CHAPTER FOUR
Zach
Hot.
It was so hot. The fire was crawling across my neck and face, spreading too fast, and there was no stopping it. It was going to devour me. It was going to devour my soul. It burned and burned.
Time slowed down to painful seconds, and pain became eternity. The bright flames were all I could see, my screams filling my ears again and again and again and again.
I was going to die. I couldn’t escape the fire.
I tapped at it with my hands, and tapped, and tapped, and tapped .
. . but then the fire was gone, and I was on the floor, my throat raw from screaming and my soul breaking apart.
Because the pain never stopped. It carved deep into me, suffocating me until I didn’t know who I was anymore, until my vision went dark. Until everything went dark.
I snapped my eyes open. Fuck.
It’s just a memory. I’m not actually there. I’m not.
But my heart raced as though I was there, and I was sure if I closed my eyes again, I’d hear my screams once more.
This was a fucking nightmare.
I focused on the white wall across from where I sat in my desk chair, making sure I took deep breaths.
I should’ve known that seeing Blair after all this time would be a whole new brand of fucked up. I’d learned to cope with my trauma, but facing the person responsible for it was a sure way to bring it all back.
I rubbed my hands down my face, deliberately avoiding touching my scar.
I could handle this. I wouldn’t let being near her compromise everything.
I wasn’t the same person I was three years ago.
I’d toughened up and didn’t feel like I was less worthy than her.
I wasn’t that same pathetic fool who sometimes stared stupidly at her despite all her bullying because she was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen.
And she still was—even more so now—but it didn’t matter. She didn’t own me anymore.
Now I would own her.
My revenge had been a long time in the making.
I’d gone back from hell and made something out of myself, spending the last three years working out, improving my looks, and reaching the position in life that would allow me to get closer to her, just so I could come here today and show her she hadn’t won that day. And it would all be worth it.
I went over to the window and looked at the spot where I’d thrown the mulch on her earlier.
The bitch had the nerve to act like she was sorry, but all she’d achieved was looking phony and pathetic.
She didn’t feel sorry for what she’d done to me.
She felt sorry that I was here to make her pay for everything, but she could beg all she wanted. It only made all this more satisfying.
A chuckle escaped me as I thought about how she looked covered in all that mulch.
A far cry from a pampered princess with shiny hair, perfect clothes, nails, and skin.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and brought up the picture I’d taken.
More chuckles erupted from me as I studied her teary eyes, barely visible from all the mulch framing them.
Priceless. Just the right measure of humiliated and degraded.
She would have yet to see that she had all the reasons to be afraid of me, and she would be.
My eyes went to her round and firm ass in those tiny shorts, and heat rushed to my cock.
I wanted my hands on that ass and every inch of her once unattainable body.
I wanted to bury myself deep into her and make her watch it happen so she would remember that she was fucking the same “loser” she’d despised so much.
So that she would see she wasn’t worth anything.
And it was going to happen. She would be mine one way or another.
And once I was done with her, maybe, just maybe, I’d finally find the peace I was looking for.
I stepped over to a small desk placed across the bed and connected my phone to a charger.
My room was furnished simply—the only other furniture besides the desk and the medium-sized bed were a dresser, a TV mounted on the wall next to the closet, and a wall shelf—but it was obvious it all cost a fortune.
Everything here cost a fortune. Just the sheer size of this house and the estate made it clear these people lived in a different reality.
They would never know what it was like to worry about tomorrow, or have no choices or any hope for their future.
The whole world was accessible to them and at their feet. I loathed people like them.
The room had its own bathroom (it figured), and I’d checked where the mirror was right away yesterday, so I could avoid looking at it.
I couldn’t stand looking at my reflection for longer than I needed to.
Even all the surgeries and endless conversations with therapists who claimed I could learn to accept the new me couldn’t fix that.
I still couldn’t tell if it was because of the scarring itself or because she did it to me.
