by M James
I expect her to go away then, to stop talking to me, but instead, she just places one hand on the bar and looks at me—really looks at me. “I understand,” she says gently, and that’s all it takes for the floodgates to break open. I’ve been keeping everything locked away for so long, all of my fears and worries and unhappiness, afraid of letting Erin see it, afraid of letting my mother see it, or Zach, or god forbid Vincent, and that little bit of gentleness is too much, like petting an abused puppy. I can feel tears welling up in my eyes.
“It’s okay,” April continues, and I shake my head.
“It’s not okay.” I push the glass away, running my hands through my hair. “I shouldn’t talk to you like that.” I turn to face her, and in that second, I make a decision to confide in her. I have to talk to someone; if I don’t, I’ll go insane.
“You’re under a lot of pressure, with Mr. Jamison’s family staying here. It’s understandable. And with a wedding coming up, you must feel very stressed.” April’s voice is soft and soothing, like a therapist coaxing me into talking. I should know better. But I’m desperate to have someone listen to me.
“I don’t feel like myself anymore,” I whisper. “I’m not myself, I haven’t been for a long time, and I don’t really know exactly when it happened. I don’t know how it all got away from me. It was so much fun at first, an adventure, with things I’d never experienced before. There were designer clothes and jewelry and trips and eating out at restaurants I could never afford, and it all seemed like a fairytale. I was so stupid to believe it, but I thought I was Cinderella, that Vincent was my prince, that he was going to scoop me up and save me because he was so in love with me.” I know I should stop talking, but I can’t, all of the words tumbling out one after another.
“I was convinced he loved me, that I’d just been so lucky to run into him, to have him take an interest in me.” I’m starting to cry in earnest now, tears welling up and spilling over my cheeks, and I hate that I’m crying in front of April, but I can’t seem to stop. “I used to have ambitions,” I whimper, looking at her with tear-filled eyes. “I used to have my own dreams, things I wanted to do with my life, but I was so in love with Vincent that I just told myself I’d do it later, and…and…”
I’m choking on the tears now, gasping, and April looks more than a little alarmed. “Rain…Ms. Carlisle…” she starts to say, but I’m too far gone now. “I just want to feel like myself again,” I whisper, trying to speak through the tears. “I miss my friends and my freedom, and things aren’t anything like what I thought they would be. I know that Vincent doesn’t really love me. I’m just another possession…” I stop in my tracks, realizing all of a sudden that I’ve said too much. My heart starts to pound, my throat closing up, and I feel on the verge of a panic attack. I never used to have those, not before Vincent, not before him grabbing my wrist and throwing me across the bed, not before the “flowers” and the knowledge that if I leave him, my family will suffer. Before the sex that I didn’t want, before him hurting me, before him being angry with Erin. Before Matteo and the disaster at the mansion. “Please don’t tell Vincent,” I choke out. “Please, please don’t…” I’m suddenly terrified, thinking of how he’ll react if he knows everything I just said.
“Ms. Carlisle!” April looks as if she’s going to grab my hands for a moment, but she stops herself, straightening and looking me in the eye. “Rain, calm down, please. I’m not going to say anything to Mr. Jamison. You’re having a bad night, that’s all. I’m not going to say anything, okay? Please stop crying.”
I do my best, hiccupping slightly as I try to catch my breath. My heart is racing, and suddenly all I want is to lay down. I drank too much, too fast, and I can feel it. My head is swimming.
“You’ll be alright,” April says soothingly. “It’s nerves about the wedding, I’m sure. Being married can be a big step, especially to as strong of a personality as Mr. Jamison. But things will work out. You have to believe that.”
And just like that, I’m alone again. Maybe she really does care about how things are, about whether or not I’m okay, but she isn’t going to jump in and sweep me away. No one is going to do that. Not her, or Zach, or my parents. I’m on my own. And that’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever had to come to terms with.
