Chapter 25
She stood in front of the three paps still camped out in the park across from her building.
They had been too shocked by her sudden presence to react. At first, anyway. Within two seconds, they had their cameras flashing and their mics in her face.
“You’re Sarah Clayborn, right?” the only one with real guts asked. “Can you give us a statement about what’s been going on?”
They asked her more specific questions, but Sarah’s mind was already moving forward on full-blast.
“What’s going on? Why, isn’t it obvious?” She lifted a cigarette to her lips and lit with a bright pink lighter, the black beads of her bracelet clacking in the mic. “The slut’s come out of her closet and is ready to cut loose.”
She blew her smoke into the camera lens before advancing down the sidewalk. Her wallet was tucked into the deep pocket of her coat. Her morals and common sense? Left behind in the apartment for the paps to squabble over. My face and words are going to be on the gossip sites tonight. Everyone will psychoanalyze me. My doctor is somewhere shaking her head.
Sarah finished her cigarette by the time she reached Monroe Tower a few blocks away. She didn’t smash it beneath her boot, however. That would be a waste of a perfectly good sole. Instead, Sarah would espouse some morality and take her cigarette to the smoking section and deposit the butt there. One man in a suit on his smoke break glanced up at her with nothing but shock in his dark eyes.
“You work in accounting, right?” she asked. “I like your face. Cute.”
“Uh…”
Sarah twiddled her fingers on her way out of the smoking corner. Her next stop? The executive elevator, guarded by one of the dayshift security personnel.
She knew him. He definitely knew her, once he looked past the weird getup.
“Ms. Clayborn?”
“Don’t mind me, Jim. Got something to drop off.” She helped herself into the elevator reserved for the Monroes, their most important guests… and their #1 personnel, like Sarah.
Nobody in the office had expected her. From the moment Sarah stepped off the elevator, everyone within a hundred feet stopped what they were doing. Especially Alice Monroe, who had been walking across the room with a stack of folders in her hands.
“Ms.… Clayborn? Is that you?”
Sarah stopped in front of her. “What? Don’t recognize me from my acting debut?”
“I…” Mrs. Monroe put her folders down on the nearest desk and crossed her arms, elbows resting against her protruding stomach. “What are you doing here?”
“Stopped by to let you and Mr. Monroe know that as of today I’m giving my two weeks’ notice. It’s been a laugh and a half, Alice, but I’ve got shit to do.”
Was Alice more shocked by the casual address or the way Sarah was dressed? Both. Honestly. Look at me! I look like I’m about to stroll into a BDSM dungeon and grab some man’s balls. She wouldn’t know anything about that. She’s the one who gets spanked and feels the wrath of the nipple clamp.” Those had never appealed to Sarah. Or Angel, for that matter.
“I see. I’m sorry to hear that, but I understand.”
“Do you?”
Other executive personnel stopped what they were doing to listen in on the exchange between the company matriarch and her former employee – the employee she had gone to bat for so many times that it was almost embarrassing. Because what did Sarah love more than anything else? Pity, of course! She fucking thrived off it, didn’t she?
“If you have grievances, Ms. Clayborn, I’m sure they can be aired out in private. I don’t have any meetings right now if you would like to step into…”
“No need. All you have to know is that my two weeks’ notice starts today. I can help you select a replacement, but beyond that, I’m done here.” She turned. “Give my regards to your husband, the generous benefactor that he is.”
She said that with so much sarcasm dripping from her fangs that Alice remained frozen where she stood, mouth agape and blue eyes wide enough to swallow the nearest person.
Sarah stopped off in the bathroom on her way out. She ran into Alisha by the sinks.
Someone had altered her appearance.
“I see we both changed our hair.” Alisha tossed her long, straight hair behind her shoulder. What the hell? Sarah was so used to seeing the other assistant with her afro that this was… uncharacteristic. “What a week to decide to relax my hair for the first time in years. Thought I’d do something new, but… well! Been too busy to properly take care of it because someone else is on leave.”
Sarah turned on the sink. “Spare me your passive aggression.”
“Oh, I’m not snarking on you. If I were you, I’d definitely lay low for a while.”
“I just gave my two-week’s notice.”
“Damn. Really? Shit. Now what?” Alisha laughed. “This is what happens when a girl changes up her look. Everything goes to hell.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Hey,” Alisha said, before Sarah had the chance to make her grand escape from Monroe Tower. “Go kick some ass for me, would you?”
Sarah – or was that the enigmatic Angel beneath the wig? – spared her a wicked smile. “Way ahead of you. I’ve got shit to do today.”
