“You gotta be shitting me. Come on, Sarah, you’re smarter than that.”
“I know.” She dropped her head. “But I didn’t know what else to do. All my loans are capped. I couldn’t ask you for money. I don’t have that kind of space on a credit card. I didn’t want to be another person in your life taking from you. Xander said it wouldn’t be a big deal, and then he reminded me I wasn’t in much of a position to argue, what with my internship being at stake.”
“So he blackmailed you again?” This guy was so much worse than Sienna, and all this time Sarah had been dealing with him on her own.
“I guess. That was the night I panicked and decided to break it off with you because I’d made a horrible mistake. I had no idea what kind of favor he was going to ask for, but I knew I’d made a bad deal. I started paying him immediately to get that part over with, and we’re square now, except he didn’t collect on the favor right away. And then there was the stuff with Candy—the idea of you with her threw me.” Sarah huffed and shook her head. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how, and I knew you’d be mad.”
As much as I didn’t like it, I could see where she was coming from. Particularly considering how I’d dealt with things recently where she was concerned—projecting my past experiences on her, and us, I guessed. “Why would you let him control you like this?”
“What choice do I have? I couldn’t risk ruining everything by losing my scholarship and getting kicked out of the program. With no degree, I’d never dig myself out of the debt I’ve piled up. The last thing I ever wanted was to become my mother, and I could very clearly see that path being the only one left for me if I didn’t do things his way.”
I didn’t know much about Sarah’s relationship with her mother, just that they rarely talked and she avoided going home during the holidays, opting to stay in Chicago and spend them working. Or with me, if time allowed.
“I kept waiting for Xander to call in the favor, but he didn’t. Then that party with Dee happened, and I started to get scared, because I knew it was going to be a lot worse than I’d ever anticipated. And I was right.”
“Why can’t you just pay him the interest? Why’s it gotta be a favor?”
It was a pointless question. I already had the answer: it kept Sarah under his thumb and would get her exactly where he wanted her, making him more money.
“I tried that. Xander gave me two options.” Her laugh was dark and derisive. She pulled out her phone and hit a couple of buttons, then passed it to me. “Press play.”
“What is it?”
“I recorded my conversation with Xander. He’s not the one with all the leverage anymore.”
I nodded, impressed. After a moment Xander’s voice came through—slightly muffled, but definitely audible—as he offered her a room of strangers or himself. I could hear Sarah’s soft whimper of fear, and it echoed in front of me as she pressed her palm against her mouth, likely reliving the entire conversation.
“Motherfucker.”
“I’d like to say that’s the worst part, but then Dee happened.” Her breath hitched as she paused. “I’d just left Xander’s office, and I was going to come directly to you and tell you everything, but Grant asked if I could check on Dee, so I went and—”
She sucked in another one of those gasping breaths.
“That’s when you found her?”
She nodded and handed me her phone, looking unsure.
I scrolled through images of a very disturbing OD.
“I felt bad taking those, but I don’t know much about Grant other than he works closely with Xander. He seems to care about Dee, and he was willing to take her to the hospital, so that has to mean something, right?”
“I don’t know, Sarah.” This was all too familiar and too fucked up. So much of it reminded me of what had happened with Lisa so many years ago. Fortunately there hadn’t been any kind of blackmail in the mix there, and we’d extracted her, and ourselves, from The Dollhouse before things could get to the point that they had with Dee. Lisa had still had a hell of a time going through withdrawal, not to mention the psychological damage that place had done to her.
“He sent me to check on her, and it wasn’t some kind of trap, which I was half expecting.” Sarah picked at her jeans, pulling threads free and rolling them into tiny balls.
I was silent for a while, trying to figure out how I was going to help her get out of this shit without making more of a mess of her life. My help seemed to do that sometimes. I flipped through the pictures again, thinking about how different Destiny had been just a couple of years ago. How she’d had plans—maybe not the same kind as Sarah, but she’d wanted a life that didn’t include stripping.
“You can’t do that party tonight, Sarah. I won’t let you become this.” I stared at the image of Dee lying on the wet floor, her skin gray and bruised, scrawled with hateful words.
“I know. But if I don’t…”
“You can’t.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. Tears that seemed to have no end tracked down her cheeks again.
I had no idea how to save her from the problems this had caused. Doubling her debt and losing her master's was a downward spiral that scared me. It could break her.
“I wish it had never come to this,” she breathed.
Her hair was in her face, her head bowed. I tipped her chin up. She was slow to lift her eyes, and they never met mine.
“Look at me, baby,” I urged.
“I don’t want to see how ashamed of me you are.”
Fat tears pooled on my finger, running down the side of my hand. I wondered if she’d cried this hard in front of Xander. He’d made her humanity a weakness, one he’d manipulated and made bigger. But to me her cracks meant a way in. A way to share her vulnerability.
I sighed. “I’m not ashamed of you.”
“You should be. I am.”