But still, just having someone speak to me in that way, with some caring, calms me down just a little. I smile weakly, the painful thud of my heartbeat slowing a bit even though I still feel panicked deep down. “How do you like babysitting me?” I ask, laughing a little, a rueful expression on my face. “Is it everything you thought it would be? Watching over a rich man’s drunk, sad fiancé?”
“Vincent pays me very well,” April says carefully, taking a step back. Her face is neutral, her voice calm, and I think suddenly that she’d make a good cop or a hostage negotiator. Something where she has to talk people down, get them off the ledge.
“I need a friend,” I whisper, thinking of how lonely I am. “I don’t have anyone here. Even Dena is back in Chicago. But at least I’ve got you?” I look up at her hopefully, wanting her to say yes, of course she’s my friend. That she’s not on Vincent’s side.
It still makes my heart ache to think of Vincent and me that way, on opposite sides now. Even after everything, I can’t help but long for what used to be.
“Ms. Carsile,” April says gently, and I know from her tone that she’s about to let me down. Just like everyone else these days. “I’m your fiancé’s employee. I can’t be your friend. That’s not professional. A real friend shouldn’t have conflicts of interest. But anything I can give you, anything that I have permission to give you, I will. And that includes a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen if you need it.”
“Right, it’ll just get back to Vincent,” I say bitterly.
“No, not unless it’s harmful to you or Vincent.” April looks at me steadily. “I know things are hard for you right now, but they won’t always be this way.”
I don’t really believe her. How can I? How could she possibly have any reason to think that they won’t always be this way? But I nod, appreciative of even the little bit that she can do. “I understand,” I say softly. “Thank you.” And I mean it. It helps to have someone listen, even for a moment.
The rest of the night is a blur. I drink the third drink, maybe a fourth. I stumble down the hallway, April at my elbow, and fall into my empty bed, the one I should be sharing with Vincent, that I’m grateful he’s not in. I’m glad he’s in Tokyo, far away from me. I don’t care what flower he’s with, or if he’s fucking her, or what he’s doing. I’m just glad it’s not with me.
9
Zach
It’s late when I wander into the library, probably after midnight. Sonya is in the bath, and I take that as an opportunity to get a better feel for the layout of Vincent’s home and how I might use it to my advantage.
When I walk in, though, April is standing by the unlit fireplace. She turns around the second I walk in as if she were waiting for me.
“Ms. Bellona.” I don’t use Detective in case someone is listening, most likely whatever security system Vincent has installed.
“Chase.” She smiles tightly, using my fake name, and I know then that she’s being as careful as I am. “How are you?”
“Fine. Not as tired as I should be.” I give her an equally terse smile, crossing the room to stand next to the fireplace with her.
“There are no visual cameras in this room,” April says, her voice very low. “Alright.” I lean against the mantle. “You got something for me?”
“I’ve made sure to let the handlers know that we won’t easily be able to meet with them for a while, that this house is under strict surveillance and that Vincent is on alert. But we need to make progress while we’re here. This is an opportunity, Chase, while we’ve got so many of them under one roof.” She pauses. “I talked to his fiancée today. Ms. Carlisle.”
“Yeah?” I make sure not to look too interested, even as
my heart rate speeds up. April talking to Rain can’t be a good thing, especially since she’s in the position of being her bodyguard and isn’t supposed to get too chummy with her.
“I think we might be able to use her. She’s on the verge of cracking. All I had to do was act a little interested, give her a kind word, and she spilled her guts all over the place. She’s sad, and it’s clear she’s unhappy. He’s probably abusing her, to be honest.”
I stare at her. She said it so casually, like she was informing me of the weather. Meanwhile, I want to jump on the first flight to Tokyo, hunt Vincent down, and beat him to a pulp at the very idea that he might have laid his hands on Rain. “Why do you say that?” I ask, struggling to keep my voice even.
April looks at me carefully, and I remind myself to stay calm. All I need is for April to figure out that I have a connection to Rain, that she’s fucking with my emotions and my head being so close to her, and April will have me pulled off of this job. And then I won’t be able to do anything for Rain. I’ll be disciplined for not divulging it myself and reprimanded. I won’t get a promotion; instead, I’ll get desk duty for an undetermined amount of time. Maybe forever, if they forget about me.
