16. Ethan
SIXTEEN
Ethan
I get a little weird over the next two days. I don’t leave the penthouse, and I don’t reply to any of Ruby’s messages about how we need to talk. I don’t want to deal with any of that. I just want to be with Levi.
I fuck him more than I should, but the more I fuck him, the more he wants. He likes being bound. He likes being spanked. He likes when I call him a pretty little whore.
He loves the Kindle and reads late into the night. That’s what makes him notice that I don’t sleep much. That, and the fact that one night he comes to find me. It’s 2 a.m. and I’m in my workout room on the treadmill. He doesn’t say anything. He just goes to the corner and curls up on the floor.
When I’m tired enough that I feel sick, I scoop Levi up and take him back to the bedroom.
I intend to put him in bed and leave him there while I shower, but he feels so good in my arms that I get in bed with him, despite being hot and sweaty.
He’s half asleep when I clamp a hand over his mouth, shove his legs apart, and force my way inside him.
He struggles, so I bite his neck, pin him to the bed, and fuck him until he comes screaming against my hand.
* * *
The doorbell wakes me. At first, I don’t realize that’s what it is. I jolt out of sleep, groggy and vaguely panicked in the early morning light. Then it chimes again.
I flop back. “Fuck.”
Beside me, Levi’s head lifts from the pillow. He’s disheveled and squinting, and it’s so fucking sexy that I want to pull him under me, get between his legs, and fuck him until nothing else exists.
The doorbell rings again. I throw the sheets aside and get out of bed. I cleaned Levi up last night and pulled him away from the mess, but I didn’t bother cleaning myself up. The sweats I yank on cover most of the mess, but I still smell like sweat and sex.
I don’t give a shit. Anyone bothering me at whatever fucking time it is will get the clear signal that they’re interrupting. It’s probably Patrick, pissed off that I’ve been ignoring his check-in messages. I could check the camera, but I don’t know where my phone is.
“Stay,” I tell Levi as he levers himself up onto one elbow.
He just blinks at me, sleepy and not quite tracking.
As I’m walking down the hallway, the doorbell chimes again, then again as I’m moving through the entryway.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. If I were more awake, the excessive ringing would tip me off that it is not Patrick at my door, but my brain isn’t that fully online.
Desperate to stop the ringing, I unlock and yank open the door without even looking through the peephole. Then I freeze.
Ruby’s eyes rake down my half-naked body with utter contempt, and I’m so unprepared for it that I flinch—and I fucking hate that.
“What the fuck,” I snap, scrambling for some sense of control.
Ruby is completely unfazed by my sharpness. I did learn it from her, after all. She drags her eyes back to my face.
“Really, Ethan?”
Her dark hair is pulled back into a sleek low bun.
Under her long beige jacket, she’s wearing a navy silk dress that comes to mid-calf.
It’s cinched at the waist but shows no cleavage.
Ruby knows exactly how to walk the line between modest woman of the church and wealthy socialite.
She would never admit it, but I know she’s modeled herself on Eva Peron.
“What do you want?” I demand.
“You are well aware of what I want. You cannot ignore this. It’s coming, and you know where it could go. For you, especially.”
My stomach turns. “Then what’s the point of discussing it?”
“The point, Ethan, is to meet it—and defeat it. You cannot seriously think that some two-bit journalist is taking down High Castle.”
“I take it he was unbribable?”
“Don’t be crude, and don’t speak about such things on the doorstep. I raised you better.”
Anger rolls through me so hotly that I have to close my eyes to contain it.
“We have to deal with this, Ethan. You have to deal with this. You need my help, and you know it.”
It makes me sick, absolutely fucking sick, to step back and pull the door open for her. I don’t want her in my house. I don’t want her in my life.
But she’s right. I fucking hate it, but she’s right. I don’t know how to deal with this without her. That’s why I almost texted her the other night.
Ruby walks past me with a burst of flowery perfume that I really don’t want to smell this early in the morning.
Her kitten heels snap through the entryway as I close the door. I follow her into the kitchen, where she sets her pearl clutch on the island. She removes her jacket and tries to hand it to me. When I don’t take it, she drapes it over a chair.
She says, “I assume you saw the crime scene photos.”
“Yes.”
I need something to do, so I go to the percolator and start making coffee. With my back to her, I scrape back my hair, even though I know it won’t help much. I really hate that she’s seeing me like this. Even more than that, I hate that it bothers me.
Ruby says, “The photos alone don’t prove anything.”
“I know,” I reply.
“Those photos have existed for sixteen years.”
“I know.”
“What’s concerning,” Ruby goes on, “is what inspired his research in the first place.”
I pause in my work, turning to look at her.
She raises a sculpted eyebrow. “Did that not occur to you? Let me guess: you were worried about testimony from a cop or that maybe a semen sample would turn up—”
“Fuck you, you fucking cunt, get the fuck out of my goddamn house—”
“I’m not here to fight you, Ethan. We have to stick together. I’ve protected you for years, and that’s what I’m trying to do now.”
