Chapter 31
ELLE
Ipull up outside the house, gasping when I see how wrecked it is. The windows glint in the moonlight with shattered glass, and the door is off its hinges. There’s a big pile of cameras outside the house, some of them in little pieces as though he stomped on them in a rage.
Every cell in me wants to turn this car around and get far away from here. I’ve got no weapons, no way to hurt him… being here is madness. But I can’t let him hurt my baby sister. He’s already taken too much from her. If I have to switch places with her to make this right, I will.
I climb out of the car and walk toward the cabin. Each step is a struggle, with a voice in my head screaming at me to turn back, to run, to do anything other than what I’m doing…
I walk up the stairs, pushing the half-destroyed door so that it creaks.
The inside has been destroyed as well. The cupboards are smashed in. The couch is torn to pieces with long strips of fabric everywhere. The TV has been completely caved in.
“Hello?” I call.
“We’re back here,” Lucian replies, laughing gruffly.
I ignore the shiver of fear threatening to paralyze me and walk through the house. I go to the very back of the house, following the sound of his laughter. He’s kicked in my bedroom door too.
I walk through the open door and turn.
Lucian leans against the wall with his arms folded, a gun casually dangling from his fingertips. He looks wild, eyes wide, a manic look in his eyes.
“Where is she?” I whisper.
Lucian’s smile is pure glee. It’s the same one he used to aim at me when he pulled some trick on me, showed up some place he shouldn’t. It was always that smile, wide and ecstatic and glowing with victory.
With the hand not holding the gun, he reaches into his pocket and takes out his phone. He presses something, then I hear Mira’s voice. “Elle… I want to say the biggest, happiest birthday in all the big, wide world.”
I close my eyes, almost laugh. The motherfucker.
“When did you download that?” I hiss. “We made all our social media public before, then deleted it because of you.”
“Oh, I got it a long time before that,” he says, chuckling. “I downloaded it all. Every video. Every post. Every shred of you.”
I shake my head. “I was going to meet you tomorrow, Lucian. Why did you have to spoil it?”
“Can the shit, bitch,” he grunts. “I know what game you’re playing. I had someone in the restaurant today… well, yesterday. They watched you and the cop getting all cuddly, acting like lovers. Do you seriously expect me to believe or accept that you’ve forgiven me for what your parents made me do?”
“I want you, Lucian,” I say, trying with every atom to make it believable.
The smile I force onto my face doesn’t come with as much difficultly as it might. Mira is safe. Whatever else is true in this situation, Mira is safe.
“You want me,” he repeats. “I used to believe that. I used to think if I just tried hard enough to make you see sense, you’d stop playing games with me.
I used to think there had to be a way. But then I went away, and you never visited me.
And you tried to hide from me. And then you started playing happy families with a cop. So, what am I supposed to think?”
He’s still got the gun aimed at the floor, not at me, his tone filled with conflict.
“There’s still a chance for us,” I say quietly. “There’s still a way we can be together. But we can’t do that if you’re not going to trust me.”
“Trust you?” he growls. “Trust you? You talked to the cops tonight.”
“I had to talk to them,” I tell him. “People saw you at my table. But I didn’t tell them anything. I’d never do that to you, Lucian… never do that to us.”
I take a small step forward.
He immediately aims the gun at me. “Don’t,” he says. “Just… don’t. Fucking hell.” He blinks, then looks at me as if seeing me for the first time. “All this time, obsessing over you. And now, standing here, I don’t even know why. What’s happened? What have you done?”
He sounds even more unhinged than usual, which is saying a lot.
I think I know what happened, though I’m not going to tell him.
When there was a possibility he could have me, or he thought he could, of course he no longer wants me.
It was never about being with me. It was about hurting me…
and really, it didn’t even have to be me.
He just needed an excuse to cause pain, and I happened to walk into his line of sight at the wrong time.
“I’ve done nothing but tell you the truth,” I murmur, struggling to speak as I stare down the barrel of the gun. “I want you, Lucian. I need you.”
He works his jaw. “Prove it.”
“Prove it?”
He nods at the bed. “Lie on the bed. On your back. I’m going to tie you to the bed.”
A cold shiver runs through me. Tie me to the bed? If he does that, he’s going to kill me for sure. I’ve got no doubt about that in my mind.
“Why?”
He gestures with the gun. “You wouldn’t be asking why if you really wanted this,” he growls. “You’d be saying yes, sir.”
“Don’t you…” I lick my lips. I don’t want to say it, but it’s like I need the proof that he’s going to hurt me. Kill me. “Do you want me to keep my clothes on?”
“Why?” He snarls. “Do you want to take them off? Lie down.”
I shudder as I move toward the bed. Something in his face has changed. It’s like he’s made a decision and now he’s going to follow it through no matter what. Somehow, I know it’s not about lust or romance… or whatever passes for those in his fucked-up psyche.
“Okay.”
I sit on the bed, then lie back. Shame and panic threaten to drown me as I move up the bed, then sit up so I can watch him. He looks around the room, goes to the dresser, the gun never leaving me. He starts rooting through the clothes I didn’t take to Rhett’s house.
He carries a bunch of clothes to the bed one-handed, then tosses them down.
“Some of these should do,” he murmurs under his breath. “Be a good bitch and stay still while I tie your ankle.”
“Of course,” I say. “I trust you.”
He looks at me with dead eyes. “Sure.”
I wait for my moment. I know there’s only going to be one. When he grabs my leg, I try not to flinch or show my disgust. He places the gun on the bed, then moves to pick up a sweater. Maybe he’s going to fasten one arm or my ankle to the bedposts.
I don’t wait to find out.
I kick him in the face as hard as I can.
He screams and stumbles back. I twist sideways, feet hitting the floor, so that I can reach for the gun. He leaps toward the bed when he realizes what I’m doing. I gasp and swipe for the gun, accidentally knocking it off the bed.
Crap.
I dive onto the floor, my fingers curling around the grip of the gun. He snarls, grips my arm and flips me onto my back. I end up lying on the gun. The metal digging painfully into my back.
“Is this what you want?” He screams, climbing on top of me. He pushes his weight down against me. “Dirty whore. Is this what you’ve been waiting for?”
I feel like I’m drowning under his bulk, unable to move, unable to breathe. Panic constricts my lungs, but somewhere deep in my mind, I remember Rhett’s lesson.
Off balance, wriggle, create space.
My hands go to Lucian’s hips and buck my hips as hard as I possibly can. He gasps and lurches forward, then lets out a roar as his head collides with the wall.
I wriggle out from underneath him, climb to my feet, and turn for the gun. Too late. He’s already scrambling on the floor for it.
I duck my head and run from the room, sprint through the cabin, and burst out the front.
A gunshot goes off behind me, whizzing past my ear.
Pure panic sets in now, and all I can do is run as fast as my legs will carry me as he fires shot after shot. Concrete flies as a bullet strikes the concrete inches from my feet.
I don’t even know where I’m running. Just anywhere. Away from him. Away from my past. Away from the bullets.
A car careens around the corner, headlights shining brightly on me.
Lucian fires another shot, hitting the car. I can’t see the man behind the wheel, but he must have the window open because I hear him bellow.