“She doesn’t have bruises, but I can see the signs. Battered women are pretty obvious. Jumpy, teary-eyed at the slightest thing, desperate for a kind word or touch. Like abused puppies. Rain is so mousy she’ll never do anything about it. Besides, he’s got her between a rock and a hard place. Her sister here, her dad’s medical care funded out of his pocket. We ran all the financials—she doesn’t have a bank account of her own anymore. It’s all him. He controls every aspect of her life, it looks like, even more so than we thought. Down to her friends and family and where she goes. It’s almost impressive, if it didn’t mean he was an absolute piece of shit.”
There’s real anger in April’s tone, even if it’s only a thread of it, and that at least calms me down a little. But I know she’s not going to do anything to help Rain. She’s going to try to exploit the situation to help us, to get Rain to turn on Vincent. And that’s just confirmed with the next thing that she says.
“Ordinarily, I’d say that we should tell her what’s going on, get her on our side and get her to worm some evidence out of Vincent with a promise not to prosecute her for anything, and then have her give her testimony.”
“She hasn’t done anything wrong,” I blurt out before I can stop myself. “There’d be no reason to prosecute her.”
April narrows her eyes. “So far, as we can tell,” she says, her voice dangerously cool. “But why would you think that, Chase?”
I collect myself quickly, trying to salvage the situation before she gets suspicious. “Because she’s too timid,” I say, shrugging as if it’s obvious. “She’s not Vincent’s equal. She’s his plaything. She’s not finding out anything from him.”
“That’s what I think, too. But I think if someone were to make her see a life past Vincent, as if she’s not so trapped, then when we finally have the evidence ourselves to bring Vincent down, she’ll be a good witness to testify against his character.”
“Why not just subpoena her?”
April rolls her eyes. “You’re a better agent than this. Do you really think that we’re going to get Vincent with enough to put him and all of his associates in prison before he marries that girl? And once she’s his wife, she can’t be forced to testify. She’ll have to do it willingly. Which means she’ll need to stop being so afraid of him and have something to fight for besides just her own freedom.”
“You don’t think that will be enough?”
April snorts. “Chase, there are battered women all over the world who never get up the nerve to leave because they don’t feel like their own lives are worth saving. They need something else to fight for. Sometimes it’s their kids. Sometimes that doesn’t even do it.”
“What, are you suggesting someone convince her to get knocked up by the asshole?” Just the thought makes me want to put my fist through the wall. It’s hard enough being in this house, knowing he’s fucking her, that he’s inside of her, taking what should have been mine, and now it’s even worse knowing he’s hurting the woman I love. Even though I’d suspected it before, now I know for sure.
I couldn’t handle seeing her with his child, pregnant, getting bigger in front of my eyes, getting ready to have his baby. I’d kill him.
“No.” April shakes her head. “If anything, I think that would tie her to him more. She’d be even more afraid to leave. I’m suggesting that she needs someone to love, someone to make her believe that there’s a life beyond all this that’s worth fighting for. Something worth trying to leave him and later testifying against him for. Someone who she could be with, if only he weren’t a part of the equation, if he were put in prison for so long that he could never go after them, never touch them.”
An alarm goes off somewhere deep in my brain, saying that there’s a reason why she’s telling me all this. That I’m being set up for something. But I haven’t quite pieced it together yet. “What are you suggesting?”
April smirks. “You really think that we don’t know about your past with her? That we didn’t dig up every little detail? That we don’t know you two have been practically joined at the hip since she was thirteen, that she lost her virginity to you, that you left her and broke her heart? We’re the fucking FBI, Chase. We can find out anything. And we did our due diligence on her and you as well as everyone else in this.”
I stare at her, dumbfounded. I feel like a fucking idiot for ever believing I’d pulled one over on them.
