All I can do is gape at him as he slides off me and springs to his feet, catlike. “Roll over and turn your back to me. Don’t move out of this bed until the sun comes up.”
I obey him quickly. I don’t hear him leave. How is that possible? The floor is squeaky wood – it’s terrifying that he can move so silently.
Unless he hasn’t moved at all. Is he still in the room, watching me? Is this some kind of test, to see whether I’ll obey him?
I don’t dare look in case he’s still there. My buttocks are throbbing in fiery pulses of pain, and I lie awake for hours. At some point, exhaustion finally swims over me, and then I wake up with a jerk.
The room is flooded with sunlight, and I’m alone.
Chapter 2
Bailey
I sit bolt upright and look wildly around the room.
He’s gone. I’m alone. My butt still aches and throbs. I rush to the bathroom and check it in the mirror, and I see faint red splotches.
I quickly get dressed and hurry into the kitchen. Samantha and Reg are there, making coffee.
“Oh God, I’ve got a wicked hangover,” Samantha groans.
I suck in a deep breath. Everything looks bright and cheery and normal in their vast kitchen, sunlight bouncing off the pale yellow walls and daisy-embroidered curtains. If everything were exploding around us, it would be easy to scream for help, but in the bright light of day, with Reg and Samantha shuffling around in their slippers, last night feels unreal. It’s surprisingly hard for me to force the words out.
“Samantha, a man came into my room last night,” I say. “He threatened me.”
“What the hell?” Her eyes fly open wide with shock. “Oh my God. Did he hurt you? Fuck, my cell phone’s in my bedroom. Reg, turn on the alarm!”
Reg runs over to the alarm panel…then turns to look at me, puzzled. “It’s still on. We’ve got a really good alarm system. How would he get past it? And then turn it back on again?”
“Oh my God – he must still be in the house!” Samantha’s gaze shoots around the room, her eyes bulging like a fish’s. “What do we do, what do we do?”
Reg snatches a knife from the kitchen island. A butter knife. “How could he have gotten in?” His voice rises and his head swivels wildly.
And then suddenly it occurs to me that if we call the police, I’ll have to tell them everything. About how the man put his fingers inside me and made me admit that I liked it. How he kissed me…and I kissed him back. How he spanked my bare behind.
“There was no man,” I blurt out before I can stop myself. “It was just a nightmare. I’m sorry.”
“What?” Samantha shrieks, her narrow, pretty face flushing red. “Are you fucking kidding me? You gave me a damn heart attack!”
I’m sick with embarrassment and humiliation. “I’m really, really sorry. It…it was the hangover.”
Reg sets the butter knife down with a clatter. “That’s not how hangovers work!”
“I’m so sorry. The nightmare felt really real.”
Samantha is just staring at me with disgust, and I mumble, “I’m going home now.”
“Yeah. Good call,” she says sarcastically, drawing the words out, and I hurry back to the bedroom to grab my purse and pajamas.
Reg walks me out to the car in his pajamas. “Are you all right?” he asks kindly. “You seem kinda stressed lately. I know you aren’t crazy about going back to Wharton.”
“It’s totally fine. I shouldn’t drink. I’m fine.” I smile brightly as I climb into the car.
I hadn’t realized quite how obvious I was being about my dislike of business college. I have no right to complain about it. I’m going to an Ivy League school, with my parents paying my way, and yeah, my parents were the ones who decided on a business major, but who am I to complain? People all over the country are spending their lives buried under crushing student debt. I’ve got a free ticket to college and a job waiting for me at my mother’s accounting firm. Sometimes I can be really whiny and ungrateful, and I hate that about myself.
I drive home and spend the next several days jumping at every shadow. I have a tutor every day, prepping me for next year’s classes, to ensure I can maintain that 4.0 GPA that my parents put in their campaign materials. It’s hard for me to concentrate on my lessons.
