Chapter 13
EMMA
When my dad was on the wagon, he would get all this self-help stuff. I thought it was a bunch of bullshit—he always went back to drugs. But because I wanted to support him in his venture for sobriety, I would go with him to seminars and read the same books he did.
Most of it was useless things that at first sounded empowering, but really wasn’t. Like say yes to yourself, and only you can find the light in the dawn. Yet, for some reason these words motivated people.
When I got dressed the next morning, I found myself thinking a lot about those seminars. Not because the advice was helpful in any way. It was the one commonality of all the self-help stuff that I kept thinking about.
Each and every motivational speaker had a moment of revelation that led them on their new life path. I was having a moment like that right now.
Don’t get me wrong, most of the stories I’d heard were probably bullshit lies that played into their self-help con—I had no plans to start a movement for the empowerment of women—but I felt more awake now than I’d ever been.
There were two things the attack made me realize. I had absolutely no idea how to read men, and Vahn Kessler was hiding something.
I looked over at the bottle of pills on my bedside table.
The medication in it was prescription, but we didn’t need a prescription for them. The doctor—who Vahn somehow got to come to the house—had them on him.
Now, I didn’t know much about the medical field, but I did know that doctors didn’t make house calls. Not unless you had a lot of power or money. As far as I knew Vahn had neither.
That led me to my internet search. I didn’t have much to go on, just Vahn’s name and his hometown. I found nothing. And I meant nothing. There was no online presence of the Kesslers what so ever. No mention in a newspaper, no pictures at any town events. Nothing. Vahn didn’t even have Facebook.
Everyone had some kind of online presence. Unless there was a reason that they shouldn’t. Criminal activity came to mind. Were we living with a mobster?
I couldn’t shake that thought from my mind. The look in Vahn’s eyes when he was beating on Professor Winston was something I wouldn’t forget either. Vahn would’ve killed him, and he wouldn’t have felt bad about it.
He would’ve slit his throat right there in front of me without a second thought. Who did that? Who could take someone’s life without feeling an ounce of remorse?
“Emma,” Vahn knocked on my door, causing my heart to jump. “Are you awake?”
I eyed the lock and considered clicking it. Not that it would’ve done any good. I locked my door last night, Vahn picked it and came in anyway. He kept checking on me.
If I hadn’t seen him almost murder someone, I might have found it sweet. Instead, I held my breath every time he came in, and pretended to be asleep. Needless to say, I did not get a good night’s rest.
“I’ll be out in a minute.” I called when I heard my doorknob jingle.
“Okay. I have breakfast ready for you. You need to eat something.”
The thought of food made me nauseous. But I didn’t have a choice. If I didn’t play nice, then Vahn would know I suspected something. Every mafia movie I’d ever seen told me that was a bad idea.
So, I would have to act like everything was normal. At least until I found some evidence. Mitch would never believe me otherwise.
Speaking of Mitch…
I looked over at my phone. There was still no response, and I must’ve texted him fifty times last night.
That’s when a new thought occurred to me. If Vahn’s family was in the mafia or something, my brother might already know. They were really close, and Vahn had gotten my brother out of some bad situations…
No, Mitch would’ve told me. But would he? There were a lot of things he didn’t tell me about. Keeping me in the dark was his way of protecting me. This could be one of those things.
Why was I worrying about this anyway. It wasn’t like Vahn had ever hurt me. Sure, he was an ass, but he’d never threatened me. He did almost kill a man though. A man who tried to rape me.
Sighing, I scrubbed a hand down my face—careful not to touch the bruise on the side of my jaw—and told myself to stop being paranoid. Vahn wasn’t dangerous, he was just angry. And if he was involved in something like the mob, wasn’t it better to be on his good side? I had nothing to worry about.
I stood up, shook the tension out of my body—that was a useful trick I learned in the one acting class I took—and headed out to join Vahn.
“Hey,” Vahn smiled at me and waved his hand towards the kitchen table. “Have a seat.”
He seemed oddly happy.
I hesitantly headed over, then cocked a brow when I saw all the plates on the table.
When he said he made breakfast he wasn’t kidding. Vahn made every possible breakfast food we had in the house. Pancakes, waffles, toast, eggs, omletes, eggs benedict, bacon, and sausages. How much did he expect me to eat?
My eyes went from the food, to where Vahn was pouring orange juice in to two cups. “You made all of this?”
“I know, I went a little overboard.” He shrugged. “I didn’t know what you’d want.”
I had the same thing every morning. He knew that. So, why would he make all of this? Unless…
“What are you up to?”
“You sound paranoid, Parakeet.”
I was.
Vahn reached out to place one of the glasses of juice on my side of the table, then looked over at me. “Ah, you’re scared of me now.”
A little.
“No I’m not.” I insisted while crossing my arms.
