Rock Bottom (22 page)

Chapter Forty-seven

Heavy footsteps paused inside the door. He was looking for me. The childish urge to pull the blanket over my head struck. Then the light from the hall was extinguished and I felt the cushions dip behind me.

I held perfectly still, scarcely daring to breathe. Maybe if he thought I was asleep . . .

A thick arm slid around my waist and I knew my body was too tense to fool anyone. Terror crashed through my skull, drowning out reason. Fight or flight instincts kicked in and I was a heartbeat away from hurdling the back of the couch when I smelled it.

Cinnamon and spice.

I sagged with relief against his chest and his fingers intertwined with mine.

“We don’t have long.” Elijah’s words soothed me and I nodded because that was all I needed. Not food or water or air. Just this.
This
was all I needed to sustain me. Just
him
.

He didn’t speak again. He simply held me, for which I was grateful. I felt so weak in that moment I might have given in to anything he asked. When our brief time was up, he pulled my hand toward him and placed a series of soft kisses across my knuckles.

“Finish this, Rylie,” he pleaded. “Finish this and come home to me.”

“I’m not sure I can,” I confessed to the darkness.

“Of course you can.”

“What if I’m not strong enough?” Things hadn’t exactly been going well so far. Maybe I was fooling myself thinking I could handle something like this.

His chest expanded against my back. “Let me tell you a story about a girl who stood her ground against a douchebag teacher even when he threatened to destroy everything she’d ever worked for. About a girl that walked into a shithole and never once looked at the boy who lived there differently because of it. About a girl who cared about that boy in a way he’d never known before. Who held a crappy frozen burger to his busted face. Who gave a damn. A girl who stood up to a pimp and a dealer. Who joined forces with the good guys, and is fighting to take down a goddamn human trafficker. Let me tell you something about that girl. She can do
anything
because she’s a friggin’ superhero. She’s
my
hero. I love her more than life. More than all the shit that life can throw at us. And I will continue to love her for the rest of my life.” He paused as his arms contracted around me, squeezing the breath from my body. “Now tell me
that girl
isn’t strong enough.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. I wasn’t even sure I
could.
Between Elijah’s crushing embrace and the lump lodged firmly in my throat I was having a hard time breathing, much less talking.

After a moment, I lost my chance. Elijah rolled away from me and I fisted the fleece throw to avoid reaching for him. There was the quiet swish of the door handle, a flash of light, and a muted snap as the door shut behind him, but that was all. No click. No lock.

I was free.

***

The apartment was eerily quiet. Shadows danced over the floor and across the walls as I crept down the hall. Light flashed through the living room windows from a spotlight at some downtown club, like a beacon.

Escape. Escape. Escape.

That’s what my rational mind screamed for me to do with each pulse of light. I was out. I knew the code to the elevator. It’s what any sane person in my situation would do. The only thing keeping me from leaving was . . . me. Maybe I really had lost my mind.

The thought that going home and facing my past may actually be scarier than being here in the present occurred to me, but I pushed it aside. I could psychoanalyze my decisions another time. I had a job to do.

Logic demanded my first stop be Damien’s office, but of course the door was locked up tight.
The story of my life.

A stack of newspapers lured me toward the coffee table where I fingered through page after page of business news, learning nothing more than the Dow Jones had taken a hit or two over the past week.

The kitchen drawers housed nothing out of the ordinary. No false bottoms or hidden compartments like the ones Tanner had shown me how to detect. Unless poor taste in china patterns was a punishable offense under the law, there was nothing to be found there, either.

The whole room—the whole apartment for that matter—was immaculate. Rosita certainly worked hard for her money. It reminded me of a magazine ad. It reminded me of . . .
home
.

Stuffing down a sharp pang, I moved methodically from one room to the next, searching drawers, cabinets, bookshelves . . . I even went as far as to peek behind the paintings. I must have seen one too many movies, because there was nothing there except walls.

