Chapter 23 #2
“I did work for them.” I rolled my neck, wishing I could relieve the tension there and in what felt like every joint in my body.
“The mob.” I knew I didn’t need to clarify, but Elliot needed to understand that this wasn’t a story of a victim who needed to be pitied.
I played plenty of villainous roles in this story too.
“And before you try to convince me otherwise, I knew exactly who they were the second I started working for them. Made the conscious choice to do it when I might’ve gotten out unscathed by just saying no.
Though few women have gotten out unscathed by just saying no,” I shrugged.
“But I was smart enough to figure out a way had I wanted to. But I was also greedy. Cocky. I wanted to get involved. I thought I could handle it.”
I shook my head at how fucking stupid I’d been.
“First, it was financial stuff. That was my job. Made deals that were just a hair short of a felony and made a fuck of a lot of money for men.” I sucked in a breath. “And women. Bad motherfuckers, all of them.”
I was trying to make my story as truthful and repulsive as I could, and it sickened me to have to say it all plainly without the justifications I’d given myself.
“If it stayed like that, just on paper, I’d probably still be there,” I admitted. “In New York, doing it. Pretending to be a powerful woman.” I shook my head, brimming with shame. “I was willing to justify a lot, lie to myself. But it didn’t stay on paper.”
I squeezed my eyes open and shut, my mind hurtling back into the past.
I’d known that Gregory had calculated what happened the day everything changed. He had purposefully sat me there, pretending it was a routine meeting until he brought in the person I had discovered was embezzling and shot him in the head.
There was no pageantry, no fanfare. He just shot him in the head.
Right in front of me.
I hadn’t screamed. I was proud of myself for that.
Hadn’t cried. I’d sat there, stock-still, sprayed with blood, instantly understanding what was happening.
Gregory was ensuring I knew exactly who I was dealing with and just how trapped I was.
He’d offered me his pocket square for the blood, promised a million to be deposited into my account the next day as a ‘bonus’ then ensured me I’d always be safe under his loyal employ.
I’d reminded him that I was a contractor, a consultant. He’d looked at the dead body and said, “Not anymore. You’re mine now.”
I didn’t take well to men calling me theirs, whether I was sleeping with them or not.
Especially when the man in question had just murdered someone in front of me.
But I’d perceived well enough that arguing that point at that juncture would’ve gotten me killed, so I’d stayed quiet, nodding once then let him dismiss me.
I’d stood up with a straight spine, walked out with a steady gait then waited until I got safely in my apartment before I vomited.
I didn’t tell Elliot all of that. He didn’t need to know.
“I couldn’t do it, once I truly understood,” I explained. “Seeing what those people were. The true demons whose mortgages I was funding, as well as their suits, private jets, hush money.”
I squeezed my hands open and shut, my wrist throbbing at the reminder of Jasper’s ferocious grip.
“So I said no. No more.” I laughed without humor. Even though I’d been smart enough not to say no thank you to the man who’d just murdered someone in front of me. I’d been cocky enough to make a lunch date with him to do it the next day.
He’d accepted my resignation with civility, though I spotted the prickle of irritation in his eyes. I’d just been satisfied that I’d gotten out unscathed.
I pushed up off the sofa, unable to sit in his comfortable embrace when I said what I had to say. I started to pace around the room.
“And I know I said at the bar that a woman needs to be smart enough to know that she has to be careful when saying no to a man. But I wasn’t smart. I thought I’d risen high enough, built enough safeguards that I was untouchable. No woman is.”
Seconds after I opened the door to my apartment, I tasted old pennies.
Blood pooled in my mouth.
That came first, before the pain—the taste. One that I’d taste on my tongue for months, no matter how many martinis I sucked, hoping to sterilize my mouth, to erase it.
It was the taste I still woke up with sometimes, just as visceral as it was that day. Most people likely wouldn’t believe it, given the situation. But it was the taste that came first. Then the crunch. Of a fist against my face.
For someone who thought she was always cognizant of her surroundings, someone constantly on guard, someone who would never become a victim, I sure became one quickly.
I didn’t have time to fight back, which I had been certain I would in a situation like that.
And situations like that were something I’d considered as a real possibility.
