That made sense. I’d never spoken directly to Asher or paid much attention to him, so I didn’t know his voice very well, let alone anything else about him. I probably couldn’t even pick him out of a lineup.
“So you got your nasty little Prince buddies to help you kidnap me?” I said, lip curling with contempt.
“Just Asher, Elijah, and Justin.”
“And they thought it was totally normal to chase someone with stun guns, drug them, and throw them in a cell?”
“They don’t know you’re still here,” he replied. “They thought it was just a prank to scare the shit out of you.”
“Like the prank you pulled on Friday the 13th?” I asked, putting the word ‘prank’ in air quotes.
He smirked. “Yes. Just like that.”
I waved a hand around the room. “So where am I? What the hell is this place?”
“It’s one of the old wine cellars,” he said, glancing around the space. “When Adam was a kid, he decided he wanted to play the drums. Mom didn’t want him to bother the housekeeping staff or make Dad angry with all the noise, so she arranged for one of the cellars to be turned into a soundproof studio for him.”
“That’s what the padding is for? Soundproofing?”
“Yeah. So you can scream and cry all you want. No one is ever going to hear you.”
“What if Adam comes down here?”
He snorted. “He won’t. He lost interest in the drums after three months, and he hasn’t been down here since then. Neither has anyone else. No one even noticed I put a deadbolt lock on the other side of the door.”
“So I’ve really been a prisoner in your fucking house this whole time?”
“Underneath it, yes,” he replied. “All the cellars are on a basement level, for obvious reasons.”
I swallowed thickly, wondering how close my mom was right now. Hunter seemed to know exactly what I was thinking, because he smirked again.
“Your mom worked here yesterday. She cleaned the floors right up to the doorway where the cellar stairs start, so she was only a few yards away from you,” he said. “I really wanted to tell you, just so I could hear you scream your head off, but then you would’ve known who I was right away. So I kept it to myself.”
“You sick fucking bastard,” I muttered.
Hunter’s cold smirk widened. “Adam’s here too,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the ceiling. “Just a couple of floors up. He’s actually the one who broke into your phone for me.”
My heart skipped a beat. “He wouldn’t do that to me.”
“He didn’t know it was yours. I put a different cover on it and told him it belonged to a friend of mine, and they forgot the code after changing it while they were drunk. He broke in, disabled the code and gave it back to me. Totally unaware.”
My stomach clenched as a roaring sound filled my ears. I wanted to jump up and choke Hunter until his face turned purple and his eyes bulged out.
“Why the hell have you done this to me?” I asked, hands curling into fists.
“You know why.”
“No, I mean—why did you stalk me for months? Why did you bring me here and torture me? Why not just turn me in?” I asked, stomach roiling with a mixture of anger and confusion. “We both know what I did. Who I killed. No point denying it, because you obviously have some sort of evidence that led you to figure it out. So why don’t you just call the police and get them to arrest me? Why drag it out for so long with all this bullshit?”
“I’m going to contact the police eventually,” he replied. “But first I want to hear you say it. I want to hear the whole story. Every single little detail in your own words.”
I shook my head and looked down at my lap. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I muttered, shoulders sagging. “Just call the police now, if you want me gone so badly.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “No. Tell me what you did first, and why,” he said, voice soft yet icy. “If you confess right now, I might go easy on you for the rest of the time that you’re stuck here.”
I sighed heavily. “Why do you even care what I did?” I asked, glancing up at him. “You’ve never struck me as the kind of guy who gives a shit about—”
I stopped midsentence and shrank back against the wall as a murderous expression appeared on Hunter’s face. “Just fucking say it,” he said through gritted teeth.
I held my palms out in front of me, wishing I could stop them from trembling so much.
“Okay. Fine,” I said. “I’ll tell you everything.”
25
Laney
A familiar sensation of fear and shame sank into my belly like a cold stone.
I’d never told the full story to anyone. Just a few snippets here and there from the background information. Never all of it. Certainly not the killing part.
