Chapter 13 Mehar
Mehar
I woke up sore in places I didn’t know could be sore and I wasn’t mad about it.
Three days at the Virginia estate and Quest and I had turned into those people.
The ones who couldn’t keep their hands off each other, who started arguments just so the makeup sex could follow, who fell asleep tangled together and woke up reaching for each other before their eyes were even open.
We’d made love on the kitchen counter, in the shower, on the living room floor in front of the fireplace, in the bed more times than I could count, and once against the hallway wall because he said something slick while I was walking to get water and I never made it to the kitchen.
It scared me how easy it was. Giving myself to him.
Letting him be on top, letting him set the pace, letting him hold my wrists above my head without flinching.
Every man before Quest had to earn access to my body through a locked door with three deadbolts and a security system.
Quest had walked in like I’d left it wide open for him and the terrifying part was that I had.
I’d opened every door, turned off every alarm, and let this man into rooms I’d sworn were permanently closed.
And he moved through them with a care that made me feel foolish for ever thinking I needed the locks in the first place.
But the real world was still out there. I could feel it pressing against the windows of this estate like a face in the dark, waiting for me to acknowledge it.
Quest told me over breakfast that Janelle was still alive.
After beating Thad to death, I didn’t have enough strength to finish her off.
That was a huge regret of mine. Prime went to the warehouse and found Thad but no Janelle.
Mekhi had gotten to her first and taken her somewhere.
She had a concussion and stitches but she was breathing and that meant she was still a problem.
“I want to kill her,” I said. And I meant it with every cell in my body.
This woman drugged me, beat me, chained me to a ceiling, and left me hanging there with the intention of doing severe damage to me.
Of all the people who betrayed me, she was the worst. She knew every wound I carried because I’d paid her to listen to them, and she used every single one against me.
I wanted her dead and I wanted to be the one holding the gun when it happened.
“Let me handle it,” Quest said.
“I can handle it myself.”
“I know you can. You already proved that. But this is connected to Mekhi, which means it’s connected to our business, which means it’s messy and I need to control how it plays out. Let me deal with Janelle. Please.”
“Fine,” I said. “But if she comes anywhere near me again, I’m not waiting for you to handle it.”
“Fair.”
I stood up from the island and stretched and every muscle in my body protested because this man had put serious mileage on me over the last three days.
I needed to get back to the real world. I’d missed class, missed assignments, missed the routine that had been keeping me sane since before Quest. School was the one thing that was entirely mine, built with my own effort and pointed toward a future that had nothing to do with men.
“I have class today,” I said.
He looked at me like I’d told a joke. “You were kidnapped four days ago.”
“And I have a practical on microneedling that I’ve already missed once.
Mrs. Pak doesn’t accept excuses. If I miss another one she’ll fail me and I’m not explaining to my teacher that I couldn’t come to class because I was chained to a ceiling.
She’d probably tell me to rub some aloe on it and show up on time. ”
He laughed, hard at the ridiculousness of it all which made me laugh too.
”Aight. I’ll take you.”
“I need to stop at the hotel to get some clothes and make-up. I can’t show up looking like I’ve been holed up in a sex dungeon.”
“I got you.”
Getting dressed was the part that brought me back to reality.
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror at the estate and looked at my wrists.
White gauze was wrapped around both wrists, medical tape holding them in place.
If I wore short sleeves, everyone would see them and ask questions I couldn’t answer.
I knew that once I got to the hotel that I was going to have to dig through my things and find a new shirt.
We stopped at the hotel so I could change and put on make-up.
The room was exactly how I’d left it the night Janelle took me.
Coffee still on the nightstand, cold and growing something green.
My jacket on the chair. It felt like walking into a crime scene that housekeeping hadn’t gotten to yet.
I took a shower and got dressed and beat my face to cover the bruise. It was healing but still looked ugly.
In the car, Quest told me Bryce was safe at Justice’s house and doing fine. I told him I wanted to see my brother after class and he said he’d set it up.
“I’m also going to hire security for you,” he said.
”Security?”
“Yeah. A detail. Until I handle Janelle and Mega, you’re not going anywhere without protection.”
“Quest, I don’t need bodyguards.”
As the words left my mouth, he looked at me like I’d said the stupidest shit in the world. “Yes you do. That’s not a negotiation. For today, I’m picking you up myself.”
I wanted to argue but he was right and I hated that he was right. So I said nothing else, which was my version of agreeing without giving him the satisfaction of hearing me say it.
He dropped me off at the academy in Silver Spring and parked the car across the street like a man who had nowhere else to be, even though I knew for a fact he had a billion-dollar company to run and a war to plan and a friendship to end.
He was sitting in a parking lot waiting for me to learn about microneedling.
The man killed people for a living and he was waiting for me outside of beauty school.
If that wasn’t love, I didn’t know what was.
Class felt normal and abnormal at the same time.
Mrs. Pak was in rare form, barking instructions at us about needle depth and sanitation protocol while we practiced on silicone skin pads.
She stopped at my station and looked at my work and said, “Better than last time. Still not great.” Which from Mrs. Pak was basically a standing ovation. I’d take it.
My classmates were gossiping about somebody’s baby daddy and the new celeb gossip and whether the Thai place on the corner was closed for health violations. Normal stuff. It was all mundane shit that I had missed the last few days. Hopefully I would soon get back to normal.
Then my phone buzzed.
It was a CashApp notification. $5, 000 from Mateo Rios.
I stared at it. There was no message attached, just the money sitting there with his name on it.
I hadn’t heard from him since before the kidnapping.
I’d been so consumed with surviving that I’d almost forgotten he existed, which was a mistake because men like Mateo Rios didn’t stop existing just because you stopped thinking about them.
I returned the payment and texted the number attached to the account: I’m no longer in business. Please don’t contact me again.
Two minutes later, another CashApp notification. $10, 000. No message.
I declined it.
Another one. $10,000 again.
I blocked his number, went back to my silicone skin pad, and tried to focus on needle depth and pressure and the things that mattered. Mrs. Pak was demonstrating a technique at the front of the room and I forced myself to watch her hands and not think about his.
But something sat wrong in my stomach. Timothy Baker had been obsessed with me too, but Baker was desperate and sloppy and showed up crying outside my school begging for a session.
That was a man who’d lost control of his addiction.
Rios wasn’t that. Rios didn’t beg. He didn’t show up sweating and crying.
He sent $25, 000 in ten minutes without a single word attached to it and that said more than any voicemail or parking lot meltdown ever could.
It said I have money, I have patience, and I don’t accept no.
Baker was a problem I’d already solved. Rios was a problem I hadn’t figured out yet. And the difference between the two kept my stomach tight for the rest of the class.