He said he wouldn’t hurt me though. I have to believe that. And I was being honest when I said I was glad he was alive. He’s here for answers, but what happened that night, it wasn’t supposed to go down that way. My own brother betrayed me. Does he know that, though? Or does he think I was part of the conspiracy?
But maybe he’s not here for answers at all. Maybe he’s here to collect? Because that night, the auction turned into something different than it was meant to be, than I thought it would be. And maybe he’s here to collect on what he bought that night.
“Coming?” he asks without looking back.
I follow his path to the front door. The owner of the property died about a year ago and the house has been on the market that long. His kids, all adults now, inherited it, and don’t want to lower the price, but they’re asking too much considering the location and the condition of the place.
When I climb the porch steps, Zach has already punched in the code to open the lockbox, and he’s retrieved the key. He slides it into the lock and a moment later, pushes the door open.
“You really should send a cleaning crew out here,” he says as he steps in and holds the door open for me. “It’s not going to sell for half the asking price looking like this.”
I take a deep breath as I stand on the threshold.
“Eve,” he says.
I know once I enter the house, he can do whatever he wants to me.
No. That’s not true.
He can easily grab me and drag me in, even if I don’t willingly take that step.
“I’m losing patience,” he adds when I still don’t move.
I take a deep breath and step inside. He closes the door behind me.
He’s right. We should send a cleaner to the house.
Turning his back, he walks through the downstairs rooms: large kitchen, living room, a study and a spacious dining room. He chooses the dining room to set down his duffel bag. Most of the furniture has been sold off, but there are a few pieces remaining—an old sideboard and two chairs. He chooses a straight-back wooden chair and sets it in the middle of the room then turns to me.
“Show me around.”
“What?”
“The house. Show me the house.”
“Is that…I don’t understand. That’s why you’re here?”
“Don’t be stupid, Eve.”
I don’t understand what he wants, but I turn and begin to take him on a tour through the house. This is good, it will give me time to think, and it’s familiar. Something I can control. But that control feels like a reprieve. And I know it’s temporary.
“The room has been partially renovated, but the original…” I hear myself talking, but I’m on autopilot. All I can feel is him following behind me, too close for comfort. I’m not sure if he’s listening to a word I’m saying. All I can think about is him here with me. Us, in this house, alone. He’s so close I can feel the heat coming off his body and even as warm as it is in the house, I have goosebumps all along my arms.
As we climb the stairs, when I place one hand on the banister, he does the same, his hand touching mine for a moment before I pull away.
“Am I making you nervous?” he asks from so near, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“No,” I say weakly, but just as I take the next step, the old, rotting wood gives way and I let out a surprised scream, throwing my arms out in front of me to break my fall.
But they never touch down because, like lightning, Zach’s arm wraps around my middle and pulls me backward into him. I’m breathing hard, and he’s holding me against his chest. His arm is wrapped tightly around me and even after he’s steadied me, he doesn’t let me go.
I can feel his body behind mine, the muscles of his chest, the power in his big arms. He’s warm, his breath tickling my neck, and I remember that last night. Remember the look on his face when Armen, my own brother, did something I still can’t believe he did. When he betrayed me. I remember looking over the room crowded with men, dangerous men, most with scarves covering half their faces. Remember the guns slung over their shoulders.
Remember the absolute absence of women.
I don’t know how I found Zach among the men. Maybe it was his blue eyes. Maybe it was the difference inside them compared to the lecherous, savage leers of the others. Even with half his face concealed beneath the scarf, I’d found him and locked my eyes on his. It’s what had kept me upright.
When my brother started the bidding, the others—all those men—they’d gone insane. Like hungry animals coming upon their first meal.
And I was that meal.
I’d seen the surprise in Zach’s eyes at this turn of events. I wonder now if that was the moment he knew something had gone wrong. Wonder if he hadn’t been busy trying to save me, if he would have been prepared for what happened next.
“The house is old, Eve. You need to be careful,” he says from behind me, interrupting the memory. He hasn’t let me go yet though, and I turn my face a little so I can see him from the corner of one eye.
“Thank you,” I say.
He releases me and it takes me a minute to compose myself, adjusting my skirt, my hand trembling as I reach out to grip the railing. I’m dripping with sweat now but it’s not the heat of the house causing it. It’s him.
“There are three bedrooms upstairs,” I carry on, telling myself he can’t hear how my voice is shaking.
He follows me through each one of the bedrooms as well as the bathroom and when we’re done upstairs, I begin to head down, paying extra attention on each step. Some part of me wants him to hold me again, to forgive me. I can’t understand why that need is so powerful. But there’s another part too, and that part is afraid. Afraid of him. Of what he thinks I’ve done. What his state of mind is. Why he’s here under an alias.
Once we’re back in the dining room, he goes to his duffel bag and unzips it. I stand there awkwardly and hug my arms around my middle, glancing once at the front door just a few feet away. He doesn’t seem to be worried I’ll try to run. I guess he knows he can catch me anyway.
