by Jade West
I could have booted him in the nuts when he stared me out and shook his head. It was slow. A knowing smugness which made no sense what so fucking ever until he opened his dipshit mouth again.
“You don’t make all the rules around here, Bran.”
I ignored the chill in my gut. “I make the rules around here, Eric. Always.”
“Drake called,” he said. “He fucking called me, Bran. I was in there because of Drake. Because he told me to. Because he said I’d better get the fuck in there now and make the performance worth the wait.”
“Fuck it,” I snarled and slammed my palm into the railings above his head. “Why the fuck was he calling? A slight delay? One fucking delay and he’s sticking his fucking nose in?”
His name was shit in this building. His name was shit everywhere we went, hushed under my breath with a torrent of expletives whenever I was forced to acknowledge his requests for an update.
Drake.
A friend of our father’s, but not one of mine.
The man with the money to set me up in this seedy haven in the first place. The man with the original contacts and the original motives.
The man who shaped me from the bitter young piece of shit mourning the death of his father and set me off on a whole new road.
And in more recent years, the man who wasn’t welcome within ten fucking miles of me or my set up.
Just as long as his friends got their service and his bank account grew all the richer for it, that distance was serving him just fine.
“Richter,” Eric said, and I took a long drag on my cigarette. “Richter rescheduled important business for tonight’s viewing. He pinged Drake at the no show.” He brushed his fingers against his swelling jaw.
I’d got him good.
“Richter’s a piece of shit,” I said.
I should’ve known Mr Strangulation Fetish would have his ass out over me turning down his requests for a private webcam viewing. He was present at almost every bastard viewing, jerking his tiny dick like a rabid little terrier. His bids were frequent. Filthy.
Everything about the asshole was cash in the pocket but a pain in the fucking ass.
I’d almost forgotten he was up Drake’s ass from way back when. A foolish oversight on my part.
“Piece of shit or not,” Eric said. “He called Drake, Drake called you. You didn’t fucking answer, Bran. Your phone cut to voicemail three times straight. You didn’t answer, he called me. What was I supposed to do? Tell him to call back later? I don’t fucking think so.”
“And caning the shit out of Annabel was his idea, was it?”
He shrugged. “His and Richter’s. Compensation, Drake said. I was gonna strangle her unconscious if you hadn’t pulled the plug. Both of them are gonna be raging now at the blackout.”
I hated Drake.
I’d have happily given the prick twice the pounding I’d given Eric in my rage without so much as blinking.
But I couldn’t.
Not with his contacts. Not with his investment. Not with the full extent of his knowledge of our set up.
I barely even thought of him anymore. Didn’t give him any more of my brain time than absolutely pissing necessary these days.
He got pings with new girl details and the necessary lowdown on their contracts. He got quarterly updates on business and how his shares were performing, as well as a complimentary login to the screenings.
Everything else he could go fuck himself for. Unfortunately, he didn’t see it that way.
I leaned back against the wall and scowled down at my brother, loathe to admit he’d been stuck between a rock and a hard place with no obvious solution.
“We’ll draw a line under this bullshit,” I told him. “Put it down to a bad job all round. Drake can crawl back into his hole and Richter can get his dick wet as per pissing usual when a suitable bid comes in from him.”
I was reaching out a hand to help him to his feet when he shook his head again.
“We can’t,” he said, and I paused, hand in mid-air.
“Can’t?” I prompted. “Tell me, little brother, why the fuck can’t we?”
His eyes were shiftier than I’d ever seen them. His throat bobbing like a sad little duck as he struggled for the words.
“Because I told him about Rebecca Lane,” he said, and my hand fisted like a rock between us.
“You fucking what, asshole? Why in the holy living shit did you tell Drake about Rebecca Lane?”
His voice was a bleat. “Because you weren’t here! Without any good fucking reason! Because I didn’t want to tell him you were chasing some piece of skirt all over town like a crazy with no regard for clients!”
“Because you’re an idiot,” I hissed, and I meant it. “You’re a fucking idiot, Eric. The last thing Drake needs to hear is about Rebecca Lane gossiping all over campus. I’ve got it under control. Nothing to fucking see here.”
“I may be an idiot,” he said with a shrug. “But that doesn’t matter shit right now. He wants you to call him.”
I managed a bitter smile before I tossed my cigarette butt down the stairs and pulled out a fresh one. I could smell Paige Emmerson’s pussy on my fingers as I raised it to my lips.
And that’s when my crazy day got all the crazier. My sensibilities did somersaults, refusing to come back to order, and that’s when I clocked it. The ridiculous notion underneath my own sanity.
Because no matter how much I loathed the prospect of speaking with Drake and indulging his ridiculously bloated fantasies as to his position within this establishment, I had no regrets whatsoever about indulging some ridiculously bloated fantasies of my own.
Paige Emmerson’s pretty little pussy would pay for her part in this debacle, even if she didn’t ever know it. I’d make damn well sure of that.