I scrub my hands over my face like that can wipe away her version of events. My body is shaking, and I know she can see it, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
Ruby’s manicured nails tap on the counter. “So I take it you haven’t discovered Daniel Jensen’s connection to all this?”
I cross my arms over my stomach and try to focus. I have to get my shit together. I can’t let her have the upper hand like this. And yet, I still have to ask, “What’s his connection?”
“Indirect. He’s married to the granddaughter of Henry Grigson. Do you understand?”
“I know Grigson is a member of the High Castle board.” Shit, my voice is flat.
“Was, Ethan, was. He died four months ago.”
“So?”
“Sooo”—she drags out the word sneeringly—“you don’t remember him coming over that night, him and John Clifford?”
That night.
Everything stills.
For a moment, everything vanishes.
Then I sense someone right in front of me. My eyes focus to find Ruby’s fingers snapping in front of my face. The image doubles, layering the past and present.
She snaps her fingers in front of my face and tells me to get dressed. She tells me to stop crying. She tells me that nothing happened.
And yet, though nothing happened, I am a sinner.
Wicked.
Depraved.
“Dying men confess things,” she says, but I don’t know which version of her is speaking. “He might’ve said all kinds of things.”
He did.
He said, You make me sin.
He said, You must repent.
He said, You’re the one making this happen.
He said, I forgive you.
“Focus, Ethan,” Ruby orders, still standing right in front of me. “This is serious.”
I try to speak. I try to tell her there’s nothing we can do about it. But the words just roll around in my head and don’t come out.
Ruby says, “You need to come back to the church. We need a united front. Jensen thinks he can divide us. He thinks one of us will turn on the others to control the narrative.”
I still can’t get any words out, so I shake my head. I want her to step back. I don’t like when she’s this close to me, but she has all the power right now.
“This is so little to ask of you when I’m taking care of everything. You will be there tomorrow, in the family section.”
“No,” I say, finally dragging up a word, but of course no is a pointless word. It’s a word that doesn’t do anything.
Ruby suddenly snaps, “Who the hell is this?”
For a second, I think that time has folded again, and I feel the same stab of fear that I felt when I was nine years old and Paul first brought me to the house to meet Ruby.
Then I jolt as I follow her sharp gaze to Levi standing at the opening of the hallway. Ruby and I are standing so close together that I can’t tell which of us he’s looking at, but his eyes are wide and worried and full of questions. My stomach drops. Fuck. How long has he been there?
I didn’t forget about him being in the house, not exactly, but he’s come to exist in a separate space for me. Talking to Ruby disconnected me from that space, and I kind of lost track of it. Of him.
“Levi,” I breathe, and I’m talking to him, centering myself on him, but Ruby takes it for an answer.
“So is Levi the reason you couldn’t reply to me the last few days? You’re playing with a toy? Now?”
“Don’t fucking talk about him like that,” I snarl at her, with a weird sensation of strength returning to my body, like I can actually do something now when I couldn’t a moment ago, like I can actually fight her.
Ruby huffs, “This is not the time, Ethan. You can’t afford a liability right now. You need to focus, and our image must be flawless.” Her attention jumps to Levi as she demands, “How long have you been there?”
“Get the hell out of my house,” I demand, hating that she asked the very question that I was thinking.
I push away from the counter with every intention of crowding into her and intimidating her, but she’s ahead of me, as usual. She’s already stepping back, transitioning to her exit mode with practiced grace.
Ruby walks around the island to where she left her coat. She’s already resuming her mild, feminine manner, delicately putting on her coat and plucking her clutch off the counter.
But a bit of her venom slips back in as she hisses, “Sermon starts at ten, Ethan, in case you forgot.”
With that, her kitten heels snap across the hardwood floor. The sound softens as she walks into the entryway. I wish she would slam the door because I want to slam the door, but it opens and closes with a soft, unsatisfying click.
Levi is in my peripheral vision. He’s moved into the kitchen and is hovering at the end of the island.
I can’t transition quite like Ruby. It takes me a long minute to look at him, and even then I don’t know what to say. The reality that comes with Ruby is lingering, and he doesn’t belong in it. I don’t want him in it.
So I don’t ask him what he heard. I won’t repeat Ruby’s question, and I don’t actually want to know. I want to pretend that he didn’t hear anything.
But I know that he did. I can see the questions in his eyes. I can see the worry. Maybe, finally, he’s scared of me.
But he doesn’t look like he wants to leave, and whatever he wants to say, he holds it back.
Slowly, Levi walks into the kitchen. He doesn’t come straight to me, but he comes close, heading to the percolator. He picks up where I left off, filling the water reservoir and turning it on. He gets out two mugs.
As I listen to the coffee brew, there’s a heavy, awful feeling in my body. I can’t drink coffee with him and make breakfast and fuck like we’ve been doing. I just can’t.
My intention is to say that I’m leaving, but what I actually say is, “I don’t want to be here.”
Levi’s eyes lift to mine. There’s a strange, dark, knowing look in his eyes. He says, “There’s a place I like to go sometimes. Do you… want to see it?”
I swallow hard. I should say no. I should just leave if I can’t speak.
Instead, I nod. I say, without a word, yes.