Chapter Thirty Seven
The question is, why would he want me to see this? Is he toying with me? Have I been tricked? Is he some kind of weirdo, and this is his way of having fun?
I find myself not touching the mouse, not disturbing the screensaver, just looking at it. The woman’s arm extends toward the camera. She snapped this shot in a moment of their passion. Why would he want me to see it? I ask myself, again and again. It makes no sense. And he was so specific about what computer to use.
I swivel on the chair, turning around and around, trying to puzzle this thing out. But I meet the same stonewall each time: motive. I can’t figure it out. There’s no reason that I can see, apart from some sick sense of pleasure. But the Maddox I know isn’t like that. Ah, but how well do you know him? How well, really? Think about it. When you talk, who is it that does most of the sharing?
I face the screen, interlock my fingers, and rest my chin on my knuckles.
I must be concentrating hard because I don’t hear her sneak in. I only know she’s behind me when her hand rests on my shoulder.
“What!” I gasp, jumping to my feet and turning around.
It’s the woman with the blonde-pink hair, the busty woman. But now she has a black eye, a big black circle starting above her eyebrow and ending on her cheek. And when I look down at her hand, I see that the knuckles are grazed, red with blood. Her lips are twisted, and tears slide down her cheeks, cutting lines in her foundation, smearing her mascara.
“Oh, sweet girl!” the woman cries. “Sweet, sweet girl!”
I take a step back. There’s something unsettling about her, something on-edge. Though she’s injured, I’m frightened of her. She squints at me as I take the step back, as though to ask me why I should fear her. I can read the question in her eyes. But I take another step back and watch her.
She brings her hand to her forehead. “Poor Eden,” she sighs. “Poor you!
“You know my name,” I say slowly. “Tell me yours.”
Suddenly the champagne I’ve consumed tonight hits me. How many glasses? Four? Five? This really was a Gatsby party. Thinking gets harder. I just want to sleep. But I won’t let this woman see how drunk I am. I’m not that far gone—not yet.
“My name is Cassandra Caraway.” She watches me closely, maybe waiting to see if Maddox has ever mentioned her.
I search my mind and come up with nothing. He has never mentioned a Cassandra, or any other woman by name, for that matter. “I’ve never heard of you,” I say, and her bruised face drops. I find myself looking at the bruise, and then at the grazed knuckles. There’s something about them, but I can’t quite pinpoint what it is. But something, definitely. Yes, something.
“What happened to you?” I ask. “You’re hurt.”
“Oh,” she snivels, wiping her eyes. “Not to worry.”
A tear—her bruise—her blood. What?
“I’m not here to talk about me, sweet child. I’m here to talk about…” Her gaze drifts over to the computer. When she sees the screensaver, she gasps. “Oh!” she squeals. “Oh, what is that doing there?” She paces to the computer, grabs the mouse, and moves it. The screensaver disappears. “I don’t want to see that. Why would that be on there, in this house?”
“I have no idea,” I mutter, moving closer to her. She’s harmless and hurt, I tell myself. Don’t be so suspicious. It’s unfair. I walk until I am a couple of feet away from her. “Why are you here? Did you know I was here?”
“I did. I saw you come in.”
“Then why?”
She shrugs her shoulders, wincing and looking down at her hand. “I needed to tell you while I had the chance. I was shocked when I heard it was Maddox who would do the security for this party. I wondered if he had changed, and when I saw you enter with him, I made it my business to find out who you were. Eden Chase, a quick search online told me. A good woman. A kind woman. A strong woman. I prayed desperately that Maddox had changed. But he hasn’t, has he? I fear that he set that screensaver, and lured you up here. Yes, that is my theory, my fear.”
“With this, yeah,” I whisper, voice raspy. I lean down and remove the flash drive from the computer, and then drop it back into my cleavage. “There probably isn’t even anything on it. So you’re an ex-girlfriend, are you?”
“I am,” she says. She rubs her eye, and I can’t tell if the mascara has smeared into the bruise, or… Or what? Or what exactly? “Please don’t ask me what happened. Oh, please, don’t. It’s too painful.”
I stay silent, watching her. She looks terrified and like she’s in awful pain. She winces almost continuously, and the grazed-knuckle hand trembles.
“I need to tell you about him,” she says. “You need to know before you get in too deep.” She takes a long breath and then continues, “I was with Maddox for a long time. A long, long time. Too long, in truth. I was with him for almost five years. We were teenage sweethearts. I was just a silly girl who wanted to be with the bad boy, you know. Just a silly teenager with delusions about what made a man a man. And so when he came to me – charming, arrogant, sexy – I couldn’t resist. He took my virginity, and we had the best first month any couple has ever had. But then…”
“But then, sweet, naïve Eden, it all changed. It’s like his true self came out. One night, I came home to find him fucking another woman in our bed, fucking her and moaning, and when I walked in, do you know what he said? ‘Shut the door, Cass.’ I screamed at him. This woman was coked out of her eyeballs, but he wasn’t. He was sober, fucking a drugged up hooker in our bed!”
