The sun is just breaking the horizon when I wake. I feel like I can’t breathe, like there’s a rope getting tighter and tighter around my neck. It seems like the past has swept right into the present, and like a tidal wave, it’s about to wash everything away.

Me with it.

Jones wasn’t good. Kill had asked him about Callahan and considering the state he was in, I feel like it set him back eight years. That’s how it’s always been with Jones. He’s too broken to ever be fixed. I know that. I’ve known it a long time.

Kill asking me that question in the car, he had no right. It’s not his to know. Why can’t he accept that I can’t tell him?

I should never have asked him for help. That was a mistake. Because I fully believe he will find out. And what will happen then?

Shame begins to spread its dark shadow through me. I force a deep breath in, then out. I look up to the canopy over my borrowed bed, remembering how he’d filmed me. How he could be watching me now. I push the covers off and stand on the bed, but the canopy is too high to reach. I climb down, go into the closet to look for something I can use to bring it down. To break the camera he uses to spy on me. I find nothing.

Back in the bedroom, I look around until my gaze falls on the lamp on the nightstand. I remove the shade and pick up the long, thin body. The base makes it heavier than I expect, but I unplug it and climb back up on the bed to start poking at the folded cloth. Dust makes me sneeze and squint my eyes but eventually, metal clangs on metal and I locate it. Drawing my arm back, I swing hard. It takes two times but soon, pieces of the camera are lying on the bed. I stumble off, still not satisfied until I smash it to bits, until I’m out of breath.

I stand back and drop the lamp, wipe off my hands, then walk into the bathroom, have a shower, get dressed and pull my hair into a ponytail, pinning the flyaway strands back. I don’t bother to conceal the evidence of what I’ve done. I don’t care.

It’s still early when I step into the hallway. I glance down the hall at his room, wonder if he’s there. At the bottom of the stairs, I look at his study door. There’s no one around so I go to it, wiggle the handle. He’s more than peeking into my life so why not? Why shouldn’t I peek into his? But it’s locked.

As I near the kitchen, I smell coffee and hear talking. I push the swinging door open to find Helen and one of the girls who’d served us dinner the first night preparing some food.

“Good morning,” I say.

“Good morning. You’re up early.”

I give her a broad, unnatural smile, feeling almost manic. I then walk to the coffee machine, pick up a cup and push some buttons. Helen comes over and takes the cup from my hand to push the right button.

“Thank you,” I say. When the coffee’s ready, I take my mug. “Is that bacon?” I ask, smelling it as the girl lays slices into a pan.

“Yes, shall I make you some?”

“Yes, please. And scrambled eggs. I’m starving this morning.”

“Right away. Go and have a seat and I’ll bring—”

“I’ll wait here. Thanks.” I sip my coffee.

Helen looks at me like she’s surprised, then resumes her work. “Suit yourself.”

“Is Kill here?”

“No, he left last night.”

“Did he say when he’d be back?”

“No, dear.”

Perfect. I sip my coffee while the girl scrambles two eggs next to the frying bacon. When it’s ready, I take the plate from the tray Helen is preparing.

“I’ll eat in the library.” I turn to leave. “Oh, and Helen, my room needs to be cleaned up. I made a bit of a mess, I’m afraid.” I want her kept busy because I have a plan.

“I’ll go up there in about fifteen minutes.”

“Thank you.” I walk out of the kitchen and to the library where I eat my breakfast with the door open, and, like clockwork, I hear Helen climb the stairs exactly fifteen minutes later.

Leaving my empty dish in the library, I pull two pins out of my hair and head to Kill’s study.

One thing living in Judge Callahan’s house taught me and my brother was how to pick a lock. It was the only way we’d get to see each other some days.

I’m bending one of the hair pins as I glance around to make sure no one is near, although at this point I almost don’t care. I take hold of the doorknob, squat down so I’m at eye level and stick the bent hairpin into it. Keeping pressure on this one, I begin to test the pins with the other. I’m out of practice, but this shouldn’t be too hard. When I was here the other night, I saw it was a simple lock.

The vacuum cleaner goes on upstairs as I work my way through the pins and, not ten minutes later, the final one clicks and I can turn the doorknob. Exhaling a sigh of relief, I straighten and push the door open, just as I hear another door open behind me.

A chill runs up my spine and I don’t have to turn around to know it’s him. I feel him, like I do whenever he enters a room. He uses up too much space, hogs too much oxygen.

He takes two steps. Stops. Closes the door. I hear his keys jangle as he puts them in his pocket.

The vacuum cleaner switches off and Kill moves, footsteps approaching me. He doesn’t speak, not at first. Instead, he comes up close behind me, closes his hand over mine which is still on the doorknob. Leans his body against mine, breathes against my neck before walking me into his study, plastering my back against the door as he pushes it closed. He takes my wrists, draws my arms over my head, his eyes dark as they roam over my face.

I swallow. It’s that look in his eyes, the wild one. The one that makes me want.

“What are you looking for, sweetheart?”

“I busted your camera, you freak.”

His eyes roam my face. He grins. “Did you, now?” He presses against me. He’s hard.

I lick my lips. “Yes.”

He dips his head down, kisses my mouth and, eyes open, I kiss him back. When he draws away, I look him over. He’s still wearing what he had on yesterday.

“Where were you?”

“Thinking,” he says, kissing me again. His hands are undoing the buttons of my jeans, but he doesn’t push them off. Instead, once he’s unzipped them, he slides his hand inside and cups my sex.

