by Amelia Wilde
He’s talking but I can’t hear him. A soft touch under my chin, and then he holds out one hand. Stop. Who is he telling to stop? If it’s my father he’ll loom into my sight soon enough and he won’t stop, he will never stop, he’ll take me back to that cathedral and make me marry a dead man or worse or worse or worse—
Zeus points one finger, his lips still moving. He has perfect lips. If I have to die right now, and I do, then his face is the last thing I want to see. My pulse is roaring thunder. It won’t be long now. My heart will burst. He meets my eyes again, coming closer so now there’s nothing but white shirt and golden eyes. Tan skin. Hands on my face, holding my head still. Why? Because my bones rattle against the floor. That’s the shock, someone says. His mouth is forming the shape of my name.
He says it six times before I begin to hear it. “Brigit,” he says. “Sweetheart.”
A big breath so I can scream some more. My voice rejects the sound. “He saw me.” My back aches from being pressed against the wall.
“No, he didn’t. The windows are one-way glass. No one can see through them. We can see out, but no one can see in.” His voice is level. It feels like a weighted blanket of spun gold. “Brigit, can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
Zeus inches backward, not far enough to let go of me but far enough that I can see a sliver of the room behind him. “James is in the room with us. He has two of his men by the door. The rest are outside.” He’s studying me like I’m the most important test of his life. “James is my head of security. He’s safe. James, move behind me with extreme caution, so Brigit can see you. Slowly. Slower than that.”
It’s almost funny, how slowly James comes into view, but a new pain in my palm alerts me to the fact that I will snap if anyone makes a sudden movement. I will cut my own hands open with my nails.
“Do you see him?”
“Yeah.” I look twice to make sure. It is James, and not my father, who is a younger carbon copy of my uncle. “I—see.”
“He’s going to ask you a few questions. James, you can take two steps forward.”
James takes exactly two steps forward, his hands up, palms showing. I want to laugh. I really do. But I can’t.
“Brigit, you saw your father on the sidewalk outside this window?”
“He was out there,” I whisper.
“Did you have anything to drink this morning?”
“I had tea.” I had tea and toast and a scrambled egg. That’s what comes on the tray every morning. It pisses me off, because it is always, always perfect. It’s the best tea and toast and scrambled egg of my life, every time.
“Any alcohol? Or drugs?”
“No.” I’m offended, but I can’t blame him. I look insane right now. I feel insane. “No, I did not take drugs.” This makes me want to sink into myself and die, but when I try to turn my head to the side, Zeus stops me with a shhh.
“Reya is going to come in now,” he says. “She’s going to take Savannah out. Okay?”
My hands float up against my will and find purchase on his bare forearms. It steadies me. Just enough to breathe. One normal breath. And then another. Reya’s dress is a floaty mint-green thing and it floats and floats until she and Savannah are gone.
Voices by the door. I almost lose my grip, but Zeus is faster. “The team that went outside,” he says. “James?”
“They didn’t find anything.”
Tears spill onto my cheeks then, my chest caving in. “I saw him. We have to get out of here. We all have to leave.”
“I know you did.” Zeus moves his thumbs in slow circles, taking away the tears. “James, come one step closer and tell Brigit the plan for tonight.”
“We’ll be calling in reinforcements from two outside firms and one team of retired guards, all of them trusted and vetted. There’ll be people at every entrance and exit and spaced out every ten feet on the roof.”
It’s a long list. I try my best to hear all of it, but there’s really only one thing that matters. “You’ll be here?” I whisper.
“I’ll be here,” says Zeus.
17
Zeus
The incident with Brigit is so fucking strange, but the most bizarre part is how calm she gets before she leaves my office. She shakes her hair out of her face, accepts my hand to stand up, and walks out with color in her cheeks and her head held high.
“What the fuck happened?” asks James.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “There could have been someone there.”
