CHAPTER 45 ELODIE
ELODIE
Caden can’t get away from me quick enough when we get back to the house.
Not that I care. That boy is a cauldron of poison and audacity.
I can’t stand him. I also can’t stand the fact that every time he drops the devil’s spawn act, I lose myself.
It’s just from lack of affection, attention, love…
basically any human contact that’s not violence.
It doesn’t matter who it comes from, apparently, as soon as someone shows me something gentle, I forget everything else.
Well, no more. Not after what he said in the car.
I haven’t seen Alfie yet. I had another transaction to do this afternoon, which Caden supervised.
Not a single word was exchanged between us, not that I minded at all.
I’ve stayed in Caden’s room since then and Alfie hasn’t come to check on me yet.
Even though we’ve been getting on well, I do suspect he struggles to come see me in here, where we connected, where we kissed, where I sat on his fricking face.
His self-control flickers in this room, and he seems determined to remain loyal to his cousin.
Well, fuck Caden. There’s something between Alfie and I, and it’s not just that delusion that’s come from being deprived of human connection.
There’s a spark there, and while I’m stuck in this house until my last jobs are done, I’m determined to dive further into it.
I deserve a fucking orgasm from a conscious human being, dammit.
I go down for dinner, wearing my new clothes.
I opted for some loose jogging bottoms and a grey long sleeve shirt.
Something cosy and hides the outline of my body.
The bra feels like a belt around my chest, that’s going to take some getting used to.
Not to mention the thong. After wearing men’s boxers for weeks, I’m painfully aware of the strip of fabric nestled between my cheeks.
After all this time being frustrated over the clothes situation, going so long in loose, baggy attire, I now feel like a prisoner in garb that actually fits. The notion infuriates me.
The boys are already at the table. Caden’s got his usual broody face on and doesn’t turn to acknowledge me.
Alfie gives me his usual sweet smile that always floods me with warmth, and Fiz gives me his usual devious wink and, to be honest, it’s not that jarring tonight.
After everything that’s gone on, all the hatred and the mixed signals and emotional and physical pain, Fiz has always remained the same cocky, irritating but slightly entertaining man.
And, despite his groping, wandering hands, he hasn’t actually done anything else to me since that awful attack on the kitchen island.
We started off on the wrong foot, but perhaps that’s as bad as it gets with him.
I’m still not a fan, but if we’re comparing anyone to Caden, everyone else will be a goddamn saint.
Once I’m seated, everyone starts digging in, scrapes of metal on china filling the tense silence. How is anyone supposed to breathe in this environment? It’s like walking through a burning house.
“So how was your little date?” Fiz asks.
I shrug. “Fine.”
“Just fine?” He turns to Caden, who nods once.
“Did you fuck and make up yet?”
“Fuck no,” Caden spits.
I scoff.
Fiz throws up his hands. “Honestly, you two, will you both just get a grip? I feel like we need an intervention.”
“The only thing he needs is a fucking psychiatrist,” I mutter.
“What was that?” Caden spits.
“Nothing, your majesty.” I flash him a fake grin.
“Seriously, Cade,” Fiz drops his hands on the table. “The Cleanse is over, you won the bet, she’s staying. Why don’t you run straight through that? Surely you must realise that will fix like ninety percent of your problems.”
I grimace. “Such a romantic.”
Caden huffs. “Enough, Fiz.”
Fiz throws out a hand gesturing to me. “It’s free pussy, bro, not bad looking pussy either.” His eyes turn to me. “Looks like she’s got a black belt in sucking dick too.”
“Wow, I’m flattered.” I flatten my brows at him to show my disdain. He just winks with a menacing smile.
When all Caden does is huff again, Fiz shrugs. “Well, if you don’t maybe I will. Or Alf.” He has the audacity to lick his lips at me.
I raise my fork, spinning it around in small circles at him. “If you come near me again, I will take this fork, ram it into your belly button, and twirl your intestines round like fucking spaghetti.”
Alfie spurts his mouthful of water across the table and chokes on his laugh.
Cade glowers at me before turning back to Fiz, flourishing a hand towards me in invitation. “Be my guest, brother.”
“You can’t scare me, little princess, I like them crazy, you should know this by now.” Fiz winks again and blows me a kiss and I have to stop myself from dry heaving. “I thought you did too.” Fiz turns to Caden. “Thought you loved nothing more than taming a wild bitch.”
“Not this one.” Caden doesn’t even spare me a glance. “I’m sick of her. She’s been nothing but a headache. Can’t think of anything worse than fucking her.”
“I’d castrate you if you tried, anyway.” I look back down to my plate.
“Didn’t seem like that in the fitting room. Seemed desperate to have me fuck into you while I had you bent over.”
My teeth grit. My fists clench on the table.
A scorching inferno of unfiltered fury pushes against the sides of my self-restraint, threatening to erupt.
“That’s because I was picturing Alfie bending me over and dry humping me instead of you.
” I don’t bother to look at the other two.
Don’t bother to see what I imagine is Alfie’s discomfort and Fiz’s jaw hanging open.
Cade slams down the cutlery and leaps to his feet so fast I can’t stifle my flinch. “You know, I’ve just about had it with your fucking jarring little mouth.” He comes over to me with a look so deadly I’m sure he could kill me with that alone. “You think you’re hot shit?”
I match his glare. “Hotter than you, sure.”
The other two watch idly as Caden grabs me by a fistful of hair and yanks me to my feet. I work hard to keep the whimper in, and my face unscrewed from the instant pain.
“If that’s the case, fireball, you need to cool off,” he sneers, spittle flying onto my cheek.
He starts dragging me away.
“Get the fuck off me!” I fight as much as I can, but any movement just pulls my hair tighter and sends a sharp sting through my scalp, making my eyes water.
