by Vivian Gray
Immediately, I picked up my purse, which I’d dropped on the intricately carved wooden buffet table to the left of the elevators, and looped it over my shoulder.
“No wonder you live alone in this giant penthouse,” I said. “No wonder you can look like you do and still be alone. You can’t trust anyone. One little issue pops up, and you send them packing.”
“Trust isn’t a little issue,” he bit back. “It’s vital to any relationship.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” I spun around to open the elevators. “Without any, even the most promising of relationships can die.”
I stepped into the elevator and pressed the ‘close door’ button like a mad woman, begging to be away from Anton. I didn’t want him to see me cry. I didn’t want him to see how frightened and hopeless I felt.
“Are you going back to Brendan?” he asked, arms crossed over his chest. He had his shirt sleeves rolled up around his forearms, and I hated how handsome he looked. Even when I hated him with every fiber of my being, my body wanted him.
I shook my head. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’d rather die on the streets than be with either of you.”
Confusion flitted across his face just before the doors finally closed, ending the conversation.
Chapter Sixteen
Bailey
My phone was almost dead, and I begged it not to die as I scrolled through my Internet search, looking for a place to crash for the night. I would settle for a homeless shelter, but a women’s shelter would be preferable. They tended to be a bit nicer. However, I was desperate. I’d slept on the street before, so sharing a bedroom with a few other people and going a night or two without conditioner would certainly not be the worst thing in the world.
Luckily, it was just after noon, so I had all afternoon to find somewhere that wasn’t full. If I were lucky, I’d also have some time to apply for some jobs. All of my clothes were split between Brendan’s house and Anton’s penthouse, so the white dress I had on was all I would have until I could afford something else. It looked nice now, but it would start looking pretty dingy in a few days.
Part of me wanted to text Anton and ask whether I still had a job with him, but I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that question already. He hadn’t respected me as an employee. I was a booty call that he would fire as soon as things became inconvenient. He had just made that clear. He wasn’t the type to work through issues.
I’d hoped to make the most of my time in his company. I could have used the experience to find another personal assistant job in the city, but no one would hire me now that I’d been fired from the position after less than a week.
My phone died.
Shit. Shit shit shit.
I pocketed the useless hunk of plastic and glass and looked down the street. The bus was supposed to make stops every half hour, and I’d already been waiting for fifteen minutes. Maybe someone on the bus would let me borrow their phone. Though, that was unlucky. New Yorkers weren’t exactly known for their kindness to strangers.
As I was trying to figure out where I could bum a phone charger, a car pulled up along the curb in front of me. It was a black beater with two doors and darkly tinted windows. I stepped back away from the curb, not yet nervous enough to take off running, but enough to be cautious. It didn’t matter though. No sooner had I taken a step back than the driver door opened and a hooded figure came running around the car and towards me. By the time I realized it was Brendan, it was too late.
My cry for help was smothered by Brendan’s palm and then by a balled-up rag. He shoved it into my mouth, and I gagged on it, tears welling in my eyes. I wanted to kick out at him, but he had me up off my feet and under his arm before I even had the chance. It was two steps before he was at the back door.
He opened it, shoved me inside, and ran around the car to the driver’s seat. I lunged for the door handle, but it was useless. The child lock was on. By the time I tried to clamor over the center console and into the front seat, Brendan was inside the car, a black object in his hand. There was a sharp pain in the top of my head and then darkness.
My eyelids felt heavy, and I fought uselessly against whatever force was keeping them closed. I tried to lift my arms and legs, but my head felt like it had been filled with wet cement, and it sloshed every time I moved. I groaned, even the rumble of my own chest making me feel like I could break apart.
What happened? Had I been hit by a truck? Was I in a coma somewhere? I listened for the sound of movement, the tell-tale beeping and dripping liquid of a hospital room but didn’t hear anything that would clue me in to where I was. I groaned again, knowing that meant I would have to muster the strength to open my eyes.
When I did, I couldn’t be certain I’d opened them at all. Everything was black. Was I blind?
My heart began to pound, which offered an odd kind of comfort. At least if I was blind, my heart seemed in perfect working order. However, as I continued to blink, my eye adjusted to the gloom and I realized I was simply in a dark room. A dark, windowless room.
The ceiling creaked above me, the rhythmic moving of feet across a wooden floor, and I remembered everything.
The bus stop. Brendan. A gag. Being hit over the head.
That son of a bitch. That psychopathic, son of a bitch.
Rage propelled me to my feet, rising from what appeared to be a blue wrestling mat that had been thrown in the corner of the small, dusty room. It took me a few seconds to realize I was in Brendan’s basement. I’d rarely ever come down here when we lived together because it smelled like mildew and it was where Brendan kept his workout equipment.