I’m caught between sexual frustration and an odd satisfaction for the rest of the afternoon. The mood in the whorehouse is light. Positive. The women are happy, anticipating the evening, and by the time the entertainment is in full swing, it’s clear that the attitude has been infectious.
By midnight I’m sure that this is one of the best nights in my ownership of this place. Everyone is in the mood to spend money. All the women are getting hired. Even Xavier Morris has put his scowl aside for the evening. I’ve never seen him like this before. James comes to give me my twice-hourly update at half past midnight. “Did someone drug Morris?”
“Looks like it,” James laughs. Despite the extra work he has for the evening, he’s in a buoyant mood, too. His husband is going to appreciate it at the end of the night. “You want me to watch him too?”
“I’ve got it. Any leads on Demeter?” It’s not a stretch to think she might be involved with Brigit’s dad, now that the wedding is off because of a tragic heart attack.
“No. But we’re looking. I have two extra teams out tonight.”
I clap a hand on James’s shoulder. “We’ve got time.”
It’s such a good fucking night that it lulls me into thinking optimistic thoughts. Such as—if I can just find my psychopath of a sister, there’s a chance I could have Brigit to myself. And not just as one of my many whores but as a person who means something to me.
I could admit it to her.
Even Reya is having an especially good night. She’s been kissing a woman all evening, looking flirtatious and pink and lovely. I spot her on the other side of the room, heading toward the front lobby.
Alone.
Odd.
There’s nothing for her in the lobby, and she seems to have second thoughts about it, bracing herself on the door for a moment before she’s out of my sight. Should I follow her? No. She’s an adult woman, and doesn’t need me pestering her about going to the fucking lobby. But perhaps I will anyway.
I’ve taken three steps when a client and his chosen whore cross my vision.
When they’re gone, all I see is Brigit.
Curled up in the lap of another man, toying with his jacket. She chose red for tonight, a dress that’s surprisingly demure, with thin straps and a flowing hemline. It drapes over his lap and hers. She tosses her head back, hair a river of blonde, and laughs. The relaxed set of her limbs suggests that she’s had drugs of one kind or another, but then, everyone is relaxed tonight. Happy. Smiling.
I’m a pillar of stone.
Then heat.
Then a boiling, confused rage. It hasn’t been twelve hours since I talked her off the ledge in my office. Back then, she was ready to collapse into my arms. If I’d held her, she would have let me.
And now she’s tracing patterns on a shirt belonging to the chief of police.
I find myself towering over the chair, which is one of four in a clutch at the side of the room. The other three are unoccupied. Morris doesn’t take his eyes from her face as he addresses me. “I’ve borrowed Brigit for a few minutes, Zeus. Since I paid for her.”
“I returned your money.” My razor-sharp tone gets his attention and hers, too. Her eyes go wide. Morris paid an exorbitant fee for her, and I never told her that I was the one to replace the money. She has only ever glanced over the balance sheet for her account. She has never once asked to access it, perhaps not realizing that all she has to do is walk into any bank and give her name. Any bank in the city. But this was never
about money, was it? Only for about five minutes in the very beginning.
“Don’t worry,” Brigit coos, stroking the back of his neck with one hand. “He’ll go away soon.”
“Unfortunately,” I say, “Brigit doesn’t have permission to socialize tonight.” I lean down so that I’m eye level with her. “Get up.”
She cocks her head to the side. Blown-out pupils, color rising fast to her cheeks. “I don’t think so.”
It’s too much. It’s too fucking much and too many years of playing this game. Her defiance is the thing that snaps me, breaks me wide open, and lets loose all the anger and need that have bound themselves together so tightly that I can hardly fucking breathe. “Brigit.”
The mood has shifted for Xavier. He pushes her off his lap, catching her hand at the last minute and kissing her knuckles. “Visit me later, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart is the bullet to the chest. It’s the crack of my ribs, the wall tumbling down. It’s white-hot. It’s a cataclysm. I’m blinded by the red spill of her dress. Everyone else in the room no longer matters. Tear apart the web. Bring it all down. Fuck it. Fuck it.
