Instead of the more the merrier, it was the more the judgier.
It didn’t take me long to spot Maven’s father or for him to spot me. I’d have been able to pick him out anywhere. He really was an older version of my love. Maven might be an inch taller, but from where the man leaned against the wall, I could see that he had the same eyes, the same features, the same forceful gaze. However, where Maven had kindness in his eyes, I saw none of that here.
For a second, I thought he was getting ready to speak to me, but then I realized his gaze wasn’t on me anymore but had moved behind me. I turned to look. Maven had entered the room.
His father stepped away from the wall and strode toward us. Chance tugged my hand, pulling me away from Maven and toward the buffet that Banyan had been examining for some time. He still hadn’t taken any food.
“Not hungry?”
“Well, I’m wondering if we’re about to have to leave really fast. I don’t want to start a whole plate, get excited about it, and then have to leave it.”
Chance groaned. “Maven is about to have a moment and you are thinking with your stomach.”
“I am prepared to throw a punch. I’m distracting myself from doing so.”
I rolled my eyes. I’d only ever seen him throw a punch once and that was to stop Chance from doing so. All of that had been in defense of me. Of course, I’d been willing to clock Banyan’s mother right in the face so maybe I had no right to think he shouldn’t go there in his head. Maybe we were a punch throwing group of people.
“Maven.” His father addressed him. “You showed up.”
My love cocked his head to the side. “Barbara told me I had to.”
“Watch your tone when you talk about your mother.”
Maven nodded. He had been out of line. It didn’t surprise me he’d admit it. “Sure.”
Well, sort of admit it. I chewed on my thumbnail. It was a gross habit I thought I’d gotten over doing some time ago. Apparently, I still did it during times of high discomfort. Barbara entered the room, going to go greet some of her friends. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I scooted past Chance and made my way to Maven, putting my arm around his waist.
“Hi, Mr. Stone. I’m Giovanna Amsel. I’m Maven’s girlfriend. Welcome home.” There. I’d been polite, and I’d put myself as a support right on Maven’s side. I took a silent deep breath. This was what I’d always wished for when dealing with my parents. I hoped he was okay with it.
His body vibrated. No one would notice it but me since I’d attached myself to him but that was enough to tell me he needed me.
His father tilted his head to look at me. “I can see what Maven’s been doing with all the time he didn’t come to visit me.”
“I didn’t come to visit you because I didn’t want to. It had nothing to do with Giovanna. If you wanted to see me, maybe you should have managed to stay out of jail.”
His father widened his eyes. “Well, look who developed a mouth while I was gone. Giovanna, this boy never uttered a word ever. I sometimes wondered if he ever had an opinion or if he was just going to spend his life being a yes man with nothing interesting to say.” He laughed like that was funny. I didn’t always get humor but that was absolutely not amusing. Not in the least.
“You want to do this now? Here?” Maven lowered his voice. “With the entire Stone clan in the next room? Aunt Sophie getting to talk about this to everyone at her bridge club?”
Whispers reached my ears. “Oh, they’ve always been exactly the same…”
I could see why Maven hated this. He wasn’t anything like this man. He’d never be cruel. That was what his father seemed to want to be in this moment. He hadn’t seen Maven in years. Where was the hug? Or at least the attempt at one? What was wrong with the people who had raised us? We were loveable people. Or at least I knew the guys were. They seemed to find something in me they loved, too. What had happened to the people in our lives that they all screwed up so hugely when it came to basic human emotions?
“You have something to say to me, Son? Why did you even come here? Did you just want to show off the hot piece of ass you’re screwing?”
Maven jolted, and for a second, I wondered if he was actually going to hit his father or if Banyan would have to, but then it was like his body cooled down. He stopped shaking. I turned to stare at him. “Let’s go talk, you and me, in the kitchen. Alone, Dad. Love, would you mind calling us a car? We’re going to leave. He doesn’t get to speak about you like that. Just so you know. I’m going to do it in private, but I’m going to do it.”
I swallowed as I stepped back. “Sure. But Maven, it’s really not necessary to…”
“It’s beyond necessary and way beyond time.” He nodded to me. “Call the car. I need two minutes.”
He grabbed his father on the arm. I saw the second that it registered on the older man’s face that Maven had changed in the time he’d been locked up. He wasn’t going to be bullied or publicly shamed for anything. Without a word, he dragged his father off.
The room seemed to fall instantly quiet with the act. I whirled around to stare at Chance and Banyan. The latter pointed at where Maven had gone. “I’m going to go stand by the door in case he needs me.”
Barbara strode forward and Chance got in her way. “I think you need to give them a minute.”
She must have really been fuming because she practically snarled when she spoke to him. “Just because you decided to wreck your family doesn’t mean I will let him do that to ours.”
“Oh, Barb, I think you did that yourself.”
I headed straight for the door. Maven had told me to call the car. In this situation, with nothing left for me to do, I pressed the button on the app and did just as I was asked. My heart raced like I’d run a marathon. Was this going to be a silent, hate-filled minute or was everything actually about to explode? I rushed to the door.
