Derision (20 page)

There’s only one thing left to fight for.

Me
.

I
’m not equipped
to be a wreck.

Rumpled dress shirt. Hair disheveled from the continuous running of my hand through it. Sitting in a dark room, brooding. The damn ache in my chest is torture. And the worst part: the loss of control.

You can’t control someone else’s pain.

I swore to guard Alexis against hers. I promised I’d protect her. Instead, I caused her additional pain. When your pride gives up the battle and you admit to that failure, their pain becomes your own.

The simple fact of the matter is that I’m not built to be this wreck of a man. It doesn’t suit me—but that’s exactly what I am. Wrecked. I’m a fucking cliché.

And a wrecked man can only stare at his phone so long, his thoughts battering his brain, before he has to take action. I’m not above accepting my defeat—but I’m damn sure going to do everything to fix her pain.

To an outsider, it might look like the text I’ve been writing for the past hour is riddled with tired excuses—and likely, as Alexis has effectively turned me into her whipping boy, it is—but it’s also necessary.

I’d rather not put into a text what should be expressed in person, but I can’t let another second pass, putting even more distance between us, that she considers herself severed from me irrevocably.

I won’t accept that.

She’s asked for time. I’ll give her as much time as she needs, but she’ll take that time along with my reasons. With anyone else, there’d be no explaining myself. For Alexis, I’m making an attempt, even though I’ve backspaced and growled at the fucking phone the entire time I’ve been contemplating just how to explain those reasons.

I’m not built to bow under another, either. It’s not within my makeup to submit to another’s needs. Hell, it’s not within my makeup to submit. Period.

I toss my phone aside, then tug my necktie loose. By now, Alexis knows what I’ve done. My invasion into her life did have some benefit. I’m damn good at maneuvering the law, which made it easy enough to give her what she wants most: help for her brother.

That course was already in action before tonight, and maybe she’ll despise me for it—but she’ll despise me while accepting the help, because her love for her brother trumps her anger toward me. My betrayal was precisely that: a betrayal. Regardless if it was a betrayal I wasn’t aware of.

How you validate a conundrum like that, however, is the fucking question.

Uttering a curse, I grab my phone and add another line, to which I will finally send this damn text and be done with it. When her brother is healthy, and Alexis has had a reasonable amount of time to mend from the upheaval of her life, if I need to, I’ll bend her little ass over my knee and spank her until she concedes that she’s still in love with me.

Like I said, I’m not built right. But I am built for one specific woman, and that’s Alexis. I won’t stop pursuing her until she understands that.

I went into this relationship with her like I would any other woman. As if she was just my object to possess. I took responsibility for her when I took ownership, only I didn’t take responsibility for myself. I demanded compliance and honesty from her, without giving her the same transparency.

I required her trust, but I didn’t trust her to make the right choices.

I’m close to ramming my head through a wall just to make these enlightening thoughts cease. I’m not about to become enlightened unless Alexis is around to witness it. I’m still a man, after all. I know that it doesn’t count unless the woman you love sees it for herself.

I hit Send.

Then I’m off my couch and heading to my bedroom. I won’t hover around my phone like some pussy-whipped teenager. I cling to what dignity I have left, however little.

It doesn’t work. The thought of her suffering steals my breath. What if her brother’s condition has worsened? What if I’m so ill-equipped at handling these emotions that I should’ve demanded to be with her through this?

These thoughts pummel my brain in the dark of my room, keeping me from sleep. I should be focused on the case, but all I can visualize is the pain on Alexis’s face after she got the call.

“Fuck.” I roll out of bed and pull on my jeans, then head toward my phone.

No reply.

I call Jefferson. “When did you take Alexis home?” I ask as way of greeting. There’s no sense in platitudes. I hired him because he knows this.

His groggy voice sounds over the line. “Sir, I didn’t. Not yet.”

My brow furrows. “Then she’s still at the hospital?”

“No, sir. She wanted to go to the office. Said she had—”

“Then you’re still there. With her.”

