NEARLY Trilogy

by Ashley, Devon

  How long before he managed to do that again? I wasn’t an idiot. I knew there were more changes to our deal to come. Ones I would have to pay. The bastard knew I’d do anything to get Thea away from Friggs. Anything. It was just a matter of time before he collected.

  I blew out a deep breath and began pulling out drawers one by one. I automatically cringed for the first one, but it was only filled with pairs of shoes in my size, with everything from sneakers to sandals. The next was undergarments with a couple of simple chemise slips that were wearable in my opinion. This one surprised me in a completely different way, as it held bras and underwear that were more for comfort than pleasure. And by that I meant his pleasure, of course. They were mostly cotton and satin, with a few lacey that actually covered everything up.

  With that drawer seeming so demure, I winced as I pulled open the next drawer, expecting that one to be the drawer of horrors – the one filled with the scantiest pieces.

  “Huh,” I remarked dumbly to myself. The drawer only had cotton shorts and lounge pants. The next comfortable t-shirts and tank tops. The last four ended up being filled with his things, though it surprised me to find underwear since I’d only ever seen him go commando.

  Finally braving the large wardrobe doors above the drawers, I flung them open. The first one held his clothes, which I expected. Slacks and jeans hanging, comfortable long-sleeved Henleys. Only two suits this time, but I guess it made sense since he wasn’t looking to make a lot of business trips while we were hiding out here.

  I swallowed and bit my lip as I faced the only piece of cabinetry left. My wardrobe closet. I actually whined as I reached out to see what nightmares hid behind its doors.

  Huh.

  Surprisingly sensible.

  A few pairs of jeans and crops, t-shirts (mostly long-sleeved like I still liked for the permanent pinkness blanketing my right forearm) and a couple of simple cotton dresses. No fancy party shit. Thank God.

  I pulled fresh clothes to sleep in, shorts and a long-sleeved scoop neck – including a bra, because like hell I was going without around him. I made my way to the bathroom and clicked on the light. The room was way more impressive than I’d like to admit. More stone work, less wood. Huge spa tub and walk-in shower minus a door. I didn’t know what type of stone was across the cabinetry because it was something I’d never seen before.

  Zander seemed tired. I expected him up at any moment, so I forgoed the shower until morning. Noting the lack of a bathroom lock, I quickly changed and got the hell out, burying myself beneath the softest of linens.

  As exhausted as I was, I couldn’t get myself to fall asleep. I lay there thinking of Nick and how much I upset him this week. My only reprieve was that I knew we’d get over this latest hump just like we got over all the others. I also kept thinking of Thea, which boiled and seared my insides until I was so sick to my stomach that even throwing up wouldn’t make me feel better. My only distraction was Zander, who came to bed thirty minutes after me. He too skipped the shower. He even dressed in the bathroom, which was a far cry from the way he used to intentionally strip down in front of me.

  Apparently, I wasn’t fooling him laying there quietly because he wished me goodnight as he settled in beside me. On his own side. In actual clothing. I rolled away and stared at the cabinets. The moon was thin, so the room was pretty dark despite the triangle of windows.

  This was so fucking weird. Not that I wanted him pressed right up behind me naked, but that was the way I’d always been forced to sleep with him. After a lot of inappropriate deeds, of course. Part of me must’ve still expected that to happen, because it took forever and a day to fall asleep.

  I could feel my arm move. Then the shaking. It took me a second to realize that my arm was moving because of the shaking, and that I was trying to bat something away even as I slept.

  “Get up,” a hushed voice said beside me.

  Not Matteo! I jerked awake. My eyes shot wide and my body automatically scooted back against the headboard of the bed. The only light was the table lamp next to me. This was not the boat we were on. Nor Matteo’s bedroom. How the hell did I get here? And who the hell was this guy?

  “What the fuck?” I blurted, still panicked being awakened this way, my heart pounding inside my chest.

  “You need to leave. Now,” he stressed, literally smacking me with the clothing he threw my way.

  As he began to walk away, I added, “Jesus! What the hell?”

  “There’s still time for you to get out. Put the damn clothes on, go right outside this door and take the stairs to the first level. Avoid everyone and stay out of the basement.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head with disbelief – gently, as a massive headache was finally making itself known. My head hurt so much and my eyes were still heavy with sleep.

  What the fuck was going on?

  “Where’s Matteo?”

  “Don’t ask any questions! Just fucking go!” he ordered in a whisper.

  His shadow slipped out the bedroom door and didn’t come back. I sat there literally dumbfounded, too confused to figure it out. I gazed around but found no clock. Given the darkness, I assumed I still had a few hours before morning. Frustrated and in dire need of pain medication, I slipped the t-shirt over my head, then stood to pull up the skirt.

  I keeled over, my head swimming violently. Somehow I managed not to throw up, but the sensation was overwhelming. I let myself hang that way until the dizziness stopped.

  Jeesh. I didn’t even have to look at myself in the mirror to know I was wearing a skirt so short my ass felt a breeze and a cropped top that bared way more than I was comfortable with. I scanned the dim room but didn’t see my own clothes lying around anywhere. I slowly made my way to the door, my legs slightly jiggly, snatching a throw along the way that I wrapped around myself. I was in a suite of some sort, with the main door in the living room.