What was his plan? I’d decided not to be with him, so he kidnapped me? Was he just going to keep me in his basement forever, bringing me scraps of food and hoping I wouldn’t make any noise when his friends came over? Or…
My blood ran cold, the rage inside of me curdling into terror. Did he plan to kill me? I wouldn’t have thought Brendan capable of such a thing even a few days earlier, but after trying to attack me that morning and then knocking me unconscious and locking me in a basement, I couldn’t put anything past him anymore.
The door was solid and wooden. Although Brendan’s house was rundown and disgusting, it was old and solid. I could have tried to kick down the door, but it wouldn’t have done any good. The best outcome is that he would hear me making a lot of noise and decide to come kill me sooner.
As I stood there thinking, the footsteps moved back over me and then stopped. I heard the wood creaking just overhead as, I presumed, Brendan shifted from one foot to another.
“How many times do I need to repeat myself?” he said, his voice barely loud enough to be heard through the wood floor.
Was someone with him? Did he have a partner in this? For some reason, that made everything worse. I had a chance of swaying Brendan, of making him change his mind, of possibly overpowering him and escaping. But I couldn’t take on two men. And Brendan was always the meanest to me when someone else was around. Pushing me around was his way of showing his friends how in control he was. Pathetic.
No one responded for a while, and then finally, Brendan spoke again. “Yes, I have her, and I’ll hand her over for a price.”
A price? Did he mean a ransom? Had he really kidnapped me for ransom money? Who did he expect to pay for me?
“You took her from me in the game, and now I’d like to be paid,” he said.
Anton. Of course, it was Anton.
Brendan thought that if he couldn’t have me around, the least he could do was make a little bit more money off of me. It was always about money with him. But what Brendan didn’t realize is Anton wouldn’t pay money for me. Why would he? He’d kicked me out of his house moments before Brendan had grabbed me, and I’d as good as said I didn’t want to be with him. If anything, Anton was probably enjoying my plight, sitting on the other end of the phone, loving how far I’d fallen in such a short amount of time.
“Yes,” Brendan said, his voice
harsh and annoyed. “She rejected me, but I deserve something for the months I fed and sheltered her. I hope to receive that payment from you. I need it within the hour, or she suffers.”
Suffers.
The word was a knife lodged in my spine. I would have rather he threatened my life. Thinking about the many creative ways Anton could make me suffer was more terrifying than the thought of death. I had to get out of there.
Aside from the thin blue mat, the shredded tatters of my gag and a collection of dust bunnies in the corners, the room was empty. I didn’t know whether it had always been empty or whether Brendan had cleaned it especially for me. A closet with white accordion doors was in the corner. Thick layers of dust had settled on the wooden slats and the handles, and when I pulled it open, I realized why it was perfectly untouched. The idiot had forgotten about the closet.
Brendan had always had tunnel vision. He would focus in on something and disregard everything else. Occasionally it had worked in my favor. Like when he would be watching football and completely ignore me, leaving me free to wander around the house undisturbed for once. Other times, though, when he set his sights on me, there was nowhere to hide. In this instance, his tunnel vision had been a saving grace.
Inside the closet sat a treasure trove of blunt instruments perfect for smashing someone over the head with – adjustable dumbbell bars, round weights ranging from 5 to 50 pounds, and, no joke, a baseball bat. The imbecile had locked me in a room with a baseball bat. I wanted to laugh, except I wasn’t ready for Brendan to know I was awake yet. I would only get one chance at escaping, and if I messed it up, he would no doubt knock me out again and clear out the closet. I had to be smart.
I quickly began lifting things out of the closet and spreading them around the room. In addition to being objects Brendan could trip over in the dark while chasing me, it also ensured there would be a weapon at my disposal in every corner of the room. Then, I picked up the bat and the adjustable dumbbell bar, weighing them each in my hand. The bat was obviously made for swinging, but the dumbbell bar was metal and surprisingly heavy. A whack over the head with that would have Brendan on the floor in an instant, perhaps permanently. And while killing him wasn’t the goal, I certainly wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.
I practiced swinging the bar several times from all different angles and then spent a few minutes limbering up. Once I hit him, assuming I didn’t kill him or knock him unconscious, it would be a mad dash for the stairs and then the front door. And even then, I had no idea what time it was because the room was windowless. If it was dark outside, Brendan could chase me down and drag me back inside before anyone saw. Getting through the front door did not mean I was home free.
Finally, when I knew I’d prepared as best I could, I took a few deep, calming breaths, positioned myself next to the door, bar in hand, and coughed. Loudly.
A few seconds later, I heard Brendan’s lumbering footsteps moving across the floor at an almost leisurely pace. He seemed to be taking his sweet time, which was great news for me. He didn’t have any suspicion I might try to escape. In truth, the woman I’d been when I was with Brendan wouldn’t have tried to escape. She would have quietly accepted her fate.
In fact, that woman would have never turned him down in the first place. I would have crawled back to him the moment he asked me to. But now? Now I would fight. I would fight for the life I wanted. The life I deserved. I would fight for my freedom.