A beat. Then: “She’s going to call when she’s ready to leave.”

“You left her there alone?”

“I’m on my way back there now—”

“No,” I say, my voice a dark boom. “I’m going.”

I hang up and try her number. It rings for a while before going to voicemail.
Dammit, Alexis
. I try calling again, and again, her voicemail picks up.

I type out a quick text:
I’m on my way to you.

I don’t bother with a jacket and am already grabbing my keys when my phone rings. I dig it out of my pocket. Alexis’s beautiful face is on the screen.

“Are you all right?” There’s many different ways to answer this call…other things I wish to say…but this is my main concern. I need to know she’s all right. That she’s not sitting up in her office, hurt and alone.

The receiver picks up her shaky breaths. “I’m all right,” she says. “Chase, I don’t think this is going to work.”

I brace my hand on the door, holding my phone against my ear as I hang my head. “I don’t accept that, Alexis.”

She remains quiet, and I wait. Wait for her to realize what she’s saying is wrong. It doesn’t feel right because it’s not right.

“You tore up the agreement, Chase. There’s nothing between us anymore.”

My hand balls into a fist against the door. I grit my teeth to keep from rearing back and punching it. “I don’t need a fucking agreement to be with you.” I exhale, releasing the searing ache from my lungs. “I tore it up because I want more than something stated in callous legal jargon, Alexis. I want you. All of you—”

“Chase—”

“I’m coming to you. If you’re done with me, then tell me so. But do it to my face.”

“I’m already gone,” she says, essentially slicing my chest open.

“Where are you?” When she doesn’t answer, I practically growl into the phone, “Where the fuck are you?”

“Thank you for what you did for my brother,” she says, and it infuriates me more. This whole debacle is because she took issue with my interference into her life.

“Alexis, I demand to know—” I pound my fist against the door “—please, Alexis. Tell me where you are. We’ll figure this out, but—”

“Chase…I can’t. I know that Jake will be okay, and you’ll be okay.” The phone is muffled and I hear a sob break through the line. My gut clenches.

“Alexis?”

“I’m starting over, Chase. I have to get away from here and just start over.”

Three quick beeps end the call.

“Fuck!” My fist makes contact with the door, leaving a dent. I’m only rational enough to keep from smashing my phone.

I open the door and slam it behind me, clicking my key fob to unlock my car. Another man might accept this rejection. Might drink himself stupid and go find the quickest, easiest pussy to bury his dick in.

But I’m too stubborn for that. If Alexis is this distraught over her brother, this lost over us…then she needs me. She’s strong—stronger than she even realizes—but it’s usually the strong who break the hardest. She’s breaking.

There’s a sick twisting in my stomach that grips me whole, my instincts shouting to go to her. I’ll be damned if I lose her tonight. I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything within my power to stop that from happening.

I pull up the GPS on her phone. Another thing she might despise me for…but she can scold me all she wants later. I’ll gladly take the beating as soon as I have her in my arms.

“
T
hat was pathetic
.” Mason grips my chin, forcefully raising my gaze to his face. “You were supposed to make him believe, Alexis. To save his life.” He
tsks
. “You barely made me believe you want him to live, and I don’t want to have to end him. I rather like Chase. He’s a damn fine lawyer who I consider a friend.”

I suck in an unsteady breath and jerk free of his hold. “He’ll believe it when…” I trail off, unable to voice what’s to happen next, even if I’ve accepted my fate. “When I disappear,” I grit out between clenched teeth.

Mason drops my phone and stomps it. The
crack
echoes around the office, severing my link to Chase. “A precaution,” he says.

My wrists burn from the leather belt, my failed attempts to twist free having torn my flesh. My bare skin is blanketed in sheets of ice-cold sweat. My bra and underwear a flimsy barrier to the chilly air. Yet still I maintain my fight.

Mason tucks the gun into his waistband behind his back, his eyes narrowed on me. Then, his hand lands another slap to my face. My vision explodes in white. The blinding pain dulls into a throb as I choke back a cry.

