Chapter 9 - Past Demons
Makayla didn’t know if she’d ever slept better. She snuggled deep beneath the mountain of blankets in Dominic’s bed and knocked out for a solid twelve hours. It was around six in the morning when a low series of bangs woke her, and she found herself swimming drowsily back into consciousness.
God, she never realized how much she missed sleep until she had deprived herself of it for a few days. Her last days of studying for her exams had been a struggle - she’d hardly eaten and had more than a few nightmares where she failed everything - but it would all be worth it when she saw her scores. She knew she’d done well, and she couldn’t wait to share the news with Dominic the moment her marks were posted online. It was something she could speak to his mother about - It was the one thing she could impress the older woman with.
A louder bang brought her back to consciousness with a start, and Makayla clawed her way out from underneath the blankets to gaze around the room blearily. Dominic wasn’t in bed - she assumed he had already woken up for work - at least, until another loud noise drew her attention to the closet.
There was someone inside, methodically tossing out things so they hit the opposite wall, marring the immaculate, deep blue paint. For a long moment, Makayla stared, completely confused, until another object hurtled from the doorway to strike the wall with a loud smack - it was a single red-bottom high heel - one Dominic bought for her in Paris.
It had cost at least seven hundred dollars, and though she knew the man wasn’t wrapped up in his own riches, she couldn’t help but think it slightly irresponsible for him to fling it around like that - especially at this hour of the morning. Frowning, she rose from bed with a stretch to pad, barefoot, over to the closet and peer inside.
She narrowly escaped being hit by the second shoe of the pair, and dodged with a sound of outrage. “Dominic, what the hell are you doing?”
At the sound of her voice, he straightened, turning to stare at her with eyes so cold she felt she had been doused in ice water. “Helping you pack.” His words held not the slightest bit of warmth, and the young woman merely gaped at him in shock.
“Pack?” When she finally found her words, her voice was tentative. “Where are we going?”
“We’re not going anywhere,” he returned savagely, continuing to toss her things out of the closet. “You’re going back to California for the holidays. For good, I think.”
Makayla felt as if the floor had been yanked from beneath her. A sour taste rose in her mouth as her heart stumbled in her chest. Going home? Why on earth would he want her to go home? Just the previous night he had carried her to bed and stroked her hair as she fell asleep? What was going on?
“Dominic...I don’t understand.” She tried, trying to slow her racing heart. “If I’ve done something to upset you…”
He barked a harsh laugh that made her flinch. “Oh, it’s not what you’ve done.” He finally marched out of the closet to face her directly, six and a half feet of pure, solid rage. Makayla shrank back from him, her mouth dry in shock. “It’s what you were planning to do.” With absolutely no warning, he thrust a manila folder at her. Though Makayla scrambled to catch it, it slipped through her fingers and hit the floor, strewing its contents all over the floor. She immediately dropped to her knees to try and gather them up, only to freeze as her eyes landed on a yellow printed form.
It was her arrest record.
All at once, her body went cold. Slowly, she picked up the paper between two fingers, as if it would bite her. “Where did you get this?” She could hardly draw the breath to speak.
“Surprised?” Dom all but whispered, his voice dangerously soft. “I was.”
“Dominic…”
No. No, no no...this couldn’t be happening. “How long was the longest you ever made it?” The man above her asked silkily, his eyes glittering in judgmental rage. “Three months? So how much longer did I have before you started skimming off the top? Before you quit the innocent act and showed your true colors?”
Every word he spoke was like a dagger piercing her heart agonizingly. “Dominic, please…” She tried, drawing all the papers beneath her together as she looked over them in horror. It was like a reel of her sordid past in flagrant color - every petty crime she’d ever committed - a compendium of her pain and regret.
This was what she always ran from - what she was terrified would catch up with her and bring memories reeling back to the surface. “Let me explain.” But she didn’t know if she could. If she had the strength to tell him when he was staring at her as if she were something on the bottom of his shoe.
“You don’t need to explain anything.” He replied darkly, kicking open a nearby suitcase to drop a handful of her things into it. “All you need to do is get out.”
She felt tears welling up in her eyes as her breathing increased. Images swirled beneath her eyelids as she remembered the pain she had endured - the screaming, the threats and the constant fear for her own safety. She thought all of that was over - and now she realized how naive she’d been.
“Oh don’t.” Dominic snarled, refusing to look at her. “Don’t fucking start. How much have you already gotten out of me? I’d say you did pretty good, didn’t you? You can sell all the clothes and shoes off - that should tide you over until you find your next mark.