She’d rue the day she used her wiles to distract me from urgent business. Beg me for forgiveness for a crime she wasn’t even aware of committing and take her punishment like the good little slut I’d force her to be.
But that wasn’t for now.
I left Eric slumped on the landing and headed out to make the call to Drake.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Paige
He’d left his belt. I found it fallen by the bed once I’d pulled myself together enough to crawl for my clothes.
It was a talisman. A leather serpent coiled sleeping. My only real token of his presence bar the wad of used notes I stuffed in my handbag.
I doubled the belt back in two and raised it to my face. Breathed in the scent of him around the leather.
My skin still burned all over. Every muscle aching.
The devil on my shoulder was still singing. The angel on the other was nowhere to be heard.
Getting myself dressed was one hell of a challenge. I barely even fastened my shoes, teetering away from that hotel room like the used-up hooker I was fast on the road to becoming.
I tried my best to be quiet as I placed the room key back on the desk at reception, but the grinning woman from earlier poked her head around the door from the back office before I could slip away.
“Everything to your satisfaction?” she asked, her tone considerably snippier than it’d been when directed at him earlier.
I managed a nod with my aching neck. “Yes, all good, thank you.”
She approached the counter before I could make an exit, digging out a form and handing it over.
“If you could just sign for checkout.”
And that’s when it occurred to me. One little stab at a chance of finding out his identity.
“Didn’t we check out already?” I asked her, and she pitted her brows.
“No,” she said, and ruffled through paperwork afresh. “Your husband left without a signature, I’m certain.”
“He’s not my husband,” I told her, and her smile grew a little brighter.
“My apologies,” she said. “Either way, please may I have a signature?”
I took my chance, focusing my efforts o
n maintaining confidence in the face of a gut full of anxiety.
“What name did we check in under?” I asked her. “I want to be sure the signatures add up...”
She pulled a face but I kept my eyes on hers.
“His,” she told me, and I could have whooped aloud when she lifted up the checking in form.
I had to fight the urge to snatch it from her fingers with every cell in my body.
The urge to laugh aloud bubbled up a whole second later.
His signature was little more than a squiggle, but I made out the intended letters easily enough.
P. Emmerson.
“It appears we are in fact married. Who’d have thought it?” I said to her and signed my own signature on the checking out form.
“Congratulations on your impromptu wedding,” she said, sarcasm dripping. “I hope you found your somewhat brief stay enjoyable, Mrs Emmerson.”
I didn’t hang around any longer, my smile genuine enough in my humour as I stepped on out of there and into the cold night air.
I didn’t mind the chill. My steps were slow and steady as I headed back past the pier, savouring the memory of following him so urgently all those hours before.
The night sky was twinkling and so was I, so insanely caught up in the man who’d made me hurt for him that I would have danced on the spot if my shoes were fastened properly.
He was my vicious saviour. My pitch black knight in the darkness of my crazy world.
Soon enough he’d be my sister’s saviour too.
My heart lurched, and not in a good way.
Phoebe.
I’d barely had a thought for her since he’d brought her up at the cocktail bar.
The guilt burned worse than the welts under my dress as I fished in my bag for my mobile.
My ringtone was likely still muted from earlier. Barely audible on those settings at my side in college, let alone wedged in my handbag on a bedside table while I was busy taking a beating.
Fuck, how my stomach churned as the missed call icon flashed on screen.
I fumbled with the keys until her number showed up bold. Three missed calls, one from a little less than an hour earlier.
I was already pressing to call her back when his warning zinged its way through my brain.
Every move you make I’ll be in the shadows. Every word you speak will be in my ear before you can fucking blink.
He’d read my text messages about my pier meet up with Rebecca Lane. I mean, he had to have.
If he could do that…
But I didn’t have a choice. I had to call my sister.
I counted the beeps of the tone as my phone tried to connect with hers.
One, two, three and I was praying aloud.
Please answer. Please, please answer.
My heart jumped when the tone cut out in favour of street noises on the other end.
I heard breathing. The muffled footsteps of someone walking.
“Phoebe?” I asked. “Thank hell you’re there. I was praying you’d pick up.”
But when her voice called hello from the other end my prayers felt anything but fulfilled.
She was crying, barely even able to get the word out.
My sister sounded barely like my sister. “Talk to me!” I told her. “What’s going on?”
Her voice was slurred when she cobbled her words together. I could barely understand her over the sobs once she seemed to ascertain it was really me.
I need you. Please. Paige. Coming for me. They’re coming. I can’t talk. Low battery. Please!
“Where are you?” I asked, and she wailed out loud. I struggled for composure of my own, skirting my eyes around me for signs of being followed by any of my shadowy stranger’s shadowy contacts, but the street seemed dead.
There was only me, the crash of the waves on the beach below and the sobs of my sister on the line.
“A taxi,” I told her. “Wherever you are get a taxi! I can pay when you get here! I’ll meet you at the south entrance of the college. We’ll talk at mine.”
The connection was terrible. I cursed under my breath as she faded in and out.
