Being Zolt (2 page)

I pulled myself to my feet and started the shower. Inside, I rinsed the vomit aftertaste from my mouth, but the sour taste of Irelyn’s rejection remained. Only bringing her home would erase it.

Turning the water to scalding, I winced at the sting of the hot water on my skin, but I deserved it. After all, you shouldn’t be able to scrub away your own cocksuckerism behavior without it hurting.

Rachel, Cory, and Sloan sat on my couch in the great room when we got there. They stared at me with a mixture of pity and irritation. Irritation I could handle; pity just pissed me off.

“I’ve called her at least ten times or more,” Rachel said, her hand squeezing Cory’s.

“More,” Cory said. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.

“She hasn’t called me back. Nothing. This isn’t Irelyn. Is it true she told you Marcus proposed and she accepted?”

“That’s what she said,” I bit out coldly. I didn’t want to rehash this.

“Marcus must be forcing her. She wouldn’t marry him, Zolt.” Rachel glanced at Cory and they shared an unspoken conversation.

Cory gave a one-shoulder shrug.

“Zolt, before Irelyn went for her dress fitting, she said she planned to come here right after. She wanted to be here when you woke from being sedated. Staying away from you wasn’t her intention. Obviously, Marcus cornered her at the dress salon.”

“Which is where they arrested me,” Sloan said. His irritation made his Irish accent even more pronounced. “I should have guessed Marcus orchestrated it.”

“Whatever he said to her, or threatened her with, must have been major. She’s going to kill me for telling you, but here it goes: Irelyn is in love with you. I guarantee that didn’t change in less than twenty-four hours.”

“Oh,” I mumbled, staring at Rachel. I pinched the bridge of my nose. I was so pissed at myself for losing control that day, and now the
if onlys
scrolled through my mind. If only I had my shit together. If only I had been there with her at the dress fitting. I scrubbed my face with my hands as my stomach roiled again. “This is my fault.”

“Yeah, you fucked up, Z-man.” T-bone squeezed my shoulder. “But we can’t dwell on who’s to blame. We need to figure out where Irelyn is and how to get her away from Marcus.”

Cory stared down at his phone and frowned.

“What’s wrong, baby?” Rachel asked.

“It’s Kenna. I’ve called her and messaged her. Nothing. You dropped her off, right Sloan?” Cory asked.

“I did.” Sloan shifted uncomfortably. He hid something, and it most likely had to do with the way he had eye-fucked Kenna the other night.

“Kenna can be flighty, Cory,” Rachel soothed. “She’s probably hanging out with her friends and lost her phone again. She can be kind of ditsy on occasion.”

“Yeah, maybe. But Mom said she didn’t show up for her dress fitting. The salon called and asked if she wanted to reschedule.”

Sloan growled at the same time dread turned my blood cold. We looked at each other.

“You don’t think… do you, Sloan?” I asked, knowing we were on the same wavelength.

“Think what?” Brody asked.

“Kenna. Marcus has Kenna,” Sloan answered. “Fuck!”

T-bone glanced at his phone and tapped out a message. “I’m contacting Jackson to see if he’s heard anything.”

“We have to find out,” Cory said, standing up. “If he has Kenna and he has harmed her, I’ll fucking kill him. I need to contact my dad.”

“Hold on, Cory,” T said, scrolling through his phone. “Jackson says he’s heard rumors about a new woman up for auction. Apparently, Marcus has two houses. Jackson’s trying to find out the location of the other house. Marcus isn’t stupid enough to keep them at his residence.”

“We’re forgetting about Friday night,” Rachel said, standing up to take Cory’s hand. “Marcus is on the board of the AZ Cardinals’ Charity Ball. He’ll be there, and he’ll bring Irelyn. It just makes sense if he’s going to perpetuate this farce about them getting married. Marcus’s pride will dictate that they be seen together in society.”

“Put me on the guest list, Rachel,” I said. “I’m going, and I’m not leaving without Irelyn.”

“Not a good idea, Z-man,” T said. He gave me a discerning look.

“I don’t care, T. I’m going,” I retorted. “If I knew the damn location of the house, I would go there now.”

“Me, too,” Cory agreed.

T-bone squeezed his eyes shut then opened them. “Fine. Maybe you’re right, Z. The best place to recover Irelyn will be in a public forum. Cory, we need to meet with your father. I need to brief him on what’s going on. I don’t want him to do anything stupid. I’ve laid the groundwork from the inside out. That’s our advantage and we need to keep it.”

“Done,” Cory agreed. “We’ll go home now and talk with Dad. You’ll follow behind us?”

“Let’s roll,” T said.

“Wait, I’ll go too. We should tell your father about Jacob’s involvement. It’s possible the firm may have some liability regarding the Aspen Holdings/Black Swan settlement.”

I glanced over at Sloan who quietly seethed; his gunmetal gray eyes were black with ire. I don’t know if anyone else felt the menace coming from him, but I did. His jaw muscle worked, clenching and unclenching. Something had happened between him and Kenna, and I empathized with him, I did.

Feeling powerless to help the woman you loved was fucking hell.

The sound of the door slamming reverberated throughout the room of my prison. My hand trembled as I covered my mouth, too shocked to scream at what I saw covering the walls of the small room Marcus locked me in. If I thought the man I had trusted my virginity to had a semblance of humanity about him, I had been sorely mistaken. The floors were bare concrete, no bed, no chair, nothing.

A strong metallic stench permeated the space, and I guessed it was the smell of blood. Several crime scene photos of my brother’s broken and bloodied body were splayed everywhere in living color. Chris’s bashed-in face and empty green eyes stared at me. Wherever I turned, they were there. I glanced at the ceiling to find the worst of them. It covered the width of the room, magnifying the brutality of the attack that killed him.