There was no way for me to know where Damien was or how long he would be gone, but my paranoia insisted I was running out of time. Scarcely daring to breathe, I stood outside of the one room I had yet to search. Damien’s bedroom.

In all the times we’d been together he’d never once taken me to his bed. Being caught out of my room frightened me. Being caught in his . . . I didn’t even want to think about what he might do.

There was a well of courage—or maybe insanity—inside of me I hadn’t realized I possessed before all of this. I tapped into it and pushed the door open. The room was dark, ambient light coming only from the city.

The furnishings were nearly impossible to make out. Sharp edges and sleek curves, dark as night, they blended with the dense shadows. Black and white art littered the walls in gothic frames. They weren’t like the artwork displayed throughout the rest of the apartment. What at a glance looked abstract, took shape under closer inspection. Random lines and shapes came together to create images of the female form, each more grotesque and mutilated than the last. Limbs stretched, bodies twisted, mouths opened wide in horror and misery.

At the top of the enormous bed a metal headboard, shaped like a black, scaly dragon, stood out against the ash colored walls. If that weren’t creepy enough, a naked woman dangled from the dragon’s claws.

The rest of the apartment was the Damien Cross he showed the world, but
this
room, this was the part he kept hidden. The lair of the dragon, where he hoarded his secret treasures and laid waste to all those foolish enough to try and take them. If I wasn’t careful, that woman dangling from the dragon’s clutches . . . that would be me.

Chapter Forty-eight

Shirts, pants, socks, underwear, silk ties, monogrammed handkerchiefs, a whole drawer of cufflinks. And . . . a pair of handcuffs? Everything a self-respecting sociopath could ever need. I dug through it all. Pushed aside one expensive suit after another and examined the wall at the back of his closet. Pried lids from boxes and dug under the bed.

Nothing
.

Making sure I put it all back exactly as I found it took longer than the search itself.

The room was as sparse and functional as the rest of the apartment. Not a lot of hiding places. The only thing left to search was a squat nightstand beside the bed. A small glass lamp and an alarm clock sat on top—such practical items for such a disturbingly morbid space—but beneath was a narrow drawer. My fingers traced the oddly shaped knob and a tremor shook me when I realized it was a dragon’s foot. I really was playing with fire.

Inside, I found a cellphone sitting on top of a thick manila envelope. It wasn’t like the fancy, touchscreen device he carried around everywhere he went. This one was old-school. A flip phone with nothing more than a number pad and a small black and white screen. The term
burn phone
was dredged up from a memory of some old procedural cop show my mom liked to watch.
Wasn’t this the type of thing criminals used to make incriminating phone calls and send sketchy messages?

I flipped it open, but the phone wasn’t old enough that it didn’t require a password to unlock it. I tried the elevator code and a few other random combinations, but knowing almost nothing about the man who set it, I had no clue where to even begin, and I was afraid that too many failed attempts would alert him.

I wasn’t a techno-guru by any stretch of the imagination and I wasn’t there to crack codes. I was there to snoop. Doing that the old-fashioned way seemed a hell of a lot easier. I pulled out the file and carefully dumped the contents on the bedspread.

Stock portfolios, projection reports—all things I recognized thanks to my father’s obsessive work habits.

I scanned the documents, but they all pertained to his legitimate endeavors. The man had to have some explanation for where all of his money came from. Front companies and a few genuine investments. Donation statements from children’s learning groups, help for the homeless associations, and . . . the ironic bastard, women’s rights organizations. On paper, Damien Cross was a freaking philanthropist.

None of it proved anything, though. I still had to find—

The quiet ding of the elevator exploded through the room. Panic delayed my reaction time and I was still standing there, papers shaking like leaves in my grasp, when the front door opened.

Shit. Move, stupid.

No time to properly organize the documents, I could only pray they were in the right order as I slid them back into the envelope and dropped it in the drawer. Every whisper of noise I made sounded as though it echoed through the room. Or maybe it was just my mind.