Samantha’s not talking to me because I “punked” her. Reg checked in on me once because he’s worried, but I can tell he’s upset with me too. I did scare the hell out of both of them, and I feel badly about that.
And still I don’t tell anyone what happened to me. The marks fade from my butt and I can almost convince myself that I imagined the whole thing.
If so, I’ve got one sick, twisted fantasy life. Is my subconscious into kink? There’s no room for anything like that in our world. My father’s politics are conservative, my mother owns one of the biggest chains of accounting firms in the country. We’re the American dream family. My sister goes to Vassar.
One afternoon, after I get back from a café where I hung out with Reg, my mother is waiting for me in the living room. She’s holding a letter that’s addressed to me – she’s opened it and read it, of course.
She shakes the letter in front of my face, and I take it from her to read it. I’ve been accepted into NYU film school – with a full scholarship offer! My heart leaps at the thought. Oh God, I would love to go to film school. I ache with yearning when I think of the ancient video camera gathering dust in my bureau drawer.
Then I see the look of anger and disappointment curdling her face.
“I didn’t apply,” I protest. And then I realize what must have happened. Reg sent in the application for me. He’s sweet – he’s always concerned about me, and we took multimedia classes together in high school. But if I tell her, she’ll tell his parents, and they’ll flip out. They already suspect he’s gay; they nixed his plans for theater school and they’ve got him majoring in business management so he can work at his father’s firm when he graduates. Even associating his name with film school would set them off.
So I lie to cover for him. “Oh. Wait. Yeah, I did that a few months ago.”
“Why, for heaven’s sake?” my mother says furiously. “How could you go behind our backs like that? We all agreed on business school, close enough for you to live at home.”
Sudden, unusual defiance flares inside me. “I didn’t agree to that. You told me that I was going to business school. And you said if I didn’t, you wouldn’t pay for college.”
“Well, obviously. We’re not going to waste our money and your time on a useless degree.”
I glance longingly at the letter in my hand. “This is a full scholarship. I wouldn’t need any money.”
“Bailey!” My mother throws her hands up in despair. “We’ve been over this a million times! People who go to film school are like people who go to art school. They end up waiting tables. You have a job waiting for you at my company – a job that most people would kill to get.”
My heart sinks. “I know,” I say unhappily.
“If you go to film school, you’ll be dependent on us forever.” That one’s always been a guilt trip for me. I want to be independent. I don’t want to feel as if I’m a drain on my family.
The thought of film school is so tempting, though. It swells up inside me and threatens to choke me. A full scholarship!
“I don’t need a lot of money,” I protest. “I could waitress to pay my own bills, I could live in a small apartment…”
“In a lousy neighborhood, where people who want to get at your father could kidnap you. And use you against us. Hurt our family. Ruin everything your father and I have worked so hard to build. This isn’t just about you, Bailey.”
Her favorite thing to say to me whenever I want to do something that doesn’t fit in with the family plan. But she’s right. We’re spoiled. My parents send my sister Lauren and I off to volunteer at soup kitchens “so you can see what poverty really looks like”. Also because it’s a good photo op fo
r my dad, if we’re being honest. But nonetheless, we take too much for granted, I know that. Like meals on our table and a roof over our heads.
“You’re right.” My shoulders slump and my brief burst of excitement leaks from me like I’m a slowly deflating balloon. Film school is a ridiculous, impossible dream. Being the daughter of Senator Millhouse is an enormous privilege, and with privilege comes responsibility.
My mother snatches the letter out of my hand and rips it to shreds, an unusually melodramatic gesture for her. My dreams fall to the floor in a flurry of paper snow, and my eyes water. I blink hard a few times before I leave the room without a word.
“Don’t forget the donors’ dinner tonight!” she yells after me as I walk out. “Makeup and hairstylist showing up in two hours!”
Ugh. I had actually forgotten. Dinner at the country club, where a dozen big campaign donors get to hang out with my dad. They’re usually gross old men who try to flirt with my sister and me, and I have to smile and make nice even if they pinch my butt or leer down the front of my dress.
