Chapter 25
I might have agreed to James’s offer—which really wasn’t an offer, more like an ultimatum—but that doesn’t mean I get free run of the house. “You were still a bad girl,” he reminded me after we finished our little meeting this morning. “Bad girls have to be punished.”
That means no phone and no internet. Somehow, he shut that down, too. Whether it’s just my machine that’s affected or the entire house, I don’t know. I find it hard to believe the guys would be okay with having their internet taken away, though.
But if it meant making me feel even more like a prisoner? Maybe they’d put up with it.
Do they have any say once their father decides what he wants?
I don’t honestly think so. But that’s something I can’t figure out.
I’m not even sure I want to. The whole thing is so twisted I’m afraid I’ll start to lose it a little if I give it much more thought.
Because James doesn't want to just use my body; he wants something more twisted and sinister than that. He wants to humiliate me, take me apart into small pieces, until I’m nothing but a puppet in his hand.
James is the puppetmaster, and his sons are his strings.
They’ve shown me a level of depravity I didn’t know existed until now. I can’t help but turn it over in my mind, trying to make sense of it. I think James wants to own my soul, break my mind at the very least.
Now the question is, am I able to cut the strings?
They don’t exactly seem like excited, enthusiastic participants, but they don’t refuse him, either.
Are they into this, or is he forcing them the way he forces me?
Has he put them through a lifetime full of this sort of depraved sickness, or am I making the mistake of trying to humanize them?
Even now, I’m so desperate to think I might have an ally around here I would stoop to thinking of my stepbrothers as unwilling participants.
They sure were willing enough when they were coming down my throat, weren’t they?
No, facts are facts. They’re just as guilty as he is. They probably share some genetic sickness, the three of them.
I have no way to reach out to my new clients and tell them I can’t tutor them anymore.
Somehow, that brings me more pain than almost anything else about this situation.
I was proud of myself. I had a plan laid out.
I was going to do this for myself, earn a little independence.
There was something I was good at, and people appreciated me for it.
Shouldn’t I have known it would be short-lived? Every good thing in my life seems to be. The clicking of the lock leaves me bracing myself. What’s it going to be this time?
It’s only Colt, holding a plate with a sandwich on it. “I figured you would be hungry. You never did have breakfast.”
“You care about that all of a sudden?”
“Yeah—and I don’t have to.” He leaves the plate on the desk, but I’ll be damned if I take a bite.
“You must really think I’m stupid,” I mutter, eyeing the food.
“What’s that mean?”
“I mean, what’s it going to do to me this time? Knock me out? Again?”
He seems to get the message, but that doesn’t change anything. “Whatever. Eat it or don’t.” He lifts his shoulder and turns away like he’s about to leave.
I can’t let him do it. I have to at least try. “You know, I had a tutoring session scheduled for fifteen minutes from now. I really hate to miss it. Please, I can’t lose everything here, you know?”
“Seems to me that isn’t my problem.”
“Please, Colt. It really means a lot to me.” My words fall on deaf ears since he leaves the room without a backward glance.
I’m barely able to stifle a whimper as tears fall onto my cheeks.
How can they be like this? What happens to a person to make them this way?
I never did a damn thing to deserve this—nobody deserves this. I don’t care who they are.
It’s not another few minutes before the door opens again. He’s back.
And he’s holding a laptop. “Here. My internet still works. Can you do your work from my computer?”
“Yes! Thank you.” It’s kind of gross, thanking him after everything he’s done to me, but I can’t afford pride right now.
“Of course, I’m not going to leave you alone. I’ll be here the whole time, so don’t get any ideas.” The sad part is I hadn’t even thought about that yet. I’m sure I would have eventually, but I’m too busy relieved that I can keep my promise.
“Okay, whatever. Just, you know, don’t interrupt.”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’ll do my best.” After setting down the laptop, he eyes the untouched sandwich. “Fuck it. If you’re not going to eat this, I will.” He takes a bite, then another before leaving it on the plate and settling on my bed.
