38. Mara
38
MARA
S econds after I scribble my name across a document terminating my contract with Orlov & Associates, I’m handed a printout of the ridiculous amount of money Ark paid to get rid of me.
It burns a hole in my purse when I shove it inside, too embarrassed to look at it.
I sold my soul to the devil only hours after encouraging Ark to do the opposite.
I’ve never felt more ashamed.
As Fyodor stores my severance paperwork into a leather briefcase, Rafael helps me to my feet. “I’ll show you out.”
“It’s fine. I know the w-way.”
“Mara,” he pleads when I pull away from him, the thought of being touched after being so perversely violated too sickening to ignore.
When I enter the servants’ corridor, I veer left instead of the usual right. With Mrs. Whitten and Ark’s mother deep in conversation at my right, there’s no way I can confront either of them in my current headspace. I’m so mad that I’d be tempted to physically assault her as she did me.
The further I walk, the angrier I become. This goes against everything I believe in. The railroading, the bullying. I swore when Tillie was born that I would never place myself in a predicament like that again, yet here I am, nursing a stinging cheek and a broken heart from people I didn’t allow in.
I’m so mad at my cowardice it takes me longer than I care to admit to realize which door I’ve stopped next to.
I’m outside Ark’s third-floor office.
Although I shouldn’t, I knock instead of walking away.
I signed the severance papers as requested. That should reward me some morsel of respect.
“Not now!” growls a voice from inside—a voice full of pain and torment.
“Ark, it’s me.” I hate how weak my voice sounds when I say, “It’s M-Mara,” but your confidence can’t be smashed to smithereens and not have it affect your vocal cords.
There’s a cuss closely followed by a thump.
“Are you okay?”
Now I understand why Ark loathes silence.
It hurts the same as fists when issued by certain people.
I press my hand to the door to steady my legs as well as I endeavor to steady my words. “I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”
My teeth grit when he snaps at me in the same tone he used the night we met. “Go home, Mara.”
His words are so slurred that I’m more fretful than upset.
The last time I confronted a drunk man, I found out my father isn’t the God-fearing man he makes out he is to the parishioners of his church.
He is the devil in sheep’s clothing.
After another quick breath to ensure fear doesn’t jangle my vocal cords, I say, “I want to make sure you’re okay. Riley called me. She’s worried about you.”
I hear another cuss before a crash and a scrape like the thick wooden legs of his bed being bumped firm enough to move them.
“Ark?” I shout when another bang sounds through the door. This one is louder than the fist he threw into the tiles in my bathroom. It’s defeated and possibly life-altering. “Please let me in.”
Silence.
More painful silence.
That is the only reply I get.
No longer caring about the consequences of my actions or his right of privacy, I dig through my purse for the master keys for his apartment.
I fumble for the key to Ark’s bedroom when another bang sounds before it is closely followed by a tyrant of hateful words. “Stupid fucking lies. Stupid fucking people. Stupid fucking him !”
Something smashing against a wall booms out of his bedroom during his last sentence.
In a flurry, I find the right key, push it into the lock, and then throw open the servants’ entrance door.
The strong scent of alcohol hits me first.
It is closely followed by an overpowering floral perfume. It smells too dated to belong to anyone under the age of sixty, and it seems to be coming from the air vents.
I sense Ark’s presence half a second before he scares the living daylights out of me. “I told you to go home.”
His hot breaths fan my cheek and add to the whiskey scent making me nauseous.
That was his favorite liquor to drown his sins with.
“I don’t want you here.”
He chugs down a three-finger serving of brown liquid from a glass he’s barely grasping before he stumbles to the bar. His clothes are as disheveled as his face, hanging limply like they weren’t perfectly tailored for his body, and his shoulders are hanging as low as his head.
I picture a teen struggling to speak up when he whispers, “I don’t want your last memory of me to be this. I don’t want you to know the monster I can be.”
Horrid memories of similar words scream at me to leave, but when he fills his whiskey glass to the rim, my heart refuses to listen to a single plea.
He is hurting badly, and I care about him too much to pretend he isn’t.
“I think you’ve had enough,” I say, pulling the whiskey bottle out of his grasp and putting it back on the bar.
He laughs in my face. “I think you’re wrong.” He downs half the glass in one gulp before turning to face me, spilling numerous droplets on the way. “I’m not surprised. You don’t know a damn thing about me or the horrors I am capable of.”
“I know you’re hurting so you’re lashing out.” He tsks me, so I talk faster. “Riley will understand, Ark. She?—”
“Hates me. The only part of my sister I have left fucking hates me.”
I shake my head, but he doesn’t see it.
“And I deserve it. I hid her away because all I saw when I looked at her was him . I made her self-respect nonexistent.” Shame and hurt fill his eyes. “I was the only male role model she had, and I fucked it up because I was more concerned about hiding my secrets than wondering what hers were.”
His anger firms so fast that he cracks his glass.
“Don’t,” he shouts when I instinctively respond to the droplet of blood rolling down his palm. “You can’t fix this.” My heart breaks when he murmurs, “You can’t fix me. It was stupid of me to ever believe you could.”
“I don’t want to fix you. I want you to let me in, to be honest with me. I want you to trust me and the process you need to face to move past this.”
“I tried!” he yells so loud that any residents sleeping no longer are. “I fucking tried and look where it got me. You’re scared of me.”
“No, I’m n-not.”
His voice is calm although he is anything but. “Then why did you stutter? Just now, why did you stutter?”
“Because… Because…” My heart knows the words I want to yell— because you’re not meant to fall in love on sight —but my mouth refuses to speak them.
Instead, I try to put the focus back on the cause of his mini meltdown. “I shouldn’t have pushed so hard. I’m sorry if it was too much too fast, but you need to remember that it’s okay to fall. As long as you get back up, falling is an option.”
“What if it isn’t? What if there is no possibility you can get back up?”
“You can get back up, Ark. You just have to fight.”
I fall into his trap, and I have no clue how to get out of it when he commences kicking in the dirt he dug out to ensure I fall. “What if I don’t want to fight anymore? What happens then? What if you’ve realized what you thought was worth fighting for isn’t actually worth anything?”
I pushed because I thought unshackling him from his demons would help him.
Instead, I pushed him away.
“I promised to tell you when it became too much.” My heart breaks when he looks straight into my eyes and says, “It’s too much.” There’s no one he hates more than himself right now, but he hides it well with another guzzle of whiskey. “I can’t do this, Mara. I can’t put you through this .” He bangs his chest during his last word.
My heart is frozen from the desolate look he hits me with, but it does little to weaken the pleas I toss his way when he flicks his bloodshot eyes to the side of the room and says, “Take her home, Raf.”
Rafael emerges from his hiding spot, his angst as palpable as mine. “I’m not sure you should be alone right now, Ark.”
“Take. Her. Home!” Ark repeats, his words as violent as the hate that roars from him when he says, “Or I’ll void the agreement we made today without a single iota of remorse.”
His confidence of his threat is undeniable when he enters the bathroom without so much as a backward glance, and he slams the door behind him.
“I wouldn’t,” Rafael cautions when I attempt to follow him.
“We can’t leave him like this. He’s…” Upset. Hurt. Breaking my goddamn heart.
Rafael sighs like he heard my private thoughts before he curls his arm around my shoulders and guides me through the servants’ entrance. “He’ll be all right. He just needs a couple of minutes to calm down.”