“Liar.” He chuckled, then nodded at the chair. “Sit down.”
“I’m not hungry.”
His eyes locked on mine. “Sit the fuck down Emma.”
That wasn’t a question, or a suggestion. It was a demand. I didn’t know what else to do, so I stepped over and slid my butt into the chair.
“See,” Vahn smiled. “Isn’t it better when we all get along?”
What the hell did that mean? Something about this whole situation didn’t sit right with me.
Vahn was never that nice, he also never cooked, and he sure as hell wasn’t concerned with what someone else wanted to eat.
His actions reminded me of when someone had to deliver bad news, but they buttered the person up first.
I eyed Vahn as he put some eggs and bacon on my plate, then sat down and began piling food on his own plate. “This isn’t a normal breakfast is it?”
“No, it’s not.” He said, confirming my suspicions.
“Is it Mitch?” My brother was my first thought. I was constantly worried that one day his gambling would get him in trouble with the wrong people.
“No,” Vahn shook his head. “It’s not Mitch.”
I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding in. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to my brother, which was why it would be nice if he messaged me back. But it wasn’t the first time he disappeared. He tended to do that when he met a girl.
“This is about you, Parakeet.”
Me? “What did I do?”
“You didn’t do anything.” He sighed. “I did.”
He did? That made no sense. Besides for the almost cutting someone’s throat thing, Vahn was… well Vahn.
“If I wasn’t so busy playing games and trying not to fuck you, that guy never would’ve laid a hand on you.”
That was a lot of information in one sentence to unpack.
Did the playing games have to do with the not fucking me, and since when did Vahn want to fuck me?
Or was him saying that the game he was referring to?
Were we playing a mind game right now? And what did any of that have to do with what happened? I needed clarification.
However when I opened my mouth, the only thing that came out was, “I’m confused.”
“What confuses you? I was pretty clear.”
Was he, though? “I think your definition of clear and mine are different.”
“How’s this for clear,” Vahn dropped his fork on his plate and rolled his eyes up to mine. “You belong to me now. No other man will touch you. No other man will look at you, and if they try, I’ll fucking kill them.”
Yeah, that was pretty clear. And clarified the trying not to fuck you part. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I was too hung up on the belong to me thing to think about it.
“People aren’t property Vahn. You can’t just claim them.”
“I just did.”
“But you can’t.”
“But I did.”
Well, I could see this was getting me nowhere. It was time to try another tactic. “You do realize that you have sex for a living.”
“Have sex?” He pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered, “Jesus Christ, you’re fucking naive.”
Ugh, rude.
“Look,” He looked back up at me. “If you want monogamy, all you have to do is ask.”
Was I the only one who found this entire conversation completely insane?
“I didn’t ask for any of this, nor do I want it.”
“Oh really? Is that why your pussy was creaming all over my hand the other day?”
Yup, I should’ve seen that one coming. “Fuck you Vahn.”
“I can see you’re upset.” He said it like I was the crazy one. “So I’m going to give you two weeks to come to me on your own.”
How considerate of him. I changed my mind, Vahn wasn’t just an asshole. He was THE asshole. But I still had a card to play.
“Okay,” I nodded sarcastically. “And how exactly do you think my brother—your best friend—is going to take this?”
If Mitch heard Vahn talking this nonsense, he’d lose his mind.
“Aww, Parakeet.” Vahn’s bottom lip popped out in a mocking frown. “I already beat you to that one. Talked to Mitch an hour ago.”
What? “And he was fine with it?”
I found that hard to believe, considering he almost punched Vahn yesterday.
“Well, he thinks a baby should have a father…”
My jaw fell open. It took me a second to recover before I could respond to that one. “You told him I was pregnant? There’s no way he would believe that.”
“Why not?” Vahn cocked a brow. “Two people alone with alcohol, shit happens.”
“I can prove I’m not pregnant.” Ha, He couldn’t argue that one.
“Oh, I didn’t tell him you were pregnant. I said you might be.”
Son of a bitch. “My brother will believe me.”
Vahn tipped his head and asked, “You sure about that?”
Yes. Mostly. Sure Mitch half listened to most of the stuff that I said, but he nodded at all of it.
“Well, I’ll let you absorb all of that.” Vahn wiped his mouth with a napkin and stood up. “I gotta go to work.”
“Wait…” I held up a finger. “Let me get this straight. You just sat here and told me that I belong to you, and now you’re going to go fuck someone else?”
His brow lifted. “Do you want me to stay?”
Fuck no. I didn’t want to be anywhere near him.
“Just leave.” I waved him off.
“Kiss before I go?” He asked.
“Fork in the eye?” I asked back.
Vahn chuckled and headed for the door. “See you after work babe.”
“Don’t call me babe.” I yelled after him.
That was it, I was going to find out what Vahn Kessler was hiding, and I’d use it to bring him down.