She slices her hand through the air. I shiver. No. I’ve been duped. No, no, no.
“When I refused to shut the door, he sprang up from the bed and backhanded me across the jaw. The worst part was how casual it was. I could’ve taken a bit of passion. I know how that sounds, but I could have. If he had felt something for me, hit me for something about us that would’ve been one thing. But no—he just struck me the same way he’d hit a dog because I was in the way. He hit me again, and I fell to the floor. Then he knelt down next to me and growled, ‘Get dinner ready.’ I was too scared. So I got dinner ready while he went back to fuck the hooker. She had dinner with us that night, and I had to pretend that everything was okay. I had to pretend that I wasn’t humiliated, that he hadn’t taken away my self-respect in a few short hours.”
She tilts her head at me, lips pursed, face quivering as she tries to hold back tears. “Do you want me to stop? I don’t want to hurt you—”
“No, Cassandra. Go on.” My fingernails bite into my palms. Blood drips down my fingers, but I don’t care. The pain this woman has experienced is obvious, indisputable. Unless she’s the best actress who’s ever lived, she’s telling the truth. I feel it in my bones. Her pain burns out of her eyes. Where did she get that black eye? I ask myself. Can it be…
“It went on like that for a long time,” Cassandra says. “I wanted to leave several times, but he liked to have me around. I cooked for him, and he still liked to…” She bites her lip. I step forward, open my hand with an effort, and place it on her shoulder. Bloodstains appear on her dress, but neither she nor I acknowledge them.
“It’s okay,” I say.
She reaches up and places her hand upon mine. “He still liked to use me, and I couldn’t resist. I tried, but it was hard. Maddox is a big man, and when he wants something, he gets it. That’s what attracted me to him in the first place, but now… Ah! He took me any way he wanted, as often as he wanted, and I could do nothing. And all the while, he was cheating on me. One afternoon, I returned home to find he’d locked me out of the house. There was a note: your bed is out back. I went into the garden and there, sticking half out of the shed, was a dirty old mattress. He came to the back door, opened it a crack, and said to me, ‘That’s for being an old fucking sack of potatoes last night, slut. Do better next time.’ Then he closed the door. Please understand, I wanted to leave, got to a motel, but he had all the money, and I knew if I did that, I
’d get it worse later. So I slept in the shed. It was November.”
My head is reeling. I’ve never understood that expression before, not really. But now I do. I feel like cogs are spinning rapidly in my mind. Maddox, charming, smirking, arrogant… will he turn into this with me? And would I take it? I’d like to think not, but no woman can presume to be invulnerable to this sort of behavior, can she? No woman can presume to be invincible against the meanness of men.
I take a step back, and fresh bile rises in my throat. With an effort, I push it down. Cassandra steps forward and places her hand on my shoulder. New tears slide down her cheeks, and the bruise… But then she’s hugging me, and I don’t see the bruise.
“Get out while you can,” she whispers in my ear. “Don’t become what I became. You’re a smart girl, Eden. Get out while you can!”
She holds me close to her, and I hug her back. I feel close to her, like I haven’t just met her, like I’ve known her for a long time.
“Thank you for telling me,” I say. “Who knows how far I would have…”
“Hush, sweet Eden,” Cassandra says. “All you can do now is get away.”
***
I walk down the stairs feeling like I am in a nightmare. The sounds and the glitz and the glamor and the jazz that half an hour ago was so intoxicating are now only sickening. Is this how he does it? I’ve had five glasses of champagne. That combined with Cassandra’s revelation, and the screensaver trap, combine to make my mind clouded, fury rippling through it.
When I get to the bottom of the stairs, Markus and Nat approach me.
“Is something wrong?” Nat asks. Her hand is on Markus’ arm. Is he the same? Are they all the same?
“Where’s Maddox?” I breathe. “Where is he?”
“Out front, I think,” Markus says. “Dealing with a problem guest.”
“Okay, good.”
I make to walk away, but Nat grabs me by the wrist. “Your hand is bleeding!” she squeals. “What happened?”
I wrench my arm away. “Listen out for my call, Nat,” I say. “We might be leaving soon.”
“Oh—I’ll stay near the door, then.”
I ignore the burning pain in my palm and walk toward the front door. All this training in gender theory, all these years as a feminist, and I couldn’t see this!
What the hell is it all for then?
Chapter Thirty Eight
Maddox
The man has neat, combed blonde hair, a prim clean blue suit, an ironed tie, and shiny black shoes. I can imagine him in the halls of some Harvard club, laughing loudly at some smart-ass joke. He carries himself like he thinks he’s better than everybody else. That shines through even as he swings around drunkenly on the lawn, yelling into the small crowd, which has gathered to watch the show. He got too drunk and took a swing at another one of the guests. When he saw me coming for him, he ran out here.
“And what are you?” he snaps at me, as I approach him slowly across the grass. “What the hell are you? Who do you think you are? My father—”
“Please, boy, don’t tell me who your father is. I really don’t give a shit.”
The man blinks rapidly, double takes, and then laughs. “Nobody has ever spoken to me like that before,” he mutters, awed.