“Chase is smarter than you,” I say, willing my voice steady. I look up, blinking my vision clear. “Malcolm goes to jail, then what? You’ll have to find another scapegoat. Because you’re sick. You can’t stop. You’ve already made one mistake by leaving your DNA behind. You’ll make another. Chase won’t need me to put it together, then.”

He raises his fist and I recoil, bracing for the impact.

It doesn’t come.

Instead, he yanks the skylark necklace from my neck and pockets it. My skin burns, the lingering sting of the chain still there. He grabs the knotted belt behind my back. “Get up,” he orders.

I struggle to my feet as he hauls me off the floor. “Where are you taking me?”

“To my scapegoat, baby,” he says, yanking me forward, and I cringe at the word. I loathe it. More than I loathe Mason’s attempts to defile me. The memories it evokes. “You’re just too damn smart a cunt, but at least I don’t have to bother with any pretenses.”

I lift my chin despite my fear. I fought Mason off once, I’ll continue to fight. He can kill me…but I won’t let him violate me. I’ll do whatever’s necessary to make it end quickly before he gets the chance.

He shoves me against the wall. I lean there, watching him tidy my office, making me disappear. “You can’t keep using your clients as patsies—”

“Pawns,” he says, tossing my torn clothing into my purse.

“What?”

His eyes meet mine. “They’re pawns. See, Larkin and Gannet believe they’re grandmasters of this domain.” He spreads his arms wide. “But it’s been my board they’ve been playing on all along.”

I shake my head, moving farther down the wall. “You’re demented.”

He cocks his head in a clipped shrug. “All great men are. It’s the price one pays for genius.” He stalks toward me then, bracing his arms on either side of my head and locking me in place. “I think you’ll realize that once you acknowledge you’re just a pawn, too.”

I swallow hard, calming my breathing. His smile is too revealing, he wants me to ask. So I don’t.

“Lee Brooks,” he says, eyeing me closely. “Oh, wait. That’s right. What did Chase tell Sol? That you only knew him as
John
. A man that somehow charmed his way into your panties at your parents’ funeral.” Mason grins. “What a whore you are, Alexis.”

For the first time, my defense drops. Fear pervades my senses, ripping through me with a fury that decimates my nerves. Mason holds me upright as my legs give out. “How do you—? He raped me. He
raped
me…” The words tumble out, a painful release that I despise Mason for witnessing.

He presses against me, and my stomach roils at the feel of his erection digging into my belly. “I know, baby. He sure did, and he’s about to again.”

I shake my head, attempting to get as far away from him as possible, but his body seals against mine.

“Chase used company resources to dig into your past,” he whispers in my ear. “Seems that Lee was a client of ours once. In fact, Chase defended him, how do you like that? And I thought to myself, how ironic.”

Ironic
. That Chase once defended my rapist, that he knew who he was—no, that’s not ironic. That’s just another cruelty linking us together in this fucked up world. I’ve been afraid to face the man who raped me, to face my past—but I’m not angry with Chase for any of it. “I don’t care,” I say. “You’re trying to hurt me, but you can’t. Stop your lame monologue and get this over with. I’m sick of looking at you.” I spit in his face.

I’m provoking him. It’s what I have to do. My only assurance that I’m protecting Chase—that we’ll be gone by the time he comes looking for me.

Mason only smiles, then licks a trail across my lips. I sputter back my revulsion. He pushes his erection harder against me, and I wish I could tear it from his body.

“You want to know the real irony that’s about to take place?” he asks. “Chase learns that by sicking an investigator on Lee, he revealed your whereabouts to him. As paranoid as Lee is, he had no choice but to take out the woman threatening to put him away.”

My eyes widen.

“Now you’re seeing the whole picture. Of course Chase wants to punish the man who hurt you. The man who comes back to hurt you all over again. And he will. He’s just going to punish the wrong man this time.” As he pulls back, his gray eyes assessing my reaction, he says, “Checkmate.”