Mark.
Makayla stumbled to her feet and across the room until she could cling to the edge of the bed. She felt as if she was going to be sick. As if, any moment, her father’s large hand would come hurtling down and the pain would bloom, relentless and blinding….
When Dominic’s arms wrapped in a steel like grip around her waist, her reaction was immediate. She screamed, struggling and panicking in an attempt to get away from him. She could let him hurt her. She wouldn’t let him hurt her. “Don’t touch me!” She shrieked, near hysterical. “Don’t fucking touch me!”
“Fuck, Makayla! Stop it! Stop fucking around, it’s over!”
She scratched and shoved at him, doing everything in her power to get out of his grip. He was touching her - she couldn’t stand him touching her!
Dominic’s arms clamped around her like a vice, and the next thing she knew she was being carried down the main hall of the penthouse. She dimly saw Brett and Sophia’s horrified faces as they watched Dominic manhandle her all the way to the elevator before dumping her on the floor before it. Within moments, he returned to his bedroom and brought two suitcases, coming back to her as the elevator doors dinged open.
By now, Makayla was almost hyperventilating. Her vision had blurred and every breath was an effort.
Dominic, however, was monolithic in his rage. He forced her into the elevator, and her bags along with her before glaring down at her trembling form. “I assume you can handle a ticket back to where you came from - it should be a nice change, paying for something yourself, for once.”
And then, the elevator doors shut, and she was travelling down, down into an abyss of sorrow
and pain.
Her past had come back.
It always came back.
Maybe it was time for her to accept that, and stop running from it.
Her parents, Makayla realized dismally, had always been right. She would never amount to anything. All her struggles had been for nothing - all she was good for was getting them what they needed.
God knew she couldn’t even do that for herself.
**
Melody had called out of work for the third day in a row.
She sat, silently, in the living room, her breakfast untouched, as the clock on the wall ticked away the seconds.
She wanted, with every fiber of her being, to go to Makayla’s room. To force her way inside and snap her out of the haze she’d been in ever since she returned, but after several attempts over the past few days, she was beginning to get worried.
No, that was a lie.
She’d been worried since she heard Makayla’s voice on the other end of the line - all the way from New York.
“I’m sorry, Melody, but I need a favor.” There was nothing especially out of the ordinary about the words - unless you counted the fact that Melody could count the number of times Makayla had asked her for favors on one hand. It was how she said the words - they were hollow and emotionless - and she could barely heard Makayla in them.
She had been terrified almost immediately, and when her friend told her that she needed a ticket back to California, Melody had almost fucked up her credit card with the speed with which she’d purchased the damn thing. She got to the airport an hour early and waited with bated breath to receive her friend, but the woman who met her at the welcome gate wasn’t the Makayla she remembered.
She had dark circles under her eyes and looked as if she hadn’t slept in weeks. She barely spoke, and when she did, there was little to no emotion in her voice.
Makayla - the strong, proud, stubborn woman she knew was completely gone. She operated like a robot -finding not the slightest bit of pleasure in the life she led. There were no more girl’s nights, no more movies and laughter. After Makayla secured both of her jobs at the diner and medical center, she took every shift she could get, and when she was home, she sequestered herself in her room, shutting everyone and everything out.
Melody was unsettled, to say the very least. She had to wonder what the hell had happened that the young woman had walked away from everything in New York. The last time she talked to her, Makayla sounded happier than she ever had. Vibrant and in love with life.
And most probably, Melody soon realized, in love with Dominic West. It was the most probable explanation for Makayla’s sudden change - for the way she smiled and laughed and even talked sexy things with Melody like she had never been averse to them…
But she did none of that now. Now, she barely functioned. If she didn’t need it, Makayla didn’t engage.
Taking a deep breath, Melody prepared herself to face her friend again. Kayla had a shift at the medical center that evening, so if it she was going to talk to her, it was going to have to be now or never. Tentatively, she knocked at Makayla’s door. “Kayla? Are you awake? I just want to talk.”
There was no answer.
Her mouth turning downward, Melody grasped the doorknob and pushed, revealing the darkness in which Kayla sat. She was settled on the edge of her bed, unmoving, as she stared at the wall.
Her body was taut and trembling, and Melody rushed to her in shock. “Kayla!” When she tried to put her hands around her friend, Makayla jerked away, her expression hard.
“Don’t!”
Melody’s mouth dropped open. While she knew Kayla tended to be pretty hands-off with other people, she hadn’t flinched away from her since the very first months they’d known one another.
