Chapter 12
Selena
The play Much Ado About Nothing was funny and tragic at the same time. As I lay on my new bed, reading through the play, it hit me how little the issues in the story had changed since Shakespeare’s time.
A knock on my door later in the afternoon broke my concentration.
“Who is it?” I called, just as my mother’s voice came through the door.
“Selena?”
I got up and unlocked the door. She opened it and looked at it in question.
“You hardly have to lock the door at home,” she chastised.
“Why not? This isn’t my home.”
She rolled her eyes. No one did dramatic like Marjory.
“Well, I hope you will change your mind about that as time goes on. You’re safe here, Selena.”
“You bring me to live with three strange men and tell me I’m safe here. You might understand why I don’t believe it.”
She shook her head. “Don’t see Brody and Callahan as strange men. They’re your brothers now. They’ll look out for you.”
I laughed; I couldn’t help it.
“Whatever. What do you need?” I knew my mother. She didn’t drop by for idle chats.
She flushed and smoothed her skirt. “John needs to go to New York for an important meeting, and he wants me to come with him.”
“Are you going to be in the meeting?” I asked, trying not to sound as freaked out as I was.
“Very funny, no. But I’ll have time to do some shopping for you, some elegant outfits, and just take a rest for myself, as the last few weeks with the honeymoon and everything have been very tiring.”
I shook my head. “Yes, being on vacation must have been exhausting. Sure, whatever, go, but please don’t buy me any more clothes that I hate.”
Marjory sighed loudly. “Well, will you be okay here?”
“If I said no, would you not go?” I challenged her.
She just stared at me, twisting the huge rock on her finger.
“Then don’t ask,” I muttered and lay back down on my bed, staring at the ceiling.
After a while she left. Faraway noises came from down below, so I got up to peer out the window. It was my mother, flanked by Arthur, who wheeled a suitcase to a waiting car. So, she had come and told me just before leaving? Classy move.
The car pulled out and down the long, twisting drive toward the road. The house felt quiet as a tomb.
I was completely alone.
Goosebumps popped up along my arms. I assumed that Cal and Brody were at the ice rink.
The Hellions’ training had started again.
They’d probably be there a lot. If my mom and John traveled quite a bit, that would mean I would be alone in this huge mansion often.
I didn’t know how to feel about that. Despite his billionaire status, my new stepfather didn’t seem to trust any staff, apart from his own assistant, to be around his family too much.
The chef and housekeeper kept regular hours and left every afternoon.
Just now, just the thought that someone could come when I was the only one home was stressing me out. We were isolated here, far from the road. At Winter’s apartment, if I screamed loud enough, someone would hear. Here, no one would hear. No one at all.
My fingers shook. Crap. These crippling panic attacks were happening more and more frequently.
I couldn’t seem to hold it together anymore.
I’d thought that California and the way I’d felt there had been the peak of my anxiety, but now, being back in Hade Harbor, the place where it had all started, I felt worse than ever.
It wasn’t enough to get drunk a few nights a week to take the edge off.
It wasn’t enough to be alone, inside a locked house.
Despite those measures, I felt out of control. A stranger in my own body.
I was dangerously close to a spiral I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull up from.
I wandered around my room. I wanted to go and see my sister, but I couldn’t drive there, I had no car, and taking a cab alone was out of the question.
In the bathroom, the siren call of the damn cherry-flavored cough syrup beckoned me.
I found myself standing in front of the bathroom mirror, my mouth watering.
This was bad. I knew it objectively, and yet that didn’t lessen the desire one bit. I could just take a few glugs and then lie down and sleep for hours. The day would pass quicker.
I reached for the cabinet door before I could help myself. I pulled it open and then stopped.
Half the contents of the bathroom cabinet were gone. The cough syrup was missing, as well as other flu drugs. The bottle of hairspray my mom had stocked, just in case I magically took an interest in my hair, was gone. Even the mouthwash.
I shut the door, my mind going into overdrive.
Who would have removed that stuff? I left my room and went down to the kitchen.
Searching in the cupboards, I came up empty.
I went to the laundry room and grabbed the first aid kit I’d seen on the counter.
Opening it, I found that the painkillers weren’t there.
The only things left in there were antiseptic creams and Band-Aids.
Next, I hit up John’s fancy study. It was the kind of place that should have a well-stocked bar.