Voices reached me from the outside, and I saw Blair with her sister sitting at the patio table and talking.
On the surface, those two couldn’t have been more different.
While Blair was the extrovert one, her sister seemed like she was too shy to even sneeze in front of others.
She’d barely looked me in the eyes when we stumbled on each other earlier, her hands constantly playing with her braids.
But appearances could deceive. She was Blair’s sister after all.
They couldn’t be that much different from each other.
Now that Blair was busy, this could be a perfect opportunity for me to check out her room, so I headed there.
Blair’s father had taken me on a tour of the grounds after the interview yesterday, but that didn’t include the mansion.
He’d clarified that other than the staff’s quarters, kitchen, and staff’s dining room, I wasn’t allowed to roam throughout the rest of the house without permission.
Still, since he and his wife hadn’t been at home last night, it was a perfect opportunity for me to get acquainted with the house, so I’d explored it on my own. Now it was time for Blair’s room.
The two-story house spanned over two wings, with plenty of large windows that offered a view of the greenery extending over acres and acres of land.
The air carried a clean, expensive smell you found only in rich people’s homes.
Although high-priced artwork and exotic plants decorated almost every wall and corner of this place, everything felt lifeless.
Emotionless. People lived here, but you wouldn’t be able to tell that by the chilly atmosphere, which was emphasized by the high ceilings, unused space, and endless silence.
No TV sounds, dishes clanking together, or devices humming to break it.
This house was a perfect home for a person like Blair—empty, shiny, and of no value. Not the value that actually mattered, anyway.
I took two stairs at a time up a large staircase in the foyer and headed along a long hallway with a padded carpet.
The second floor was mostly guest rooms and the primary bedroom.
A door covered with stickers of butterflies was across from the primary bedroom, and I guessed that was Blair’s younger sister’s room.
A quick peek through the ajar door confirmed that.
A large photo of her hung on the wall facing the door, its frame pink.
Actually, everything was pink here—walls, carpet, furniture, air purifier, and even the freaking TV, which currently had some movie on, playing on mute.
I continued down the hallway until I reached another door that was also left open. I peered in. Blair’s scent hit me, and I drew a long inhale of it before I could stop myself, my eyes fluttering closed. Her smell was sweet and sensual, hitting my senses hard. Fuck. This was her room all right.
I went inside and smiled as I closed the door behind me.
I was finally in her room. The old me couldn’t have even imagined this, and being here without Blair knowing about it made it feel even more satisfying.
My body thrummed with power as I started exploring, my senses heightened by the adrenaline.
Unlike her sister’s room, Blair’s room was all dark colors.
Gray walls, dark wood furniture, and a navy carpet that matched the curtains, which were drawn but cracked enough to let in a narrow band of light.
It looked like the space was expanding only to quickly shrink on you, erasing any sense of largeness.
It made me wonder if that was deliberate, but then again, why would it be?
My gaze stopped on her king-sized bed with gray silk sheets and lingered there before I looked at the camera attached to a tripod by a softbox in the far corner of the room.
A stool sat in front of the camera. I raised my brows.
I moved over there, recognizing the Sony Alpha model, which cost about five grand.
I turned it on to see what she might have stored here, but the screen remained dark, and the battery light flashed instead.
I switched it off. My gaze went to the floating cube shelves on the wall beside the setup.
They all held books, and I read some of the titles: Video Shooting Guide, On Video Making, Video Lighting Setup.
What was she doing with these books and the setup?
If this had to do with her TikTok and Instagram videos, they were a joke.
Her content was highly curated, but it held no substance.
She was either promoting beauty and fashion products or posting about going to clubs and fancy dinners.
Her posts told the story of a girl with too much free time on her hands and nothing useful to fill it with.
She could have used it to help this world become a better place, but instead, she helped drown it in consumerism and shallowness.
Either way, she hadn’t made any of the videos in this room. So what did she do here?