This couldn’t be good.
Carefully, she sat on the edge of the bed, a good foot away from the young woman. “Kayla, I’m sorry. I just came to check on you.”
“I’m fine.” That same emotionless, cool voice that made Melody’s insides curdle.
“I think it’s pretty obvious that you’re not fine,” Melody replied, her tone cautiously neutral. “You barely even come out of your room. You’re not eating.” A beat thick with tension passed between them. “Makayla, talk to me. What happened in New York?”
When at least five minutes of quiet passed, Melody was almost certain that her friend wasn’t going to talk - but then, Makayla surprised her.
“He threw me out.”
Melody inhaled sharply, her eyes wide with shock. “He what?”
“He knows, Melody.” For the first time since she’d returned home, Makayla’s voice cracked with emotion. “He knows, and he doesn’t want me anywhere near him. He sent me away and...he was right, wasn’t he?”
“Oh honey…” Horrified, Melody reached for her again without thinking. This time, when Makayla reacted, it wasn’t nearly as violent. She stiffened in the blonde’s arms a moment before her trembling intensified. “No. No, he wasn’t right. That asshole doesn’t know anything about you.”
“But he does.” Kayla returned on a whisper heavy with pain. “He’s knows everything I did...everything they made me do…”
“That wasn’t you.” Melody returned fiercely. “You’ve paid for their mistakes enough. All that’s behind you now.”
Slowly, Kayla shook her head and Melody felt her own throat thicken as tears pricked at her eyes. Wordlessly, she pulled Kayla’s curly head against her bosom, feeling the hot moisture of her tears as she finally let them come. “I thought…” Makayla’s breath hitched as she clung to Melody as if struggling physically against her grief, “I thought I loved him.”
Oh God.
Melody held her close, her heart breaking for her friend. No one deserved pain like this, but Makayla deserved it least of all.
As she held her friend protectively close, her expression hardened. If West didn’t want her, that was fine. He sure as hell didn’t deserve her. But Melody would be damned if he got out of this before she got a piece of him.
**
Work was easy now. The routines were easy now, and losing himself in them was even easier.
Dominic didn’t have to worry about who was waiting for him at home, he didn’t have to worry about pleasing anyone but himself, and he had his solitude back.
It was a breath of fresh air.
And God knew he needed fresh air, because sometimes it felt like he could hardly fucking breathe.
He tried drinking more water, getting more sleep - taking longer lunch breaks - but nothing seemed to work. Ultimately, Dominic ended up booking a ticket to go home and spend the holidays with his mother, if for nothing else than the fact that the city suddenly seemed to be pressing in on him.
He couldn’t go anywhere without being reminded of her.
Had she really infiltrated his life to such an extent? Sure, she’d lived with him. They’d travelled together and she shared his bed...but Dominic was certain that if he concentrated on his business - as he should have from the very beginning - he could forget all that.
Even if it took him the rest of his life, he was determined to forget it.
After about two weeks, all his attempts got him were constant headaches and a temperament that earned him the avoidance of both Brett and Sophia whenever he was home. As a result, Dominic started spending more and more time on the frigid streets.
Christmas drew nearer and nearer, and as lights and revelry lit up the city, he found none of it moved him. Not that he was usually gung ho about the holidays, but now, he was only reminded how excited Makayla had been over the prospect of choosing a real Christmas tree. She told him she’d ever only had a dinky plastic one, and had always wondered what it would be like to shop for a real evergreen.
But that had been a lie.
It had all been a lie.
All she wanted was for him to spend his money on her - and he’d believed every shit story she fed him. He’d lapped it up like a goddamned fool, and thinking about it hurt.
Dominic wouldn’t admit it to anyone but himself, but sometimes he almost felt ill. There was an empty, dull ache in his chest that wouldn’t seem to go away, and when he thought about Makayla, the pain only intensified.
He remembered the shocked look on her face when he had confronted her with her own treachery, how she had trembled and begged him to believe her.
She had screamed like an animal when he put her out - and, for a split second, Dominic had been scared that he’d actually hurt her. The raw panic in her expression struck a chord with him, and he’d almost lost his nerve.
Almost.
Lucky for him, he had stood firm. He always stood firm - and he always recovered from missteps. At the end of the day, that’s all Makayla was: a misstep.
When he told Stephen this, however, the man seemed slightly skeptical. “I dunno, man. You seem pretty torn up over her.”