  The hall was empty when I stepped outside. My eyebrows perked up when I realized the length of hallway to the left. Wherever I was, it was pretty huge. It didn’t feel like a hotel, but it seemed just as big. To the right was a set of stairs. I looked to them, wondering if I should go down or begin looking for Matteo on this floor.

  Somewhere down to the left I heard a noise, but since I couldn’t see anything, it must’ve been beyond the curve. My feet automatically moved in that direction. I paused to listen at most doors as I passed but heard nothing in the dead of night, not even snores. As I made the curve, I heard a pair of male voices, one of them clearly Matteo. Relief settled my frazzled nerves.

  By the time I got to the opened door, the voices had stopped and I only saw the back of Matteo standing in front of a large, heavy-set desk big enough to be a small conference table. He stood there barefooted in nothing more than a pair of pants, going through a stack of papers in his hand.

  I quietly took a few steps into the room. “Matteo?”

  My voice got his body to whip around. The surprise on his face faded to nothingness.

  He sighed heavily. Almost dejectedly.

  “Damn,” he muttered, dropping the papers on the desk. “You weren’t supposed to wake up before I got back.” His head motioned to something behind me. Before I could even turn around, everything went black.

  It wasn’t the best night’s sleep. At some point Zander rolled onto his side and pressed his body against mine, which made me uncomfortable but unable to roll away. I woke as he rolled out of bed, but kept from stirring until he was done in the bathroom and heading down. Then I rolled onto my back, stroked and rubbed my eyes with my fingers and laid there thinking.

  Nick was going to be so pissed at me. First for even going, then more so for abandoning my trackers and not calling to say I was all right. He’d be right to be mad. Being on this side of things completely sucked, but I couldn’t even imagine being on the side that was left in the dark, left to worry day and night. I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation.

  Fourteen hours, twenty-six minutes s
ince I dumbly walked into the lion’s den.

  Sadly, it took less than four for him to make me agree to disappear. Fuck him and his manipulations. No matter the game, he always won. And deep down, I knew he’d win whatever he was after this time around too. But so long as my sister walked out of this before she was broken beyond repair, I’d suffer the payment.

  I forced myself up and got changed.

  At least this time things were different. So far it hadn’t seemed that bad. Zander hadn’t tried to force himself on me, other than while we slept, which may not have been something he was consciously doing. My wardrobe was filled with clothing I’d actually wear and lingerie that was functional for wear and not play. Besides two dresses, nothing in there was even sexy or fancy. Hell, this time I got to wear cotton tops and shorts to bed instead of barely there slips made of silk and lace.

  So maybe the payment wouldn’t be so bad this time.

  Oddly enough, my body didn’t agree with my naïve little mind. My head automatically shook and my eyes rolled back. As if, they declared.

  I leaned over the railing and looked down. All was silent. None of the lights were on, but they didn’t need to be with the endless number of windows going on. I moved down the stairs and into the kitchen, my stomach making its annoyances with me known.

  Opening both sides of the fridge, I was amazed how stuffed it was. Of course it had already been stocked… Sure, why not? He had someone filling my wardrobe. How hard could it be to ask someone to fill the fridge?

  My stomach growling over everything my eyes were seeing, I dug around until I found the bacon and a carton of eggs. It didn’t take long to cook those up and add some buttered toast.

  I even sucked it up and made enough for two. Maybe if I didn’t give him any reasons to be the man he used to be, he wouldn’t become that man now. Wishful thinking, but I figured it was worth a little effort on my part. “You cook now?” he asked from behind. I never even heard him coming.

  “Hardly. But it’s hard to screw up bacon and eggs.” I noticed the phone in his hand. Motioning towards it, I asked, “Do I get that now?”

  “Yes.”

  As I reached in, his hand retreated. “Rules.”

  My eyes mocked him with a dance. “Of course.” I continued to eat my eggs, figuring this might take a while.

  He slipped the phone into his pocket and grabbed his plate, talking between bites. “Don’t ever mention where we are, not even the state. I’m sure I don’t need to keep reminding you how easily your information was passed to me because the police added it to the file.”

  No. Fucking. Shit.

  “Friggs can probably do the same. And I guarantee he’s watching for both of us. It’s only a matter of time before he realizes we’re together again. And why.”

  I reluctantly shook my head in agreement, though his use of together again made the tiniest shiver travel the length of my spine.

  “Secondly, no phone calls longer than four minutes.”

  That got me to lift my eyebrows. Seriously?

  “I don’t care if you need to make five of them to say what needs to be said, but I want each call cut off by four minutes. Just a precaution. They’d need a lot longer to trace all the cellular relays we’ll bounce off of, but I don’t want them to ever come close to learning where we are. Again, it’s more about keeping that information out of Friggs’ hands than the people you’re talking to.”

  My head bobbed side to side. “Trust no one,” I summarized.

  “Lastly,” he said, pulling the phone back out to slide my way on the counter, “the phone is in my possession when you’re not using it. You can use it when you want to, but no calls will be made without my knowledge.”