Footsteps.
He was in the hall. And headed my way. I cast around for an escape I already knew didn’t exist. The urge to run was overpowering all other thoughts, but I shut it down. There was nowhere to go. My only other option . . . hide.

Dropping to the floor like my clothes had spontaneously combusted, I rolled under the bed as the light from the hallway cut a swatch across the floor. The tip of the triangle it created pointed directly at me as though the room itself were trying to give me away.

A tall shadow blocked the light and I quit breathing. When the bedside lamp snapped on, I swear my life flashed before my eyes
.
I shrank away as the mattress dipped above me. A pair of shiny black dress shoes hit the floor inches from my face.

I was going to die. Right there on the floor under Damien Cross’ bed, I was going to have a heart attack and die.

The mattress lifted away from me and I watched his sock clad feet move across the room. Verging on hysteria has a way of sending reason right out the window and your thoughts scattering in all sorts of odd directions. In that moment, the thought that struck me was that I’d never seen Damien in his socks before. It seemed so . . . out of character. I’d never imagined him getting ready for bed like a normal person. Sleeping.
Vulnerable
.

The rustle of clothing and something hit the bed with a quiet
swish
. His belt jangled where it landed on the floor still attached the pants now pooled around his ankles. I shut my eyes. It’s not like I’d never seen the man naked before, but this felt . . . wrong. I was supposed to be investigating his illegal activities, not invading his privacy.

Footsteps moved farther away from my hiding place and still I refused to open my eyes. It wasn’t until I heard the spray of the shower turn on that I risked another peek. Light shone around the frame of the bathroom door.

There was a change in the steady drum of water. It was now or never. And never wasn’t an option.

I shimmied to the edge of the bed and took one last look around before rolling out. My bare feet were soundless and the bedroom door stood open far enough for me to slip out without having to touch it.

An overdose of adrenaline and lack of oxygen were a devastating combination. Out in the hall, I nearly collapsed, suddenly becoming aware of the way dinner had curdled in my stomach. I was going to be sick.

The lights in my room were all off, but I left them that way. I’d explored that room upside-down and inside-out. I knew every last inch of it. I didn’t need light to find my way to the bathroom.

I barely made it to the toilet before my stomach revolted.

Chapter Forty-nine

I woke to the sensation of falling. And landed with a hard thud. My elbow stung and my head pounded from impact, but neither mattered much at the sight of Damien standing over me. There he was.
There
was the monster I’d feared.

“I . . .” His arms bulged, folded tightly across his chest as though he were physically restraining himself. “I didn’t . . .” Christ, I didn’t even know what it was I was denying. Not that he seemed to care.

“Who do you think you are, Star?”

“I . . .” In one horrifying moment, I realized I no longer knew the answer to that question. I didn’t have the slightest idea who I was anymore.

“
Mine
. You are
mine
. Nothing more.”

I nodded. For the time being, that was simple enough. “I’m yours. Just yours.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice you flirting with that . . .
boy
last night?”

“Please. Damien, I didn’t . . . Please. I’m sorry. I—” The avoidance of pain was a powerful motivator. It can make a person say crazy things. “I’ll do anything, whatever you say,
please
.”

I was breathing too fast. I knew it and yet there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it. Tiny black dots floated in my vision as I got to my feet, slowly, afraid to make any sudden movements.

“Strip.”

I hesitated. Agreeing to do whatever he said and actually doing it were two entirely different things.

“I said
strip
.” He kept his voice perfectly level. He wasn’t yelling or screaming or overtly threatening. He didn’t reach for me. Didn’t try to force me. I almost wished he had. That would have made it easier because that’s what rape was, right? Being forced to do something against your will. It’s brutal and violent and painful. It isn’t standing before a man who terrifies you without so much as raising his voice and choosing to comply with his every wish.