“You’re drunk,” I say, inching closer. “You took a swing at a man who did nothing to you. A man who was standing with his wife. You sucker punched him for no goddamn reason. It’s time you went home.”
“You’re telling me when to go home?”
Behind me, the crowd mutters:
“Oh, how dreadful!”
“What a silly boy!”
“An event! A real event!”
“Sock him one right back, good fellow!”
I ignore them and walk until I am within punching distance of the man. “Don’t make a fool of yourself more than you have already, kid,” I say. “I’m putting you in a car, and you’re going home.”
“Says who!” The man tilts his head back and shouts at the sky. “Says who! My name is Bartholomew Simmons, and I am the heir to the—”
“I don’t give a fuck if you’re heir to all the gold on the planet, kid,” I snap. “Stop messing around and come with me.”
“Or what?” he says, eyes bloodshot from all the drink. “If I don’t come with you, what then? What will you do then?”
I laugh grimly. “What do you think?”
He lifts his hands up, a poor imitation of a boxing stance, and weaves drunkenly. “Come on, then!” he squeals. “Let’s have it out!”
More mutters from the crowd:
“Oh, how uncouth!”
“Really, get some self-respect!”
“Do him!”
“Have a real good fight!”
I sigh and watch how he weaves, keeping my hand on his fists.
“Have it your way, kid,” I sigh.
“Oh, now what’re you going to do?”
I call over my shoulder to Stanley. “Knives, bring a car around, will you?”
“Yeah, Boss,” he says.
“I don’t need a car,” the man sneers. “Look at you, Mr. Tough Guy. You’re nothing but a thug. I’m the son of the most prestigious—”
“Only weak men go on and on about who their daddies are, boy,” I say. “Alright, let’s get you home.”
As I close the gap between us, he swings at me. I duck under his fist, and it glides through the air over my head. Then I dodge to the left as his other fist comes in for a jab. Both fists strike nothing, leaving him open. I jump at him, spreading my arms wide, and wrap my hands around his body.
“Ah!” he yelps, as I lift him off his feet and lower him to the grass, being careful not to hurt the bastard. Tackling a guest is one thing; injuring a guest is quite another.
He wriggles like a hooked fish, kicking and squirming. “Let me go!” he moans. “Let me go! Let me go!”
“Not until you’ve calmed down,” I grunt.
I shift the weight of my body so that I’m sitting on his back, and then I lean down and wrap my arm around his neck, holding him in a headlock. “I’m going to apply some pressure now,” I say. “The pressure stops when you stop panicking. You’re angry. You’re drunk. You’re not thinking straight. I know this is damn humiliating, kid. I get that. But it’s the only way you’ll stop.”
I squeeze his neck in the headlock. At first, he keeps kicking, bucking like he’s a bronco and he wants to throw me off. I apply steady pressure, talking to him all the time. “Think, Bartholomew. Think about where you are. Think about who can see what is happening. You’re drunk. Think.” I apply more pressure. We sit like this for around a minute. Knives sits in the car in the driveway, watching impassively.
Finally, Bart stops bucking, stops struggling. He goes limp and takes in slow breaths. Another minute goes by as he calms himself, and then he mutters, “I think you’re right. I think I should go home.”
“Good,” I say. “But you need to tell me… if I let you go, you’re not going to do anything stupid, are you? ’Cause if you do, we’ll have to repeat this all over again.”
“I won’t. I swear. Just… you’re hurting my neck. I want to go home.”
“Okay, good.” I take my hand from his neck, but don’t get off him straightaway, watching to see if he’ll go into fight mode again. He doesn’t, only lies in the grass, wheezing in breaths. I stand up, lean down, and heave him to his feet.
Taking him by the elbow, I lead him to the car. “You’ll be alright,” I tell him. “Just drink as much water as you can when you get home.”
“Okay, thank you,” he murmurs, dropping into the backseat of the car.
I go round to the driver’s side, tap on the glass. Knives lowers the window. “Take him home, that’s all,” I say. “No bullshit, Knives, or you’ll get worse than he did.”
Fear flickers across Knives’ face, and then he nods. “Got it, Boss.”
The car pulls away from the house. I turn to the crowd. “Alright, ladies a
nd gents, show’s over.”
Soon after the crowd has dispersed, some disappearing into the mansion and others going around to the garden, Eden charges from the house. Something’s happened, I think, heart a boom-boom-boom in my chest.
Chapter Thirty Nine
“Nice trick!” Eden hisses when she reaches me. “Oh, very nice trick!” She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and then opens her eyes and lets out the breath. “Why did you want me to see it, Maddox? Eh? What possible reason could you have for wanting me to see it? Is it some kind of sick joke, is that it? But I bet you didn’t think she’d tell me, did you?”
I take a step back, feeling like the man who was sucker punched earlier. What the hell? I open my mouth to speak, but I’m too stunned, and for a few moments nothing will come out. I just watch Eden, her face twisted into anger, contempt, her lips trembling, and her eyebrows stern lines.
PREGNANT FOR A PRICE: Kings of Chaos MC Page 38