshed over the rim, dripping onto my fingers, but I didn’t care. I drank it anyway, desperate for something—anything—to ground me.
It didn’t help. The dream lingered, the memory as clear as it had been when it happened. I hadn’t thought about that moment in years. I thought I’d buried it, locked it away where it couldn’t hurt me anymore. But tonight, she came back .
And he came back.
The weight of it hit me all over again. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and let my head hang. My fingers gripped my hair, tugging hard, as if pulling it would somehow erase the pain.
“Fuck!”
It didn’t matter that there was nobody around to hear me. My chest was tight. I couldn’t get enough air, and my throat burned. I hated this. Hated how that night still owned me. No matter how far I’d come or how much time had passed, in my dreams, I was always dragged back to that filthy room, forced to watch the woman I loved most destroy herself while I was held down, powerless.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat on the edge, staring out at the glittering skyline. New York, the city that never slept, was alive outside. But inside, it felt as empty as I did. No matter how high I climbed or how much I built, the past still found a way to drag me back down.
I wiped my face, the sweat cooling on my skin. I stared through the glass windows, not looking at anything in particular as I waited for my heart to slow. I needed to push the ghosts back where they belonged, but they never left quietly.
I glanced toward the empty side of the bed and, for a brief, foolish moment, wished Serena was here. I wanted her soothing presence in a way I couldn’t explain. The thought hit me like a sucker punch, leaving me unsettled.
Serena could never see me like this—shaken, drenched in sweat, and fighting nightmares I should’ve conquered years ago. She deserved better than the mess I kept hidden behind the mask.
Standing, I snatched my phone off the charger on my nightstand and pulled up Serena’s contact info. Her name glowed on the screen, a lifeline in the darkness, but my thumb hovered, unsure. My jaw clenched, the internal battle raging. It was after three in the morning. Waking her now would be selfish— desperate, even—and yet, just the thought of hearing her voice was like oxygen I desperately needed to live.
Fighting the instinct to call her, I opened another app instead and pulled up her location. The little blue dot blinked back at me from the map, steady and unmoving. She was at her hotel. Safe.
I knew I was bordering on stalking. It was possessive. Controlling. Wrong. My behavior caused a sour taste in the back of my throat. When I’d programmed my number into her phone, I’d turned on location sharing. I’d told myself it was practical, a precaution after she’d disappeared on me once, but now that little blue dot felt like something else entirely.
I sank onto the edge of the bed, phone still in hand, staring at the map as my thoughts spiraled. I hated myself in that moment—hated how broken I still was after all these years. Hated that even in this sleek penthouse, a symbol of the empire I’d built, I couldn’t escape the shadows of my past.
The dream, like it always did, had ripped me open and left me raw. My chest ached, the need to reach out to Serena still gnawing at me, but she couldn’t know about this—about where I came from. That part of me was dead and buried.
Leaning back against the pillows, I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing. The blue dot burned into my mind, giving me just enough comfort to surrender to the darkness of sleep once again.