Chapter 77
He’s avoiding me.
The knowledge sits with me as I paint in my apartment.
It’s been five weeks since I woke up in the hospital surrounded by my friends and my brothers.
It’s been over a month since I’ve hidden out in my apartment because, as much as Jace tried to prevent it, the story of the Park Heiress and two of her friends being kidnapped came out.
I never got to thank her. I’m convinced her warnings about the man who assaulted me made the ordeal less traumatizing.
I hadn’t been blind to what he was when he entered that room, intent on raping and killing me.
I wish I knew where she was, but according to Dru, the organization that is helping them has them in a secret location.
She’s not even privy to the information.
Either way, I’m happy that they are safe.
I don’t know what it must be like for them.
For so long, all they knew was that house, that prison.
Silas and Jace are working with Sophia’s cousins to complete the women’s facility upstate even faster, so it will be ready to house some of the women and their children.
However, I haven’t heard anything specifically about whether Cara will be one of those women.
I hope she’s okay. She must have given birth to her baby already.
I wonder if it’s a girl or a boy. I’m happy that, at least this time, she may get to keep her child.
But then again, that child is the product of her abuse and systematic rapes.
Her child is genetically half the man who stole her childhood.
It’s a fucked up situation, one that, from what I’ve come to learn, is so common in the seedy underworld of sex trade.
And then there’s her other children. I don’t know if she will ever be able to find them, or even if they’re alive.
Tears track down my face at the injustice of it all, and for a moment, rage flows through me.
Now, I understand what Stone was talking about.
The need to destroy them. To eradicate the type of men who care nothing about humanity.
Wiping them, I take a deep breath, trying not to go down another rabbit hole of all the ways the system might be too big to fight.
I’ll take the bittersweet ending that at least those twelve women were rescued, but so many more are still part of the vicious system.
When Dru, Sophia, and Meela came to visit, they told me that Silas, along with Caleb Edwards and his team, was conducting an investigation behind the scenes to help locate some of the women and children.
The news that many of the young girls and boys were kidnapped.
Some desperate families, living in countries fraught with political violence, were tricked into bringing their children to specific agencies, in the belief that their children would be adopted by loving families and sent to school, but instead were sold into sex slavery overseas to pedophiles.
The horror of it still gives me nightmares.
Dru were honest when they said that we might never find all the children.
Thinking about it brings a fresh batch of tears because Jacinda was just discovered a week ago after four weeks of being held hostage.
She arrived home a week ago from Canada, accompanied by one of Caleb Edward’s security team members.
When I texted her brother, Julian, about the hospital she was in, so I could visit, he told me flat out that Jacinda didn’t want visitors.
Still, he did tell me with a tortured voice that she almost died from diabetic shock, and would have if the man who helped rescue her had done some quick thinking.
Julian also revealed that his sister had been assaulted and branded like cattle by her captors.
It hurt to know that she had gone through so much.
I couldn’t help but feel that if she had never become my friend, she wouldn’t have been taken.
However, the worst feelings are reserved for Kamilah.
She’s still missing. Her whereabouts are currently unknown.
Riggs left right after they found me to find Kami.
Jacqueline ended up joining him. They still haven’t located her.
Jacqueline texted us weeks ago that she is staying with the Legion Lords, living with Riggs, so she can help her find her cousin.
She hasn’t contacted us since then, and we are all worried about her, but something tells me Riggs will help keep her safe.
And on top of the guilt I feel about Jacinda and Kami, I can’t stop thinking about Stone.
The sight of him standing there while that asshole held me in front of him like a shield.
The memory of the fury on Stone’s face. The way he looked when he lifted me in his arms right before I blacked out.
I was so afraid, but the moment I saw him, I became stronger, more in control.
I don’t remember anything after that. The next memory I have is waking up in the hospital with Sophia and Jace by my side.
Once I was released, I came home and slept for a few days, with all the girls taking turns helping me.
