I CLOSED MY suitcase as it laid on my bed after I finished packing away all the things I needed to sustain me for a few weeks.
My father appeared in the doorway with a bottle of beer. “Where are you going?”
“You’re not supposed to drink with your medication, Dad.”
“You’re going to be with him? You can’t leave. This isn’t a good idea, Hanley. I need you here. You have to help me.”
“I don’t feel like I can live here anymore. But don’t worry. I’ve called a new nurse for you—”
“The nurse isn’t for me!” he nearly screamed at me. “It’s for Frankie. They always are. You can’t leave. I’m your father and I forbid you.”
“Forbid me?” I asked, nearly shrilling. “I’m not a minor anymore. It’s something you seem to keep forgetting.”
He marched toward me, grabbing both sides of my face. The smell of beer was pungent on his breath. “Don’t make a rash decision that turns into a monumental mistake. Living with him will ruin everything.”
“Dad? I have to go. Let me go.”
“Oh, I see.” He dropped his hold on me, backing away as his posture slouched. “This isn’t about our plan. You’ve gone and done what I was scared you would. You care about him and think he cares about you and will eventually love you? You’re wrong. He’s playing with you. When he’s done, he will become bored with you and move on to the next thing he can find. He’s just like his father. He’ll break your heart, Hanley. Then, our plan will go all to hell. What will we do for money? What about Frankie? What about what we promised to each other? Have you thought about any of this? Don’t turn your back on me and this family.”
“I haven’t. I promised you I would help you, and I’m going to do that.”
“Help me? This is about us and what that family did to ours.”
“What Natanael did, Dad. Not the family. I’m going after his father, not his family.”
“That is not what we agreed upon, and even if what you say is true, you won’t. He’ll make you forget everything. Make you forget about me.”
There was no reasoning with him. There never was. Instead of attempting to placate him, I began to walk away.
“When that door closes behind you, it will remain closed. I will continue the plan without you.”
I glanced back at him. “You can’t do anything without me. I love you, Dad. This isn’t goodbye. I’ll be here as much as I can to visit you. It’s just…time to refocus.”
He flopped down in a chair. “You’re starting to doubt me. You don’t believe it was murder anymore. You saw the whole thing.”
“What I remember was an accident. What you told me is that it was murder.”
“That’s Elias filling your head with those lies.”
“He isn’t. We haven’t even really discussed what happened. He’s just someone who makes me feel good when I’ve been made to feel numb for so long—too long. Please, let me have this one thing for once in my life.”
“You are switching your preference? It’s convenient.”
His words were a prickly comeback that hit directly at my heart. I recalled the fights and the biggest reason Holden stopped speaking to him. It was a poignant problem on an immense list of issues between the two of them. “It’s not a preference; it’s a part of who we are.”
While flagging me down, he sank deeper into his chair.
There was nothing else left to say. During our brief interaction, I began to believe what Elias said about my father was right—he was a rock tethered to my ankle in a wide open ocean. It was time I stopped struggling to surface.
FIFTEEN
THE POWER OF THE three hundred and forty-five horsepower engine roared at my command as I traveled on a deserted rural road in Elias’s Evora S. My speed was one hundred and twenty miles per hour and rising.
Leaning in my ear, pressing his lips against my lobe, Elias whispered in my ear, “Faster.”
I bit my lip at the pleasure from his hands between my thighs. I pressed in on the clutch, shifted, and hit the gas to go faster. The dance between succumbing to my climax and the danger of knowing if I couldn’t keep the wheel steady, we’d crash, added to my high.
His fingers slid up the crux of my thigh and went underneath my panties. The pads of his fingertips grazed against my wet slit and found my bundle of nerves. The faster the speed, the more intense his fingers felt on me and inside me. I pushed past one hundred and seventy-eight miles per hour, and the adrenaline was just as strong as my orgasm.
I shifted to lower my speed, coming down from my dual high.
Dropping into first, I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car. After removing my seatbelt, I hurriedly jumped into the cramped backseat. I quickly reached underneath my dress and removed my panties, throwing them at him. He caught them in one hand, bunching them into his fists as he watched me spread myself for him.
He met me back there, unzipping and pulling down his pants along the way. He pushed a button to fold the passenger seat, giving himself more room to maneuver. He yanked me down the back seat until I laid half on the seat, half on the door.
With my body in his hands, steadying me, he shoved his erection inside my welcoming, wet sex and began to pump inside me with brisk and hard strokes. The violence of his movements resounded in the cramped car. His groin slammed against the lips of my sex, making it burn and sting.
He fucked me with a hungry, ferocious pace that drove me insane. I wrapped my arms around him, holding on for dear life as he moved inside me, building up the pleasure and giving us both a chance to get high one more time.
Our damp foreheads touched in the aftermath as we came down from our messy climaxes. The meeting of our eyes was simultaneous and made us exchange grins of self-satisfaction. Moving my hands from around him, I clasped his face and gently kissed his lips.
“I think I'm falling for you.” I slipped one hand down his body to hover over his heart. "And I think you are, too.”
His expression wasn’t what I expected it to be. He looked emotionally distraught and full of utter disappointment. The unexpected reaction hit me hard.
