by Sam Crescent
This was a clean slate. A new beginning. One I intended to take full control of.
She tried to stand up, but I wouldn’t let her. “You need to rest,” I said.
“You’re so bossy. When did you get to be that way?”
“I learned from the best.” I gave her a wink and she groaned.
“You make me sound so awful.”
“Not awful. You always knew what you wanted. There’s no harm in that.” I pulled the casserole pot out of the oven, resting it on top of the stove, and removed the lid. A nice wave of steam came out, and along with it, the delicious smells of dinner.
“I can’t believe you’re going to get us to eat an entire head of cauliflower. I’m expecting my guys to moan.”
“It’s going to taste good.” My mouth salivated. “I’m going to set the table.” I made to pass Emily, but she captured me, pulling me into my arms.
“I’m so sorry he did what he did.”
I held on to her. “It’s not your fault.”
“It is. I should have done something to protect you.”
“It’s no one else’s fault I fell in love. This is all on me.” I rubbed at her back. “I love you.”
“I’m going to miss you.”
I gave her a squeeze. I was going to miss her too.
****
Earl
“Fuck you. You fucking piece of shit.”
I listened as Knight spat out the words. I cleaned off my blade from the blood I’d gotten on it. Ashley was out of the country. Landed safely at Heathrow airport, arrived at her apartment without a hitch, and had finished her first day at work. Then her second day. For a week, she’d gotten into a routine, and I knew because I’d been the one to closely monitor her.
As I used her as my distraction, Knight made his move, just as I knew he would.
The shipment of girls he intended to take were fakes. I’d arranged for mannequins to be placed within the cargo hold, and when his men had come to get them, we’d been ready.
I’d sunk the ship with some of his men still alive. There had been cameras on the ship, and I’d made Knight watch as his men drowned.
Some would call me cruel. This was simple payback.
Knight’s attacks had grown in severity and frequency. His patience being tested to the limit and along with it, my own.
I won. Like I always did.
I’d been waiting for Knight at his secure location, which happened to be a beautiful country estate. For the women who had been slaves here, I’d already made the necessary calls to be set free. Their stories would make the news, and Knight’s entire kingdom would fall. Along with it and all stocks and shares, people would be begging for a way out, and they wouldn’t get it. Every single investor would suffer, and just the thought made me smile. Also, I had him tied to the pool table, completely naked as he spewed out his curses.
His body dripped blood. I’d already taken my blade to him, cut him up really bad.
I’d gotten a text alert while I’d been about to take care of his cock. Ashley came first. She’d arrived at her apartment for the evening. I got to watch her for a few short minutes. No sound. Just the way she toed off her shoes, tilted her neck left to right. She’d been struggling with a knot in her shoulders ever since she got to England.
I wanted to help her ease out the tension, to help her relax, but I was miles away. An ocean away.
Closing temptation, I pocketed my cell phone, moved toward the pool table, and clicked my tongue at the man on top. “This isn’t a good look for you.”
“What the fuck do you want? Huh? You want money? You can have it. I’ve got enough to go around.”
“This isn’t about the money, and I’m really disappointed you’d think that.” I ran the tip of my blade across his nipple. One of them was already gone, removed with the single swipe of my blade.
“It’s about the whore!”
I drew my knife back and slammed it into his gut, twisting the handle as I watched him scream.
“No one talks about her like that.”
Knight groaned. “I’m fucking dead anyway. I can say what I want.” He kept on coughing in between each word. I ignored him and looked at his body, thinking about what I could do to him. The kind of damage I wanted to inflict. Part of me wanted to keep him alive. To have him as my own personal toy to torture at will, but once this was taken care of, I had other business to attend to.
Ashley. She was my business.
“You think you can keep her safe? Men like us kill women like her,” Knight said.
I looked at him, and I knew. My grandfather destroyed women, as did my father, and I’d picked up the game because it was what I was meant to do. I’d fought to be different to the men who called me son and grandson, but I wasn’t. I was just like them.
Without another word, I thrust the knife into his neck and stood, watching the life ebb away.
Knight was a good-looking man. A competition for power.
Not anymore. He was useless. Lifeless. A dead waste of space.
And now, no longer my problem.
By the time the press learned of his demise, he’d have been lost in a house fire to which he set himself as he knew the past would catch up to him. The women who’d been used by him would get the chance to tell their story, and no one would care about the billionaire businessman who lost his life.
He was a monster. Killed by me, a beast.
I cleaned off the knife and took a step back. My men were already pouring gas around the building, preparing to start the blaze.
My cell phone beeped again, and I got the single text to say the news headline had started. The knowledge of what he had done would be seen far and wide.
I’d been playing this game in life according to my grandfather’s rules.
It was time to change it up. Time to be the man Ashley needed me to be.
Stepping out of Knight’s mansion, I smiled. I was about to cause an entire shitstorm of trouble for a lot of people, and I didn’t care.
Chapter Nineteen
Ashley
My life sucked.
Really fucking sucked.