I heard heavy footsteps on the stairs, growing louder and louder, and I counted the seconds in my head, trying to direct my heart to beat at that rhythm instead of the hummingbird rhythm it had taken to. I didn’t have time to worry about a heart attack though. Brendan was walking across the concrete floor, moving towards my room. There was a key in the lock, a jiggle, and then light poured in the room, silhouetting his head like a target at a gun range.
I reared back without hesitation and brought the bar down on his skull, hearing a satisfying crack in response. I knew I had to have dented his skull at least, but Brendan didn’t fall down the way I’d expected. He threw his hands up to protect himself, but kept his eyes open, searching for me.
I stepped backward, trying to give myself enough space to attack him again, but I tripped over a stack of weights I’d placed on the floor. The stack of weights I’d hoped Brendan would trip over. I fell backward, my head (luckily) landing on the corner of the wrestling mat instead of the concrete floor, but I had lost precious seconds of escape time to my clumsiness.
I rolled over and scrambled to my hands and knees, the bar still gripped tightly in my fist.
“You bitch,” Brendan growled out, lowering his hands. There was blood on his fingers. He wiped it on the hem of his shirt and held his arms out to his side, blocking me from the door like a goalie in the final minutes of a soccer match.
“Psycho,” I snapped back. It felt childish to be calling each other names, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d been holding my tongue for years, and I wouldn’t do it for another second.
“You’re not getting out of here. You aren’t going to escape like you did this morning.”
“Why? Because you think you can get some money for me?” I asked, matching each of his steps with one of my own, being sure to not let myself be pressed into another corner.
“I thought so, but your boyfriend won’t call me back. Apparently, he has decided you aren’t quite worth the money.”
“He isn’t my boyfriend anymore.”
Brendan’s eyes went wide. He looked genuinely surprised by this piece of information. “Then…” he said, mouth hanging open, “why aren’t we together?”
At that moment, despite everything Brendan had done, I felt sorry for him. His world was so small and so simple. It was clear by the way he’d treated me the entire time we were together that he didn’t love me. He never cared for me. Yet, he was willing to ruin his life to have me. And for what? To prove that he could. To prove that he was in control. It was sad.
None of that stopped me from doing what I did next though.
Brendan’s confusion provided the perfect moment for me to jump from the mat with both feet, the bar held above my head, and crack it down over his forehead. He lifted his arms to stop me, but he was too late. There was a crack, Brendan stumbled forward, blood dripping between his eyebrows and down his nose, and then he fell.
I didn’t stay to see what happened next. I sprinted up the stairs, through the front door, and for three blocks after that, only ditching the blood-stained dumbbell bar when I was about to step into a cab.
Chapter Seventeen
Anton
I felt relieved Bailey was gone. Finally, I would have my house to myself again. I would be able to focus on work without losing time waiting for her to walk through my office door. I could bring home any women I wanted and send them home in a cab the next morning, no strings attached. My life would be simple again.
If that was true, though, why did it fucking hurt so much?
Her face as the elevator doors closed had nearly broken me. She was trying to be strong, but I saw the tears welling in her eyes, saw the hurt on her face at my lack of trust. I had a good reason to doubt her though. She’d gone to visit her abusive ex-boyfriend, and she’d lied to me about it… twice. What was I supposed to think?
Sure, I could have asked her upfront why she was with Brendan to see what she would have said, but I’d given her the opportunity to be honest, and she’d chosen to be deceptive. I couldn’t be with someone who didn’t tell me the whole truth.
But then again, when did my standards become so high? Before Bailey, I only needed to know the woman I was with had been recently tested for STDs and was on the pill. I didn’t even need to know their real names. Why had I held Bailey to such a high standard? Especially since we weren’t even dating. Not really. We were having sex. Incredible, mind-blowing sex. And we were living together. In separate rooms.
At best, we were roommates with benefits. Did roommates with benefits rea
lly need to be absolutely honest with one another one hundred percent of the time? I hated to admit it, but I didn’t think so.
And I missed her. I hated to admit that just as much. Not only had I been wrong, but now I regretted it. I wanted to be with her. I wanted her to be with me. She had come home. Wasn’t that enough? She went to see Brendan, but she came back to me. Clearly, she was done with him. My own stupid pride made me push her away. And now I had no way to contact her – somehow, we had never exchanged cell phone numbers – and no idea where she had gone.
My phone vibrated, and though I had only seconds before been thinking we didn’t have a way to contact one another, I lunged for it, certain Bailey was calling me. The “unknown caller” label flashing on the screen did not deter me in the slightest.
“Hello?” I answered, breathless and hopeful.
I would apologize to her. I’d admit how wrong I had been and how much I cared about her. The other night she had dragged the words out of me, but now I would say them freely: I want you to live here. And more than that, I would admit something I was still frightened to admit to myself. I loved her. I, Anton Anosov, loved Bailey Rhimes. I knew it was crazy to say that and maybe it would scare her away, but I couldn’t lie anymore. No matter how insane it seemed, I knew in my heart it was the truth.