He closed his eyes and abruptly pulled out of me, sliding away from me in the backseat. He tugged up his pants, fastening them as fast as he could manage, and got out of the car.
I watched him as he rounded the vehicle and leaned against the hood with his back to me. I was at loss for what I did—or said—to make his mood drastically change. I retrieved a few tissues from the box on the floorboard and cleaned up the mess we made between my thighs. After pulling myself together and straightening my dress, I met him outside.
“Did I say something wrong?” I asked, pacing toward him and reaching up to touch his face.
He caught my wrists in midair and shoved me away, avoiding my eye contact. “We need to get back on the road before we miss the dinner party.” His tone was harsh, cold, and low, barely holding any hints of affection, acknowledging me as if I was an unimportant nuisance.
“I thought you didn’t want to go. You said we would—”
“I’m allowed to change my fucking mind,” he snapped, startling me.
I stood there in awe, watching him as he plodded to the passenger side and held the door open for me. My mind went wild, trying to find a reason and a solution to the sudden problem. I came up with nothing.
“Hanley,” he urged, his eyes darting to mine.
Collecting my thoughts, I returned to the car.
IN THE HOME of Elias’s business associate, I felt like the invisible companion. I was an ornament, only able to smile and say very little. The conversation circled around me or didn’t include me at all. Elias prevented me from leaving his side by making sure he held a firm grip on some part of my body throughout the evening.
After dinner, we all stood, or sat, around in the sitting room. Most of the guests were drinking wine and discussing art, business, or politics. Elias never drank during the party, and as I thought about it, he’
d never drank a stitch of alcohol around me.
The first time he’d left my side all night was to speak to the owner of the home, Earl. Earl was a stout man who dressed slightly more casually than the guests in a loose-fitting, light-blue linen shirt and slacks. His orangish-tan bald head shimmered underneath the dim lights, and as he spoke, he often ran his hand down his trim mustache.
I observed him and Elias together as they had an intense yet quiet discussion in the dining room, easily seen from where I stood in the sitting room. Two girls, who were dressed for another type of party, approached them. They wore dresses which left very little to the imagination, heavy makeup that would’ve made even Claudia cringe, and sky-high heels.
“Hey! I’m Daniella, Earl’s wife,” a petite woman with curves to die for and a face belonging on the cover of a magazine introduced herself to me, approaching me while I stood alone by the fireplace.
“Hanley,” I told her, shaking her hand.
There was a distinct and large age difference between her and her husband. Her husband looked to be in his early to mid-fifties while she looked around my age, or possibly younger.
She tucked a stray strand from her mid-back length black hair behind her ear and glanced at Elias. “Want to check out what’s upstairs?” she asked quickly, her naturally very high-pitched voice turned quiet.
Elias noticed us speaking to one another and began to make his way over to me. “She’s fine, Daniella,” Elias answered for me. He reached for my hand, gripping it harshly and pulled me slightly behind him.
“Where’s Robin?” Daniella asked, while rubbing her neck. Her almond-shaped dark-brown eyes suddenly watered and her olive-toned skin flushed in discomfort. It appeared Elias’s presence tended to affect people in numerous ways. One thing was for certain: everyone saw him as intimidating. “He was supposed to come.”
No words were exchanged, but when Elias shot a look at Earl, he quickly walked over and escorted Daniella away. She looked dejected and offered Elias an apology before she disappeared with her husband.
I looked back at Elias, wondering the extent of the power the man held. He claimed he ran the town, and I believed him. But from the way people reacted to him, I started to think he was a bit of a tyrant.
There were more layers to the man than I initially expected. Layers I wasn’t made aware of, or told about from the person who sent me on this mission in the first place. The way my father reacted to my feelings for Elias, made me almost certain my father hadn’t disclosed everything I needed to know.
“I’m really tired,” I told Elias. “I want to go home.”
“It’s not up to you. We’re staying.” He pressed his palm on my back, giving me a grin full of scorn.
Unable to make sense of why he continued to be snide toward me, my mouth parted to do exactly what he had warned me against doing many times previously, but the doorbell rang.
Shortly thereafter, a bit of a ruckus resounded throughout the hall. Skylar arrived from down the corridor, heading toward the sitting room. She stumbled and staggered while she walked arm in arm with Robin. They were both visibly and heavily intoxicated, making me wonder how they got to the house in one piece in the first place.
“Excuse me.” Elias kissed my forehead and approached the party-crashers.
“Don’t you touch me,” Skylar shouted her last words at him.
Elias grabbed her arm at the same time Jaco roughly grabbed Robin by the back of the neck, escorting them into a room down the hall.
My left foot slid forward, only to be stopped by Daniella. “So you, like, never answered. Did you want to go upstairs with me?”
Bewildered, I eyed her plastic smile, unappreciative of her need to shuffle me upstairs like a wayward sheep, straying from its flock. I ignored her, and she boldly placed her hand on my wrist.
“You’re new to Elias, right? Just my little ole two cents, but from what I’ve seen of the girls he dates, he hates it when they’re nosy.”
“Please remove your hand from my arm,” I said to her.