The car showed to be two minutes away. I quickly signaled the security team we’d be going soon and they should follow. That was the routine.
“Chance,” I called out to him. “Two minutes.”
He nodded. “Be right there.”
The problem was that none of them actually arrived at the door. As two minutes became three minutes—all of it feeling like days while I waited for shouts or crashes to happen—the car finally arrived. A white SUV with the sign for the rideshare company in the front pulled up in front of the house.
“Chance.”
He was still arguing with Barbara, and if his stance said anything, he might actually be the one to explode. I sighed. I hoped the woman would wait. There was a place to pull over and stop. I took the stairs two at a time and rushed out to the car. The woman driving wore a Yankees ball cap and sunglasses.
She rolled down the window, and I bent over slightly to answer her. “We need just a second.”
“Giovanna.” It took me a second to recognize Molly’s voice. “Get in the car.” It was another half a second before I saw the gun. I gulped. This was happening. She was here, and she had a gun. “Put your phone on the sidewalk and get in now, or I will start shooting anyone who comes out that door, including your guys. You’re lucky they’re not with you now or I’d have shot them already.”
I believed her. My brain wasn’t functioning on all cylinders. It was funny, in a weird, sick kind of a way. I’d never contemplated having a gun pointed at me before, and I could say that without a shadow of a doubt I wasn’t going to be one of those people who was suddenly heroic about it.
“Have I told you about how I learned to shoot?”
I shook my head. Surely someone would rescue me any second.
“I’m practically a sharp shooter. My grandfather was in Vietnam. He was determined that I’d know how to protect myself when the world ended. Taught me all kinds of things. I can thank him for knowing how to make fire do what I want it to do.”
Well, that was an answer.
“Get in the car, Giovanna, or the first person I see will have their brains
blown in just to show that I can. Don’t try me on this.”
A million scenarios played through my mind. I’d always written myself into books although not since I’d started writing a book. I could see it now. Girl watches boyfriends get blown away in front of her eyes. I choked back a sob. She knew how to make fire dance. I was sure she wasn’t lying about her shooting skills.
Terror became a real, palpable being attaching itself to my brain, my heart, the movement of my body. I had the presence of mind to understand two things—she wasn’t kidding, she was armed, if she was comfortable burning people she was probably okay shooting them—and to remember I had an emergency button to press on my phone. Security knew I was coming out to the car. They’d think this was the car. I had to alert them otherwise. I hit the button.
And then, because I wouldn’t have anyone hurt because of me, I dropped the phone and did just as she said. I got in the car.
They’d find us fast.
I had no doubt. This was going to be over almost as fast as it started.
She pulled into traffic, taking off like a bat out of hell, wheels screeching as she darted through the other cars on the road as though she herself was a New York City taxi driver. Had she been practicing this? I was in the front seat next to her so I had a full view of the gun in her hand.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
“No, silly.” Molly’s voice sounded distant, higher pitched than usual. “You and I are going to dance in the flames together.”
This was going to be over soon. It would be over soon. It would be over soon. “What does that mean?”
I asked the obvious question, although I’d have to have been dumb not to understand at least partially what she meant. We were going to burn to death. But no, that wouldn’t be happening. The security was going to get to us. I even saw the blue van.
“Together, forever. Sisters. Like we should have been. Forget those sororities at school. You and me? We were soul sisters.”
This was just awful. I threw up in my mouth. They were coming for me. Any second…
Molly turned the car left, zipping past a police officer who placed a barricade in the street the second we passed it. What the hell?
She grinned at me. “They’re going to be closing the street here now. Repairs. Don’t you read the newspaper, darling? That truck you have following us?” It was a van but whatever. “It’s not getting through. Plus, the president is in town. There are barricades everywhere, and I know just where they are. I knew this was meant to be. When you left the house today, when you used the app for a car, all of it just led me straight to you, Giovanna. Today, we will be together forever.”
Okay. If I wasn’t going to be rescued, then I would rescue myself. This wasn’t happening. I wasn’t burning to death.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
I highly doubted that.
“You think you want to get away. You haven’t accepted this yet. But you will. Drink that.” She pointed to the open container between us. “Drink it or I shoot you.”
“If you shoot me we can’t burn together.” I hated to point out the obvious.
“I’ll shoot you and then myself. There’ll be beauty in that, too. Drink it. Now.”
With shaking hands, I grabbed the container. “What’s in it?”
“Now.”
Every chance I stayed alive was a chance I could get away. I had to keep telling myself that. It was a chance this would be over and I’d see my guys again. I drank down the liquid. It was bitter, and after a second, the world seemed to tilt left slightly. She had given me something to knock me out. The question was for how long.
I never got to ask her as everything faded to black.
Chapter 10
I woke up all at once. My head was foggy, but I remembered exactly what had happened. Alertness snapped back into me immediately upon my eyes opening. I gasped, adrenaline making my heart race like I’d taken a run.