Marcus’s cruelty was boundless, painfully reminding me of the lengths he’d go to get what he wanted.

Nausea overtook me, and I ran to the bathroom and vomited. The same photos covered every flat surface, including the bathroom. There would be no sanctuary while I remained captive in here.

“Why?” I asked through my tears as I sat on the floor and leaned against the bathtub. I wanted to rip them down and destroy them. But I couldn’t, and I needed to find a way to endure and not obsess about how I’d given my virginity to the man who murdered my brother.

Zolt’s handsome face flashed in my mind and I closed my eyes. He was my reason for letting Marcus take control of me—him and Kenna. I pushed the thought of her out of my mind. Thinking back now, he had taken it easy on me when he took my virginity. Kenna wouldn’t be afforded the same. He’d sell her body as if she were a slab of beef. My heart broke for her.

My heart broke for me.

The sound of crowd noise filled the room, and I pushed myself to my feet. After rinsing my mouth, I went into the bedroom to see what new torture Marcus had arranged.

On the large TV on the wall, footage from Zolt’s injury played on a loop. The crushing sound of a dirty hit—the bounty against Zolt bankrolled by Marcus—echoed off the walls. I covered my ears with my hands and squeezed my eyes closed. Marcus knew how to drive his point home, and how to put me in my place, making sure I conformed to his expectations.

I lay curled up on the floor with my arms over my head, trying to muffle the noise of the TV. The tears I held back finally broke loose. I wanted to be strong enough to survive this, but I didn’t know if I was, and this time, Marcus might succeed in breaking me.

I cried myself out, letting myself give in to the fear, grief, and despair that filled me. Then, I stopped, determined to find my strength. Staying vigilant and praying that somehow Zolt saw through my lies were my only options. When this was over, I needed to be able to return to him and beg for forgiveness. If Marcus broke me, I couldn’t do that. Whatever he threw at me, I decided to survive it. I kept in the forefront of my mind an image of Zolt and me together. Hopefully, Kenna had something similar to help her survive too.

Some indeterminate time later, the door unlocked and opened, and I heard it shut and lock again. Quickly I sat up expecting Marcus. To my surprise, a beautiful girl wearing a gray pencil skirt and white button-up blouse came in, carrying a tray of food. She was striking with ebony hair and piercing blue eyes. The color almost didn’t appear real. If not for the scar that ran the length of her jawline, she would be stunning.

“Hi,” I said and straightened my dress. “My name is Irelyn.”

“Hi,” she returned and set the tray on the table, not making eye contact with me.

“Thanks for bringing me food.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll be back in an hour. Marcus requests that you eat everything on the tray.”

She turned and walked to the door, unlocked it, then left, locking it behind her.

I sighed. The woman—who wasn’t much older than me—hadn’t been friendly. Any ideas of befriending her were dashed. Certainly, Marcus told her not to talk to me, and undoubtedly, cameras monitored the room.

For now, the footage of Zolt’s injury had turned off, but it would come on again, probably intermittently. Marcus did his best to mind-fuck me. I made up my mind to desensitize myself to anything that Marcus used to torture me. If I didn’t, I’d go crazy.

I went to the tray and frowned. Marcus sent all the foods I hated: pizza with anchovies and some kind of tarragon chicken dish. I stared at the food and fought the urge to scream. However, I could, I had to force this down and keep it there. I wouldn’t give Marcus a reason to punish me.

The following hours dragged on in much the same fashion. Since there were no windows, I couldn’t tell what time of day it was. So I took to counting to sixty by one thousand, using my fingers to keep track. After a while, I grew tired of the exercise, finding it fruitless. The lack of sleep left me skirting the edge of delirium. I played mental games with myself in an effort to remain sane, counting the cracks in the concrete, not stopping until I came up with the same number twice.

Once a day, the ebony-haired woman brought in a tray of my most hated foods; everything from liver and onions, fried eggs with runny whites, and some kind of Mexican dish with tripe in it. Each time, I choked it down while I leaned against the wall, sitting on the floor. With no clock, I decided to keep time by the appearance of each tray. So far three had been delivered.

The footage of Zolt appeared at unpredictable times as I suspected it would. I had to give it to Marcus; he was a master of the mind-fuck. The lights in the room never turned off, and sometimes I swear they got brighter. Even taking a shower was hit and miss as the water either scalded or froze my ass off. If that weren’t bad enough, it changed at a moment’s notice. Marcus didn’t provide any toiletries: no shampoo, conditioner, or body soap—not even a toothbrush or toothpaste. The only luxury was the toilet paper, and God only knew if I would get more when it ran out.

Regardless, I refused to succumb. When it started to be too much, I closed my eyes and replayed the times Zolt and I had been together, torturing myself in an entirely different way.

Several times during the hours, I heard a woman cry out in pain. Though I wasn’t sure, deep inside, I knew it was Kenna, and whatever awful things she experienced were for my benefit. Kenna was yet another device in his plan, another way to break me. But only harming Zolt, or worse, killing him would ever break me.

That Marcus hadn’t shown his ugly face once didn’t surprise me. He was trying to knock me off-balance, keeping me on the edge, wondering when and if he’d come. Eventually, he would, and I’ll admit I was scared shitless of what he’d do to me when he did. Either way, I’d take whatever he doled out even if it meant having sex with him.

One of the worst things was the lack of clean clothing, causing me to wear only my panties and bra, leaving my dress for the times when I rinsed my undergarments out.