Chapter 28
Chapter twenty-eight
Ingrid
The glow of my laptop screen was the only thing making my small corner of the world feel safe.
I leaned into the camera, a wide, genuine smile tugging at my lips as Tristian’s face filled the frame.
He was propped up at his station at the tattoo parlor, looking rugged and exhausted in a way that made my stomach flip.
Whatever job my father imagined for me, it wasn’t this. Regular video chats or attending underground fights wasn’t part of the description. And kneeling for Tristian on his apartment floor with his hand in my hair definitely wasn’t.
It was the day after the fight. Last night, Tristian dropped me home.
My father had been in, had been in the kitchen in fact when I came through the front door.
Our eyes had locked, and I was sure my face had twisted with terror.
But then my abuelita stepped through from the lounge, greeted me with a smile while shooting a pointed look at Papa, and she had bidden me upstairs.
I hadn’t crossed paths with him yet. I dreaded the moment I would. For now, though, I was home alone; and so I had called Tristian to show him the contents of the package that had arrived this morning.
“Dollbaby... when you told me you had something important to show me, I wasn’t expecting that important thing to be half a store’s worth of art supplies,” he murmured.
I grinned, tugging at the oversized sleeves of the sweater he’d sent me home in.
“But just look at this stuff!” I said excitedly.
“Premium charcoal… these vellum-bound sketchpads are beautiful! And these watercolors—I know I haven’t even tried them yet, but they look so pretty—look at the little blocks!
And—hold on a second, it’s around here somewhere—look at this!
These watercolors have sparkles in them!
Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? ”
Tristian smirked. “I see something more beautiful than that most days, doll. She’s on my screen right now.”
My cheeks went red. “Th-thanks.”
I wished I was with him. But Tristian had a shift, and technically I had studies to be carrying on with: the harp for an hour, then two hours of literature…
“Come on then,” he rumbled. “Let me see what else you bought.” He leaned in closer to the camera.
The movement pulled his shirt tight, the fabric straining against the heavy muscle of his shoulders and chest. Heat burned under my skin, and lower down, too, a deep yearning that was only growing by the day—and which seemed to ramp up ever higher every time Tristian helped me experience another of my firsts.
I hadn’t been able to peel my mind away from what had happened last night. It all felt so unlike me—yet it was so exciting, so electrifying too. I wanted more, the hot weight of him in my hand, my mouth—and the warmth of him as he came over my stomach.
Fighting to distract myself from the thoughts that’d taken deep root in my brain, I forced myself to focus on my art haul, drawing out items from the package to show Tristian over the camera.
At some point, though—after maybe the sixth or seventh, “Mmm,” from him, I looked up properly. Tristian’s eyes were hard, yet alight with something familiar, the same fire I’d seen last night when I asked him to experience another first: need.
“Tristian, you, ah… you don’t seem to be paying much attention to my art haul.”
Tristian blinked. He responded in a growl, “Of course I’m not. All my attention is on you, doll.” He added in a low undertone, “You look so fucking pretty.”
The words hit me as my face burned brighter.
I cleared my throat, my pulse thundering in my ears.
I started frantically rifling through my piles of art supplies, suddenly blind to what they even were, all the allure and excitement gone as heat rose deep in my stomach, and images of last night flashed through my mind—
Tristian loosed a deep chuckle. “Am I making you blush, baby?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, my face feeling like it was on fire. I couldn’t stop it.
And then—a knock.
“Ingrid.”
My father’s voice cut through the warmth. My blood turned cold in my veins. Without a second thought, I slammed my finger onto the end-call button, plunging the room into a terrifying silence. I cleared my throat, trying to find a voice that didn’t sound like it belonged to a ghost.
“Y-yes, Papa...”
The door creaked open. He stepped inside, and my heart plummeted as I heard the distinct click of the lock turning behind him.
I flinched, a small, involuntary jerk of my shoulders.
My palms went slick with sweat as he crossed the room toward my desk.
He looked different—his hair was a mess, his shirt sleeves were rolled up as if he’d been working, or fighting. He looked unraveled.
“Did a little shopping recently, hmm?” He loomed over the desk, his presence suffocating. He picked up one of the sketchpads, turned it over with a clinical, cold detachment before setting it back down.
