Chapter 2
AMBER
How can he be called a father?
I hugged my laptop to my chest and held my breath at the sounds outside. The man who was supposed to—for all intents and purposes—be my parent was out there. So far, yet so close. Too close.
Every minute that I spent in his residence was one too long.
Sitting on the floor near a direct plug in to the internet in the house wasn’t an ideal way to spend my Friday night, but there was no helping it.
If I was coming to the conclusion that I had to get out of here, out of this big mansion that William Rossen called home, I had to do my research now and have a plan.
Because William Rossen was no father. Not mine. But I supposed I couldn’t call myself an expert on that matter. I’d never had a father to know. No mother, either. Sent through the system since I was two years old, I lacked much experience of what it meant to have a family, to have parents.
Mr. William Rossen the Second legally decreed me his daughter when he adopted me over a decade ago.
But with behavior like this, partaking in sordid, horrible activities and turning a blind eye to criminal things like what was going on outside this room, he was exempt from claiming any fatherly traits.
Someone who was a father wouldn’t bring young girls to “parties” with much older and perverted men. Someone who was fatherly wouldn’t slap a maid or suggest conditioning a girl or belittle a young teenaged guest who tried to talk back when they asked to leave.
The smack of a hand on flesh sounded from the open double doors to the patio. Cringing at the familiar proof of someone being slapped, I held my breath again. Right out there, in the state-of-the-art area designed for entertaining guests, a woman cried softly.
My heart hardened as another layer formed up around it. Yet beneath the wall I had to erect, it broke into pieces with sadness that I couldn’t help her, whoever she was.
Now that they’d lowered the music, changing this small, private gathering from a party to a business meeting, the mood was noticeably different.
No more laughter and joking around over drinks on this mild, early fall night.
Official conversations took place. While everything was muffled and I couldn’t clearly follow what anyone said, I caught bits and pieces.
Negotiations.
Suggestions of where demand was.
And then the comments about the “guests” who’d been brought here. How the girls ranked in terms of their tits, their curves, their asses. Like the drugged women were things, not people.
I can’t take it anymore.
Hearing William talk about how he wished they could get closer to a high school to “grab” younger ones sickened me to the core.
Kidnapping. He was fully aware and discussing the details of kidnapping young women.
Even since the day I’d met William at the foster home, my eyes had been opened painfully wide to how sinister and horrible he was.
All these years I’d lived here, I’d learned the price of having a “home” and wishing for a “family”.
But this was it. I couldn’t stomach being near him anymore. I wasn’t a child or minor. I wasn’t stuck and locked inside with an actual handcuff. Yet, I was stuck. Trapped.
No more.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t live near him while this went on. Being helplessly aware of such horrors. Dreading whether something could happen to me again. The anxiety of William’s friends and associates getting ideas about me.
It’s time to go. This is it. The last straw, dammit.
My adoptive father had never been a good man.
From day one, he’d failed to dupe me, but the social workers liked the “bonus” he’d slipped them to release me to his custody.
The sinking feeling that I experienced in the pit of my stomach only worsened since I’d met him.
And now, with this supposed party he threw tonight, there was no speculation in my mind.
He was truly a horrible and evil man who’d stoop low.
It wasn’t the party that triggered me into this escape mode.
Those were nothing new. A wealthy banker with influential friends would be social with those of his status.
His creepy friends, both the ones in the suits who reeked of millions and big egos and those who looked like street thugs, often flanking the bosses.
These girls were new, though. Drugged and sluggish. Men looking them over like they were products.
When I realized William had people over, I peeked out the windows and wondered if they’d notice I was hiding in here, in the library no one ever used.
“Where did that one come from?” he asked.
I shuddered. He was aware. He was fully complicit that these women had been snatched off the street. It wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t a misunderstanding. He knew, and it was too morbid to think about living with someone like him.
Hurry. Just find that address and hurry back to your room where you can lock your door.
My fingers trembled as I used the old cord to plug this laptop in. It was an older model, something I’d found in the attic one day, but it only worked if it was directly plugged into the system. The only “old-fashioned” ether jack was in here. Too close to the kidnapped women on the patio.
Hiding in the shadows while the old device cooperated, I looked up how to get away, the directions I’d need to navigate away from this mansion. I searched for a staffing agency I could apply at, knowing I’d need a job. How to find the closest women’s shelter. Where to obtain a fake ID.
I wished I could get further away from William, to escape New York, both the city and the state.
The country. Another planet wouldn’t be far enough from him, but I wouldn’t have enough money to go far at all.
I’d been stashing away loose change and coins.
The maids and housekeepers had helped me collect change for years.
And it was a start. I’d need to pay for a fake name and identity, reinventing myself all so William wouldn’t be able to call a cop friend to find me.
Mind made up, I rehearsed my plan from what I’d learned and memorized online. The addresses of the staff agency and women’s shelter were the only parts I dared to write down, but the small, folded pieces of paper were already tucked deep into my pocket.
Just in case.
William didn’t hover. He preferred to leave me to my own few devices here while knowing I couldn’t leave. But just holding that paper with stepping stones of my escape written on it felt so risky.
This is it.
I have to get out now.
Tomorrow morning, I’d rush out the side door right when the garbage collection truck came.
The gate at the end of the long drive to the estate would be opened for them.
Sneaking out would depend on my speed, too.
How fast I could run and dodge the variety of surveillance cameras on the property.
But I could do it. I would. I’d been practicing sprinting on the treadmill to improve my cardio fitness every time William was out of the house, which was often.
And that was how I’d take off without William knowing, running out with the garbage. I could say goodbye to this house if I reached the garbage truck and used it as cover.
Saying farewell to a “home” was something I’d grown used to, leaving and having to relocate somewhere else.
Still, it was difficult to imagine. I’d lived here for almost half of my life.
In all my twenty-one years, William’s house was the illusion of a home, of safety, that I’d always wanted since I was a little girl.
Now, I realized that I had to give up on finding that.
Of hoping for true security while spending all my time and energy hiding from the man who’d tried to call himself my father.
There’s nothing I’ll miss here.
No love. No material things that would fill my heart. No friends.
I didn’t know where I’d end up by this time tomorrow, but it would be safer than staying here under William’s control. My best option would be a live-in position, like a maid, so I could hide in someone else’s home.
I’ll take whatever I can find.
Whatever job I could secure would be better than the sickening suspense of wondering what else William was involved with. Who he associated with.
I closed my laptop and hugged it to my chest again, trying to determine by the sounds out there if most of the guests were gone.
Watching my reflection in the bottom of a floor-to-ceiling window, the part where the curtain didn’t cover but hid me from outside, I sighed silently at that woman.
Red hair pulled back in a low, drab ponytail.
No makeup. No life. Just the horror in her eyes.
That was me. And I wondered what I’d ever done to deserve a life like this. One tense nightmare after another. How I’d come to be in this position at all, escaping and desperate to hide.
No. Not to hide.
To reinvent myself with the hopes Willaim’s power and network of friends couldn’t find me. Then I could take my identity and past to the grave. The secrets that would always be better left buried and hidden.
That scared woman in the reflection shouldn’t be me.
And by the grace of any higher power in this universe, I prayed that tomorrow would be the new start for me where I would be untraceable, unreachable, and never threatened again.