Now I know it isn’t drugged, so I greedily eat the rest in only a few bites. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I saw it sitting there.
Before getting on the session, I go to the bathroom and wash my face, trying to make myself presentable. I’ve done a lot of crying in the past day alone. I hardly look my best, but at least nobody’s going to think the worst the second they set eyes on me.
With Colt stretched out on my bed, out of sight of the camera, I log in to my Zoom account and force myself to smile when the twelve-year-old who needs help with his history logs in.
“Hey, Zach,” I offer with a wave. “How’s it going?
How did you do on the quiz you had?” It’s easy to forget Colt’s presence after a few minutes now that I have something else to focus my attention on.
A half-hour passes much too quickly, so quickly, in fact, that we run overtime.
“I gotta go,” Zach suddenly announces. “I’ve got practice.
” I don’t know what kind of practice. I only know I want to tell the kid to skip it today, anything, so long as I don’t have to end this call.
“Mom said she’ll pay you as soon as the invoice comes in.
” Then he gives me a quick wave, and that’s it. I’m back to being isolated.
For the first time in more than thirty minutes, Colt speaks. “You did a good job.”
I barely keep from rolling my eyes when I turn in my chair to face him. “Aren’t things already bad enough? You don’t have to make fun of me.”
“I wasn’t trying to. You covered well. And you actually seemed like you gave a shit about what the kid was talking about.”
“I do give a shit. That’s half the reason why it was so important to show up for this session.”
“What’s the other half of the reason?”
I meet his gaze, unflinching. “It’s either that, or I sit here and go crazy.
” I mean, why mask the truth? There are no illusions between us anymore.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to spare his feelings by trying to sugarcoat things.
“How do you do this? How do you just walk around the house and go on with your life while holding me prisoner?”
Without missing a beat, he answers, “You get used to it.”
Dumbfounded, I stare at him with my jaw hanging open. What the fuck? “What does that even mean? I’m supposed to get used to this? Or are you used to having prisoners? Oh god, am I not the only one you have done this to?”
“You think too much into the shit I say.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“No, we’ve never held anyone else prisoner, and no, I’ve never forced my cock down someone else’s throat… unless they asked for it, of course.”
“You are unbelievable.” Every time I think there might be a tiny bit of a good person in there, he crushes that thought like an anvil would crush a daisy.
“Anyway, I’ll be taking this back now.” He gets up, snatching his laptop away from me and any hope of my reaching the outside world along with it. It isn’t easy to hold back my emotions, but I manage it.
Before he can leave the room, I murmur, “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that. It meant a lot.”
“Don’t thank me,” he mutters as he closes the door. “You don’t know what is planned for you tonight.”
At seven o’clock on the dot, the lock clicks. It’s showtime.
Nix opens the door. “Come on. Dinner is ready.” I stand up, shaking, almost wishing we didn’t have to go through the farce of sitting down and having a meal together. Like we’re some kind of normal family. I’ve never exactly been part of one, but I know this isn’t it.
Instead of leading the way, Nix walks beside me on the stairs. “Listen,” he murmurs. “There’s nothing in the food if you’re worried about that. But if I were you, I would have a glass of wine with dinner.”
“Why is that?”
“It’ll help relax you a little. It will take the edge off. And I know what you’re thinking,” he adds when I snort. “There is nothing in the wine, either. The bottle is unopened. You can watch me open it when we get to the dining room.”
I don’t give a shit about the wine right now.
There’s only one thing I care about. “Colt told me there are plans for tonight. Is your father going to join in this time, or will he just watch like before?” I need to know what I’m in for since the obsessing I’ve done since this afternoon hasn’t helped much.
“He won’t touch you himself.” That’s all he has time to say before we enter the dining room.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I ordered in.
” James is every inch the gracious host as I take a seat.
He reminds me so much of the way he was when I first arrived, practically falling over himself to make sure I have everything I want.
It isn’t like I didn’t already know that was merely a lie to mask his true personality, but seeing it now drives the point home.