Like, I couldn’t even think of a worse time in my life than right now, not after I stared down at the stick again, read the instructions, and groaned.
“No. No. No. No. No.” I screamed the last no as I reached into the box for another one. The first stick had to be wrong.
Forcing myself to pee again was hard, but I managed to do it, and of course, that test lied as well.
“I’m not pregnant. I refuse to be pregnant.” I couldn’t be. I knew I had a cycle. Life had been crappy, which was why I couldn’t remember exactly when I had a cycle.
Melinda, the woman I worked with during lunch shifts, had asked if I was pregnant. I’d mentioned the sickness bug I kept getting in the morning. Woman must have thought I was crazy or something because I didn’t even put the two together. Morning sickness and pregnancy.
It wasn’t like Earl and I had been cautious. He hadn’t wanted anything between us.
Now, I was on edge. I was pregnant.
It didn’t matter how many tests I tried to use to tell me something different, it wasn’t going to change the fact I was pregnant.
My hand rested on my stomach. A baby. Earl’s baby.
I had to call Emily, but I stopped myself.
I couldn’t tell her. At least not yet. I’d need to see a doctor. It was too late to call to arrange an appointment today. Sitting on my bathroom floor, I rested my head against the wall.
“Why did this have to happen, huh? It’s not that I don’t want you, I do. I’m not sure I know how to take care of myself,” I said. I kept rubbing my stomach. Would I have a boy or girl? “I always imagined your daddy being with us. You know. I had my entire life mapped out. I’d go to college, get a great education, a job. I always wanted to be a television cook. Not a chef. I like creating my own meals and all that stuff. I’d meet a really great guy. We’d fall in love, get
married, and then you’d be born. Look at me, talking to myself.”
Tears filled my eyes, and I groaned at the unfairness of the tears.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t cry.”
Getting to my feet, I grabbed the boxes and the used tests, then threw them in my trash. I washed my hands, splashed my face with water, and gave a deep breath.
“I’m fine.”
I wasn’t fine.
Life in England wasn’t doing what I wanted it to do.
The truth was I missed Earl no matter where I was, and with each day that passed, the more I hated myself for my feelings for him. It wasn’t right. I shouldn’t love a man who sold women.
I’d even made myself a pros and cons chart. First with the cons. He was a human trafficker, he killed people, he wasn’t a nice man, bossy, took too long in the bathroom, and he enjoyed eating frozen garden peas. Again, peas weren’t something I enjoyed, especially not frozen garden ones. Yuck. For the pros, and I hated this. An excellent kisser, great in bed, kind, sweet, considerate, loving, protective, and I felt safe with him. The list went on and on, and I hated that I could think of anything nice to say about this man.
I released a growl and went to my kitchen, pouring myself a glass of water.
“I’m not doing it anymore.” Raising my hands in the air as if to ward off whatever being was haunting me, I grabbed my keys and let myself out of my apartment.
I left the building, not thinking where I was going until I found a pub. It wasn’t too busy when I took a seat at the bar. While there, I ordered a beer. The guy behind the counter asked me what kind and listed off a whole load of ales and lagers and bitters, to which I told him I didn’t care, to just pick one.
So many options.
With a pint of beer in front of me, I stared at the glass.
I wasn’t a drinker and certainly not a beer drinker.
I was pregnant. Beer was bad for the baby. I wasn’t a bad person, and I couldn’t harm this baby.
With my hands flat on the counter, I rested my chin on my hands and stared at the drink. I wasn’t going to drink it. I wasn’t going to touch any alcohol, and first thing in the morning, I’d get an appointment and confirm I was indeed pregnant.
Time ticked slowly by.
I stared at the glass.
People came and went.
Tiredness consumed me. I’d already paid for my beer. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I got to my feet, and left the pub, going back to my apartment. I stepped over the threshold, feeling all the fight leave my body. I turned and felt something tear beneath my feet.
Flicking on the light, I caught sight of a large brown envelope. It had been slid beneath my door.
I quickly closed and locked the door before bending down to pick up the envelope. I didn’t recognize it, and there was no stamp or sign on it to show it had been delivered by a postman or courier.
After tearing into the envelope, I reached in and found a single newspaper clipping.
At first, I didn’t focus on it. I looked back into the envelope and was surprised at the waste, seeing as there was only a single piece of paper, and it wasn’t even the size of the envelope, it was tiny.
Whoever had posted this through my letterbox, they didn’t want me to miss it.
On the back, I couldn’t make out the story as half of it had been chopped off. I turned it over and saw the headline: Cargo of missing girls found. Families are in the process of being contacted.
With the paper in my hand, I walked back to my seat and sat down.
I read the short piece. The story was taken a few days ago. A cargo of kidnapped girls had been found. The girls had been badly beaten and suspected of being sold to the slave trade.
Human trafficking.
Who would send me this?
“You weren’t home.”
I released a scream and fell off the edge of the sofa where I’d crawled over.
That voice.