Shame engulfed me, setting my skin on fire as I slid my arms from the thin nightie sleeves. I held onto my dignity for as long as I dared before releasing the material and watching it bunch at my feet. My eyes stayed glued there even as a pair of shiny black dress shoes ground the fragile lace.

“Hands against the wall.”

I pressed my hands to the wall at my back which just so happened to be the only thing holding me upright.

Soft fingers traced a path down my throat and along my shoulder. My vision blurred. Over my collar bone, my chest, to my belly. He’d had me before, but this felt different. In the past, he’d taken what he wanted and been done with it. This time he was forcing me to be a participant. To
feel
. I didn’t want to feel. Of course, this time was different. Before, he’d been using me. Now he was punishing me.

My whole body trembled as he traced the same path again and again, growing progressively closer to more sensitive areas with each pass.

“Please,” I whispered, reduced to begging.

His touch paused and withdrew. I scarcely dared to breathe.

“How
did
you get that lock open? Did you think I wouldn’t notice that, either?”

I knew he would. In fact, I’d been up all night trying to produce a reasonable explanation. The best I could come up with was deny, deny, deny. “I didn’t. I swear, I didn’t touch—”

The side of my face lit up like fire and I found myself sprawled across the floor. The ringing in my ear drowned out whatever Damien was saying.

“
Answer me!
”

“I . . . I . . .” Hadn’t heard the question.

“Do you think it’s yours?”

Whatever he was talking about, I knew the answer to that was, “No. No, not mine.”

Nothing was mine anymore. Not even my body.

“Whose. Home. Is. This?”

“Yours, Mr. Cross.” Calling him by his first name at the moment felt foolish. “It’s your home.”

“And who sets the rules in this home?”

“You do. You, Mr. Cross. You set the rules.” Tears streaked down my cheeks.

He crouched in front of me and I scurried backward until I huddled against the wall like a frightened mouse.

“Get up.”

I stood and was thrown back on the bed where I belonged. I hated beds. I hoped Elijah liked camping, because when this was all over it was going to be sleeping bags on the floor for the rest of our lives. The silk undergarments I’d been wearing were torn and discarded. And it wasn’t just my clothing made to feel his wrath.

When he was done with me and breakfast was delivered, I hurt in places I didn’t even know existed. Simply trying to move to the table to eat was a chore. But I made myself chew and swallow knowing I’d need my strength for whatever lay ahead. Last night had been a bust and I’d been made to pay for my failure, but I wasn’t ready to give up. Not yet. Too much was at stake.

Eggs, sausage, bacon. I needed the protein, but a few bites in and I wasn’t sure how much more I’d be able to keep down. The door was left open. Not an invitation, but a silent command. One I voluntarily disobeyed for as long as seemed possible. I had no desire to go out there. To face that man. He wore the disguise of a prince, but I’d seen beneath it to the dragon inside. And I was afraid.

Sore thighs and heavy body, I shuffled out into the living room following the sounds of the morning news. Movement felt difficult, sluggish, like I was moving through Jell-o.

“Ah, there you are.” Damien took a second look at me and frowned. “Sit down before you fall down. Those were some powerful sedatives you ingested. You won’t be on your feet much longer.”

“S-sedatives? Why?”

I don’t know if it was my severely delayed reaction time or if he really did move that fast, but in the blink of an eye he was in front of me, squeezing my cheeks hard enough to bruise. “I grant your freedoms, Star. You don’t help yourself to them. I think it’s time you learned that. And now . . .” He released my face, fingers feathering through my hair in a mock display of affection. “I’m revoking your freedom of consciousness. You won’t be leaving that bed again until I see fit.”

Terror wrapped around my spine like a great snake. I’d lost so much time to the drugs. My greatest fear was losing even more.

“I own you.” Damien’s hand slid around my throat and tightened. Not enough to hurt me, just enough to let me know he could if he chose to. That he could do
whatever
he chose to. “Don’t you ever forget that.”