I’m thrust through the office door on wobbly legs. Mason walks behind me, directing me down the hallway. My whole body feels ready to shut down. The adrenaline that kept me sharp, primed to fight, has depleted my muscles, leaving me drained and hollow.

There’s a calming relief washing over me, though—as twisted as it is. It won’t be the truth, but if Chase believes Mason’s lie, if he accepts a man from my past has done this to me, then he’ll know I didn’t willingly leave him.

Only Mason hasn’t thought this all the way through. He hasn’t been methodical. He didn’t have time to plot this out, think around all the angles and evidence. He stumbled upon a jagged piece from my past, one he thinks he can forcefully wedge into his warped puzzle.

But it’s half-hatched and sloppy. Leaving behind a trail that Chase will follow.

“Framing Lee is going to be more difficult than you think,” I say, nearly buckling from the throb in my shoulder as he jerks the belt to halt me at the elevator.

“When you know the law, you know how to get around it,” he says simply. He turns me around and drives my back against the wall, knocking the breath from my lungs.

He smiles at my pain as he closes in. “I’m not a bad man,” he says, drawing the gun from behind his back. “I just have particular tastes and needs.” He runs the barrel between my thighs, the cold metal biting into my skin. “I’m going to do things to you Chase only fantasizes about. Things you never knew you craved.”

I’m shaking. I can’t help it. But I don’t lower my gaze. I hold steady, looking right into his eyes. “Even if I never figured out the truth, you were always going to do this. You want what belongs to Chase.”

The backs of his fingers graze my cheek. “I can’t help myself – you’re forbidden fruit.” The gun makes contact with me through my underwear, and my breath is lost. His smile stretches. “Taking Chase’s plaything for myself is just too irresistible.”

I close my eyes as he reaches around me…and then the
ding
of the elevator doors opening sets my breath free.

“Let’s go.”

Inside the elevator, Mason keeps me in front of him, the gun seated at my lower back. I can’t help but think that at one time, when Chase first approached me, I was just a game to him. A piece to be moved around. A possession to be owned. His property.

Mason said it himself: I’m a pawn. Pawns are meant to be sacrificed. I want to believe that’s changed—that somehow, we’ve become real—that Chase no longer sees me as a pawn. I have to trust in that—in
us
—or else my sacrifice is empty.

Finally, I understand the dynamics of this firm, only too late. This is all a power struggle for the partners. Each one taking turns trying to conquer the other. Chase’s warning, his promise to protect me…did he know Mason was capable of this? Does he realize how malicious one of his partners is?

No. He can’t. Chase plays the game, too, but he’s not capable of the vileness Mason harbors. Mason isn’t playing on the same level—he’s deranged.

I love Chase. I believe he loves me. That’s all I need to trust in. I’ve never belonged to anyone the way I belong to him. I’m known by Chase in a way I’ve never felt before. He has protected me. Had I never given myself to him, I wouldn’t have discovered just what I’m capable of.

In the seconds it takes the elevator doors to open, the brief moment where time suspends, where my eyes connect with Chase’s and Mason extends the gun, fate no longer controls my life. I control fate.

I’m only granted a second, but time—for once—obeys me, and I lunge to the right.

My eardrums explode. The blast ricochets around the small enclosure of the elevator, a dizzying effect that rocks my equilibrium. All noise fades away, just the
thud
of my heartbeat filling my ears.

My name breaks through the muted current of sounds before the floor hits me.

When the world rights itself, my sight scrambles to latch on to an object—any object—and my gaze catches Chase. He’s a blur of movements at first, then he comes into focus along with a pitch of sound that brings everything around me racing back as time speeds up.

Chase has Mason’s arm pinned against the wall of the elevator, the gun held within Mason’s grip. With his free hand, Chase is pummeling Mason’s face. Red mists the air as Chase connects his fist with Mason’s face over and over.

As I try to sit forward, a sharp pain sears my shoulder. I cry out, struggling against the restraint of the belt. “Chase!”