He hauls me into a room beside the gym, and I don’t have time to swim in the relief of him letting go of my hair before I’m swept into his arms, the ground leaving my feet and he throws me. Fucking throws me into a tub.
The agony is immediate. An explosion of razor sharp, white-hot burning consuming every millimetre of my skin as I land in what can only be ice water.
The ice cubes pound into me like gravel, the gelid water like a million needles shooting into my skin.
He’s chucked me into the ice bath. He’s lost his fucking mind.
I don’t get a chance to come up for the air that’s been whipped from my lungs as he holds my head underneath the water.
It fills my nose and mouth as my garbled screams bubble out, filling my throat and lungs.
An inferno of panic explodes, and I fight for my fucking life.
It feels too long to even still be conscious when he brings me up, my body dragging in every speck of air it can.
“You chilled out yet?”
“Fuck you.”
I’m plunged straight back underneath the surface. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to drown me. The thought pierces through my agony. Maybe it’s not a bad thing. I could finally just let it all go.
I stop fighting, let the millions of needles rake my skin, let my lips part and the water flow into my mouth.
There could be worse ways to go than drowning.
I believe my brother’s fate was worse than this.
Another example would be being made to stay alive long enough to die as Caden Blackwood’s wife.
It doesn’t take long before he’s pulling me up, clearly not getting as much of a kick out of not having me fight back.
I splutter and gasp and cough as his voice comes in close. “I’m so sick of you being a brat, Elodie, I really am. But I can keep this up for the rest of our lives. So keep trying me. You’re not going anywhere.”
I don’t even respond, what’s the point? We’re dancing to the same track every fucking day and my feet ache. I’m tired. I’m done.
He pulls me out of the tub and dumps me on the floor, shivering violently. “Go to your room. I don’t want to see you again for the rest of the night.”
When I don’t move, when my body refuses to function enough to gather myself up, too busy spasming and racking great shivers, he sighs. It sounds as tired as I feel.
How can he be this obsessed with pleasing his dad that he’d choose to be miserable too? He’s got all his priorities twisted. All he has to do is let me go, but perhaps it’s become a case of proving himself. Ego’s gotten in the way, and he won’t admit defeat to a girl. Or a Valor.
His footsteps thump through my ear pressing on the cold ground as he walks away from me. My body’s seizing up. I need to get dry and warm quickly, but I just can’t move. He’s going to leave me here to die.
I don’t know when my eyes close, but they shoot back open when large, warm arms scoop me up. Immediately, I know who they belong to. I melt into Alfie’s chest as he carries me away.
“Fiz is running you a bath now, it’ll be ready by the time we get up there,” he whispers softly.
I try to move my lips to thank him, but it doesn’t work.
He holds me so tight to his body, and I greedily try to absorb his delicious warmth.
He carries me all the way to the bathroom, where Fiz is sitting in the armchair by the sinks. He doesn’t look smug, or menacing, or downright annoying. He looks unsure, deep divots in between his brows, a thumb running over his lips like he’s in deep thought about something.
Alfie doesn’t waste time taking off my clothes before placing me in the tub. It’s not piping hot, it’s perfect enough to fight off the burn of the cold.
He perches on the floor beside me, a hand dangling into the water by my leg.
We all sit in silence for a while, no one knowing what to say. I don’t know what to say with Fiz here, unsure if he’s here because of Caden, or for something else.
Alfie rakes his teeth over his bottom lip a few times before saying, “It wasn’t just dinner that pushed Cade to that tonight, was it?”
I shrug. “Prick can’t take what he dishes out.”
He sighs. “I don’t know what to do to fix it.”
This swells a lump in my throat. “It’s not your fault. Not even your responsibility to fix it.”
“You could stop running your mouth to him,” Fiz mutters.
Alf closes his eyes and sighs through his nose. “Fiz.”
“I’m just saying, you know it’d work.”
Alfie’s eyes open again and lock onto mine.
“It’s not in her soul to not fight back.
” He says it with such earnest. Like he’s known me to be this way for years.
It’s a deep insight into my being that I didn’t realise he’d been looking at so closely.
“And she shouldn’t have to. He should be able to control himself better, not lash out at every little thing.
It’s not like him to have such a short fuse. ”
“Well, we know why that is,” Fiz mutters down into his lap, inspecting his nails.
“I think we need to all spend some time together,” Alfie says.
The hand he’s got in the bath comes out to stroke my outer thigh.
“Fiz and I haven’t been good buffers, but we can be.
We didn’t want to intervene, but I think we have to now.
It’s gotten out of hand and…” whatever he’s about to say gets caught in his throat.
He looks down to his hand on my leg. “I’m not a fan of seeing you hurt. ”
I look over to Fiz to gauge his reaction to this. To see if he’ll disapprove or throw some inappropriate comment. He doesn’t though. His dark eyes bore into mine as if to say, me either. I could be hallucinating though, I am currently fighting off shock.
I thank Alfie, knowing that there’s no point in saying anything to that.
He won’t see me hurt for much longer because I won’t be here.
While I was lying on that floor, sometime during my brief blackout before Alfie scooped me up, I decided to forget my target money.
I’ve got enough to get me going. I can’t spend any longer here.
Not after everything that’s happened in just three weeks.
Not after what Caden said to me in the car.
Not when every moment I spend here drops me even deeper into a pit I fear I’ll never crawl out from.
I’ve been broken my whole life, but being here is beginning to wither the shredded remnants of my soul, the one thing I have left.
It’s time to stop fighting. I’ve expended every ounce of strength I have to resist men like him.
I have to go before I’m completely destroyed.
All I have to do is get into the computer room and send the money to the accessible account I printed the card for and I’m fucking gone.
Because if I do stay here, Caden Blackwood will kill me. Or I will do it for him.