She looked at Earl, who stood in the kitchen, angrily shoveling bits of pie in his mouth, straight from the dish. He caught Daniella’s eye, briefly scanned me, and released an open mouth sigh. He nodded to her, and Daniella decided Earl’s nod was enough to oblige my request.
Ambling down the hall, I paused at the door to the den. Carefully, I turned the gold handle of the door, making as little noise as possible. The large den allowed space to slip in and hide behind a pillar.
The scene, quite a few feet in front of me, stopped me cold. Robin was on his knees in the center of an Oriental rug that was rolled up at the sides and pulled away from any furniture. Jaco and another man held his arms, forcing him to remain upright in his position. His face was tilted to the side as if he’d been rendered unconscious.
Due to the blood coating every defining aspect, I wasn’t able to see the features of Robin’s face. His mouth was agape as though he was unable to close it. Blood mixed with saliva dripped from his mouth onto the floor. Standing in front of him while holding a steel baseball bat—covered in what I believed to be Robin’s blood—stood Elias.
Skylar continuously screamed against the palm of a man holding her off to the side and forcing her to watch. He wasn't a man I recognized from the party and his substantial body meant he could've been only one thing.
Elias gripped the bat in both hands and swung at speed that couldn’t be read to my natural eye. It was a blur of motions and when it collided with Robin’s face a grotesque cracking sound reverberated throughout the room and made me wince. The men holding Robin allowed him to fall listlessly to the floor. If he was breathing, it wasn’t readily seen from my vantage point.
I remained by the pillar, hiding from view, but still able to watch the scene unfold. The look on Elias’s face was something worse than anger; he was serene.
Elias stepped over to Skylar and swiped his hand down the bat. He grabbed her neck with one hand, making her protest and struggle. With the other, he smeared Robin’s blood back and forth over her face. Grimacing and whimpering, her head bobbed from left to right as she fought against being decorated in blood, but it was of no use.
“You were warned to stay away, weren’t you?” Elias questioned her. “What were you thinking, coming here, and bringing a man who’s been caught stealing from me? Do you want to see me this way, Skylar? Is that why you are constantly challenging me?”
She began to blubber and cry profusely. “Leave me alone, or I’ll call the police.”
The man holding her and the two other henchmen laughed at her threat.
“Leave you alone? It’s you who seems to have a problem staying away from me and Hanley.” Elias chuckled, loosening his grip on her throat. “As for your threat…look around. You have two of Ipomoea’s finest right here, watching. I always pegged you as an idiot, but never so beyond the realm of stupidity you don’t remember whose town you reside in. When the king leaves, guess who presides at his throne? Me.”
“You’re a monster,” she spat.
“I’m just a man, Skylar. Let’s not forget that. No one in this room is without blood on their hands, especially you. I’m beginning to regret ever helping you wash your hands clean of your very, very large crime that could’ve culminated with you getting sent to prison for life. Continue to piss me off, Sky, and I promise you, it may not be soon, but it will happen eventually…you will get what’s coming to you.” He tapped her face lightly, spreading more blood in the form of a handprint across her cheek. Releasing his grip on Skylar, Elias turned to Jaco and tossed the bat to him. Jaco easily caught it in the air by gripping the tapered end. “Get them both out of here and clean this up.”
The men moved, doing as they were told. Jaco led Skylar out of the doors leading to another hall that stood behind the executive desk while the others dragged a motionless Robin behind.
Elias stepped forward and picked up a handkerchief from off the top of the table situated between tw
o club chairs and wiped his hands with it. His close proximity—only a few feet from me—transformed my breathing into shallow pants.
“You’re not very good at skulking in the shadows unseen, minha amada.” His back remained to me as his hand went up in the air to beckon for me.
My first step was an unsteady one, almost causing me to trip. The world moved at a motion in direct opposition with my actions. I stood next to him, keeping my distance. I wanted to avoid gawking at him, but I couldn’t help it. I studied him, hoping somehow I’d be able to figure him out.
I knew what he was; there could’ve only been one thing. What bothered me the most was the possibility there could be more to the story of how and why his father was responsible for my mother’s accident. If it was something complicated, my father was right about the sacrifice. The price was becoming one I couldn’t afford. Standing before me was someone far beyond a slightly fucked up man with anger management issues. He was deadly.
And Skylar? There was only one thing she could’ve done to warrant life in prison and indenture her to someone like Elias—she had to have murdered someone. The connection between the two of them started to become clearer and clearer.
“Who the hell are you?”
He turned toward me while continuing to wipe his hands on a black cloth. His cold green eyes remained trained on me. Despite his calm, to the point of placid demeanor, he managed a skewed smile. “Elias Cari. We’ve met before, remember?”
“You have jokes at a time like this?”
“I was firing an employee for theft and keeping an errant bitch in line. Two things you weren’t supposed to see.” He glanced at the door to the den. “I guess I have the lady of the house to thank for not following orders.” He sneered in a way that turned my blood cold. “Her husband will pay for that mistake.”
Thoughts about returning home and getting answers out of my father before I got the hell out of town seemed the most logical of my thoughts.
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