Nothing about this was ever real. Meanwhile, my mother is having the time of her life at a spa, sipping drinks on a beach when she isn’t getting massages and facials and whatever else people do at places like that.
At least the food looks good, even if I don’t have much of an appetite.
Something tells me he won’t like it if I don’t eat, though, so I make a point of taking some roast chicken, potatoes and vegetables.
Nix uncorks a bottle of white wine and rounds the table to pour some in my glass.
Our eyes meet for a single moment, and he pauses like he’s waiting for me to pick up the glass.
I don’t. I won’t. He clicks his tongue, turning away before shaking his head like he can’t believe me.
Vice versa. I can’t believe him, either.
All through this, Colt hasn’t said a word, pushing food around on his plate. Not exactly a comfortable situation on the whole. Not that I expect it to be any better.
“So Leni. I’ve been wondering.” James gestures toward me with his fork. “Now that you aren’t in gymnastics anymore, has it left a hole in your life?”
“A hole?” It’s almost a normal question. I’m surprised.
“You know what I mean. You spent so much of your life laser-focused on one thing, and now it’s gone.”
“It was a lot to adjust to,” I admit in a soft voice, picking at the chicken while I speak. It’s good. What a shame I don’t feel like eating it.
“I imagine it was quite a blow, your injury.”
“Yes, it was. And it was a lot for Mom to handle, too.” I don’t know why I feel like I should bring her up. Maybe as a reminder of his wife, the woman he married, the woman whose daughter he’s now holding captive.
He doesn’t seem to notice, or else he doesn’t care. “Do you miss it? Gymnastics, I mean.”
All of a sudden, yes, I do. I miss it very much. With all my heart. Not because I miss competing but because I very much miss having some semblance of normalcy in my life. Even if training the way I did was anything but normal.
What I wouldn’t give to go back to being that person. Somebody who knew what she was doing, what was expected of her. Even though it was grueling, I wasn’t afraid the way I am now.
All eyes are on me, waiting for a response.
I don’t know why it matters so much. “To tell you the truth, I sort of fell out of love with it after a while. When I was younger, I used to really love it. Pushing myself, seeing what I could accomplish. But then it got so serious. There was so much pressure. I couldn’t enjoy it anymore. ”
I glance around the table, shrugging. “By the end, I think I was doing it for my mom. She had invested so much and was hoping so hard that I would succeed. I felt like I owed it to her. But it wasn’t because I loved it.
” And this is the first time I’ve ever admitted that to anybody.
It’s pretty sad that it has to be these three, my tormentors, my torturers.
“It is difficult when we feel we aren’t living up to our parents’ expectations,” James muses.
I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I don’t like the feeling of my life being dissected, especially not by these guys. “What about your mom?” I ask, looking across the table to Colt. “Did you ever feel like you couldn’t live up to her expectations?”
It was an innocent question. I didn’t mean anything by it.
I was only hoping to change the subject away from me.
They don’t really talk about their mom, so I was hoping…
I don’t know what I was hoping. To make conversation, I guess, rather than sitting here in silence.
Maybe if we could relate on something, they might be less likely to hurt me?
Either way, it backfired. James slams his wine glass onto the table hard enough to send liquid sloshing over the rim. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he barks.
“Don’t you ever speak of her,” Nix warns, his eyes slits.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”
“No, you didn’t know, but you had to go and run your stupid fucking mouth anyway,” James growls. “You’re not the one asking questions around here, understood? We are. Don’t ever, ever mention her again.”
“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand,” Colt snarls.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset anybody. Nobody told me—”
“Why the fuck should you have to be told?” James demands. His face is red, and now he’s breathing heavily. I remember him looking this way, sounding this way when he was choking the life out of me. My body goes icy cold, freezing solid.
And there’s a knife in the man’s hand. Oh god. Is this it? Is this when he snaps?
I don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed when he lowers the knife to his plate and clears his throat. “Obviously, things got off track here. Let’s go downstairs now and forget any of this ever happened.”
Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because all it does is make me tremble in fear as the three of them stand, staring down at me.