I felt like a cornered animal.
My heart pounded against my ribs. “I-I d-didn’t get too much. Just a-a few things that went o-on sale...” I whispered. It was a half-truth, but truth didn’t matter in this house. Only obedience.
He stared at me. “Art supplies, huh?… Tell me, Ingrid… when exactly did I give you permission to study art?”
My mouth opened, but my throat constricted tight. I couldn’t speak, could only stare, my heart jackhammering, and my brain screaming in a frantic trill: Run.
Of course, I couldn’t though. I’d thought it many times, imagined scenarios to escape my Papa.
Even supposing I could get past him and unlock the door before his hand shot out and snagged my elbow, he would quickly close the gap between us.
One push from him and I’d find myself in a broken heap at the bottom of the stairs.
Or maybe he’d snag me by the hair, pull me back inside and punish me for my insolence in here, in this place that was supposed to be my sanctuary.
Only rarely in these awful imaginings did I get to the bottom of the stairs and the safety of my abuelita’s embrace…
yet even that was hollow. Her safety was only temporary.
I knew it, because last night she had shielded me from him, and now here he was.
My father’s face was hard. “You were out late last night… again,” he said flatly. He reached out, his hand tangling in a stray lock of my hair, twirling it with a terrifying gentleness. I gulped, the sound loud in the quiet room. “Who were you with?”
My memory caught on Tristian, the act in his apartment, with a sudden bolt of shame, a prudish guilt that my father had instilled in me despite parading me around at his business parties like a piece of meat as he made his deals.
Then it turned backward, to the boxing match: the metallic smell of blood, the roar of the crowd, the way Tristian had dismantled a man.
“T-the girls,” I stammered, “I was out with May and Amber...”
Papa nodded slowly, but his eyes stayed sharp. “Who else were you with?”
“No one,” I lied.
His eyes flashed. “Insolent girl.” Suddenly his hand turned into a fist around my hair, pulling my head back until I was forced to look up at him. The pain was sharp, sparking behind my eyes. “You were with the Locke boy, weren’t you?”
“I—I—”
Papa squeezed tighter. I screamed. My scalp felt like it would rip right from the top of my skull.
Levering me in close, Papa drew me forward until our faces were just inches apart. The smell of whiskey came from him, thick and pungent.
“You seem to have forgotten your place, Ingrid,” he snarled, “so let me remind you of it. You are playing handler to Noah’s son, and nothing more. You manage him. You keep him calm. You control him in business hours, around your studies, and then you report back home to me. Understand?”
His words hammered through me.
Handle. Manage. Report.
As if I were an object.
As if Tristian were a task.
The pain was unbearable. I tried to speak, tried to choke out something, but every last fiber of my being was desperate to be let out of my father’s hold.
“Your sister is wrong,” Papa grunted through gritted teeth.
“Never, ever, have I whored out my daughters. I raised you to be useful. An asset. Something I could place in a room and have work in my favor, like the agreement with Mr. Locke… but I am not raising prostitutes. I am not a pimp, Ingrid: I am a businessman. And you are the businessman’s daughter.
You are expected to show up, follow orders, behave—and that means that you are home when I tell you to be. ”
His grip grew tighter still. My breath hitched.
My head felt like it was on fire now—and that fire turned into an inferno as Papa not only squeezed but lifted, dragging me up onto my tiptoes, higher and higher as I fought to keep him from ripping the hair right from my head.
I screamed in agony, wishing my mother would finally unlock whatever maternal part of her must have once existed inside of her to want children in the first place and come save me, or that Abuelita would barrel in, or even Camila, somehow she would return from wherever it was she’d gone to and save me—
But no one came. And so all I could do was scream and cry and claw at my father’s arm desperately as he hurt me for my indiscretion.
Gaze hateful and glinting, Papa leaned down until our noses were almost touching.
“From now on,” he began, voice low and lethal, “you will see the minimum of this Locke boy as you need to for my business deal. There will be no more late-night visits to whatever hole it is he lives in.” He yanked me up harder.
“And if I ever hear his Mercedes out on my drive before you walk through that door, I will break both your legs so you can’t walk out of this house again and cut the deal myself.