Each time someone knocked on my door, I expected him to walk in, but I was always disappointed.
I’d overheard Onyx and Jace talking when they thought I was upstairs asleep.
“Where is he?” My brother’s tight voice questioned.
I waited, holding my breath as I hid just outside the back door to the tattoo shop. Onyx finally answered.
“He’s around.”
What did that mean? Where was he? Is he at the cabin?
That was a week ago.
I’ve remained locked up ever since, hiding away from everything and everyone.
The paparazzi camped outside my door for over a week, surrounding my gallery, shouting up at my window for a statement.
Jace made a public response for me, and they backed off some, but now and then, I see one lurking outside my gallery, hoping to get a picture or some sort of reply from me.
The art gallery has also become a tourist attraction, mainly because my full name, as well as those of Jacinda and Kamilah, were released.
The spectacle has sparked considerable interest among artists in having their work displayed in the gallery.
Jacinda’s art show was obviously postponed, but Alejandra Munoz reached out to me and still wants to see her art when Jacinda is ready.
I have no idea when that will be, and I’m not pressuring her.
Jace offered to let me stay at his penthouse. I could have stayed with Kingsley. Dru offered her brownstone. I could have gone to a fancy hotel. A luxury resort in Europe. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to be right here, surrounded by him, by the moments I had with him.
Sighing, I set down my paintbrush, unable to paint anymore.
I’m painted out. Creatively exhausted. My apartment is filled with my paintings.
Dark creations that depict my assault. Distorted manic images of El Jefe.
The women. Jacinda, Kamilah. Cara. Self-portraits of myself with my injuries.
Stone. So many pictures of his face, the moment he stepped through that door.
The ordeal Jacinda, Kamilah, and I went through covers what feels like hundreds of canvases.
I needed to get my fury and sadness onto paper, onto canvas, onto clay.
But lately, the expressive ability to create from the chaos has petered out, waned into blank pages.
I breathe in the scent of incense and stand up and walk over to the altar that is set up in the corner of my apartment. The first thing I smelled when I came home from the hospital was the scent of flowers.
My apartment was filled with bouquets. At least two dozen bouquets that I assumed were from my friends were placed around my room.
The heady fragrance reminded me of the outdoors, of the day I picked flowers for his sister and niece.
My heart beat faster looking around for him, but there was no one there.
And when I walked into my bedroom and spotted my small night table filled with marigolds, honeysuckle, and a white flower I will never forget.
Yarrow. The healing flower. The flower I placed on their graves that day.
And when I saw the framed picture of my mother, one I had never seen before.
I wondered how he got it. Besides, it was a perfectly made tomato sandwich.
It was fresh, as if he had just made it. Once I saw it, I knew for sure.
He’d been inside. He remembered my mother.
I’d never told anyone that story about my mother. I’d also never changed the locks, and he had a key.
Lying smack dab in the middle of the bed he bought me was my sketch book, and I knew it was purposeful.
I flipped it open, flipping past the erotic images of him to the last used page and found a drawing of my mother in what looked like a flower garden, smiling, surrounded by the same flowers. The style is his. He drew it for me.
It warmed something cold inside of me and pissed me off at the same time. I needed Stone. I wanted his arms around me, reminding me that I was alive. Creating a place of refuge from the nightmares of that bastard’s hands all over my body.
Walking to it now, I touch my mother’s picture. Traces of her face mirror my own. The flowers have long since died, and the sandwich is gone as well. It got too moldy to keep anymore. I’ve replaced them, but the memory of what he did will forever be burned in my mind.
The only place I feel close to him is when I visit his mother.
She doesn’t mind me being there, and we sit and paint.
We don’t speak to each other. She has no idea who I am.
We paint together, and her room is filled with paintings.
Then last night, I went to visit Valentina.
I needed to cuddle her, hold her in my arms. Jace looked at me with knowing eyes and asked.
“Caleb says you’ve been visiting Stone’s mother.”
“Christ, Jace.”