by Elle Luckett
That's what had given them the idea for setting Elijah up in the first place. Their theory was that if we gave the bastard enough rope, he'd hang himself. And he would. There was no doubt about that, which was why I was here. The cameras ensured they were watching—watching and waiting to come in and save me. I had no idea where the equipment was, and I didn't bother looking, but it gave me some confidence.
“Please leave.” My voice was stronger this time. More assertive.
I could see the anger narrowing his eyes as I edged toward the front of the apartment and the freedom that waited beyond the door. Freezing, my eyes met his before skittering away to anywhere else.
“There's my little mouse.” He chuckled. “Fuck me. I love it when you think you have a say in any of this. You ran hundreds of miles, Zee Zee, and yet here I am. You're never going to be free of me. You. Belong. To me.”
“Please.”
“Shut the fuck up,” he growled, his patience waning.
“I just—”
“I don't give a flying fuck what you want, you worthless cunt. You're a fuckhole. You're my fuckhole, and I will kill that motherfucker before he touches you again. Actually, I will cut his throat and let you watch. No one is going to touch you without my permission anymore, little whore. Do you hear me?” Using the toes of his boot, he kicked a decorative bowl from the table, making me jump when it smashed into tiny shards.
“Please—”
“If you say please one more goddamned time, I will choke you within an inch of your fucking life then gag you.”
I edged toward the door again, freezing when he threw his body forward, elbows landing on his knees, and a cruel laugh falling when I shrank away from him.
“Like I said, you're predictable.”
I'd never wanted to say fuck you to a human being as much as I longed to spit it at him at that moment. I hated the way I cowered in front of him. I hated how easily he crawled into my head and made me doubt everything. In a very short conversation, I was questioning how real my life in New Orleans was because this fear and loathing was so familiar to me. I lived it for years. The worst part of it was that I'd allowed it to become the norm.
No. Not anymore.
The words echoed around my brain this time rather than out loud. I wasn't going to let Elijah do this.
Rolling my shoulders back and raising my chin, I started walking toward the door, keeping him in my peripheral while I did. He wasn't going to let that happen, though, and as I predicted, he moved quickly to stop me, jumping over the coffee table and barreling into my body, forcing us both to crash against the wall.
“Where you going, bitch?” he asked, his voice excited as he rocked against me. I felt sick having him this close. The familiar scent of stale alcohol and cigarettes made everything in me cringe away and close in on itself.
I couldn't be that person anymore, though.
I was safe here, and I had to remind myself of that.
All I had to do was cry out the safe words, and this would all end. I just needed Elijah to toe that line of rage he always seemed to have with me. The fastest way to do that was to show some backbone.
“I'm not going anywhere. This is my home, and I want you to leave.”
Elijah grunted and tangled one of his hands in my hair. I hadn't realized how close he was, and I froze as I always did, knowing that fighting him physically and trying to escape was what he wanted from me. I tried not to tense too much, even as my skin crawled. Loose muscles meant that I was less likely to sustain too many injuries if he decided to hit me.
“Your home is with me, fuckhole. I even got you a dog kennel to go next to Mud's, just for times like this when you think you're something more than a cunt for me to fuck, and a bitch to cook for me.” He flattened his hand and pushed a palm against the side of my head, pressing it against the wall, slowly applying pressure that I reverberated everywhere, including the painful lump from my fall earlier in the evening.
I tried to suck in a calming breath—the anxiety of the situation brought with it flickering darkness around the edges of my vision. The blackness threatened my consciousness, but I blinked it back, trying desperately to get out of this without being hurt worse.
I could use the words to alert the others and get myself out of this. I could end it all now.
I could.
But I didn't need to.
Before I had a chance to think about tapping out again, the pressure against the side of my face was gone, and the sound of shattering glass filled the room as two bodies hit a side table.
It was all a blur from that point. My head throbbed, all my words stuck in my throat, and the sight of the two men wrestling just held me motionless.
Lane got to me first, pulling me aside as men in uniform flooded into the space of our apartment, forcing the two men apart while Thomas and Lane herded then stood guard either side of me protectively in the kitchen.
In seconds, the apartment became a whirl of bodies and noise. Mark was moved aside by the cops and urged toward us, some of the police patting him on the back as they made a path for him. Finally, feeling my limbs for the first time since I'd hear Elijah's voice, I rushed toward Mark, crashing against his chest as he folded himself around me protectively.
“I'm sorry,” he said quietly, the words repeating over and over again until they fell away and his cheek pressed against the crown of my head. He must have felt me trembling, his hands ran slowly up and down my spine, inching my body closer to his with every sweep.
I wasn't complaining.
Somewhere in the apartment, Elijah continued to fight the police. His shrill voice calling me every name he could think of as he lay face down in broken glass on Lane's rug. Names were just words to me now that I was safe, and Elijah seemed to realize that, even as he caught sight of Mark embracing me and his eyes narrowed into murderous slits. Inspired, Elijah moved onto the threats toward the people I loved. Threats he would most likely never manage to see through to the end as every police body-camera in the room was pointed directly at him.