The idea of bringing every detail into the open was physically painful for me. All of the old dark stuff rose up inside me like black ink, swirling through me in icy tendrils and creeping into my brain like spider-legs.
“There’s a really long background story that I need to tell you first,” I began in a halting voice. “So I can explain why I did it.”
Hunter’s eyes narrowed. “Fine,” he said coolly. He held up the video camera and switched it on.
“It all started when I was fourteen. We didn’t have much money, which I guess you already know. Mom quit college when she was younger to support my dad’s business, and that didn’t go well. He had his own handyman company, but it barely paid the bills. Mostly because he drank half the profits and spent a lot of the rest on betting at one of the local bars. I think he was addicted to it.”
Hunter frowned. “I know what that’s like,” he cut in, voice low. “With my mom and her pills.”
I nodded slowly. “Right. Anyway, even though we didn’t have any money, I ended up being offered free piano lessons over in Bairnsdale, because of a favor my dad did. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Bairnsdale, but—”
“I have. It’s about forty minutes from here,” Hunter said, cutting me off again.
“Yeah. Not as nice as Royal Falls, but much nicer than Silvercreek,” I said. I scrubbed a hand across my face and went on. “Anyway, the first few lessons were fine. My teacher was a man named Peter Elton.”
His name felt like glass in my mouth. I paused to take a deep breath, lowering my gaze from the camera trained on my face.
“He was a good teacher. Not a good person,” I went on.
“Why?”
“Well… at my fourth lesson, everything was normal at first. But then he said I looked hungry, and he offered to get me a snack. I hadn’t eaten since lunchtime at school that day, so I agreed to have some cookies and juice. I was excited because we could never afford to have cookies at home. Not the nice brand, anyway.” I rubbed my face again. “He brought them to me by the piano and left them on a little coffee table next to it. The juice was orange and mango, which I don’t like at all. I had a few sips to be polite, and then… well, this will sound silly, but I really didn’t want to be rude and leave it mostly untouched. So I waited until he left the room to get some new sheet music, and then I tipped the rest of the glass into a plant pot near the coffee table.”
Hunter’s brows furrowed, but he didn’t say anything. He just waved his hand for me to keep going.
“I started to feel a bit weird a few minutes later. Kind of… spacey. Like I was floating in a dream. Peter asked me if I wanted to lie down, and that was the last thing I remembered before I woke up again.”
Hunter’s expression softened for a moment, but the softness didn’t last. “Go on,” he said.
“When I woke up, I was in a bed, and he was above me. My jeans and underwear were off, and he was… doing things to me.” I turned away and moistened my dry lips. “I think I was supposed to drink the whole glass of juice,” I went on, voice barely above a murmur. “I wasn’t supposed to wake up. He didn’t freak out, though. He just stroked my hair and told me to go back
to sleep. That it was all a dream.”
“Jesus,” Hunter muttered.
I sighed and leaned back. “I was young, but I knew what was happening,” I said. “I… I didn’t fight him. I pretended to pass out instead. I just closed my eyes, went limp, and let him do whatever he wanted. I was scared he would hurt me otherwise. More than he was already hurting me, I mean.”
I looked up again. Hunter’s eyes flared hot as his gaze locked with mine. “What happened then?” he asked.
“After a few minutes, I felt woozy, and I passed out again. When I woke up for the second time, I was lying on the couch in the living room. My clothes were back on, and Peter was sitting nearby, watching me. When he saw that I was awake, he smiled and said something like, ‘Wow, they must be running you kids ragged at school’. I had no idea what happened at first, so I asked what he meant. He said I seemed really tired halfway through our lesson, and then I asked if I could lie down on the couch for a few minutes. Then I went to sleep, and apparently I looked too peaceful for him to wake me up.”
I saw something shift in Hunter’s eyes—a fleeting shadow of doubt in his otherwise steely gaze. “And then?”
“He told me I was tossing and turning near the end of my nap. That I must’ve been having a nightmare. At first I believed him, because I didn’t remember anything. But I had a bad feeling.”