“Have a seat,” he says as he turns his back to me. He takes out two thick, worn folders from the duffel.
My legs are leaden as I move toward the chair he set out earlier and obey, sitting down, trying to force myself to look at him.
He faces me, and he must feel my discomfort. But instead he lets silence hang between us for what seems like an eternity, just standing there, leaning against the sideboard, arms folded across his chest, watching me.
“I didn’t do my homework with you,” he says, finally. “But even if I had, I don’t think I would have heeded the warnings.”
“What do you mean?”
“Who you are. What you want. Why you turned on your own brother and became an informant for the US military. Why you then betrayed us.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t—”
“You didn’t what?”
“I didn’t betray you. I didn’t mean to.”
“Tell that to the six men who lost their lives because of you.”
“I—”
“I would have believed you were innocent if you’d died that night,” he says. “I thought when Armen pulled you up onto that block, when he ripped off your clothes—I thought he’d betrayed you.”
I feel my face heat at the memory. I’d stood there naked, or nearly so, with more than two dozen men to see me like that. My brother had done that to me. My own brother.
But hadn’t I betrayed him too?
And then there was Malik. He’d been playing us all along.
“But when I found out you were alive—alive and well—in the States, living under an alias, a new life? Well, you can imagine I have a hard time believing it wasn’t all a setup to get me and my men out of the way.”
I have no response for him. How can I make him believe anything I say anyway? He’s right, the evidence to the contrary is here, right before his eyes. Me. Eve Adams. Alive and well.
He studies me. “Was this your payoff?” he asks, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a passport. He opens it to the first page. It’s mine. “I really didn’t realize you wanted to come to the States. You were that good.”
“Where did you get that?”
“Your underwear drawer. I like the lace, by the way.” He shifts his attention to the passport and begins reading the information there. “El-Amin is better than Adams, though.” He glances up at me. “I mean, Adams? Where’s the intrigue? And you, Eve, are a woman with intrigue.”
“That’s mine.” I get to my feet, but he ignores me.
“The El-Amin name was well known throughout the Middle East. Here, you’re a nobody.”
“Give it to me.”
“Born in Idaho.” He sniggers. “Now that’s a stretch.”
I lunge at him, wanting to snatch my passport out of his hands, but he catches me, holding me just out of reach as he continues to read.
“Twenty-two. Your birthday’s coming up, if that’s the real date?”
“Give me that!”
He shifts his gaze to me and for a moment, I go still. But then he waves the passport up high in the air.
“Are you going to take it from me?” he asks.
I jump to do just that, but he’s holding it just out of reach and he’s still got one of my arms in his viselike grip.
“You have no right to it,” I say.
“It’s not even a good one, really,” he says, his attention back on the little blue book.
“What?”
“Is it hard to keep the accent out of your voice? Day in and day out? To pretend you’re someone you’re not?”
“What about you? Michael Beckham?”
He tucks the passport back into his pocket, takes hold of my other arm and draws me to him so my chest is touching his and he’s squeezing both arms. His eyes burn into mine and his face is hard again.
He’s serious.
Dead serious.
“Six of my men died that night.”
My eyes warm with tears.
“Six lives lost. Some with families of their own. Young kids. One soldier had never even seen his baby girl.”
“I didn’t mean to…” I start, but trail off, unsure what to say.
“But you did,” he finishes my sentence.
“I never intended—”
“It doesn’t fucking matter what you intended!”
After his roar, there’s a moment of utter stillness. Then the first tear slides down my cheek and all of a sudden, it’s like all the anger, the aggression, the noise of the moment before, stops. It’s suspended as he watches that single drop progress down my face and disappear. He searches my eyes as if he’s trying to find the truth.
“I bought you that night,” he says, his voice low, even more dangerous than when he yelled. Suddenly, everything about him is different, like he’s someone else. Like something dark just crept into this room and slithered into his body, his head. Something powerful and alive and deadly.
His gaze sweeps down to my breasts. Shame heats my blood and I feel my face burn red, and when he meets my stare again, his eyes are on fire.
Zach doesn’t let me go but he watches me closely, and under his scrutiny, I feel like I’ll collapse. Like my knees will give out if he lets me go. Slowly, very slowly, I watch him take control again, subdue that savage beast inside him. The wild one. The one I remember glimpsing before.
The one that frightened me.
Excited me.
Made me want.
“When your brother put you on that block, that was the distraction, wasn’t it? Did you agree to be stripped naked?”
It takes me a minute. I’m not following him, but then I get it. He thinks I was in on it. That it was my plan.
I shake my head. “No.”
“He stood you naked in front of a roomful of men. He offered your body to the highest bidder.”
“Stop,” I say, feeling my face crumple.
“He was about to sell your virginity.”
I just shake my head no.
“Were you willing to go that far?”
“I—”
“Did you know? Was it part of the plan?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “I fell for it. Hook, line and sinker,” he says, sadness seeping into the beautiful blue of his eyes momentarily before accusation sets in, darkening them, stealing their brightness.