She finally lifted her gaze, and I saw it—the hopelessness, the fear, her shame. It was all so clear now.
“I ruined everything,” she said.
“You didn’t ruin anything.”
“Yes, I did. I kept this from you, and you’ll never forgive me for it.”
“What exactly do you need me to forgive?”
“Me. For making a mistake. I should’ve listened.”
“Then you’re forgiven.”
“It can’t be that simple, Chris.”
“Sure it can. Forgiveness is the easy part.”
She brushed her fingers across the back of my hand, keeping it pressed against her cheek. “What’s the hard part?”
“Forgetting. Knowing you felt like there weren’t any other options, and that you didn’t even consider coming to me for help.”
A tiny flicker of hope bloomed behind Sarah’s eyes. “But I’m here now.”
“I know.” I pulled her toward me, and she came willingly. She clung to me as if I could keep her from drowning.
And she was. We both were. Ivy’s situation—which I was determined to help manage—wasn’t quite so dire, but in a lot of ways it was just as bad.
Separately, these struggles could break us down. But maybe if we could hold on to each other and figure them out together... we could stop the fractures from becoming too big and keep the cracks from forming fissures we couldn’t repair.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sarah
I had no idea if things were going to be okay or not... between Chris and me, with Dee, at The Sanctuary, with school.
I let my mind go blank for as long as Chris held me. For those fleeting seconds, I allowed myself to believe that this good thing I had wasn’t going to disappear again, that I was done making these kinds of mistakes. As much as I’d fought not to be like my mother, I’d also allowed her to push me in directions that had sabotaged my efforts to escape a life I didn’t want. If I could get out of this, I swore I’d do things differently.
I was still amazed that I’d ended up with someone like Chris. He was the exact opposite o
f every man I’d ever seen my mother with. All their suits, their clean-cut looks, and well-spoken manners had given the illusion of goodness, and my mother was always searching for something better than she had. But none of it was ever real. Hers was false luxury born from deceit, and often depravity. In my experience—as a child, at the club, and hell, even at the marketing firm—a careful, well-crafted façade often housed the most disturbing men.
I’d fallen for it with Xander. His glossy exterior had blinded me, and I’d taken that job thinking maybe he wouldn’t be as bad as management at The Dollhouse. In a way I’d been right. He wasn’t as bad; he was far, far worse.
If I lost everything now, it would be the worst kind of karmic retribution. It would be the universe telling me I could never claw my way out of the hole I’d been raised in. I’d be permanently bound to an existence I could never quite break free of, because I’d allowed it to happen. I’d walked into it and stayed, because it was what I knew. And with my mother always in the back of my mind, I’d thought I could handle it. Only now, faced with the possibility of losing everything I’d worked for, could I finally see my error.
What was a little more debt in exchange for my dignity? My safety? A shot at a real relationship? I should’ve turned my back on this life so much sooner.
Chris stroked my hair, murmuring something into my neck. I turned my head and caught his soft lament. “I just want to keep my girls safe.”
My heart broke for him, because it beat for him. I had no idea what was coming for me, but I knew with certainty that he was the one steady, loyal person I could rely on right now, despite everything.
But when I pressed my lips to his skin and kissed my way up the side of his neck, Chris pulled away. He cupped my face and brushed his lips across my forehead.
“I can’t right now, Sarah. You need to give me some time to deal with this.”
I tried to drop my chin, but he held me firmly.
“This isn’t me saying no to you. This is me needing time to sort through all of this and find a way forward. I need to get my head around you keeping something this important to yourself, even though I understand why you did.”
I nodded my understanding, but it still hurt.
“Do you have to work today?”
“Oh, God!” I checked the clock on his stove. It was already eight. “I’m supposed to leave in twenty minutes.”
“Just call in and say you need the day.”
“And tell them what?” I couldn’t imagine telling anyone my stripper friend had OD’d and I’d spent the night in the hospital.
“That you’ve had an emergency, that a close friend is in the hospital, and you need the time. They’re not going to say no, Sarah, and they’re not going to ask for more details unless they’re assholes.”
I was such a mess right now. Simple thought processes were nearly impossible to manage. All I wanted was to stay wrapped up in Chris’s arms and forget everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours—maybe even the last two months.
I called my supervisor at work first, then my program mentor at Northwestern. Both were extremely understanding.
Chris’s phone chimed with a message as I ended the second call, and while he thumb-typed a response, I looked around his apartment. His sister had been here when I first arrived. Unless I’d hallucinated that.
“Wasn’t Ivy here?” I asked.
Chris slid his phone back in his pocket. “She went over to Inked Armor right after you showed up. That was her, saying she’s there and Lisa’s trying to talk her into a nose ring.”
“I didn’t make the best first impression,” I said, embarrassed at the state I’d shown up in, and how I’d pretty much thrown myself at Chris.
“She’s not judgy; she understands shitty situations.”
“Is she okay? You said she stayed here last night?” It finally registered that there was a pile of crumpled sheets and a pillow stacked on the coffee table.