Because you are mine, Ingrid Rodriguez. Mine. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, yes, I understand!!” I sobbed desperately. “Please, Papa, please let me go!”
He glared into my face for one long, awful moment.
Then he flung me down.
My head hit the floor, hard, skull cracking against wood as stars exploded in my gaze.
When I blinked open my eyes again, a crimson streak marred half of my vision.
Tentatively, I touched my forehead, expecting that a thick clot of hair and peeled scalp would be hanging across it.
Fortunately, it did not; however a long gash was cut across my eyebrow. Blood poured from it.
Papa didn’t move at first.
He simply stood over me, the overhead light catching on the sharp planes of his face, that handsome, deceptive facade he wore like a tailored suit cracking as the monster showed its face. His forearms now corded with veins, evidence of his strength, proof that he was holding back despite the pain.
There was nothing paternal in his gaze. Nothing that resembled the charming businessman everyone loved. Only possession. Deadly, quiet possession.
He flexed his hand once, the tendons shifting beneath skin, and the movement alone made my stomach drop.
He crouched down, slow, deliberate, veined hands braced on his knees as he lowered himself to my level.
He tilted his head slightly, studying me the way a predator studies its dying prey.
Then, for a moment… a horrifying, surreal moment…
he looked almost gentle. Beautiful, even.
Like the kind of father little girls dream of.
But it faltered when he stood back up. His expression was back to hate and ice, everything a father should never be.
His phone began ringing. He retrieved it from his pocket, looked at the screen.
Without even looking at me, he muttered, “Clean yourself up. Then the carpet.” He turned the lock, opened the door, and answered the call.
The last I heard from him as his footsteps thumped down the hall was “Samuel speaking.”
I curled up on the floor, racked by heaving sobs. One hand clutched my forehead and the stream of blood running from it. The other clutched at the back of my neck, clawing in a blind panic.
At some point, when the flow of blood began to diminish, my phone buzzed weakly on my desk.
When I crawled up, I saw it wasn’t the first time: Tristian had been video-calling again and again since I cut him off.
In the chaos with my father and my agonized terror after, the vibration hadn’t reached me.
Wiping the tears from my cheeks and smearing as much blood from my face as I could, I answered the call.
Fighting to steady my voice, and keeping the phone angled away as best I could, so Tristian could only catch a glimpse of the unmarked edge of my face, I murmured softly, “S-sorry, I think my data dropped out.”
Silence greeted me. Tristian’s face was dark.
“Tristian?” I breathed.
Something hard and dangerous sat behind his eyes, calculation in the lines of his jaw.
He seemed to be considering something.
Finally, he said abruptly, “Let’s spend the rest of the afternoon together. Just me and you.” His voice was different. It wasn’t soft or the teasing, dark tone from before. It was sharp and decisive.
My breath caught in my throat as Papa’s threats echoed.
“Um... can we reschedule?” I whispered. “S-Something came up...”
Tristian was like a wall. “Why did you hang up before?”
“I—my data—”
“Your data didn’t drop,” he said calmly, though I could see the anger in his eyes. “I saw you reach for the phone to hang up.”
My lip trembled. “Just a quick family emergency, that’s all...”
The silence that stretched was long and suffocating.
Against my better judgment, I asked, “Can I see you tomorrow?”
I still had to see him. I was still “assigned” to handle him. I still had to maintain the pretense of the business arrangement. But mostly… I just wanted him. Needed him like air.
But I knew I probably shouldn’t, especially not in this state. I was going to have to do some serious work with my makeup to hide what Papa had done to me just now. But despite his rage, I hadn’t been told not to cut Tristian out completely, just to limit our time together…
But Tristian’s face was suddenly a mask. “I’m going to be busy all day,” he said, flat.
The rejection stung worse than the bruises, hit harder than the fall, sharper than the pain in my scalp. Tears welled up again. “I-I can come with you, right?”
A heavy sigh crackled through the speaker. “I don’t know. I’ll call you and let you know, Ingrid.”
“Tristian...”
“I have to go.”
Then the image of him vanished.
I sat there, the phone still clutched in my grip, staring at the home screen until it dimmed and then turned black, leaving me all alone.