I gasp.

“You’re always wet for me.”

“No.”

He draws his hand out, smears his wet fingers across my cheek, my lip. He chuckles.

“Don’t you want to know what I’ve been thinking?” he asks.

He wraps the hand that was just inside my panties through my hair, tugs my head backward so my mouth opens.

“Don’t you want to know?” he prods.

“No.”

He kisses my chin. My throat. That hollow above my collarbone. He straightens, his face suddenly harder. Too hard. I scratch at his forearm, wanting to drag him off, but he’s too strong so when I can’t turn my head, I squeeze my eyes shut.

“Look at me, Cilla.”

I shake my head as much as I can.

“You’re no coward. Look at me.”

I open my eyes, grit my teeth.

“I’ve been thinking I understand you.”

I swallow hard, suddenly panicked at his words.

“See, I recognize something inside you. I know it. I get it. You’re brave and you’re loyal, but you’re also stubborn as fuck. I scare the shit out of you yet you constantly stand up to me. I told you once I liked taking but thing is, I think you like it when I make you. You need me to make you.”

“Stop.” I try to squirm away.

“It’s the only way you can accept this. The only way you can come.”

“Is that how you justify keeping me prisoner?”

He pushes my jeans down, cups my sex again, and he’s right. I’m wet. Wet for him. I feel it. Hear it as he slips his fingers between my folds. He kisses my mouth, my cheek, brings his mouth to my ear.

“I know what you did before,” he whispers.

He’s playing with my clit and what I want to do is wrap my legs around his hips. I want him inside me. His fingers aren’t enough. But I can’t do that. I won’t.

“Stop,” I try. It’s weak though. We both know it.

“No.” He spins me around so one side of my face is pressed to the door. I hear him unzip his jeans and a moment later, he’s inside me. My eyes close in relief as I feel myself stretch to take him. He groans and when he moves, he smashes my pelvic bone against the door.

“You like this,” he says.

“Harder.”

He grips a handful of hair, lifts me up, walks me to his desk. He shoves the papers off, swiping everything to the floor as he bends me over it, as he bends over me, his cock moving inside me, his breath at my ear.

“I know about The Black Swan.”

I shudder like the room is freezing but it’s not. He can’t know about that. Can’t know it’s where I go when I need to take back control. When I start to feel things slipping away. I arch my back. “Harder.” I squeeze my eyes shut, try to turn my face so I can’t hear him, but he won’t let me. The sound of our fucking is wet, and his breath is shallow. Sweat drops from his forehead onto my closed eyelid, slides over the bridge of my nose.

“I know, Cilla. I know.”

I’m going to come soon. “You know that I fuck strangers? Good for you.”

He draws back a little, slides his hand over my belly, down to my clit. I let out a moan when he pinches it.

“Open your eyes. Look at me.”

I do, craning my neck a little. I see him at a strange angle, from the corner of one eye.

“It’s about control with you. You never let them have it. But with me, you give it up.”

“You take it. You make me.”

“You need me to make you.”

I don’t speak. What is there to say?

“Did you even come with them?”

“Fuck you.”

“No, I’m fucking you, sweetheart. Answer me.”

I’m too close and I want to let go, but I’m fighting it too. Fighting him.

“Answer me, Cilla. Did you come with them like you do with me?”

I shake my head, close my eyes.

“I didn’t think so.” He pulls out, thrusts in so hard, I cry out, but it feels good. This feels so fucking good. “More?”

I nod.

“Say it.”

I groan. I want this. I want it so badly.

“Beg for it, Cilla.”

I’m so close, and he pulls out a little, teasing me with shallow thrusts when I hesitate.

“I hate you.”

“Beg me.”

“Please.” I grunt with one of his thrusts. “Fuck me. Do it hard.” I’m gripping the edges of the desk, a supplicant. “Please.”

“Good girl,” it’s a low, deep growl and I hear the victory in his voice, but at least he stops talking. He’s fucking me harder, deeper, like he’s determined to touch the very core of me, and maybe he does. Maybe I let him. Maybe it’s okay for him to know. For someone to know.

We come at the same time. His groan is muffled in my neck and when I cry out, he closes his hand over my mouth and we’re both breathing hard and fast and when it’s over, when he’s filled me, we slide to the floor together and he holds me between his knees, our jeans half on, half off. I let my head fall into his chest. Let him hold me. We’re both sweating and panting but we don’t talk, not for a long time.

“I know it wasn’t you he touched.” His chin is on the top of my head and the moment his words register, my heart begins to pound. “I know it wasn’t you he raped.”

Slowly, so slowly, I turn my gaze up to meet his. His midnight eyes hold mine, steady, strong, in control.

“I know it was your brother. Is that why you did this? Why you take care of him? Guilt?”

I exhale. Relief softens the tension in my belly. He doesn’t know. I almost want to laugh. It’s sick, this is where I’m sick.

“I know he hurt you to force your brother to cooperate.”

The memory is so vivid, I can almost feel the physical pain of the hammer. Almost hear the sound of my scream.

Of Jones’s never-ending screams.

A tear slides down my face and I look away, unable to stand the pity in his eyes. I’m not weak. This didn’t break me. I refuse to let the fucking memory of it break me now.

Kill swipes his thumb across my cheek, wiping away the tear. “You’re not responsible, Cilla. What that pervert did, it’s on him. And if you want that pound of flesh, I’ll get it for you.”