“I'm going to fucking kill you. The moment I get out of whatever hole they throw me in, I'm going to come for you again, and I will kill you and your whore sister. I'll make you watch her die, Zara.”
“You won't be getting out anytime soon,” one of the officers muttered, tapping the camera on his chest as he approached us. Three other officers dragged Elijah to his feet behind him, leading him out, cuffed and fighting all the way. “We did a little background checking on him with the information you provided, Miss Beltran.” He turned his gaze to Lane. “Turns out, he used that kennel before coming to New Orleans. He stranded a young woman half-beaten to death and half-starved inside of the cage while he went to search for your sister.”
“Jesus.” I recognized the voice as Thomas and tried not to allow the guilt to consume me.
I hadn't put that girl in the cage. I couldn't take responsibility for Elijah's actions even when he blamed me outright.
“There's a possibility he also assaulted a woman in Oklahoma after beating her husband unconscious.” The officer continued, looking at a notepad in his hand. “Detectives are digging a bit deeper, and we should have more information soon.”
My stomach turned again, and the strong arms around me held me tighter. I didn't want to hear any more of Elijah's sins along his path of destruction. Still, the cop continued to read a list of infractions from his criminal history in Arizona that would ensure Elijah would rot in whatever prison they put him in.
It took hours and hours of talking to the police, detailing every part of my past several times over before they finally left the apartment with all the information I could provide them with from my aching brain. They promised to get in touch for a formal statement, and every other legal detail they needed from me after they did some more investigative work into Elijah's path of destruction on his way to Louisiana. The authorities assumed there was more to what had happened in Oklahoma, and they seemed to think it wo
uld put him away for the rest of his natural life, especially when there was talk of Federal charges against him.
I could only hope.
I was so tired by the end of it all, I could barely feel my legs.
I'd been eager for the cops to leave until they did, and I was faced with the eyes of my companions staring at me in varying states of pity and empathy. The fact that they'd been privy to the whole confrontation with Elijah made me sick to my stomach, but the details I'd had to give the NOPD… the photographs they'd taken of the scars I'd hidden for so long… it was all starting to crash down over me.
They'd finally seen how weak I'd been.
An awkward silence settled over us as Lane gathered some things for us both before we left the apartment to head back to Mark's place. Thomas held my sister's hand in the back of the car, while Mark's hand stayed on my thigh.
They all had questions.
That was understandable. I just wasn't sure I was ready to fill in the blanks for them. They'd just been given a front-row seat to my life, the violent, abusive, and destructive side of my every day for the more significant part of of my adult life. I wasn't even confident I could explain everything that had happened.
It was daylight by the time we crawled out of the car and into Mark's home. I was ready to crash hard, my body and mind depleted of all energy and thought. I was robotically going through the motions, but the moment they sat me down and questioned me, I worried that the strength I was still holding onto would abandon me.
“Who wants a drink?” Thomas asked as Mark dropped to one of his couches and pulled me into his lap, his arms folding around me as I sank into the heat of him.
Lane was the only one who responded, her head nodding as she kept her eyes on me, part of her looking more broken than I'd seen her in years.
“It was worse than you told us,” Lane said, her eyes flickering just above my head. “Than you told me.”
Mark shifted, his hand sliding over my shirt and pressing against the scars I'd hidden all these years. It felt to me like he was trying to give me strength, and it was working.
“I blamed myself, Lane. I believed I'd stayed there with him by choice. I didn't think about how trapped I was because rational thought had no place in that world.” It was almost a direct quote from Mark, but it had helped me see the truth, and I hoped it would help Lane, too.
Thomas took the seat next to Lane, pressing one of the crystal tumblers into her hand, his fingers lingering against hers as he watched her with concern. I melted against Mark, seeking more of his body heat before I finally started talking again. This time, I purged everything from beginning to end. I told them every little detail I had, including how I could have possibly loved a monster like that in the first place.
The truth was, I hadn't.
I'd allowed myself to be swept up in a lie.
Elijah had charmed, isolated, and made me vulnerable.
I heard it in every story I told, finally able to look at it from the other side and see the manipulations.
It was enlightening and exhausting.
The truth was also freeing.
I wasn't free from the anxiety and fear yet, but for the first time since Elijah had cheated on me that first time, I held onto hope.
Elijah Hunt was out of my life, and now I had a chance at a future.
Chapter Seventeen
Three Months Later
“You have that look again.”
My shoulders sagged as I spun on my stool to face Lane standing on the other side of the reception desk. She looked perfect, as always, not a hair out of place, yet, being her sister, I could see the cracks in her veneer.
“What look is that?”
“The should I or shouldn’t I look. You want my opinion? You’re going to get it whether you like it or not. Do not go to that hearing today, Zara. Go when you’re needed to testify and not a moment before. If you sit and listen to it all again, you’re going to see those faces and blame yourself.”