My mouth was dry and bitter from whatever I’d been drugged with. I looked around and knew immediately where I was. We were back in our dorm room. How was this possible? I hadn’t a clue, but it was summer and maybe they’d emptied the whole campus because of just this problem.
Or the problem that was the woman whistling to herself in the corner. She’d tied me up. My hands and feet were both bound in front of me. I imagined I had her grandfather to thank for this particular skill as well. Had she always been psychotic or had something happened to make her this way and her knowledge base helped to fuel the utter disaster I now found myself in?
We’d made it all the way to Pennsylvania and no one had stopped her.
My mind did what it always did when I was stressed: it made a story. Girl burned to death. Parents don’t care. But her boyfriends do. My mind jerked at the thought. For the first time in my entire life, there were people who cared about me. They really did. I didn’t even doubt it. They loved me. All three of them did, and I fucking loved them. I pushed back the tears. They weren’t going to help here. We were going to have a future that didn’t include any more of this crap.
How had she even gotten me in the building? That was when I saw the dolly. Actually, it was more like a hand cart. She’d moved me in here like luggage. It was all I could focus on
I took a deep breath. “Molly, you don’t have to do this. Maybe we can just talk.”
“Oh.” She grinned at me. “You’re up.”
“I am.” I tried to get my feet under me, but it was harder than I thought it would be considering the tied up situation. There were probably classes I could take to learn how to get out of this scenario. Of course, I should have taken them before now. Even in my wild imagination, I’d never fathomed this.
From now on I was going to plan for the unthinkable. Somehow.
“I’m so glad you’re awake.” She walked toward me. “I assume you recognize where you are.”
I nodded. “Our dorm room.”
I didn’t have much of a plan other than to keep her talking but that was what I would do.
“Yes,” she nodded enthusiastically, “I knew it had to be here.”
I cleared my throat. I could use some water. “What had to be here?”
“Our final farewell from the world. Like the sisters we are, we’d leave together. We never needed a sorority. We had each other.”
Arguing with her would probably not do me any good. “We did have each other. But then you vanished. Where did you go?”
She tilted her head. “Well, at first I had to hide. The police were looking for me. I went to my grandfather’s cabin.”
I knew for a fact, mostly from Maven updating me, that the police had interviewed her parents. Surely they knew about the cabin. I took another deep breath. Everything was going to be okay. It had to be.
“Then I figured you were going to be back in New York City since you are fucking those frat boys.” She waved her hand in the air. “Trust me, you’ll get over that. These boys don’t know what they’re doing. My grandfather was right about that.”
I sat up straighter. That was a funny thing to say. Her grandfather had told her that? What else had her grandfather told her? What else had her grandfather done to her?
I didn’t know anything. It was too soon to be making speculation about it now. I couldn’t just go there in my mind. Except I totally was.
What should I say to what she’d just said? “I… I rather like the sex.”
That seemed a sort of stupid thing to respond. I had to do better than that.
“Trust me, twenty-two year old boys don’t know how to satisfy you like older men could. No matter. We’re leaving this place.”
“How so?” This was ridiculous, but I was going for it. She wanted to talk about sex? Fine, we’d do that. I remembered reading a story once about a woman who stopped an assailant from killing her by getting him to pray with her. I’d do that but I really thought sex might be better when it came to Molly.
She sighed. “Giovanna, don�
��t you know?”
“Clearly not. Because I must tell you, my three guys… they are really good at it.” I wasn’t even lying.
She started to talk. Sizes of cocks. Stroking the clitoris. I didn’t really listen. All it told me was that Molly had all sort of fucked up things happen to her in her life. That wouldn’t surprise anyone. I needed a weapon. I didn’t see her gun. That was good news, but I knew she had one. All the years I’d known her she’d never mentioned that grandfather. How long had she been planning this? Again, not something I intended to find out.
My mind kept wandering. This was standard for me in stress, but I fought through it. Banyan had painted me in all kinds of positions. Lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, looking straight at him, staring down at the floor. He’d never at any point captured me beating the shit out of someone. That didn’t mean I wasn’t capable of it.
I was.
I was willing to beat up his mom.
I’d beat the shit out of Molly.
I just needed something to do it with.
That’s when I saw it. The garbage can. It was solid, metal. She must want to burn something with it.
“So who gave you your first orgasm?” That seemed like a question that could get her talking for a long while.
She opened her mouth, and I slammed my joined fists into her nose. My hands hurt. I might have broken something. I didn’t care. I did it again and then again before I grabbed the garbage can and knocked her hard over the head with it. I hit her again. A third time. It was tricky to do. I was half on my knees, half slumped over, and when she hit the ground, I couldn’t really believe that I’d done it.
I cried, sobbed really. Tears and snot rushed down my face. I’d knocked her silly, maybe out cold. I didn’t wait to see. I crawled toward the door. With my hands still linked—and maybe broken—I got it open. I wasn’t even sure how. I howled as I inched slowly to the elevators. Time ceased to have meaning. There was only escape.
The doors opened as I approached and a person who had to be the janitor stared at me open mouthed.
Undeniable: Reverse Harem Story #3 Page 11