“Kill the world, girl.”
How prophetic.
***
Sarah took a cab from the curb to her next destination. This was the first Friday in a long time in which she didn’t have to drop some folders off at a crusty lawyer’s townhouse, yet she found herself in that neighborhood again.
But just because she wasn’t going to the lawyer’s didn’t mean she didn’t have business there. And! It would be the first time she intentionally bumped into Jill Blackbourne.
She opened the door with nothing but disdain on her face.
“What the hell do you want? Dressed like this…”
Sarah pushed her boyfriend’s ex-wife aside and helped herself into the house. So this is what Lucas’s money can buy? He had insinuated more than once that he helped Jill’s family pay their bills so they could stay in the house her parents bought years ago. As the area grew trendier and the taxes continued to climb, however, things changed. Lucas didn’t want his son moved out to the Delawarean countryside where it be more difficult to see him.
All of the electronics were brand new. Some of the furniture was recent as well. Either that or Jill’s mother spent her whole day watching HGTV and doing her own design updates. Unlikely, if she was born into privilege and refused to come to terms with losing it. Even my mother willingly walked away from a life of privilege so she could be with my middle-class father. Not every woman was willing to make that sacrifice, however.
“You need to leave!”
“Is your son here?”
Jill gasped. “Absolutely not! You think I’m hiding him from Lucas?”
“No. Just making sure before I rip you a new asshole. Wouldn’t be good for your little boy to hear what I need to say to you.”
Jill remained by the opened front door, flabbergasted. What a pathetic person. Before, Sarah had regarded Jill Blackbourne as a woman who tried to make best of her shitty situation she kept throwing herself into like a sacrificial lamb with a scent for slaughter.
Her long black hair had no luster. Her summery maxi-dress was last season. Her makeup had greasy splotches that were more unfortunate than disgusting. Her dark eyes were so dim that Sarah wondered if it was from staying in this big townhouse by herself or from those years of self-abuse. What kind of things did a woman see in rehab, anyway?
“You need to give Lucas custody of Victor.”
“How dare you!” Jill took one large step forward, nearly barreling Sarah over where she stood. “How dare you tell me what to do with my son? Don’t you think I’m looking out for his best interests? Lucas… Lucas wants to take him back to Denmark, for fuck’s sake! And what? What are you going to do?” She scoffed. “Be his new mother?”
The beads rattled around Sarah’s wrist. “As a fellow mother, nobody knows more than I do that I could never replace you. I have no intention of doing that, anyway.”
“You… you don’t have kids. That wasn’t in the report at all.”
“Because he’s dead.”
Jill’s mouth remained open. “I’m… sorry? Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you? Make me change my mind? Because your kid’s dead, I’ve gotta give up mine?”
“You make it sound like I want anything to do with your son. Like I’ve got some personal stake in that race other than wanting Luke to be happy and do what’s best for his kid.” Sarah couldn’t hold back the laughter cracking her ribs. “As if! I’ve already broken up with him. Pretty soon I’ll be far away from here. From him. From you, Jill. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to tell you to do the right thing for your son.”
“Get the fuck out!” Jill pointed out the doorway. “I’m going to call the fucking police if you’re not out of here in two minutes. I swear to God if Lucas put you up to this…”
“I’m the morally bankrupt degenerate, Jill, not your ex-husband.” Sarah showed herself out. “This degenerate has one more stop to make before skipping town.”
“Get out!”
The door slammed shut behind Sarah. Her phone rang in her pocket. Without looking, she knew it was Lucas.
She shut her phone off and got back in the cab. With the serenity of a calm before a large, destructive storm, she asked the driver to take her up into the Hills.
As the car pulled away, she caught a glimpse of Jill in the townhouse window, screaming into her phone. Cops or Lucas? Either way, Sarah needed to hurry. She didn’t need either the police or her ex-boyfriend to come after her and stop what she had set out to do.
She was cutting ties with that suffocating job. She had looked into Jill’s empty eyes and saw the soulless husk of a woman who only knew lashing out and taking everything around her for granted. Now Sarah needed to face down the other monster who had turned her into the black angel of unchecked wrath.
***
“What are you doing here? Nobody told me you were coming. The other one was already here today. Why are you… dressed like that?”
Nonetheless, Natsuko Matsuda moved out of the way when Sarah shouldered her way into the large house up in the Hills. “I need to see him for a few minutes, okay?” She spared the future Mrs. Monroe a heated look from over the shoulder. “I’m leaving town. Not sure how long I’m going to be gone. Starting a new life, you know? I have a few loose ends I need to tie up.”