I looked down again, recalling that exact feeling. Tremors had raced through me in those moments; a fear like I’d never known before. I’d tried my best to unearth more, but my mind was a total blank. I knew something very bad had happened, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what or when.
That all changed when I sat up.
“Once I got up, it started coming back to me,” I said, twisting my fingers in my lap. “I realized what he was doing, and what he’d already done. He thought I drank all the juice, and I’d forgotten everything like I was supposed to.” I hesitated, letting out another heavy sigh. “He was so pleasant and smooth when he talked. As if he’d done it a hundred times before. Even the nightmare thing was part of it—on the off chance I remembered even a few fragments, he was conditioning me to think it was just a bad dream. That it never really happened.”
“What did you do?”
Heat rushed into my cheeks. “I… I froze again,” I said. “I didn’t say anything about what I remembered. I just smiled politely and played along. I was terrified of what he might do if I told him I knew what he did. What a monster he was. So I waited for my mom to pick me up, and then I told her to take me straight to the hospital. She asked why, but I couldn’t tell her at first. I just felt so… so stupid. Like it was my fault for drinking any of the juice, even though there was no way I could’ve known what Peter was going to do to me. So I stayed quiet until we got there, and then I finally told one of the doctors when they took me into a private room to talk.”
“Did they believe you?” Hunter asked.
I nodded. “They did a physical exam. A rape kit. Took blood for a tox screen to prove I’d been drugged recently,” I said. I paused, swallowing thickly. “It all went pretty fast after that. The police raided his house. Found drugs and a collection of videotapes.”
“Videotapes?”
I took a deep breath. “He liked to film himself hurting girls, and he had a whole collection of tapes hidden in the basement,” I said. “I wasn’t the first girl. I was just the first who actually remembered what was done to them.”
Hunter rubbed his jaw. “Shit,” he muttered. “So there was a tape of you too.”
“Yes. They used it in court when it all went to trial, along with the others. It was—” I stopped as emotion welled up inside me, making my throat ache until I could barely breathe.
I didn’t want to let it overwhelm me, but a teardrop fell. Then another. Then I was crying, sobbing so hard I doubled over, head in my hands as the memories came back in full force, sharp and painful like a quiver of arrows to the gut.
I knew my story was hard to talk about, but by refusing to ever discuss the details with anyone, I’d managed to distance myself enough that I had no idea how crippling it would be when I finally told it all out loud.
Hunter surprised me then. He put the camera down and moved over to me. One hand went to my shoulder. “It’s okay,” he muttered.
I kept crying, because it was never going to be okay.
“I mean, it’s not okay. What happened to you,” Hunter went on. “I just meant it’s okay for you to take your time. Just… let it all out.”
The tears kept falling, grief and guilt pouring out of me. Hunter didn’t take his hand off my shoulder the whole time, despite the conflicted look in his eyes.
I finally took several deep breaths and wiped my face. “That’s pretty much all of the backstory,” I murmured. “Peter Elton went to prison, and everything was supposed to go back to normal. As normal as it could be after what happened, I mean. Which I guess is not normal at all.”
“Is he still in prison?” Hunter asked.
“Yes.” I wiped my cheeks again and sniffed. “He’ll be there forever.”
“Okay. Good.” He paused to clear his throat. “Can you tell me the rest now?”
I nodded. “One night, just a few weeks after they arrested Peter and charged him, my dad came home from his favorite bar. He was drunk. Filthy, stinking drunk. He could barely talk. But he did anyway.” I stared into space, recalling the details of that awful night. “He was angry at me. Kept shaking his fist at me and shouting about how it was all my fault.”
“What was your fault?”
“That his business was failing,” I replied. “See, when we were first introduced to Peter for my piano lessons, he and my dad acted like they were total strangers meeting for the very first time. But apparently that was all a show. They did know each other. Went way back, apparently.”
“What does that have to do with your dad’s business failing?”
