I WON’T STOP.
Not even when Jett calls after me. I’ll never stop until I’m gone. Until I disappear.
I fly toward the back of the house, into the service kitchen. I almost make it out the hidden doorway before Jett snags my arm.
“What the hell just happened? Where are you going?” His questions hit me like bullets. I have no answers, only painful regret and overwhelming fear. I tug on my arm, desperate to break free.
“Jett, I’m sorry,” I apologize frantically.
“For what?”
“This.” I knee him square in the balls, and he drops to the floor.
“Sonofabitch!”
Wracked with guilt, I disappear through the doorway that spits me out on a long narrow path leading to the backyard. I’ve explored this house enough to know where all the secret passages and alternate exits are.
Once I finally reach the edge of the house’s vast lawn, I head for the trees on the perimeter of the property. It’s dark but warm, and the full moon provides just enough silvery light to allow me to see.
Run, just run. Never stop running.
Panicky tears stream down my face, my leg muscles scream, and my lungs burn from the physical exertion, but I can’t stop. The extensive lawn seems to go on forever, the thick grass cold and wet under my bare feet.
I suddenly hear heavy breathing and weighted steps behind me. Terrified, I push my legs to move faster and my lungs to pump harder.
Run, just run. Never stop running.
“London!” My name echoes through the darkness, but I refuse to slow down. I won’t go back. I’ll never go back.
I barely reach the edge of the woods before I’m tackled to the ground.
“NO!” I screech, punching and kicking, unleashing my strongest fight.
“London, London, LONDON!” I’m finally overpowered and pinned down.
“No! No! No!” I continue to thrash in an insane fit. “I can’t go back! I can never go back!”
“Hey! London, look at me!” Jett’s voice penetrates the madness in my head. “London, look at me!” He grabs my face and shakes my head.
The panic-stricken tears start to pour.
“Jett, let me go! Let me run!” I push on his shoulders and ramble like a madwoman. “I have to run!”
“You’re not going anywhere until you calm down. You’re hysterical!”
“Jett, please!” I scream. “Before he finds me!”
“Who? Before who finds you?” He keeps an impenetrable hold on my face as he tries to understand. “What happened inside?”
I cry inconsolably, my body succumbing to the fear, sinking into the cold, wet grass while trapped beneath Jett.
“London, please,” he begs earnestly in a soft, soothing voice. “Tell me all your secrets so they can become mine, too.”
“No,” I sob. “The only person who deserves to share my secrets is the devil.”
“There is nothing you can’t tell me. There isn’t anything I won’t understand.” He sounds so sincere, so worried. It makes the pain of the past harder to bear.
“Jett, please. Just let me go,” I stress in a strained whisper. “Forget you ever knew me and just let me disappear,” I implore.
The moon’s glow highlights all his worried features and the shocked and confused look on his beautiful face.
“You know I could never forget about you. What you’re asking is impossible.” He uses his thumbs to wipe away the wetness descending down my cheeks.
“Then just kill me.” I move his hands down to my throat. “Just do it right now and put us both out of our misery.”
Anger flashes in Jett’s acute eyes. “London, you are talking fucking nonsense!” He snatches my wrists and pulls me up.
“No, I’m not. I’m dead fucking serious. I’d rather die than go back!”
“Back where? You have to tell me so I can understand.” His grip gets tighter, more urgent. “Trust me. If there’s only one person you’re ever going to trust in your life, let it be me.”
The tears rain out of my eyes as I crumble under his stare. Simply verbalizing the memoires is emotionally excruciating.
“I was sixteen.” I finally crack wide fucking open. I’ve never shared this part of my life with anyone, and I don’t know if I’ll survive if I do.
“What happened when you were sixteen?”
“I was taken,” I explain through the tears. “Given to a man who did unspeakable, vile things to me for years. I was a slave. I lived in a cage. I was his pet.” My voice disappears.
Jett’s expression drops. He understands.
“Who gave you to him?”
I look dead in his eyes. “My father.”
“What?” he gasps, appalled.
“I thought I had been kidnapped. Turns out I was sent to be trained. To be broken.” My lip quivers as the memories surge in like an angry sea. “He wanted a submissive, a slave, and he got one. For a long time. I did everything I was ordered to, no matter how disgusting. I was his signing bonus, his blackmail, his entertainment. Whatever he needed me to be. I had no voice. No face. No soul. I was a beautiful building with nothing inside. And he took full advantage.”