Dominic bristled, clutching his wine glass so hard that it cracked, drawing a thin line of blood against his palm. “I could give two shits about her. It’s over - and, as far as I’m concerned, I dodged a bullet.”
Stephen’s brow knitted together. “If you say so.”
“I do,” Dominic snapped defensively, before changing the subject abruptly. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure,” Stephen replied dryly. “How about why you’re so pissed, if you don’t care?”
“Because,” Dominic growled, his face flush with anger, “I spent money on her. Thousands upon thousands of dollars. I played right into her trap.”
“Is that it?” Stephen returned carefully. “No offense, Dom, but even millions of dollars is a drop in the bucket for you. It’s just money. It could have been a hell of a lot worse.”
Dom glared at him for a long moment before he rose to his feet and drained the rest of his wine in one gulp. He plucked a few bills from his wallet and dropped them on the table before leaving without a word.
He didn’t want to talk about this. He wouldn’t talk about it, damn it, and no one could make him. He was Dominic West - he always had, and always would make his own rules. And he did that best with fewer distractions.
That night, he slept fitfully, and the next morning, Brett and Sophie both stayed well out of his way as he went through his morning routine. He managed to get to the office without uttering a word, only to find that his first appointment was already waiting for him. He barely glanced at Miranda as he ordered her to send him in.
“Her, sir.” At the correction, Dominic merely glared at her before stalking into his office. It seemed everyone was out for his blood these days.
To his surprise, the woman was already sitting in his office.
She was a leggy blonde in a pinstripe suit, and as he settled at his desk, he gave her a good once over, sizing her up. She was the manager of the bank that he was contemplating moving a good deal of his holdings to - but in the mood he was, she would have to impress him royally to earn his business.
“Good Morning, Miss-?” He cursed inwardly when he realized he’d been too pissed at Miranda to remember to ask for her name.
“Thompson,” she responded promptly, fixing him with intense blue eyes. “Melody Thompson.” She held out her card and he took it to scan absently.
Almost immediately, he frowned. The information proclaimed her the owner of an art gallery, not a bank manager. “I’m sorry, Miss Thompson. I believe there’s been a mistake.”
“No mistake.” She returned evenly, still eying him strangely. For a long beat, a tense silence passed between them, and when Dominic finally spoke, his tone was irate.
“You aren’t my nine o’clock.”
Melody merely smirked humorlessly. “I am now.”
He reached for the phone on his desk instantly. “Not when I call security.”
To his surprise, the woman didn’t cringe at the threat. Instead, she just laughed bitterly, shaking her head.
“Wow, you really are an asshole. I suppose I shouldn’t be that shocked. Any guy that manhandles a woman can’t be very gentlemanly.”
Almost immediately, Dominic stiffened, his blood running cold. “Who sent you here?”
“No one sent me,” She replied primly. “I came to return something to you.” With that, she opened the briefcase at her feet and extracted what appeared to be a check, laying it on his desk. It was made out in the amount of two hundred and forty thousand dollars.
His scowl only deepened. He didn’t like where this was going. “What the hell is this?”
“The money I got for reselling all the stuff you bought Kayla.” Dominic felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach, and for a moment, all he could do was gape. “Most of it had the tags still on it - pricy shit. You’ve got some seriously good taste.”
“I don’t want this,” he hissed, shoving the check off his desk as if he couldn’t stand to touch it. “I don’t want anything from her.”
“You fucking liar.” All at once, Melody had risen from her chair, her expression twisting into pure fury as she glared down at him. She bent to pick up the check before tossing it at him so it fluttered onto his desk once more. “Take it. Since your precious money is more important to you than anything else, I figure it will help you sleep better tonight.”
“I assume you’re a friend of hers.” Dominic deadpanned. “She sent you here to make herself feel better. Is this,” he raised the check between his two fingers to gaze scathingly up at her, “Even going to clear? Or has she spent all of it already.”
“How dare you,” Melody spat, her face deep red. “You think you know so much when you don’t know shit.”
“I know that she lied to me.” He couldn’t keep from raising his voice to match her tone now. “That she planned on milking me of every cent she could get and then moving onto her next goddamned mark when she was finished. Am I supposed to forgive her for that? For using people? For using me!?”
In response, Melody opened her briefcase once more, taking out a thin binder to slam on his desk so hard his laptop rattled against the gleaming mahogany wood. Blazoned across the top of the binder were the words Trembley Medical Rehabilitation Center. “Look at this.” The blonde demanded, her tone hard. “Look at it.”
