by Selina Marie
Questions, problems, solutions and consequences overwhelm my head as I think about what I’m going to do, until I settled on my answer. I will give this to her, and in the end, she won’t thank me for it. She will most definitely hate me for it.
And it will still be worth it in the end.
I rise from the bed still looking at her emotionally exhausted expression, her gaze glued to mine.
“Pack your bags and be ready to leave at eight tomorrow morning. We’re going on a road trip,” I tell her blankly and leave the room.
I need to hit something. All this pent-up energy inside of me, these feelings just waiting to tear themselves out of my body one way or another. I’d usually either fight it out, box it out or fuck it out. But my dick doesn’t seem to want to fuck it out. I have no interest in the string of women who make no subtle efforts to show me they want to bounce on my dick, and I can’t even get hard watching porn anymore. Boxing it out is my only answer for tonight.
This fucking girl has broken me.
I tape up my wrists after throwing my gloves on and turn on my playlist. Breaking Benjamin is my favorite to hit to; they have a lot of anger and rage inside their sound, just like I do.
I crank up the volume to the max and start pounding the bag until my burdens become my target, pulverized under the force of my fists.
◆◆◆
Emilia
She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive.
She’s alive.
She is alive.
The room still spins, as my mind tries to catch up with the tornado that’s spinning around me. I’m in the eye of the storm but I feel like I am one step away from being tossed into the funnel of destruction.
I focus on my breathing as I think over what Lukas said, which wasn’t much, but it was more than enough.
Alexis is alive. That’s all I know, and I am praying she’s somewhere safe and hasn’t been living in the same hell as I have, or worse. The thought threatens bile to rise up my throat. I swallow it back down and think.
Lukas said to pack my bags. Has he found her? I mean it’s very possible. If he discovered that she’s alive it would make sense that he has an idea of where she is. Am I going to be seeing my sister for the first time in two years in the next twenty-four hours?
The thought makes my body stiff with apprehension and anxiety.
Will she be happy to see me?
Will she know how hard I searched for her, every day and every night?
How my body and my heart took a beating every moment I couldn’t count on her being alive or safe.
Will she remember the way she treated me before she went missing?
Will she regret it?
Guilt eats me up, even thinking that. Here I am in a fucking mansion, safe, clean, warm and taken care of. When Alexis hasn’t known any of these things for such a long time. How selfish of me to even be thinking of myself right now.
There’s no way I’ll be able to sleep tonight, not now. I plod over to the closet finding a large rucksack in a drawer next to the shelves, lined with shoes and start throwing clothes into it. Jeans, t-shirts, hoodies and underwear. I doubt I’ll need anything else.
When I’m all done packing, I pull my hoodie around my waist as I step out onto the balcony and suck in a deep lungful of air.
The moon is high, the light dancing off the darkness of the ocean. The sea fascinates me—the way that it reflects what’s on the surface with such ease, like the blues and greys of the day and the black of the night. But beneath the surface there’s so much more depth, so many secrets hidden beneath the deceptive, pretty surface.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lukas
I finish loading up the car with enough ammo to take out a small mafia gang. I’m always prepared when I’m walking into an unknown situation. I am always prepared, period.
Emilia appears at the front door with her bag in hand, ready to go.
“We shouldn’t be gone long. Did you pack enough clothes just in case?” I ask as I round the car, taking her bag and closing the trunk.
“Yeah, I have enough. So, where are we actually going?” she questions me. I don’t answer because I’m still trying to decide if this is a good idea or not. Most definitely not—but we’re in too deep now, so might as well face the fucking music.
I get in the car, waiting for her to take the hint that she isn’t getting an answer and to hurry the fuck up.
The wait isn’t long before she sits her fine ass down, making the car shake the tiniest bit from the force of her throwing her body onto the seat. I snigger because she’s cute when she’s pissed off. I really enjoy it and I can’t fucking wait when she discovers what her little nickname I came up with means. I call her "Kiska" because she reminds me of a pussycat. Soft, playful, and feisty. The word means pussycat in Russian but it’s also shortened to pussy—and I fucking love her pussy.
When she’s belted in, my foot hits the gas and we speed out of the iron gates, adrenaline pumping through my body like I’m about to fight. I’m not entirely sure what waits for us at the other side of our little road trip, but my imagination is forming some pretty vivid pictures of all sorts of scenarios going down. None of them likely to be even close to the reality, but the need for a fight makes me imaginative, so sue me.
I’m feeling antsy and still have three hours and forty-five minutes to go. I crank up the radio and hope it settles my mood.
We drive in silence pretty much the whole way. Emilia falls asleep after about an hour and a half, leaving me and my thoughts alone.
I have no idea how this is going to play out, but I do know that everything is going to change after this.
Emilia is about to be hit by a freight train, metaphorically obviously; but like I’ve known from the beginning, her strength is one of her biggest attributes, and she’s going to fucking need it.
Emilia
Something is poking me in the arm, then it starts to shake me a little. Feeling groggy, I open my eyes, blinking them into focus as I go to turn my head to see what’s disturbing me so persistently. Ouch! Holy crap. My neck is killing me. I must have stayed in one position for the whole drive here, wherever here is. My hand moves to rub the muscles and knots in the back of my neck, as I turn to find Lukas in the driver’s seat watching me.