Natsuko slowly closed the door behind her. Even so, bright springtime sunlight shone through the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the front gardens of this little hideaway Russell Monroe had done nothing to deserve. “He’s in the salon upstairs. I’ll give you fifteen minutes. His bodyguard will be right outside the door. I’ll let him know how long you’ve got. Then you need to leave.”
Sarah nodded. As if she understood.
Russell Monroe’s wheelchair was pointed toward the window, his slumped over body as vacant and frustratingly silent as it had been since he had his major stroke almost a year ago. Sarah spared the bodyguard on duty a glance and went inside. The bodyguard stared at her blond wig – and her ass, because damn if her ass didn’t look great in that outfit. He’s probably thinking that his boss was a lucky man to tap this. Sarah wouldn’t disagree.
She left the door ajar before approaching the man who tried to ruin her life. Every step she took shook the beads around her wrist, a constant, audible reminder that not everything was okay even on this beautiful day.
Could a man look any more pathetic, though? The only way Sarah knew he acknowledged her presence was from the way his eyes moved. He was basically a quadriplegic at this point in his life. The karma stick had smashed him so hard that Sarah should have been content that he got his after everything that he had done.
But he was still alive, wasn’t he?
The whispers around the office and the Monroes’ homes was that this was worse than death for him. The eugenic who ruined women’s lives and condemned his own children to death had to suffer, powerless, watching the only son he allowed to live breed with a commoner. Russell made so many disparaging remarks about Alice Monroe’s brother and his health issues. Sarah had to hear most of them, unfortunately.
What had he found so unsavory about her genes? Was it the middle class background? The British genes? Did he look at Nigel’s nose and decide that thing was never coming close to the Monroe gene pool? Was it the rumors – that he fueled – saying incest was common between the twins? Did he simply not want to deal with a bastard child at this point in his life?
What nobody could understand, however, was how willingly he pushed the only Matsuda heir on his son before agreeing to marry her for himself. It turned out that Natsuko couldn’t have children after all – something she and Sarah shared, although for different reasons – but Russell hadn’t known that before his stroke. But… she was Japanese! Asian! A purist like him couldn’t possibly be okay with a non-white woman entering the family. So what gave?
Sarah knew. It had never been about race. With Russell Monroe, it was about class, money, and family history. The Matsudas had controlled half of Osaka’s technological sphere for the past hundred years. The family was older than the Monroes. They had so much money that not even he could say no to that fusion of family assets.
He was still a racist, though. And a misogynist. He probably thought that he could control Natsuko Matsuda because she was an Asian woman. What he never anticipated was a woman who knew what she was about – and had a father who held no qualms about his daughter achieving her own level of fame Stateside. For fuck’s sake, Natsuko had a Japanese boyfriend she still regularly saw, and would continue to see after the wedding. Marrying the old man was a formality to get both families a mountain of money.
Russell Monroe had lost his dignity. His family. His grip on the world and the throbbing heartbeat of his business. This man had killed his own grandmother so he could get control of Monroe Industries. at a ridiculously young age. To watch his son do as he willed with it? With a woman brought in from the other side of the tracks? While his dutiful, submissive Japanese wife told him to fuck off and rode another man’s cock into the sunset?
That should’ve been enough. Fate had decided Russell had finally gone too far and clobbered him until all he could do was watch the rest of his life go by so slowly that he would one day die of sheer boredom.
It wasn’t enough for Sarah, though.
She stood beside him, hands behind her back as she gazed upon the evergreen trees and birds flitting from one branch to the next. A marble-colored cat with hair so long it looked like a pillow kept a careful eye on a squirrel. Eventually, it scratched its chin and sauntered off, tail swaying back and forth behind it.
Russell’s amber eyes were bright and alert when Sarah looked into them again. He may not be able to tell her how he felt about her presence, but she could sense it.
She discomforted him. Alice Monroe probably made him feel such anger that he couldn’t stand to exist, but Sarah? Every time she came over, his discomfort was palpable enough to choke the room.
“Remember me?” she asked. “I look a bit different, don’t I? What do you think?” She fingered a strand of fake blond hair. “Think I look better as a blond? The clothes aren’t that different from what you’re used to. Remember the first time we did it? I was wearing a dress similar to this. Night of a gala. Don’t remember which one, though.” They all ran together in the end, especially when Sarah’s job was to mind her bosses and not have fun. She was paid to dress up and act professional.
That night in the windy Chicagoan winter, she had been the only one to accompany Damon Monroe and his father to that gala. Nigel was too sick to leave their apartment. The perfect opportunity for Russell Monroe to approach her late at night and ask her to come back to his suite for some “late night habits.”