I reach down for the back of her neck and tangle my fingers in her hair along the way. She struggles to get her feet under her, breathing ow, ow, ow, wait, wait.
I don’t wait.
She has no choice but to come along with me. My guests stumble out of my way, parting, letting us through, while I drag her across the rooms to the big chairs there. They are not the same ones that belonged to my father. They are re-creations. A reminder to me and everyone else who is in charge here. It’s me. Not Brigit, not Morris, not the ghosts of the past. Me.
And I will take what I fucking want.
And what I want is Brigit.
Not a single person challenges me. Not a single person dares to look at her with anything approaching concern. I have every right to her body and her cunt and her tears. Every fucking right.
I drag her all the way to the big chair and shove the second one away to make space. This is where my father sat. I’ve taken his place now. And she has unleashed me. No going back now. Not ever.
I take my seat and make a cage for her with my legs and get her on her feet there, between my legs. Brigit’s trembling now. Her eyes—are those unshed tears? “Everyone saw what you just did,” she says, voice thick with hurt and something else, too. Desire. Her hands clench and unclench at her sides. Her dress is twisted to one side, the strap fallen over her shoulder.
I take the straps and pull, snapping them both in the process. The neckline of her dress comes next. She gasps when the air meets nipples and I lean forward and take one in my teeth. She groans when I bite down, but I don’t let myself do it for long. Punishment for both of us. “I told you not to fuck other men.”
“I wasn’t fucking him.” Her chin quivers. The shaking wreck of a woman from this afternoon reappears in brief flashes. “If you didn’t want anyone to touch me you should have done something about it.”
“You wanted to be chained to a sofa in my office? Is that it? Tell me, Brigit, tell me what drove you to sit in his fucking lap like a whore for hire.”
“You should have told me you wanted me.” Astonishing. Cutting. The audacity of her. “You should have told me you love me. You should have done it today.” Her hands ball up into fists. “Today was the worst day and you still wouldn’t say it.”
And because I am a consummate bastard, I don’t say it now.
Instead I shove her dress down and down until it slides over her hips and falls to the floor.
Brigit wears a pair of red panties. She lost her shoes on the trip over here. It’s obvious she can’t catch her breath. It’s obvious that one touch will set her ablaze. We’ll all be consumed with it.
She is left with only her panties and her tears.
So that’s all she’s wearing when I bundle her over my lap.
The sound she makes—the sound—it’s not fear. It’s relief.
It makes me laugh.
Brigit should be lots of things right now, but she should not be relieved.
She turns her head toward me, her hair falling over her face, and I leave it there while I slip my fingertips beneath the waistband of the panties and take them off. Slowly. I want her to feel every moment of her last defenses as they fall away, leaving her bare and exposed.
In front of all these people.
Let them watch. Let them fucking see.
The panties fall to the floor by one of my shoes and it arrests me for a single moment, the red next to that shining black. It wraps its fists in the front of my jacket and pulls so hard I have to look up, look up, fucker, and concentrate on the paint on the walls. It’s a white room now. It was dark before. I’m not my father.
I’m worse.
I have her pinned over my lap with one arm and with my free hand I stroke the hair out of her face, tracing the shape of her ear. And then I lean down so I can be sure she hears me. Absolutely fucking sure. “Disobedient whores get punished.”
She shivers on my lap, her hip pressing against the lard length of me. Fuck, I want her. Fuck, I want to punish her. “I’m not your whore.”
I am about to paint her naked ass with handprints and she is still defiant.
I let her hear me laugh. Let her feel the heat of my hand on her skin so she knows where I’ll spank her first. “You’ll always be my whore.”
And then I bring my hand down hard.
18
Brigit
It’s shocking, how hard that first blow is, it shocks me. It shocks me how strong Zeus is. How much force he’s capable of. I have no reason to be shocked. I know him. I know his body, his cruel, wretched heart, I know all the things I need to know about him.