His attention is momentarily directed toward me, his clenched hand held aloft mid-swing.

“Don’t kill him,” I manage to get out. “Don’t—”

Chase bangs Mason’s arm against the wall, loosening Mason’s grip on the gun and it falls to the floor. Then Chase has Mason by the collar and slams him into the metal wall. “I should kill you,” he grates through clenched teeth. “But you’re already a dead man.”

He delivers a final blow to Mason’s face before he leans over to pick up the gun. Then he’s kneeling beside me and unbinding the belt. “Don’t move,” he says, the tremble in his voice evident.

“I’m not hurt,” I say, the pain in my shoulder going numb. “I need to get up.”

“Alexis—” his solemn gaze finds mine “—you’re shot. Stay still. I got you.” He digs out his phone with one last glance toward a bloody Mason, then brings his phone to his ear. “Wexler, listen, there’s a situation at the firm—” A beat. “No, the law firm. Lark and Gannet. I need officers here to arrest one of my partners, Caleb Mason. And I need an ambulance.”

He doesn’t stay on the line; he ends the call and is cradling me in his arms, careful of my shoulder. “I should’ve killed him,” he says. “Why did you do that?”

My eyes flick up to his face. “Because I could.”

Despite the seriousness of our situation, he eases a tight smile out. “You’re beautiful when you’re defiant.” He kisses my forehead, my cheeks, my lips. Then as he glances around, he curses. “We’re not waiting. I’m taking you to the hospital myself.”

“No—wait.” I grasp his arm, pulling myself up against his chest. “We can’t leave him here—”

The doors of the lobby open, and then heavy footsteps fill the ground floor as three men dressed in black approach the scene.

“Mister Larkin,” one of them says with a curt nod. “Our employer wishes to thank you for alerting them of the situation first.” He eyes Mason, then returns his sharp gaze to Chase. “It will be taken care of.”

“Who are you?” Chase demands.

The man—nearly as tall as Chase, broad shoulders squared, with no hint of fear in his dark eyes—smiles. “It will be taken care of, sir.”

Chase’s arms wrap around me, securing me to his chest as the man takes a close look at my shoulder. “It’s a flesh wound, but you’ll want to get it treated.”

Chase exhales the tension from his chest. Evidently, as relieved as I am. A flesh wound—I’ll live. I look up at Chase. “I’m fine. I don’t need—”

“You do,” he cuts me off. “Let me take care of you.”

I give up the battle easily, acknowledging that all I want is for Chase to do just that.

“We have a medic here,” the man says, nodding to a woman entering the lobby. “It’s best if this doesn’t get reported.”

My mouth parts, but all questions flee my mind as the other two men yank Mason up and haul him out of the elevator. Mason is coherent enough to realize he isn’t being apprehended by the police.

From over his shoulder, Mason glances at Chase. “You son of a—” But his words are cut short by a punch to his stomach. Then the men drag him toward the doors of the building.

As terrified as I was upstairs with Mason, as horrified as I was the moment I saw Mason raise the gun toward Chase…I’m now petrified.

“Is she yours?” the man asks Chase.

He pulls me tighter to him. “Yes,” he says, letting the guy see the gun he sets on his knee.

The man holds up a hand defensively. “I assure you, there’s no need for that, sir.” He gives me a smile that’s neither forced nor genuine. “Miss, can you please explain what transpired between you and Caleb Mason?”

Unsure, I seek Chase’s eyes. He nods, his gaze steady on the man in the black suit. “It’s all right. These men represent a member of The Firm,” Chase says.

The man nods, appreciation brightening his sharp features. “That’s correct, sir. And I’m sure you can appreciate that our employer wishes to remain anonymous.”

“Of course,” Chase says.

With Chase still holding me, I relay the facts the best I can, while still trying to keep the details of Malcolm’s case confidential. “Mason had planned to use another client for my…death,” I say, wishing I could spare Chase the final element of Mason’s unhinged plan.