Sarah knew it wasn’t love. She knew it was nothing but convenient sex. He didn’t even think she was that beautiful. He certainly never called her beautiful. It was all about his pleasure, his dominance.
Why or why had she gone along with it?
Desperation.
“Remember when I told you that I was pregnant?” Sarah’s fingers wrapped around the handle of his wheelchair. Didn’t take long to turn off the break and spin the monster around. The wheelchair was such high quality that it didn’t make a single sound, even though Sarah had been far from gentle. “Remember when you told me to come up for some drinks?” Her voice dropped to a hideous whisper as she braced her hands near his and kept her teeth only a few inches away from his wrinkled nose. “Remember when you drugged me and made your old bodyguard give me the ol’ Miscarriage Special? Huh? Do you remember?”
His expression did not change. Of course it didn’t. It couldn’t. This man had a team of male and female nurses who bathed him, fed him, changed his fucking diaper and moved him around the house based on where they felt like sticking him. The only agency he had was through blink once for yes and twice for no!
He blinked once.
Sarah’s grip on his hand rests intensified. The expression beneath her plainly read, “Do whatever you want. Kill me, for all I care.”
How easy would it be? To smother this man until he could no longer breathe? To slit his throat with her pocketknife? To put a bullet in his head, like he hired someone to put a bullet in Alice Monroe’s head the moment he heard she was pregnant? This man hired a freak to light his ex-wife on fire because she dared to seek custody of her son.
Nobody would miss him. Natsuko might be pissed she didn’t have the chance to marry him yet, but nobody would miss him. Not even Damon Monroe. Sarah was one of the few who had a front row seat to that dying illusion.
“I only want to ask you one thing, Russell.” No, she wasn’t going to ask him why. She knew why. That was a waste of her one question she got to ask before the bodyguard peeked in and saw the volatile situation unfolding. While nobody would miss Russell, they would likewise not be pleased to deal with a murder. “Were you there when he did that to me? Or were you such a coward you left the room while your goon beat the shit out of me and killed our son?”
He didn’t blink at all.
Sarah shoved his chair back with a frustrated grunt. Russell rolled back a few inches before coming to a sudden stop. Stupid fucking expensive wheelchairs. The automatic break must have kicked in. Why? Was it too much to ask for his chair to simply tip over and cave his head in? Better than he deserved, honestly.
“Fuck you, Russell.”
She had managed to contain her anger since leaving her apartment. Channeling that anger through Angel meant she could act how she pleased without the unfortunate repercussions. Now, though? She couldn’t take it anymore. Here she stood, facing the man who had effectively ruined her life and taken away the one thing she hadn’t even known she wanted until it was too late. I didn’t have the chance to let it sink in that I was having a baby. I didn’t have the chance to pick out a name. Baby Boy Clayborn would forever be remembered as such. Sometimes Sarah thought about picking a name all this time later, but what was the point? It wouldn’t bring him back. It wouldn’t send her back in time, when she could go into hiding and hope Russell never came looking for her as long as she left him alone.
Giving a name to him wouldn’t do anything other than rip open the wounds again.
But they were opening right now!
“You fucking monster.” Sarah turned away, hives rippling across her skin – or at least threatening to. Anger manifested until she could barely function. Trembling, incredible anger that this was her life, these were the choices she had made, and now?
What the fuck was there to do about them?
She ruined lives, like Russell Monroe ruined lives. Sarah couldn’t ride any high horses when she had sex tapes out there of her unknowingly sleeping with husbands and breaking apart well-to-do families. Her mother was ashamed of her. Elizabeth would never say it out loud, but Sarah could tell from the way her mother regarded her with tense looks and careful words.
The Monroes thought she was a degenerate. One they couldn’t fire because they had already shown her so much pity for what this shitstain of a patriarch had done to her.
Lucas…
God, Lucas would suffer the most. Sarah’s carelessness meant her beloved Lucas, the man she couldn’t even bring herself to say she loved, would lose custody of his son forever.
Sarah would take the brunt of the blame. She had, after all, created Angel. She had made decisions she would never be able to revoke. She had doomed her physical and mental health to an endless cycle of self-flagellation, because blaming herself was easier than facing this broken man and realizing that they both were as powerless now.
How was anything but death justice?