He should have shoved it away, but there was something desperate behind the rage in the blonde’s eyes - something that drew his hand forward to take the binder from her. With a brief glare at her, he flipped it open and found Makayla’s name written across the top.
For a moment, he expected another criminal file - but his eyes widened when he realized that it was an admissions record.
Makayla Renee Price had been admitted to the children’s psychiatric ward in Trembley, California no less than ten times in her youth. “What the hell is this?” He breathed softly.
“She told me you found her criminal record.” Melody returned, her tone softer now. “I’m sure it told you about all the times she was put up for adoption or in foster care. That her mom was always so drugged up she could barely tell up from down and that her dad was a killer. But it glosses over the finer details. Like why she was taken out of the home in the first place.”
Slowly, Dominic began to flip through the folder. Kayla had been admitted to the hospital for the first time with third degree burns under her neck and over her shoulder - where her parents had apparently spilled boiling water on her. The event was ruled an accident.
The second time was when she was four. Her arm was broken and they had never discovered the cause, but when the little girl was discharged to her father, she went home in tears.
The third time was just after she’d been caught for stealing the first time. When the center got her, Makayla was nearly catatonic, covered from head to toe in bruises and barely walking.
And it only got worse from there.
Every time the young woman was arrested or charged with a crime seemed to correspond to an admittance to the hospital. At first, the injuries were just physical, but as she entered her teen years, depression and tactile sensitivity entered the mix - she felt any and all pain and pleasure with ten times more acuity than the average person, and doctors speculated that the disorder sprang up from years of physical and mental abuse.
Eventually, her sensitivity got so bad that she barely allowed anyone to touch her - but that didn’t stop her from being admitted to the hospital twice more before she was seventeen. She was brought in handcuffs each time, and refused to answer any questions posed to her about the horrifying injuries she had treated.
“You want to know why she didn’t talk?” When Dominic finally raised his head to find Melody staring down at his stiff form, her eyes glistening with something that looked horribly like tears, “Because she was scared. All those times she stole - whether from strangers or foster families - it was because her parents made her. Because they threatened to beat her within an inch of her life if she didn’t help them feed their vices and they always, always fucking delivered.” Melody drew in a shuddering breath before she sank back into the chair in front of him. “Did her record say anything about how she got into a private high school on scholarships while they were torturing her? That she maintained a four point oh grade point average and that was what finally, finally allowed her to escape? Did it tell you that the first time I hugged her, she cried? She fucking cried?”
Dominic merely stared at Melody, horrified.
Jesus fucking Christ.
This was what she’d been hiding from him. This was why Makayla never told him the complete truth - because she knew how shocked and sickened he would be by what she’d endured. And she wasn’t wrong.
Every time he’d touched her, traced his hand over minute scars that pockmarked her skin, kissed her so she sighed and nestled against him, he was unraveling the map of her past...a past where every touch meant agony, and she had been denied the love and affection of the two people she needed most.
And now, he’d denied her.
He’d seen her criminal record, lost his mind, and thrown her out of his life.
Fucking Jesus, he’d literally thrown her….carried her, screaming, down the hall…
With an agonized groan, Dominic buried his head in his hands. He was a monster. A goddamned monster.
When she had struggled - when she begged him to believe her, he had been stubborn and foolish and now...now…
“Where is she?” He finally managed in a hoarse tone, raising his head.
Melody merely glared at him, long and hard. “Why does it matter?”
“What the hell do you mean ‘why does it matter’?” He barked, his tone hard. “Because I hurt her! All she ever did was give herself to me and I fucking hurt her. I need to make it right!”
“And how will you do that?” The blonde demanded, her gaze fiercely protective. “Tell me that, Mr. West. Do you even know how to fix what you’ve broken?”
He had no idea.
But Dominic knew he would never forgive himself if he didn’t try.
The last few weeks had been hell for him - a hell of trying to convince himself that he didn’t miss everything from her laugh to the way she smacked him when he embarrassed her. Every time he walked into his study, he expected to see her sitting there, pouring over her medical books, and his bed felt empty without her at night.
“I’m not letting you go to her.” His gaze snapped to Melody’s once more, incensed. “Not until you can convince me that you will never, ever let her be hurt again. She deserves at least that much.”
He was a bastard, he knew that. A man so wrapped up in his own success that he saw everything as a threat. Makayla had shown him how to let someone else in - and the idea that he might lose that forever was enough to humble him beyond measure.
Dominic was willing to do anything to get her back.
Anything.
Including the one thing he promised himself he’d never do.