“Why’d you allow me on the job, then?” I ask bluntly. “If you knew, how come you put me on the case? Didn’t you think I’d have a conflict of interest? Hell, you almost took me off because you thought my father’s death would affect me too much for me to keep a clear head. But you think my head is clear with this?”
April chuckles. “We were counting on the fact that it probably wouldn’t be. We suspected we might need someone to turn Rain, just like we needed an in with Sonya. You were picked precisely because you fit Sonya’s type and because you had a history with Rain. We thought you would be useful in both instances.”
Are you fucking kidding me? I go from stunned to angry in a matter of seconds. “So what, I’m just the FBI’s fucking gigolo? Your swinging dick? What the fuck, Bellona? I’m just being whored out to whatever woman you need to get information from or turn state’s evidence?”
April snorts. “You’re telling me you thought an agent that was basically a rookie was picked for a job this high level because of…what? Your vast experience? Your skills? Chase, you’re a dead shot, and you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, but you’re right, that’s not the head we were most interested in.” She shrugs. “There are a hell of a lot worse assignments. I don’t see the problem.”
“I honestly don’t think you have a heart.” I shake my head. “What’s in your veins, ice water?”
“Yes,” April says agreeably. “And that’s what should be in yours if you want to be a good agent.” She reaches out, patting me on the arm. “ You might not need to fuck her or even romance her. Just find some way to get close to her. Something that won’t make Vincent or Sonya suspicious.”
“And how the fuck am I supposed to do that, exactly?” I demand, glaring at her. “Sonya isn’t stupid. And Vincent…he’s not going to want anyone getting close to his Poppy.” Even saying the awful nickname makes me want to wash my mouth out.
April smiles, leaning back against the mantle. “You’re a good agent, Chase. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
I grit my teeth. “Fine,” I hiss. “Doesn’t seem like I have much of a fucking choice, anyway.”
There’s no way I can go to bed after that conversation. I’m too agitated, and Sonya would pick up on it. I need to calm down, and so I head downstairs and out to the back, away from April and everyone else in this fucking house.
I’m so sick of being manipulated.
Sonya is trying to do it, and I didn’t care so much, since after all, I’m trying to put her in prison. Fair’s fair. But now April, and the rest of the fucking FBI, are manipulating me. Whoring me out to Sonya was bad enough, but now they’re doing it with Rain. That makes me pissed.
But what choice do I have? They’re not entirely wrong. I could tell that night in the garden when I kissed her that she still has feelings for me. If I seduced her, made her think I still love her, made her believe that we could have a life still, I have a feeling she’d fall for it. She’d come back into my arms, and she’d leave Vincent, turn on him, do anything I asked her to. Sacrifice her whole goddamn family if need be.
Which is exactly why I’ve got to find a way to make April think I’m following orders without actually doing it. I can’t do that to Rain. I can’t lie to her or trick her. And even if I tried, I’d just end up falling for her all over again too. I’d get caught in my own trap.
It’s hard enough to avoid it as it is.
I sink into one of the chairs in front of the unlit firepit, looking at the pool's still surface, faintly lit by the rear lights of the house. It would be so easy. If I followed April’s orders, I could hold Rain again, kiss her, be inside of her. Everything I’ve been doing with Sonya I could do with Rain, but I’d actually want it. And that’s exactly why I can’t.
I hurt her once, and badly. I hurt myself once, and badly. I can’t put either of us through that again.
I have to find a way to follow orders but genuinely help Rain. I can’t lie to her or play her for this assignment, that’d be like selling my soul, and it’d crush hers. One thing for sure, though, I have to get her out.
10
Rain
I’m awoken by ice-cold water splashing over my face. Stealing all the air from my lungs, I shoot upright with shock. I squeal, gasping for air as my eyes fly open, momentarily completely disoriented. It’s doused my hair and dripping down my neck onto my chest, and so icy that I can’t breathe. Before I can catch my breath, a fresh wave of it strikes me in the face, stealing the rest of the air from my lungs as I blink rapidly, trying to force them open through the water dripping from my eyelashes.