I lived in New York. I did business with powerful men who became bitter when defeated by me.
I had a weapon, multiple weapons, throughout my apartment.
I usually wore one strapped to my inner thigh in meetings with more unsavory clients.
I’d trained with the top martial artists in the country.
Powerful… That’s how I’d been sure I would be. That if a situation arose where I’d have to physically defend myself, that it would be as easy as it was in the boardroom.
I was aware of the possibility and prepared to be assaulted. Or I had assumed that I was prepared. Arrogant. Terribly arrogant of me.
Almost deathly arrogant.
There was no such thing as preparedness for being assaulted.
Especially not while in the apartment I considered a sanctuary, even though I barely spent any time in it. I had paid an exorbitant amount for it, it was secure, with a doorman, with cameras, codes, locks, alarms.
I opened my door dressed in sweats, no makeup on, no knife at my thigh, just a fist plowing into my face.
And I didn’t fight back. I couldn’t.
I fell backward, allowing him to storm inside, closing and locking the door behind him. My ears were ringing, my eyes filling with tears as I struggled to comprehend what was happening.
I smelled him. He wore expensive aftershave, but the bitter, rancid scent of his sweat overpowered it.
Then my blood. I hadn’t thought blood had a smell. Maybe it didn’t. But to me, it tasted like copper and smelled of iron and pennies.
The pain registered after the second punch. That one was to my midsection. In hindsight, it was likely to ensure that I couldn’t recover enough to fight back. He was large, the man. I didn’t initially take in any of his features beyond his sheer size.
I’d bet he put all of his strength into the punch to my midsection. The pain of it made tears spill from my eyes, made my organs scrunch. The agony exploded in my stomach, powerful to the point where I was sure there had to be internal bleeding.
It was the violence that shocked me.
And there was plenty more violence to come. Fists. Kicks. Rough hands tearing at my clothes. Violation so personal, so intimate it tore at what remained of my soul.
The beating was one thing. Tearing my skin with his rings. Breaking my fingers. It made me feel small, weak. But didn’t take away my power. Not entirely.
Not until he raped me.
My surprise rapidly gave way to a grim resignation. I didn’t leave my body, go somewhere else like some victims of assault said they did. I was there the whole time, forcing myself to be present every second until he left me naked on the floor in a pool of my own blood.
I’d eventually pulled myself off that floor.
Put broken fingers back into place, stitched together my torn skin with a sewing kit.
I’d chewed on valium, painkillers and compartmentalized.
I'd ignored the need to call someone, anyone for help.
Ignored the desperation to call my father, feel safe in his arms, go running home.
There was no going home for me.
There was only forward.
Only war.
I was in that apartment one second, yet in the next, I was in Elliot’s living room, with him across from me.
I swallowed thickly, trying to rid the taste of blood from my mouth.
I silently reminded myself it was not from any kind of physical harm, just what my brain conjured up when it was presented with trauma it didn’t know how to process.
I forced myself to take slow, deep, calming breaths.
My hands didn’t shake. My eyes didn’t well with tears.
Though I’d been lost in the memory of the event , I was fairly certain that my cadence didn’t change, and my voice had been even, strong.
No hiccups, no sobs, nothing to substantiate just how wholly the event had decimated my insides.
I’d been staring Elliot in the face, but I hadn’t seen him, not really. My rapid heartbeat was the only thing that betrayed my fear of looking into his eyes and seeing how he looked at me after everything I said.
“I’m not a victim.” Despite my best efforts, there was a very slight rasp to my voice. “I made my bed.” I let out an ugly laugh that hurt to produce. I thought of one thousand-dollar sheets stained with my blood and tears.
I walked to his kitchen, putting the breakfast bar between us because I needed a barrier of some kind.
“I deserved what I got.” I dragged my palm along the edge of the island.
“No woman deserves assault on the basis of anything from her clothing, sexual promiscuity, drinks consumed, etcetera. But I think it gets a little gray when the woman in question was making millions from the subjugation of thousands of others, from their deaths, their pain.” I said all of this without wincing, without the shame that I’d accepted I’d never wash off.
I deserved to live with that. Just like I had deserved that assault.
To shock me out of my greed, to admit who I had been dealing with. Who I had become.