Chapter 12
SETH
The work day is finally winding down. Damiano and I should’ve left for Madison’s an hour ago, but she messaged to say she’s going out to dinner with Danica.
I’m glad she found a friend.
Madison’s new plans work out for the best, because Damiano and I are still onboarding new clients.
Most of these are orphans from Point Ops’s implosion.
Also, clients like Charles Dumond, who had been lured into using Point Ops, are busy kissing our asses and trying to come back to Nove.
Dumond just sent me four passes for the next season of Surf Rats games.
I write him an effusive thank-you note. Grudges are impossible to hold where baseball is concerned.
There’s one more task for me to tackle before I leave the office.
My parents. They’ve been taking turns calling me every day. I never answer. I’m still too furious at what they pulled during Thanksgiving dinner.
It’s time to give them a conversation. Maybe it’ll be our last one ever, I don’t know.
I dial my mother’s cell phone number.
She picks up immediately. “Seth? Oh, thank you for calling me back—”
“I’ll make this quick.” I don’t wait for her to respond. “If you want to be a part of my life, you will accept Madison. What happened at Thanksgiving can never happen again. You will respect her, and you will respect me. Otherwise, you’ll have lost two sons instead of one. Do you understand?”
“I—”
“Yes or no, Mother. Do you understand?”
In a small voice, she says, “Yes, I understand.”
“Good. I’ll call back when I’m ready. Don’t call me.” I hang up. Let her think about this for a while.
To her credit, she doesn’t immediately bombard me with calls or texts. Maybe I’ll get some peace while she thinks about what she did, what she could lose.
Damiano knocks on my door. “Are you ready to see our girl?”
I’m more than ready. “Let’s go.”
MADISON
I freeze in place. I can hear the drone of the microwave, the spinning of the plate inside. The intruder’s feet shuffle over the kitchen floor.
I bet I know who it is, damnit. I call out, “Ford? What the actual fuck?”
“Madison, you’re home early.” A man steps into the entryway, coming from the kitchen. He’s holding a dish towel and one of the beers from my fridge.
It isn’t Ford. I stare, slack-jawed, at his friend, that guy who was with him downtown a month ago. Dark, buzzed haircut. Uncanny, gray-eyed stare. I wrack my brain for his name. Caleb? Callum?
He sets the beer down on the little table in the entryway—no coaster, which should be the least of my worries at present—and wipes his hands with the dish towel. “I’ve been worried about you staying out so late.”
“Right…” I look wildly from side to side, searching for answers that I can’t make appear out of thin air.
He laughs. “It’s me, baby. Your Dom, Cormac. Wow, you must be really tired, babe.”
“Right,” I choke out. “Cormac.”
He thinks he’s my Dom? I want to scream at him and kick his creeper ass out of my house. But I can’t seem to move. He’s bigger than I am. He’s a foot taller, and more muscular. There’s a hungry leanness to him, but it doesn’t make him look weak; it makes him look desperate.
What is he even doing here?
I take a step back, in the direction of the front door. I try to recall whether I’ve already locked it, or if I’ll be able to turn the handle and bolt back outside.
I think I locked it. Fuck.
Still, another step back, another step closer to freedom. The door is still several feet away, but if I move slowly, maybe he won’t notice.
But he’s more perceptive than I thought. Eyes narrowed, he asks, “Where are you going?”
“Oh, um, I just need to get a bag of groceries from my car.” I force a laugh. “It might spoil, and I don’t want it to stink up the trunk.”
He cocks his head and takes a large step toward me. He’s so close, I can see a vein pulsing in his forehead. “You were out at dinner with your new friend, not grocery shopping.”
“It’s from earlier—”
“No, no, no.” He lurches another step forward and grabs my shoulder, digging in his fingers. “I’d like you to come with me. We’ve been living here together for quite some time, Madison. Then I hear you’re inviting two other guys? To live in our house?”
“Please.” My voice is a whisper as I struggle in his grasp. “Please don’t do this.”