“And what happened?”
“I escaped. I’d had enough. I was dying. That night was the last straw.”
“What night?” Jett hangs on my every single syllable.
“The night he tied me to a bed and left me there. The night I was used over and over and over again by countless men. Even when I pleaded, even when I cried. Even when the pain engulfed my entire body and I couldn’t take another second, it continued.” I completely break down. “It continued for so long. I was helpless, and he knew. He loved it. They all loved to hear me suffer. It was part of the thrill.”
“Jesus Christ.” Jett pulls me into his arms and lets me sob out the agony all over his silk shirt. He rocks me consolingly, humming a soothing rhythm in my ear.
“How did you finally get away?” he asks delicately.
“When it was finally over, when I was finally released,” I weep. “I was bloodied and bruised and completely destroyed. I didn’t care whether I lived or died. All I cared about was it ending.” I become lost in the memory. “My father’s right-hand man, Silas, always kept a gun tucked away in the waistband of his pants, and I knew it. I knew I could get close to it. He had his time with me, too. Whenever he wanted. Which was often. I knew the two of them so well. Knew their routines, and their habits, and their timetables. I knew them better than anyone.
“I planned to just grab the gun and shoot myself, but it didn’t happen that way. Silas was too quick and deflected the shot. The bullet ricocheted and ended up hitting my father. We were all in shock, and Silas had to make a split-second choice to either help my father or catch me. He chose my father. I escaped down the service elevator and didn’t look back.”
“Where did you go?” Jett’s investment is ironclad.
“I hid in the streets. Cold, hungry, and alone was better than the hell I was living in. I ate out of garbage cans and bathed in public restrooms. I barely survived, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t a slave anymore.”
“Where was your mother during all this?”
“I have no idea,” I sniffle. “I never met her. And the few times I did ask about her, my questions were brushed under the rug. The last time I ever tried to find out anything my father threatened that if I didn’t stop pestering him, I’d end up just like her. I was nine, and his outburst scared me to death. Sometimes I wonder,” I whimper. “I wonder if he subjected her to the same hell as me . . .”
“And she wasn’t lucky enough to escape?” Jett finishes my thought.
I merely nod. It’s the only response I’m capable of. I’ve often wondered if I was a product of her hell. The thought sickens me, as I mourn a mother I never knew. What’s worse, the idea allows me a look into the window of her life, and what do I see through the glass? My own sad, abhorrent reflection.
“So how did you end up with Sasha?” Jett urges me to go on.
“I barely remember, to be honest. One minute, I was huddled in an alleyway, trying to stay out of the rain, and the next, I was getting into a warm car with a strange woman who had kind eyes. She took me in, cleaned me up, helped me start to heal, and when I was ready, she put me to work. She never asked for anything more than what I was ready to give.”
“That definitely sounds like Sasha.” He smiles wistfully.
“I liked living with her.” I rest my head wearily against Jett’s chest.
“Well, I like you living here.” He hugs me tightly. Securely. Protectively.
“She said I would be a good fit,” I recall her words.
“You are a good fit. You’re my perfect fit.”
“None of it matters anymore. Silas had to have told my father where I am by now. He’ll come for me himself.” The thought is terrifying.
“He can try. Doesn’t mean it will happen.”
“Of course, it will. Easton Erickson always gets what he wants.”
“Did you just say Easton Erickson? The real estate mogul?”
I nod. Eyes screwed shut. “The one and only.”
“I didn’t realize he had a daughter.”
“No one knows. He kept me hidden most of my life. I was homeschooled in his penthouse and raised by butlers and nannies. He never took much notice of me until I could give him something he wanted.”
“Well, he can want you”—Jett tilts my face up—“but he sure as hell ain’t gonna get you.”
“You don’t know what he’s capable of.” I shake fearfully in his arms.
“You don’t know what I’m capable of.” He presses a firm, possessive kiss on my lips. “I told you, I can be ruthless if I need to be.”
I don’t want Jett to be ruthless. I don’t want to be exposed to any more violence. I want the storm to pass. I want calm waters and blue skies. I want peace.
All I want is peace.
“We’re going to end this, London.” He pinches my chin, securing my mouth an inch away from his. “Tonight.”