I lifted a shaky palm. “You’ll see,” I said. I sniffed again before continuing. “So that night, my dad was yelling at me and blaming me for everything. I think he was so drunk he didn’t even know what he was saying. Otherwise there’s no way he would’ve admitted the truth, which was—”
My voice cracked, and I stopped abruptly.
“What was it?” Hunter asked.
“Peter knew my dad was in financial trouble. And apparently, my dad knew he liked young girls. Very young. So they made a deal when I started lessons with him. Ten thousand for my virginity. Another thousand for every time after that.”
Hunter’s eyes widened. “Are you fucking serious? He sold you?”
I nodded grimly. “Yes. Peter was supposed to pay my dad after the fact. So when he was immediately arrested after that first time, my dad didn’t get anything. And he couldn’t exactly complain, could he? He couldn’t go to the police and say, ‘Hey, this guy owes me ten grand because I sold my fourteen-year-old daughter’s virginity to him’.”
Hunter’s jaw clenched. “No shit.”
“So anyway, back to that night. My dad was yelling at me. Throwing things. Saying it would be my fault if we couldn’t pay the rent anymore. Saying that I should’ve just had the juice and kept my fucking mouth shut. That he was just doing what he could to keep our family and house together, and now I’d gone and ruined it.”
I paused as I remembered the shock and disgust I felt as he shouted at me that evening.
If I had to be anywhere near that bastard ever again, hearing him try to justify his actions in whatever sick, twisted way he came up with, I’d probably explode. Stuck to the walls after that would be nothing but pieces of skin, bone, brain matter, and whatever was left of what was once a big, warm heart, filled with love for my father.
I rubbed my eyes and continued with the story. “My mom was there too. She was just as horrified as me to hear all of this stuff suddenly spewing out of his mouth. She charged across the room at him like a banshee. Started screaming and slapping him. He was much bigger
than her, though. He picked her up by the neck. Started choking her and calling her an ungrateful cunt. Saying that’s where I got my selfish attitude from.”
“Jesus….” Hunter shook his head.
“I was furious at him. And terrified, too. I thought he would kill Mom. Then me. So I just—” I paused again, cheeks flaming with shame. “I grabbed this heavy clock that used to sit on the mantel. Then I ran up next to my dad and I… I smashed it into the side of his head. I hit him so hard that I heard his skull crack. Then there was blood everywhere, and other stuff, and I…” I stopped and rubbed my face again. “He started gurgling. Dropped Mom. Slowly collapsed to the floor.”
“Shit.”
I sniffed. “We didn’t know what to do. We just stood there and watched him struggle.”
Hunter looked right at me as I spoke, his body wired tight, every muscle straining in anticipation for the end of my story.
“He was dying. We knew that. There was just no way anyone could survive that kind of head injury. But he didn’t die slowly. He managed to prop himself up on an elbow at one point, and then he dragged himself a few feet across the floor and grabbed a baseball bat that was lying by the counter. He obviously knew he wasn’t going to make it, and he wanted to make sure we didn’t make it either.”
“What happened then?”
“Mom picked up the clock. Hit him again in the same spot. He went quiet after that.”
“He was dead?”
I nodded slowly. “Yes. We killed him together,” I said, closing my eyes for a few seconds. “We didn’t plan it or anything. We were just in this horrible, panicked state. It felt like it wasn’t even happening. Like we were suddenly in some sort of horror movie.”
“What did you do then?”
“We couldn’t call the police,” I murmured. “We knew what it looked like. There was no evidence of the horrible things he told us because we didn’t record it. And we couldn’t ask Peter to back us up, because we put him in prison. He’d love to watch us go down for ruining his whole scheme, so there was no way he’d ever admit that he offered my dad money for me.” I swallowed thickly. “I know we could’ve risked it. Could’ve hoped that the police believed the stress we were under and how we were genuinely afraid for our lives that night.”
Savage Prince: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Royal Falls Elite Book 1) Page 29