“Don’t be scared, Madison.” He smiles widely while squeezing my shoulder nearly to the point of pain. “I love you. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Cormac, this is crazy.” Is this what Ford was trying to tell me? Was he trying to warn me?
If he was trying to warn me, he was probably trying to do it in a way that wouldn’t get Cormac in trouble, I realize. He didn’t tell the police, he didn’t put anything overt in a text message. He didn’t even confess to Nove, the asshole.
Because keeping Cormac out of trouble was more important than my safety and privacy, I guess.
And now here I am, trapped with him.
“Cormac, let me go, please.”
“You can call me Sir, you know. It’s okay, I know you like it. I do, too.”
If he’s been here all along, he’ll have heard—or seen—me with Seth and Damiano.
I want to vomit.
I try dropping to the floor instead of twisting. It takes him by surprise, and he lets go.
As I get to my feet, though, he grabs me by the hair and swings me to the side. My head crashes against the wall, stunning me. I cry out at the pain radiating through my skull.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Madison.” Cormac’s voice is cheerful as he hauls me once again to my feet. “I just want to take care of you. And you want that, too—I know you do. Little girl.”
He grabs my shoulder again and leads me through the kitchen. My head is pounding, and little flashes of light flicker in front of my eyes.
On the kitchen counter are several of the things I’d bought for Danica’s visit. He has them set out on different platters, like he’s preparing a feast.
“I fixed us a nice dinner.” He laughs. “I know you already ate, but everything looks so yummy, I know your appetite will come back fast. Your Dom knows how best to take care of you.”
I don’t know what to say. He doesn’t seem to require a response, anyway, as he tugs me toward the pantry. He said he didn’t want to hurt me, but I can’t help but wonder why the pantry? So nobody hears me screaming?
“I’ve been staying here until you could get used to me.
” Cormac sounds entirely serious and reasonable.
When I met him with Ford, I thought so then, too.
Just a regular guy. I thought he was a little too forward, but I dismissed it as social awkwardness.
There were no red flags. My judgment is all fucked up.
And he’s completely delusional.
“Staying…in the pantry?” I ask.
“No, silly.” He pulls me all the way in.
The shelf has been moved away from the wall, and behind it is a small panel, pulled away from the wall and revealing a narrow door. To get through it, I would need to turn sideways.
Beyond the doorway is darkness.
“You’ve been staying in there?” I ask, my voice higher.
“Just so you could get more used to me. I’m a great partner, Madison. Ford taught me how to take care of the orange trees—it was so important to him, you see. He even showed me where I could stay, when I couldn’t find a new place after Vivienne died.”
“You’ve been here all along?” I can’t believe there was a trap door.
But I never visited Great-Aunt Vivienne, to my forever regret.
And if Ford was telling his buddy he could hide here, of course Ford wouldn’t show it to me when he helped me move in.
No doubt, he did everything he could to keep me from it.
In fact, the shelf was against this wall when I moved in. I never thought to look behind it.
The camera pointing at the front door makes more sense now. They wanted to monitor when I was coming and going.
All those sounds I heard, the “house settling,” the random bangs. It was Cormac.
“Those low-lifes you keep bringing over are probably coming again tonight, aren’t they?” Cormac asks.
Seth and Damiano, low-lifes? They are each ten times the man this asshole could ever be.
He makes a tsking sound with his tongue. “I can’t tell you how rude that is, Madison. All I’ve ever wanted is your comfort and happiness, and you flaunt them in front of me. Do you know what I’ve had to endure? I am your dom. Not them.”
I shake my head in disbelief. This should not be happening, this shouldn’t be real.
But he’s here, in my house, and he’s shoving me toward that tiny door.
“Cormac, please don’t make me go in there.” I grip the edge of the wall. “I don’t like how dark it is.”
“Oh, there’s a light down there, don’t worry. I’ll get you comfortable and quiet, and your other friends will give up and go home.”
They’ll never give up. They’d have to find me dead before they’d give up.
Cormac pries my fingers from the doorway, then gives me a shove.
I stumble into darkness.