  “Fine,” I muttered, wiping the bacon grease off my fingers before grabbing the phone. “So will you be invading my privacy for each of these calls?”

  “Do I need to?” he asked back, matching my level of attitude.

  I glared at him as I walked out of the kitchen. I dialed the cell number I knew by heart, then deactivated the alarm before stepping onto the back deck. Zander didn’t follow, though I was sure his eyes were on both me and the timer on his watch to make sure I complied.

  The phone rang only once before Nick said, “Hello?” his voice filled with apprehension.

  I could feel my heart rev up its pace. Immediately on the defensive, I said, “Before you yell, I chose to go with him willingly.”

  “Well, of course you did,” he snarked. Yelling anyways, he added, “It’s never a fucking choice, Megan!”

  “You think I don’t know that?” I screamed back. Then I released a loud, short breath through my nose. This was already tanking.

  We were both silent for a moment, listening to each other breathe. I began pacing, my free hand roughly grabbing the roots above my forehead.

  “Tell me you’re all right, that he hasn’t done anything to you.”

  “Nothing but wound my pride a little.”

  “Where are you?” he immediately asked.

  “You know I can’t tell you that,” I answered with a soft voice.

  “Megan,” he plead.

  I shook my head for my own benefit. Digging the toe of my shoe into one of the knots in the plank, I told him, “It was one of the stipulations for him tracking down Thea.”

  “Is this something you agreed to beforehand?”

  He didn’t even try to hide the accusation behind that question. And even though it wasn’t something that was confirmed ahead of time, it made me try to swallow down some guilt anyways.

  “No, but it wasn’t completely unexpected.”

  “Yet you still agreed to this. What else are you going to give in to, huh, Megan?”

  My lips became incredibly heavy. I pulled the phone away from my ear to check the time. Three-fifteen and counting.

  “I’ve reached my time limit. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Wait! Megan!”

  I pushed the end button and pocketed the phone. It was hard enough doing what I was doing without the extra guilt trip. I understood his concerns, I really did. And I knew it wasn’t easy being the one forced to sit and wait on the sidelines. But I wasn’t going to abandon my sister to Friggs either. In all honesty, all three of us were in situations that were less than ideal. But right now Thea’s was the worst. And I’d endure anything I had to with Zander if that’s what it took to get her back.

  I heard running water when I stepped back inside. I quietly padded my way into the kitchen and left the phone on the counter. Despite his back to me, there was no such luck slipping back out unnoticed. He immediately called out for me the moment I turned the corner.

  I was half tempted not to go. “Yeah?”

  He turned off the water and turned to face me, snatching a towel to dry his hands. Turned out he had even washed my dishes.

  “I want to put a new tracker in you.”

  I crossed my arms in a defensive manner. Replying monotonously, I told him, “You’re funny.”

  “No, seriously.”

  “No, seriously,” I continued, “you’re funny.”

  He completely ignored my deadpan remark. “It’s for your own safety.” Zander was leaning back against the counter, looking all calm, as if he was merely asking me to wear a different pair of sneakers outside instead of letting him put a permanent homing device inside my body.

  Always the calm one.

  “Why the hell would I let you put a tracker in me?”

  With his cool eyes fixed on mine, he answered, “Because you’ll have complete control over this one, not me.”

  The huff that began in my chest and rolled upward and out was automatic. “You’ll have to forgive me for not believing you, given our track record and all.”

  The side of his mouth curled upward slightly. “Come. Let me show you.”

  He grabbed the phone on the way to his office, detouring to reactivate the alarm I forgot about. I was slow-footed to follow, and by the time I got there, he w
as already messing around at his desk. Pinched between two fingers, he held up a silver cylindrical object that was roughly double the size of a normal pill capsule. “This particular tracker is on a twenty-four hour timer, and it remains dormant so long as the program is reset before the time expires.”

  I released my stance and moved closer, holding my palm out. He placed the tracker in my hand so I could study it closer. It was enclosed at all ends, with no way to open it anywhere from what I could see. How in the hell did these damn things really work anyway? It was still a mystery to me.

  “How is it reset?” I asked.

  “There’s an app on my phone and laptop.”

  I couldn’t suppress the second huff, nor the way my head shook and my eyes rolled. “There’s an app for this? Seriously? What’s it called? Track Dat Ho?” I turned before I could see his expression. As I rolled the device between my fingertips, I paced the room.

  “This is just a precaution in case we get taken. If Friggs or his men find us before we find him, you’ll be scanned. If it’s dormant, they’ll think you’re free of devices, but it’ll activate itself once the time limit expires.”

  “What good would that do me if you’re taken with me?”

  “This is the part you should like. Your location will be sent to a person of your choosing. I highly suggest that female detective who’s familiar with your case. She’s empathetic and will have the resources to get you help as quickly as possible.”

  “Won’t Friggs think of this?”

  “He uses a different manufacturer. I’m gambling that his line of trackers don’t have this particular feature because he’s never offered it before.”

  “Kind of a big if.”

  “Would you rather go without and have zero chance of rescue?”

  A blew a puff of air out the corner of my mouth. Hell to the no.