“Come!” I said. “Please, Phoebe, you have to get to me! I can sort this, I swear to God I can sort this!”
And with that there was nothing but the dull tone of call disconnected.
I called straight back but there was nothing but her all too familiar voicemail waiting.
I choked on my own tears as I dashed back towards campus on unsteady feet. The twinkling sky wasn’t nearly so magical with my heart in my throat and my pulse in my ears as I raced to the meeting spot.
Please come. Please.
My mantra was nothing more than a hiss with every step. A pathetic chant to the ether.
My rushing proved pointless, there was no sign of her when I arrived at the south entrance sign and backed into the perimeter wall.
I caught my breath slowly, eyes fixed on the empty road as the minutes ticked by, but still nothing came.
It didn’t matter.
I’d wait here all night long if I had to.
The chill of the air wasn’t so welcome after standing out in it for thirty minutes.
I’d called her voicemail ten times over. Sent an undelivered text message repeating my instructions in case she hadn’t heard me on the terrible line.
I was freezing. Aching. Petrified for my sister and desperate for my bed all at once.
I was considering sitting down on the tarmac for the long haul when the orange glow of headlights turned the corner up ahead.
There was nothing in this world that would have held me back from running up to it like a crazy and yanking open the door to the backseat.
And there she was, my sobbing sister. A bundle of shaking limbs on the leather seating.
Thank the mercy of the universe.
I shoved a couple of banknotes at the driver without even checking their value, and they must have been more than enough since he reversed out of there with a screech as soon as I’d pulled my sister clear of his car.
She huddled against me, a wreck of bony limbs worse than mine as I tugged her onto the campus after me.
“I’ve got you,” I told her, and she sobbed against my shoulder.
“They’re gonna kill me,” she cried. “I’m all out of time.”
“No,” I said. “We’ve got this. We’ve got each other!”
Even in the dead of the early hours I kept my eyes up at the windows for onlookers. I kept us close to the wall this time, deep in the shadows and away from prying eyes.
The journey to my dorm block was arduous this way. I was crying along with my sister as I opened the door to our building.
“We need to be quiet,” I sobbed, for my benefit as much as hers. “We can’t let people hear us inside. Not tonight.”
She managed a nod and held her breath as I eased my key in our apartment doorway.
I’ve never moved so softly along the hall space as I did that night. We were mice under cats’ noses, struggling to avoid a clawing.
Once my bedroom door was closed safely behind us I took the deepest breath of my whole fucking life.
I gestured Phoebe to my bed and she perched on the edge, hands gripped tight in her lap.
It was when I flicked on the main overhead light that I first got a proper look at her.
It knocked the life right out of me.
Her left eye was almost swollen shut, purple and bleeding from the corner. Her lip was cracked down the middle, her teeth crusty with dry blood. And her cheek. Her cheek was bruised black and blue, colours mixed like ink blots and sweeping down towards her chin.
“What the hell happened?!” I whispered.
Her face crumpled before she could answer and I fell down beside her, tugging into my arms and holding tight.
Finally, for once amidst the months of worrying like crazy about her and having barely a text in return, she held me tight right back.
“I’m sorry,” she breathed. �
��I’m so fucking sorry, Paige. I shouldn’t bring you into this.”
But it was far too late for that.
“I’m all the way in,” I said, my voice nothing more than a rasp in her ear. “I swear to you, Phoebe, we’re in this together. We’ll always be in this together, no matter what.”
It pained my heart when she shook her head against me. “No,” she said. “You can’t be with me, they’ll kill you too. It’s too late. It’s all too late.”
It was my turn to shake my mine right back.
I was careful not to touch her bruises as I reached behind me for my handbag, but was long past giving a shit about mine.
Her eyes were saucers when I pulled the bundle of cash free and held the full grand up to her. Her mouth was open wide when I fished under my bed for my shoebox and pulled out the other two.
“Where the hell did you get this?!” she asked. “What on earth did you do?!”
Her eyes were dinner plates as I made myself as comfortable as I possibly could do in the dead of night with a body beaten to the moon and back by a gorgeous stranger and his leather belt.
“This is going to be a long story,” I said.
I started from the top.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Brandon
I didn’t bother with the slightest illusion of niceties or of urgency.
I held back on calling Drake until the first slivers of sunrise touched the dawn, busying myself by replaying Eric’s incompetent performance on loop at my desk before venturing onto the porch for a cigarette in the open air.
I dialled his encrypted number as I paced. The long pause before he answered didn’t fool me for shit. He’d been right there waiting for hours.
“Eric isn’t cut out for a fucking moment of performance work,” I snarled as soon as the call connected. “Your interference has set me back weeks with that little bitch. Bids are off. On fucking hold until I fucking call otherwise.”
“Is that so?” he said and my hackles rose at the sound of his voice. “I don’t know when you started parading around with this misguided belief that this is the Brandon Grant show, but those days are numbered. From my somewhat enlightening conversation with your brother, I’d say my intervention is long overdue.”