You killed my son. You should die too. Sarah wasn’t even thinking of his ex-wife, the woman who took his beatings until she gave birth to a son doomed to such a short life that his birth certificate was barely dry before they had to create a death certificate to follow. She didn’t think of that same woman desperately trying to yank her other son away from a terrible father who might turn him into a spitting-image of hate and prejudices – only to suffer a horrible punishment that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
She was only thinking of herself.
“If I could,” she spat in his face, “I would choke you right here, right now. I would put a bullet between your eyes. I would beat the fucking shit out of you so you can feel the misery I still feel to this day. I’d light you on fire so you know the same horrors your first wife did.”
His pupils grew in size. Beyond that, however, there was no way to gauge his reactions.
“You should feel it, you fucking bastard.” Sarah pulled out her pocketknife. With one boot on his armrest, she unfolded her knife and held the blade to Russell Monroe’s pale cheek. “You should feel that same terror and pain we all felt.”
The horror I felt!
Nobody would be able to save her from it. Nigel couldn’t make back-alley deals to protect his sister. Elizabeth couldn’t pull her connections and scrounge together money from her well-off family and pay someone to leave her alone, or make problems go away. The Monroes couldn’t show enough pity to change her life. Lucas? He couldn’t ruin his life for her, a woman he met at a sex club when she was on a self-destructive kick.
Empowered… I thought it would make me empowered if the choices were in my hands.
She only had herself to rely on. Only Sarah could take the power back and stand up for herself.
Only. Her.
The knife trembled in her hand. The edge of the blade pricked a bit of skin. No blood, but it made Sarah pull her arm back and kick away from the wheelchair.
“What are you doing?”
Natsuko stood in the doorway, the bodyguard right behind her. Sarah didn’t bother to hide the pocketknife in her hand. Russell’s eyes lingered on his fiancée, a woman he had no love for, but would be his only savior now.
“I think it’s time for you to leave.”
Natsuko put up a good front. She wasn’t like Jill, who squawked and flapped her arms to make herself look bigger. Natsuko had more class than that. More smarts, too. So even though her face paled in fright over what Sarah might suddenly do, she wouldn’t let it leak into her voice. She would sound like the commanding lady of the house who was in control of every little thing happening beneath her nose.
Sarah shoved her knife back into her pocket. She spared Russell one last scathing look before walking away with her head held high. She’d keep it that way, too, until she made it to the front hall and realized that her cab was gone.
Instead, Lucas stood in the driveway, between his car and the front door.
Sarah stopped at the top of the steps. “Luke… what are you doing here?”
He came to a halt at the bottom of the same steps. “Sarah! What the hell is going on? I got a call from both Damon and Jill that you’re going around town saying…” He saw the knife poking out of her pocket. “The fuck are you up to, Angel?”
Angel…
Sarah made it to the bottom of the stairs before falling to her knees in the dusty driveway. Lucas rushed to her side.
“Please…” The tears of anger she held back for so long finally came again. “Please, help me. I don’t know what to do! I… I almost…”
“What?” He shook her shoulders, knocking her wig off-center from the force of his fear.
“I almost killed him.”
Sarah clasped her hand over her mouth when she admitted that. I was going to do it. I was going to make him bleed like he made me bleed. Blood for blood. It’s what God wanted, right? It’s what an angel would do, right?
“For fuck’s sake, Sarah!”
“Please!” She buried herself in his hold, stuffing her face into his warm, firm chest and squeezing her eyes so tightly that she could no longer cry. “Please, help me! I can’t live like this anymore!”
Lucas pushed her until her tear-stained face looked him in the eyes again. “What do you want, Sarah? What do you want?”
Always that question. He kept asking her that, because she never told him the truth.
Clarity struck her. Above his head, the blue sky shone so brightly that not even the few clouds around could mar the translucent sheen of a beautiful day. What would it be like to fly away? To spread her broken wings and leave all of this behind? To embrace a new life being whoever she wanted to be? A healthier version of herself? Not this Angel bullshit anymore. She wanted the wings of an angel, but she was tired of falling from grace. Every time she fell, she took another man down with her.
She didn’t want to do that to Lucas. She wanted him to be happy and to have everything he wanted, even if that meant giving her up.
“I want to fly away,” she said. “I want to forget all of this has ever happened. I want to put it behind me.”
He kissed her forehead, his hands so firm against her cheeks that she felt every ounce of his strength fueling this hold on her. If there was any man in the world who could help her, surely, it was him. No, no, he needs to stay away from me. If I ask him for help like this, I’ll destroy him!
“What do you really want, my angel?”
Her eyes glazed over as she stared into the bright expanse of the big blue sky above them. When she spoke, her voice dissipated on the crisp air like forgotten smoke.
“Freedom.”