Nothing. Nada.
Next, I went into the kitchen pantry and raided the medicine drawer. It had been similarly censored of anything useful. No flu medications or painkillers.
What the hell?
Just then, my phone vibrated in my pocket. An unknown number.
Don’t bother looking for anything to pop. Those days are behind you, heathen. Be good until I get home.
I nearly dropped my phone in shock. How was he texting me this, when he wasn’t here to see me searching?
I stared up at the corner of the room, and there they were.
Plain as day. Small, discreet security cameras.
I glared at one, picturing Brody on the other end, smirking.
CCTV cameras inside the house? Rich people were so fucking weird.
With a stifled scream of frustration, I whirled around and headed back to my room. Had he been touching things in there, too? I immediately checked the ceiling for a camera. Thankfully, there wasn’t one. Maybe it was just the common areas?
I opened a few drawers, not sure what I wanted to find.
I paused, taking an inventory of the things I thought I had put in there, then went through everything else.
Stuff was missing. I opened the wardrobe and nearly fainted.
Only my mother’s “elegant clothes” she’d just bought me hung there.
No ripped jeans, no T-shirts, no underlayers.
No leather jackets. Nothing that was me.
None of my current uniform. Not one thing that told men to stay back remained.
I moved to my bedside table, anxiety growing as I pulled it open.
My prescription bottles were gone. I had a whole collection.
Pills for depression, for anxiety, pills to make me calm, pills to make me sleep.
All gone. I’d also had a stash of blunts that I used to take the edge off the world and try to sleep.
Just a bit every night. Gone. Next was the collection of pills I’d amassed at parties over the last year.
I’d promised myself never to pop anything when I was already drinking, though I’d broken that promise the other night.
Usually, I just held on to the things people gave me.
I wanted to know I could escape whenever I needed to. Gone.
I reached for the small silk bag I kept at the back. It had been removed.
He’d even taken my vibrator. I sank down on the floor beside my bed.
Horror and shame collided with fury. Despite my past, my body still got turned on and needed release.
It couldn’t be stopped, or helped. I’d had enough therapy sessions to try and not blame my body for that biological reality, but honestly, it still coated me in shame.
In the end, the only way to deal with it was to take care of it alone.
It was just biology, after all. I took care of my body’s needs, and I never needed to go near a man to do it.
Now, Brody had my humble little toy, the only one I’d been able to afford in California. It felt violating somehow. It made me vulnerable. It made me feel hot and frustrated all over.
I got to my feet slowly. If this asshole thought he could bully me, he’d find that he had a fight on his hands. With that in mind, I strode through the bathroom and tried the door on his side. It opened easily.
Either he was too trusting, or he really didn’t think he had any dirt I could sling back at him. His confidence pissed me off.
His room was similar to mine, but there were books and photo frames dotted around the space.
A huge wall of bookshelves dominated one side, and a large desk.
Everything was organized with military-like precision on that surface.
Not a single scrap of paper to be found, just a small holder with four mechanical pencils in it.
A closed laptop, which was password protected, of course.
I went to his closet and ripped all his clothes off the hangers, then tossed them around the room.
I dragged his mattress off his bed and threw the pillows around.
He had nothing in the side table beside his bed.
Which only meant that he’d planned for my coming in here, clearly.
Nobody had nothing personal in their rooms at all. It wasn’t possible.
Then, there were the pictures on the wall. A large, framed newspaper from when Sinclair Industries went public.
There were a couple of hockey shots, him and his brother celebrating a big win on the ice.
Then there was a photo that gave me pause.
Brody and Cal and a woman standing in the middle.
No, not a woman. She was older than them, but not that old.
She wasn’t quite smiling at the camera. She looked sad, somehow, despite the curve of her lips.
Brody clung on to her by the waist, holding her close, even though he was very young. Who was she? There was so much I didn’t know about my new family. I went to put the photo back on the wall, having taken it down to examine it.
It fell gracelessly to the floor. A small crack splintered across the glass. I tried again to put it up and this time succeeded. I stared at the fracture, then stepped back to leave it.
I glanced around his room again. There was nothing there to steal in retaliation, and my fury had abruptly run out. My stuff wasn’t here.
The good news was that the desperate urge to find that cough syrup, or some kind of spirits, or a pill to pop, had passed slightly. For now, anyway.
I was taking that as a win.