Part of me has known all these things since our first kiss. He didn’t pull away, even though I was terrible at it, and pretending not to be afraid.
The blows rain down.
It’s clarifying, the pain. It knocks the weird, high feeling out of my brain and hauls me back down to earth.
But then—
Then it sends me spiraling up again.
Ever since that day in his playroom, in his dungeon, ever since the day I saw Savannah naked and shuddering on that cross while he painted red lines on her skin, I have wanted this from him. And not because he’s preparing to sell me to another man but because he considers me to be his.
I know it was wrong. I know I shouldn’t have sat on the cop’s lap and let him touch me. But this—
This is right.
It was the only way to get here. My last, desperate bid to get us here. To get myself here. Anyone who says I provoked him, I made him do this—no. I’ve seen his eyes when he’s making a confession. If he’s broken for me, then it’s because he let it happen. Or because he couldn’t stop it. Either way.
My body arches, trying to get away from the sting and the heat covering every inch of my ass. This only makes Zeus hold me down harder with a hiss that sounds like a lost man, a man who is lost to me. There’s never been anything so delicious in my life as the iron bar of his arm across my back. Can’t get away. I can’t get away. He has me, and I can’t get away.
It doesn’t matter that I’m fully on display for these people. It doesn’t matter at all until it does. Until I hover outside my body and see the way I’m kicking and fighting. The grit of my teeth, trying to keep the tears in. The cries. I hope they all watch, all the guests, and at the same time I hope they don’t see my humiliation.
But they will. They do.
He only stops when my entire ass and the tops of my thighs are on fire. Stops and holds me down while I wriggle on his lap, the aftershocks of pain still sparking, waiting to burst into full flame. My skin is a constellation of glowing embers.
“Are you scared?” he asks.
“Yes.” My voice is ruined, hoarse. “I’m scared you’ll stop.”
He laughs, body quaking with it, and puts a hand between us. Oh, fuck. Oh, he’s going to fuck me i
n this chair. Right now.
But Zeus is only undoing his belt. He lets the cool leather slide over the side of my hip. He hitches my ass up higher with one of his knees and presses down with this arm. No getting up now. Not now not ever. The hum of the room doesn’t subside. It hasn’t decreased in volume all this time, I don’t think, or it’s possible that I just couldn’t hear them.
No frightened gasps. No cries to stop. No one comes to rescue me, thank god. I never want to be rescued.
The leather kisses my aching flesh. “It would be irresponsible of me to stop when you haven’t learned your lesson, sweetheart. Six is the magic number.”
“No—”
The belt makes contact before I have time to truly brace myself. I hear the sound before I feel the pain, and when it arrives my body curls around it, both feet kicking. He knocks them both down. I take a breath to scream, I open my mouth, but I bite down on something that catches the sound.
His wallet. It’s flat, fine leather, and my teeth sink into it just as the second blow lands. The third. The fourth. Spit leaks around the edges of the wallet but it muffles my cries. It should be unbearable, too painful to survive, but Zeus’s body beneath mine grounds me.
He is gravity. And I can feel him there, unending, a force of nature, in a way that I’ve felt nothing else since that day in the cathedral.
The last two snaps of the belt punish welted skin. They turn the memory of that countertop into something smaller. Something conquerable. Something I can live with. The belt is a cleansing fire. I needed to be burned alive.
Zeus drops the belt. He’s even harder now against my hip, but I don’t get to feel it for long. He pulls me upright. Swipes the tears from my cheeks. Maybe he’ll hug me. Maybe he’ll let me bury my fists in his shirt and cry.
The wicked grin spreading slowly across his gorgeous, mean face tells me otherwise. “No, sweetheart, of course I’m not finished. You haven’t learned. Keep the wallet in your mouth.”
A sob tears out of me. It doesn’t stop him from turning me around and planting me firmly on his lap. His big hands rearrange my legs, hooking one knee over the arms of the chair, then the other.