So later that afternoon, I sit down in a chair in the living room next to my sister, and the makeup artists and stylists go to work on us. My mother brings me a roast beef sub and a brownie to eat before our dinner. I’ve always been one of those people with a high metabolism. My mother and sister both have to starve themselves constantly to maintain that size-four figure, which I privately think is one reason they’re so bitchy and snappy most of the time.
So whenever we go to a public event, my mother makes me eat beforehand so I don’t embarrass everyone by scarfing down too much food. I never mean to, but I just like food – far more than is ladylike. That’s been pointed out to me more than once.
But she’s thinking of me, of course, trying to keep me from making a fool of myself. She tucks a napkin into the neckline of my pink Carolina Herrera dress as the hairstylist styles my hair in a glossy blond chignon. Then she sets the plate down on my lap. She’s a good mother. And I’m a bad daughter. I live an extremely comfortable lifestyle, and yet I always want things I can’t have.
Like hugs. Weird as that may sound. I’m the only touchy-feely one in the family. When I see families hugging each other, I ache with envy. And I want to drop out of school, and I want to make documentary films. I want, I want, I want. Or rather, I don’t want. I don’t want the things that I should – a comfortable life, a degree from an Ivy League college, the privilege and responsibility of being the daughter of a man who lives to serve the public.
Lauren looks at me with contempt as I stuff the sandwich into my mouth. “Two dinners,” she says. “God, you’re disgusting. I don’t know what Reg sees in you. That must be why he flirts with me all the time.” He doesn’t, of course, I’ve only ever seen him check out guys, but she’s saying it because she hopes it will hurt me.
Annoyed, I shove my plate at her. “Want a bite?” Because I know she would never.
“Get that away from me!” she screams, as if mayonnaise is contagious.
“Bailey,” my mother says severely.
“What? It’s okay for her to call me disgusting, but it’s not okay for me to offer her food?”
My mother’s lips compress into a thin line. “Tonight is very important – an extremely generous donor will be there – so could you for once not start?” And my mother stalks from the room.
Suddenly I’m not hungry any more. I set the plate down as Lauren smirks.
Do normal siblings like each other? I know most siblings get on each other’s nerves, but Lauren and I just straight up can’t stand each other. There’s honestly nothing I like about her.
I’m in a sullen mood as we head over to the country club. Lauren accidentally-on-purpose elbows me in the boob when we slide into the car, and my mother snaps at me, and I suddenly realize I can’t deny that she always, always takes Lauren’s side. Lauren is my mother’s mini-me, a perfect porcelain replica of her. They both suffer all the same beauty dilemmas; they seem to bond over it. In addition to having to starve themselves, they have to iron their hair flat several times a day or it would be, heaven forbid, wavy; mine is naturally straight and glossy. They have narrow, delicate features; I have full lips and high cheekbones. Their big white teeth are veneers; mine are natural.
And me? Other than my blonde hair, I don’t resemble my family at all, physically or personality-wise, and it somehow makes me feel left out. In public, they’re icy perfection, and I’m bubbly and “annoyingly huggy” and awkward. I work ten times harder than Lauren – I have perfect grades, never get in trouble, volunteer on my father’s campaigns while Lauren has to be dragged in whining and complaining – and it’s still somehow never enough.
It never will be enough. I start to feel a black cloud of gloom enveloping me, and I automatically paste a smile on my face, just like I’ve been taught to do whenever I feel unhappy. I’ve been trained in the fine art of being a politician’s daughter for so long that whenever I’m depressed, my first impulse is to smile and look for someone to shake hands with.
We file through the club to the room in the back – the garden room. It’s the country club’s “ooh, aah” room, where the members take people they want to dazzle. It has a wall of glass that overlooks a beautiful rose garden lit up with a million fairy lights. Soft music pumps through invisible speakers, and the table’s set with gorgeous, lush arrangements of fresh flowers.