I waited for a moment before speaking. We’d been going over this for weeks now, ever since Elijah had plead not guilty against his lawyer’s advice and got himself a jury trial. He’d already been through three different lawyers according to the news. Unfortunately, I was a little bit more informed than the news thanks to the detectives and FBI agents who kept Mark, Lane, and I up to date.
I had been told about the girl in the cage.
I was briefed about the couple in Oklahoma.
The four women in Arkansas, who all had a striking resemblance to me and now had more scars than they could count because he’d seen them and convinced himself they needed to be punished for the sins he’d put upon me.
Most recently, I’d been told about another woman in North Louisiana, who was still in the hospital with her jaw wired shut. A woman who they considered lucky in comparison to her best friend who lost her life due to the injuries she’d sustained. Even then, the FBI wasn’t sure that this was the complete trail of terror. They suspected more could be injured. They implied there could be more bodies, even if they never said the words aloud.
Everyone in my life now, the people I was genuinely beginning to love and embrace, were still treating me with kid gloves, worried that the trauma would manifest and I would spiral out of control. They were always looking for some sign that I was going to fall apart. In all fairness, I’d only done that once since the night Elijah had attacked me in the apartment, and the panic attack had happened because I had been home alone and freaked myself out. A situation that hadn’t ended badly considering I was now living with Mark in the top apartment of his beautiful house.
“Are you finished?” I asked, using my heels to swing my ass side to side on the stool. Lane nodded. “I wasn’t thinking about Elijah. I was thinking about Mark.”
Lane tipped her head in my direction.
“Seriously. I was. You don’t want to know what I was thinking, and I don’t want you to know. That it’s about Mark is all the information you need.”
“Does this have anything to do with the room Thomas booked for you?”
It hadn’t been a secret, but I hadn’t been sure he would tell Lane, considering they were spending a little less time with one another at the moment. A decision Thomas hadn’t been a part of.
“Everything to do with the room that I asked Thomas to book for me,” I confirmed, dropping the balls of my feet back to the floor.
A small smile spread across Lane’s lips. It was genuine, with a slight taint of sadness around the edges. In her mind, I was giving Mark something she didn’t think she could ever give to Thomas, and that was why she was pushing him away slowly and gently. I hated it for the two of them, but they were both stubborn as hell, and there was nothing I could do to change that. Not that it would stop me from trying.
“After everything that’s happened, you’re still willing to put all that control in someone else’s hands?” she asked, eyes alight with curiosity.
“Honestly? I don’t know if I can, but I know that I want to try, at least.”
“Zara—”
“I’m not preaching.” Lane gave me a look. “I’m not. One day you’re going to realize that you need to let go of the past and actively participate in your future, and when you’re ready, I’ll be there to hold your hand like you’re holding mine now.”
“Mark’s psychological babble is starting to sink in,” Lane huffed indignantly. “You’re starting to sound like him.”
“That gem was from my therapist,” I told her. Going to see a licensed professional was something Mark had talked me into, and after weeks of talking it out, I was grateful.
“If I ever find myself enlightened, you’ll be the first person to know.”
“Dr. Mitchell would be happy to see you.”
“No.” Lane’s bark came too quickly.
“Lane.”
“I love you, but I’m walking away right now.”
“I love you back.”
Lane disappeared ar
ound the corner, leaving me alone with my thoughts of Mark and the buzz of contemplative excitement that had been my companion since I’d talked to Thomas about setting all of this up. Thomas had walked me through the membership I had earned from working at the club, including all the benefits and the meaning behind the bracelet bands I now had in my possession. He’d also given me the details for the club doctor, who had cleared me for play after the usual tests for new members, and my therapist thought that exploring all this with someone I trusted would be good for me.
I trusted Mark.
The six weeks I’d lived with him had been some of the best in my life. The sex was exciting, and panic was slowly losing its place in the bedroom. The moments we shared doing silly things like cooking together and watching ridiculous reality shows were my favorites. Still, he hadn’t been to the club on a sexual level since he’d met me. Tonight, that was going to change.
The butterflies set in the moment Jon relieved me from my duties at the front desk. I headed toward the changing rooms on wobbly legs to change into the outfit Kammie had helped me pick out. I shaved and lotioned myself until I was glowing. Then I headed to the room Thomas had arranged for me with the paperwork I needed. I’d already filled it out and signed it. So had Thomas. It was just waiting for Mark to sign, and then I was his tonight. I was his to do anything he wanted to.
The thought made the combination of anxiety and excitement tangle inside me again as I slipped inside the room and took in all of the things that lined the walls. Thomas had been kind to me. The room was basic, with a bed, bathtub, and toys. It was more feminine and less scary than some of the others. It also had a wall of mirrors Mark would appreciate.
Slipping off the robe, I studied myself in the mirror as the music filtered in quietly. I had bought a whalebone corset, a micro skirt, and a garter belt with lace-topped thigh highs and towering heels. Most of my scars were covered for now. I was hoping that wouldn’t last too long.
With a couple of breaths for courage, I lowered myself to kneel on the cushion placed in the middle of the room, dropped my eyes to my knees, and then put my hands behind me, between my ankles and ass cheeks before settling in to wait.