“Sleep well, princess?” he mocks as I begin to take in my surroundings, looking out of the passenger side.
It looks like we’ve entered some Stepford, creepy, way-too-perfect neighborhood.
Is that hedge trimmed to look like a bloomed rose? Seriously. Who has the fucking time or the patience for that shit? We are parked up on the side of a street with a row of enormous houses. Lukas’s mansion can easily be rivalled in size by these overly primmed monstrosities. Unlike Lukas’s home though, these look like the freaking White House and similar clones of the same running down the street until I can’t see anymore.
Once my brain is functioning to the best of its ability, I look to Lukas again.
“Where are we?” I pause as I turn my head back, looking through the rear-view window and seeing a giant iron gate closed about one-hundred-and-fifty yards away. There’s a sign next to it that says Emerald Hills Private Estate.
“Wait, is this a gated community? How the hell did you even get in here?” I ask him. His eyes are squinted as he frowns a little when he speaks.
“I don’t particularly give a shit, but at the risk of sounding like the asshole that I am… do you still really not know who I am?” He answers my question with one of his own which confuses me.
“Uhh… should I? Just because you’re a rich asshole doesn’t mean that I should automatically know who you are. So, fucking pretentious.” I scold him for being such a conceited prick.
He just laughs in response, fucking laughs.
A few moments after, Lukas clears his throat and takes a deep breath, like he’s psyching himself up for something, drawing my gaze to his mouth when his lips start to move.
“Emilia, I need to tell you something—”
He’s cut off by a loud, high pitched feminine laugh, that echoes through the quiet of the street. My gaze shifts to the source of the noise. There’s a girl across the street squealing as some guy comes up behind her swinging her around, lifting her up by the hips and kissing her on the mouth. Her long, blonde hair swishes with the motion and the slight breeze as she’s lowered back to the ground.
I shift my focus back to Lukas and he is stoic. He looks like he has turned to ice. Every single limb, muscle and tendon in his body is pulled tight, his face like stone—cold, hard and emotionless.
What the hell happened to him in the time it took for me to—
Wait.
I feel the blood drain out of my face slowly moving down my body until I feel light and dizzy. I’m on my feet, walking across the street before I even know what I am doing. The only sound is my heartbeat in my ears as I step closer.
My eyes scan down her body as I move slowly forward, closer to them. The girl is well dressed in a pink, tight fitted, long sleeved sweater with the word Chanel printed across the center and she’s wearing a white pleated tennis skirt that stops just beneath her ass. Still in the arms of the guy, giggling as he grabs her ass. I stop when I’m only a few feet away. I stand there, still as a statue watching them. They’re the embodiment of wealth; their appearance oozes money and they look like the perfect Stepford couple, not a care in the world.
“Alexis?” a small voice asks, and I realize the word left my mouth a split second before her head snaps in my direction. Her eyes widen for a second before she composes herself and breaks away from her boyfriend.
“Um, that’s not my name, my name is Alessia.” She laughs, frowning while she looks at her boyfriend, her face scrunched up as if they should pity me. I’m dumbfounded. Does she think I’m an idiot? That I wouldn’t recognize my own sister! My heart is pinballing around in my chest violently, as I stare at her.
Everything feels as though it’s happening in slow motion, that is until she speaks again.
“What the fuck are you staring at, tramp? Leave.” She sneers at me, and something inside of me snaps. I feel pure rage bubbling up inside, taking over my body.
My fist rears back and smacks her right in the face making her head snap back. The pain radiates up my arm, but it’s nothing compared to the feeling of the metaphorical knife that has been plunged into my chest.
In the next second, strong arms are around my waist pulling me back and I can’t help but feel a strange wave of relief when they brace around me, pinning my back to this hard chest.
“What the fuck, Emilia?!” she shrieks, holding her nose as blood pours out of it and drips down in between her fingers. The boyfriend, nowhere to be seen.
“So, you do know who I fucking am, Alessia,” I scream at her, hissing out her fake name. I want to hit her again. The adrenaline fills my veins until it’s seeping out of my pores. They say that your brain often supresses memories of trauma to protect yourself, but there is no fucking way I will ever forget this. I want to remember this moment.
I toss myself around in Lukas’s arms trying to break free so I can get to her, but his grip tightens. I growl at him, the fury having completely possessed my body, still thrashing me around, wanting blood.
The sound of heels clicking against the sidewalk distracts me momentarily, as a woman who’s equally as put together comes rushing over.
“Oh my God, honey! What happened?!” The woman squeals in horror at Alexis. Sorry, Alessia.
“Mom, go back inside. I’m fine!” she mumbles through her blood-soaked hands. The sight sends a sick thrill through me.
Wait a minute…
She said Mom.
But she couldn’t have meant…
My eyes connect with the face of the woman, with dark hair and bright blue eyes, similar to my own. The woman who’s cradling Alexis on the ground. Her eyes lock with mine, growing wider every second, the look of shock written across her Botoxed features. Then—just like Alexis—she composes herself and a mask of coldness wipes it all away.