My father and the donors are there already. Most of them I recognize, but one of them, a man in a tux with his back to us, sends a thrill of terror through me, and I don’t know why.
My father leads us over to them. The man turns around and flashes me a predator’s smile, and my stomach turns to water.
“Steven Conway, meet my daughters, Bailey and Lauren. Bailey, meet Mr. Conway.”
Mr. Conway is the man who broke into the Van Her Hoffens’ bedroom last week.
Chapter 3
Bailey
This is the generous new donor I’m supposed to kiss up to. The man who held a knife to my throat, spanked my bare bottom, and thrust his fingers up inside me.
He’s as gorgeous as ever, and Lauren lights up, shoving out her hand. “I’m Lauren! Pleased to meet you!” she chirps.
I just stare at him, speechless. His eyes spark with amusement at my discomfort, and I realize that this is a man who likes to hurt people.
My face is flushed and burning, I can feel it. My mother looks at me in alarm. “Bailey. Are you having an allergic reaction?” she says, her voice reproving.
“Excuse me.” I turn and flee from the room, heading back into the main part of the country club, where a band is on stage and couples are twirling on the dance floor.
My father’s hand slams down on my shoulder. He’s followed me…and Steven is close behind him.
“What was that about?” my father hisses as Steven catches up to us. A few people glance our way, curious.
“I feel a little light-headed,” I choke out.
My father pastes on his political smile. “My daughter isn’t normally like this. I’m so sorry.” And he shoots me a murderous glare.
“I’ll forgive her if she’ll dance with me,” Steven says smoothly.
“Of course,” my father agrees without consulting me, and he stalks off, leaving me alone with Steven. He shoots me one last furious look over his shoulder.
I am stiff with anger as Steven puts his arm around my waist and steers me to the dance floor. But everyone’s looking at us now, so I reluctantly let him pull me up close. He moves me across the floor. He smells divine, his cologne light and musky, his breath cool and minty just like the first time I met him. His brown eyes gleam with triumph as he presses me so close against him that my breasts brush him. I put a hand on his chest and try to push away, but his arm behind my back is like a bar of iron, holding me up against him.
My mind and my body have split apart from each other. My mind tells me to run screaming from him. My body is pulsing with a strange awareness, my ni
pples swelling, my sex dampening for him.
“It’s lovely to see you again, Bailey.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re doing, but I’m going to tell my father,” I snap at him.
He looks amused. “Are you? What are you going to tell him?”
“Everything.”
He laughs mockingly. “You’ll tell him that the man he’s been chatting with for months, the man who’s donating half a million dollars to his campaign, broke into your friends’ house last week without setting off their alarm? And that you didn’t bother to call the police?”
“He’ll believe me. I’m his daughter,” I say faintly. But he’s right. It would sound insane. I was a fool for not calling the police last week. He threatened me and told me not to call…knowing that my failure to report it would make me sound really suspect if I accused him of anything later.
And this man’s been chatting with my father for months? Dear God. How much planning has he put into this, and what else does he have planned? Who’s his intended target? Is he trying to hurt my father, or me?
The dance floor is getting more crowded, and one of his hands slips down my back, cupping my buttock and squeezing. His other arm still holds me firmly in place.
“Take your hands off me!” I hiss.
A snap of anger sparks in his eyes. “Ask nicely.”
Tears of humiliation prick my eyes. He squeezes harder – painfully hard. “Please,” I beg, hating him. He smiles smugly, and his hand slides back up, caressing the small of my back.
“Why are you doing this? You’re a freak,” I say furiously.
The smile that curls his lips is a shark’s smile, the last thing its prey sees before it’s devoured. “Bailey. I told you that I would punish you if you spoke to me with disrespect.”
What exactly does he think he’s going to do to me in a room full of people? “Go ahead and try it.” I glare up at him murderously.
Matteo: A Dark Mafia Hate Story Page 2