I look to my feet, to the dusty old floor we’re standing on. I can’t look at him. I don’t want him to see me like this and I don’t want to—no, I can’t— take the accusation in his eyes. “It wasn’t my plan,” I say weakly. “I swear, Zach, I didn’t know he’d do that.”
It takes me a long time to face him and when I do, I know he doesn’t believe me.
“I fell for your innocent act before,” he says flatly.
“I swear—”
“Then how the fuck are you alive?”
He gives me a hard shake.
“You’re hurting me!”
But he talks over me like he’s not listening at all. “How?” he says and his grip tightens. “Tell me how!”
“Please!”
His lips stretch into a narrow line and his throat works to swallow, but he doesn’t let up. Instead, he slams my back against the wall and I scream. “Tell me!” It’s a roar that demands an answer, one I don’t have.
Something happens then. A thought. I know it’s not true—I know him—I know he would never do that. But it gets the best of me and I think about the auction. About the fact that, like the others, he bid. On me. On my body. My virginity.
“Let me go.”
He doesn’t.
I struggle against him, but it’s useless. He can do whatever he wants to me. Anything at all. I don’t stand a chance against him physically.
“Please!” Still, nothing. “Are you here to collect? Is that it?” I ask. My voice is loud, hysterical—or on the edge of hysteria. I can’t help it. I’m scared. He’s unhinged, he’s not the man I remember—the one always in control. Always in charge. Determined.
No, he’s still that last one. Determined. Very much so.
It’s that determination that scared the hell out of me.
“Is that what you want?” I ask again. “The thing you think you bought?” I have to say the words, but it makes me want to vomit. “My body?”
I don’t know if it’s spelling it out like that or the tears streaming down my cheeks, but he blinks twice and a moment later, releases me and turns away. He’s leaning against the sideboard and I can hear him breathing hard. His heart must be going a hundred miles a minute.
“Six men died because they trusted me.” His back is still to me and his voice sounds different, hard still, but blacker. Guilt-ridden.
I don’t have anything to say. It’s not an apology he wants. It’s revenge. But it’s not me he should be seeking it from.
He starts to gather up the folders he’d taken out of that duffel bag and puts everything away. I stand there watching him, watching his back as he works. He’s in pain, I see it. I feel it. And I want to touch him, lay a hand on his shoulder and tell him it wasn’t his fault. That there’s only one man to blame, and it’s not him. But I can’t.
He zips the duffel. “Let’s go.” Without looking at me, he slings the bag onto his shoulder and walks toward the front door.
Is that it? He’s finished with me? I don’t understand, and I’m still standing there when he’s opened the front door.
“Eve,” he calls.
His deep voice reverberates through me, making me shudder. I shake my head once, confused, but I follow him out of the house. He locks it behind us and this time, he doesn’t wait by the passenger side door, but climbs into the driver’s seat and he’s already started the truck by the time I climb in. He’s driving back to the city, but he’s not heading to the office.
“Where are we going?” I finally ask.
He doesn’t answer right away, in fact, he on
ly answers once he’s pulled into the parking lot of a bar that’s open before lunchtime. He parks, kills the engine and turns to me. “I need a drink,” he says.
He pulls the keys out of the ignition, opens the door and gets out. He’s messed up, I can see it. He’s not the man who sat so confidently in the conference room this morning. Maybe he didn’t expect what happened today to go down like it did. Maybe he just expected to ask his questions, demand answers, maybe punish me for my role.
“Zach?” I say when he turns away. It’s like he’s forgotten I’m still sitting there.
He faces me, but he’s a thousand miles away.
“Are you…okay?”
He snorts at that, pausing for a second, and he almost replies, but decides not to. Instead he walks away, closing the driver’s side door, leaving me alone in his truck. I watch him disappear into the rundown bar and I sit there for a minute, confused, then open the glove compartment and take out my phone. I’m about twenty minutes from the office. I arrange for a ride with Uber, not sure if he’s going to come out and drag me into the bar or what. But nothing happens as I gather my things and climb out, and when the Uber driver gets there, I get into his car. Zach doesn’t reappear, and I’m soon back at the office.
I make an excuse to Devon that Michael didn’t feel well and have to catch myself when I almost call him Zach and not Michael. Devon’s disappointed and I’m not sure why I lied to protect Zach, but I did. I spend the rest of the day in a daze trying to figure out what the hell happened. He still has my passport, but I have a feeling today won’t be the last time I’ll see him.
I have a dinner meeting that night and am anxious throughout. Seeing Zach Amado alive, the way I did, the way he came back, is messing with me. He’s unpredictable and I don’t know what to expect, what he’ll do. But I’m also curious about him and as much as I know the best—safest—thing for me to do would be to see him gone, I don’t want him to go. I want to talk to him. I want to explain. I don’t want him to hate me, but I know that’s selfish. I didn’t know what would happen that night. It wasn’t my intention for his men to get hurt. To die.
Unhinged Page 3