I stare at the woman, as I’m frozen in Lukas’s arms, hard as granite. The woman who raised me, the woman who abandoned me after my sister disappeared. I watch as she affectionately holds my sister, my sister who left me and didn’t bother, or care enough to let me know she wasn’t dead.
They left me, a young and vulnerable girl, with Robert, an abusive alcoholic. They left by choice. On purpose.
I can’t breathe.
The air growing thicker by the second as my mind tries to catch up, but it can’t move that fast. Even though it knows what’s happening—it’s too much. My throat closes up and I’m gasping for air. Lukas loosens his grip, tilting my face up to his, over my shoulder. His face is torn with concern and a deadly look of anger flickering in his eyes.
Just when I think I can regain my breath as I stare into his eyes, Alexis speaks.
“Lukas, baby is that you?”
And everything goes black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Lukas
Moments Earlier…
Squeezing the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white, I clear my throat and fill up my lungs with air. This is it.
I have to tell her where we are and who is here. I’ve put it off long enough and admittedly, I’m not ready for everything to change between us. Even though I know it’s inevitable, I don’t want her to hate me.
There’s a hell of a lot of people in the dark world I know, who hate me with a passion. I couldn’t give a single shit about them, but the thought of this one girl hating me, makes me feel regret, which is an emotion I’ve never experienced before.
I’ve taken many lives in my life, and I don’t regret a single one of those moments where I’ve held a person’s soul, their precious human heart in the palm of my hand and crushed it to dust. I would do it a thousand times over just to get out of having to see Emilia in pain—if it was caused by anyone else but me. I’m a masochist and a hypocrite.
She’s going to find out sooner or later.
“Emilia, I need to tell you something—” A loud, sickly sweet and familiar laugh captures her attention, and my eyes follow hers. Fuck.
My body turns solid as stone when I see her. She looks the same as she always did, a pretentious, pretty little bitch. Poor fucker holding onto her poisonous body. He probably knows jack shit about her—the real her. The fake, rotting soul that she hides behind pounds of makeup and designer clothes.
Emilia worships the ground she walks on, or she did, because that’s definitely going to change. And me being the sick motherfucker I am, I’m going to enjoy every single moment of it.
Underneath it all, Emilia is a little firecracker and that’s when I notice that she is no longer sitting next to me. She’s a few steps away from her sister.
I see it all happen in glorious slow motion, as Emilia fucking punches her straight in the nose. I almost laugh, but I’m out of the car in that instant, grabbing Emilia and plastering her to my chest. As beautiful as that was to watch, this isn’t about me. It’s about her. But karma is a satisfying bitch.
Alexis is screaming at Emilia, holding her undoubtably broken nose, blood dripping down onto the path. The girl can hit.
I say nothing as the girls yell at each other, just hold Emilia close to my body who clearly wants another crack at Alexis. She throws her body around trying to get out of my grasp.
To top it all off, another woman joins us, fussing over her daughter, their mother. Another selfish, self-righteous bitch.
I can tell Emilia has connected the dots as her body stiffens, going still in my arms. I grab her chin and turn her face to mine, slowly breathing in and out hoping she will mimic my breaths because she is not fucking breathing. It starts working and her beautiful blue eyes are lost in mine.
The moment is charred to ash in an instant when Alexis speaks. “Lukas, baby is that you?”
◆◆◆
Emilia’s eyes roll back into her head, her face pale as her body drops to a deadweight in my arms. She blacked out. Fuck!
I’m fighting the most monumental, internal battle right now. I need to get Emilia back to the car, safe.
I want to fucking destroy Alexis for causing this, but at the same time, this is all my doing.
I used Emilia so I could get to Alexis. Ideally, this will go the easy way, Alexis will talk to me willingly. Although, at this point I’m through giving any fucks. I’ve kidnapped once—actually many times before—I’ll do it again.
Except this time, it won’t be the devil they know, because no fucker has met this beast.
For now, though, I’ll play nice.
I lift Emilia into my arms, composing my rage and keeping it on simmer.
Placing her in my truck, I turn to Alexis. My metaphorical mask in place.
“Like you could forget.” I smirk, turning my charm on and making her think she still has some kind of effect on me, which she never had to begin with. It’s the only way to play with her. Let her think she’s winning the fight for a little while, then strike back hard and win the fucking war.
Her mother had run inside while I put Emilia in the car, good fucking riddance. I watch Alexis as she tries to look sexy standing there, tilting her hips and pushing her tits out while the bitch still has blood pouring out of her face. If she thinks this is working for me, then she’s right, but unfortunately for her it isn’t working in the way she’s hoping it is.
I am rather enjoying the sight of her covered in blood and the fact that she’ll probably have to pay for another nose job, but that’s as far as the enjoyment goes.
“What are you doing here, baby?” Alexis sways her hips as she moves closer, trying to wipe the blood away with her shirt, and the back of her bloodied hand.
The beast inside growls at the sound of her calling me baby, and it makes we want to sever her vocal cords. There’s only one girl I want calling me ‘baby’ and she’s passed out in the back seat. Alexis’s face turns up into a snooty scowl as she continues.