“Yeah. Some shit went down at my mom’s last night, so Ivy came here, which is good, ’cause she needs out of there. I stopped by my mom’s early this morning; it was a bad scene.”
“Bad how?” I could see, now that I wasn’t focused only on myself, that Chris looked as exhausted as I felt.
“John has a gambling problem, and he’s gotten himself into some trouble, which he brought to the house last night in the form of a couple of goons. They ripped Ivy’s room apart and fucking frisked her like a goddamn criminal. She’s got bruises all over her arms—and I’m guessing it’s from that—and John just let it happen.”
“Oh my God.”
Chris nodded somberly. “It was pretty fucked up.”
“What about your mom? Is she okay?”
He laughed, but it was mirthless. “She barricaded herself in her bedroom and left Ivy to deal with it on her own.”
“What?”
“Yeah.” He twirled a lock of my hair between his fingers. “She puts herself before her kids every single time. I have no idea how bad it’s been for Ivy all these years, but I know what it was like for me when I lived there.”
“What do you mean?” I didn’t want to push too much, but I longed to better understand him.
“When Ivy was little and I did something that pissed John off, which was often, he’d use his fists to keep me in line. When that happened, my mom used to take Ivy for a walk, partly so Ivy wouldn’t have to see it, but mostly because she didn’t want to be the one subjected to the violence. Afterwards, she’d come back and tell me I’d brought it on myself, and if I could do what I was told, it wouldn’t keep happening. It wasn’t a great way to grow up.”
My heart ached for the man in front of me. He was imposing based on size alone, but as a child—he must’ve been helpless in those situations. I could understand now why Chris was so closed off, why he kept me at a distance. We were equally broken inside, just in different ways—a lot like Hayden and Tenley, actually, despite what we’d thought the other day. It gave me hope that maybe we could find our own way through all of this. Finally finding a way to talk to each other seemed a great first step.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Better me than Ivy. I took the beatings because I didn’t ever want it to be her, you know? She was a good kid—smart in school, followed the rules, didn’t push the boundaries. Not like me. Eventually I started to fight back, and when I was bigger than John, I did as much damage to him as he did to me. He’d loved the fights until then. That’s when I got kicked out. Then I started working for Damen…and, well... here I am, trying to get Ivy out of the same bad place.”
“How is she?” His comment about wanting to keep his girls safe made sense now. Being included was another reason to keep hope.
“I don’t know. I think she’s put up with a lot more than she’ll ever be willing to talk about. I’m trying to get her to stay with me for a while. I’d like to get her out of the house permanently, but it’s going to take some convincing.”
We were all fighting our conditioning. It wasn’t easy to leave behind familiar things, even when they were bad for us. “And all of this happened last night? God, Chris, are you okay?”
“None of it happened to me directly.”
“That doesn’t make it easier to deal with.”
“Sometimes I feel like I’m the problem, not part of the solution.”
“You didn’t create any of this. You know that, right?”
He nodded, but I could see he didn’t believe it. Instead of answering, he checked his watch. “We should head over to Inked Armor before my sister ends up with a full sleeve or something.”
Now it was my turn to nod. I could have asked him questions all day, but he’d shared more with me this morning than he had in the entire time we’d been together. “Okay.”
I used the bathroom to freshen up, horrified by the state of my face and my makeup. I washed it all off, clearing away the smears of day-old mascara. I smoothed my hair with the brush on the vanity—one I assu
med belonged to Ivy since Chris kept his hair short.
On the way down to street level, I passed Chris the keys to my car. I wasn’t in any state to drive. My phone rang halfway to the shop, and I answered even though I didn’t recognize the number. Maybe they needed something from me at my internship after all.
“Sarah?” It was Grant, but he wasn’t calling from the same phone he’d used earlier.
“Is Dee okay?”
Chris gave me a questioning look.
“She’s fighting, so I hope she’s going to pull through.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “But that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Should I come back to the hospital?” I asked, trying to read between the lines.
“No. Don’t do that. We’ve got her under watch, and they’re doing everything they can. Listen, I need you to stay home tonight.”
“But what about—”
“I know it’s hard to do right now, but you need to trust me on this and not come in to work. Can you do that?”
I hesitated, considering all that had happened. “Do I have much of a choice?”
“There’s always a choice. You just need to make the right one, and that’s staying with the people who can keep you safe.”
A click and dead air followed.
“Who was that?” Chris asked.
“Grant.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me stay home tonight.”
Chris frowned. “I agree that’s a good plan, but why would he say that?”
“I have no idea.” My absence tonight would push Xander over the edge.
“What exactly did he say?” Chris pressed.
“Well, he updated me on Dee, but then he told me not to come in to work tonight and to stay with the people who can keep me safe.”
Chris rubbed the back of his neck. “What the fuck is going on?”
His question seemed rhetorical, but I felt compelled to answer anyway. “I really don’t know.”
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