I knew it. Gripping the edge of the sofa, I peered over the top to find Earl sitting in the corner of my sitting room. His boots only appeared in the light of the lamp I’d switched on.
“You scared me.”
“I didn’t mean to. This was posted first, and then I let myself in when you didn’t respond.”
“You’ve got a key to my apartment?”
“I arranged for you to be here,” he said.
“Of course you did.” It should have been good to see him, but at that moment, I was so angry. He’d broken into my apartment, was sitting on my furniture, and I was supposed to be grateful for that?
I wasn’t.
I was angry. Totally angry.
He was alive, which also made me really happy, but this man had abandoned me. Had told me he was done with me. He’d gotten bored with me, and now I was supposed to what? Be happy to see him?
“What is this?” I asked.
He leaned forward, and I saw parts of his hands were bandaged. “This is me turning over a new leaf.”
I groaned. “I’m not going to have this conversation with you in the dark.” There was no reason to be afraid. I stood, went to the light, and flicked it on.
Still, he sat here. He blinked a few times, adjusting to the light.
He was here, in my living room. Talking to me.
My mouth went dry.
“Where were you?” he asked.
“You don’t get to ask me any questions.” I wanted him to stay silent so for a short time, I could just look at him and try to understand what was happening right now.
Tonight, I’d found out I was pregnant with this man’s baby, sat in a pub, didn’t drink a single drop of beer, came home, and discovered him here.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“I came back for you.”
I shook my head. “No, you let me go, remember? You’d grown bored. You had enough of me.”
“Why is it so easy for you to believe the lies I fed you but you can’t accept the truth?”
I ran fingers through my hair. “You wanted me gone.”
“I had to have you gone.” He got to his feet and took a few steps toward me.
I held my hand up. “No! You don’t get to come here to my carefully organized world and be a part of it. You made your choice. You had your fun. I’m not a virgin anymore, Earl.”
“You think I give a fuck about your virginity?”
“You cared enough to want to take it!” I slammed my foot down. I didn’t care how childish I might look. He wasn’t going to get away with this. I refused to let him.
“Ashley, this isn’t about your virginity. You read the article.”
“So you’re trying to be a hero now?”
“I had to let you go. Your life was in danger. I wasn’t going to let you die because of me.”
“And what, now my life isn’t in danger?”
“The man who was going to hurt you is gone.”
“Gone?”
“Dead.”
“I can’t be hearing this stuff.” I turned on my heel, about to walk away. I released a scream as his arms wrapped around me. His face pressed against my neck.
I wanted to hate his touch.
The moment I felt him against me, I melted. Even as I screamed and tried to fight, my body submitted.
For a few blissful seconds, I allowed myself the chance to enjoy him. But it was only a few blissful seconds before the pain returned and there was no way I was going to let him get over this.
I yanked myself away from his arms, taking him by surprise with my fight. Spinning around, I slapped him hard across the face. I only did it once, and he looked at me in shock.
“You don’t get to come in here after what you did and pretend everything is okay. You hurt me, Earl.”
“I know. I’m going to do everything in my power to make it right, Ashley. I’m not going to leave. I won’t hurt you. I’ll give you your space, but I’m not going away. I’m here to stay, to be the man you deserve. The man you can fall in love wit
h.”
He opened his jacket, and I watched as he removed a single red rose.
So beautiful.
I wanted to tell him to stay. To hold me. I needed to tell him I was pregnant.
I said nothing as he left my apartment.
The silence was deafening. I was alone.
The newspaper clipping was still in my hand.
I didn’t know what the fuck was going on anymore.
****
Earl
During the days, Ashley worked at a café. It was a small greasy spoon. Offered good old-fashioned traditional English breakfast, chips, and all the good stuff people seemed to enjoy. There was no smoking allowed on the premises, and signs were displayed for people to see.
I listened to a few grumbles, but no one complained.
Tea was served by the gallon in silver teapots, with little plastic tubs of milk and sachets of sugar for people to make their own drink.
It was charming.
Ashley came in around ten. She wore a pastel-pink uniform, no apron, and her was hair tied back. The women who were cooking had on hairnets. I sat in the corner. There were no booths, no privacy, and the tables were quite close together.
She spotted me immediately.
I watched her close her eyes and she appeared to be counting to ten before she came toward me, a small notepad and pen in her hand. “What can I get you?”
Her accent was cute. A little twang of English softened her tone.
“I’ll have the full English,” I said. I had no idea what I was ordering. I’d never done breakfast in London before.
“With or without black pudding and mushrooms?” she asked.
“The full works.”
“Okay. I’ll do you a tea refill.”
“Ashley, I want to talk to you.”
“Then make an appointment,” she said. “I’m busy. I work.”
I wanted to reach out and grab her. I gave her space.
She went to a few other tables before taking my order up to the counter. One of the women took it and then started to point at a few tables and gave her hand a shake. Ashley smiled, and then I watched her go start cleaning the tables of the plates that had been left. By the counter, along the opposite wall, were stands where the trays needed to be taken. Clearly, people had left their trays for others to clean up the mess.