Chapter Thirty Four
Ineededthetoilet. I needed to go so badly that my lower stomach had started to tighten more and more in the last few minutes as my bladder crushed in on itself. I’d piss myself if I wasn’t convinced my bitch of a mother had set up cameras to watch my humiliation. I wouldn’t give her anything to wield against me, anything that made me seem weak.
The distinct clang of the deadlock and bolt boomed around the room. I hadn’t thought much above the level of security before, but clearly, mommy dearest thought I was still a threat to warrant more than one lock and a guard who stood continuously outside my door. I knew this because I could hear him speak to his girlfriend on the phone from the other side of the door.
I lifted my head as Jake walked in, holding a bottle of water and some crackers. His face was still a picture of nothingness. No regret, no enjoyment. Except for his eyes. They flickered with something similar to regret, then to anger, but the bottom line was he was a picture of sheer emotionless torment.
Good, I fucking hoped this was tormenting him.
I watched him approach, opening the bottle and holding it to my lips. I glared at him, not moving to accept his offering.
“You need to drink,” he sighed, still holding the bottle to my mouth. “Don’t be stubborn, just drink it.”
I cracked my lips open, allowing the cool liquid to flow into my mouth as water leaked down my chin and landed on the bottom of the shirt. I greedily lapped it up, unsure of the last time I’d had a drink. This wasn’t like the times in the closet when I could see light from under the door frame. Time was no longer a concept when you were kept in a room with no windows, dosing in and out of consciousness thanks to a head wound. The only light was artificial and indicated no change in the day.
I panted after drinking nearly half the bottle at once, not realising how thirsty I was.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I said, my voice a hoarse whisper from lack of use. I never took my eyes off Jake’s, watching as he nodded, then walked around to unlock the padlock which bound my handcuffed wrists securely to the wooden chair. He grabbed under my armpits and hauled me upwards. I winced, the raging pressure in my head, swirling the dull nauseous pain in my stomach.
I stumbled into his side, unable to put pressure on my legs after sitting in a wooden seat with no padding bar my ass cheeks, and not to mention the gaping hole in my leg.
He wrapped an arm around my waist, holding me close to his warm body for the briefest of moments, until we moved slowly in unison. With his arms supporting my weight, we exited my dim prison and walked down a long corridor toward a toilet.
Jake opened the door and helped me inside. I stood staring at him, waiting for him to either assist me with going to the bathroom or uncuff me. He sighed and took out a pistol from his waistband, placing it on the sink behind us.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Stevie,” he said, placing his hand on my shoulder to turn me around to remove the cuffs. I closed my eyes and bit my lip, begging my body to stop reacting to the sparks his touch still created. He was the fucking enemy, and Alex was right; I was too dick-blind to fucking see any red flags.
Stepping into the cubical, I shut the door, noticing the lock was missing. I rested my forehead against the wood and scolded myself for how much I hated him calling me Stevie. No longer Stefany. I limped over to the toilet, lifting the toilet seat cover and checking the cleanliness. At least it was clean, so I didn’t need to squat over the seat to avoid touching it with my bare skin. I doubted my legs would have kept me up if I had to.
I sat for a few minutes upon finishing, needing another five minutes away from that room to get my bearings. My head hurt so fucking much it took pretty much everything I had to keep it upright and not keep my eyes closed because of the blinding white light.
I let my head lull to the side and rest on the cool tiled wall. It was nice and soothing against the constant banging in my brain.
Just five minutes here, then I’ll move.
A soft knock on the door jolted me awake. I didn’t even remember falling asleep. I got up slowly and pulled up Jake’s boxers, pausing to check my stab wound, which looked red and angry but at least it didn’t look infected. Yet.
I hissed as the material dragged over the open cut and groaned as the hem sat right on top of the gash. The seam had been nicked by the blade breaking the stitching that if I tugged hard enough...
Pain shot across my shoulders as I tugged on the fabric, the tear of material the best sound in the world as I pulled further up the leg to stop the laceration from being covered. I flushed the toilet and opened the door.
I walked over to the sink, noticing Jake was now holding his gun in his hand, not quite aimed at me but a warning he’d use it if needed.
I washed my hands and splashed the cold water on my face. Red filled the basin, and I looked at the cut across my eyebrow oozing with fresh blood. Crusty blood rimmed both nostrils and a purple bruise had formed on my cheekbone.
I looked like shit.
Slowly, I dabbed my face with a paper hand towel, my movements lethargic and slow as my brain wanted to shut down and reboot. From the mirror, Jake’s eyes dropped down the length of my body, taking in my exposed injury and making his jaw tick.
“Did you sleep with Emilia?” I whispered, the question falling from my lips without permission. Might as well rub salt into my wounds now too. Always the masochist.
“What?” Jake asked, moving closer to my back, and his warmth and scent washed over me. I wanted to lean into him, to bury my head in the crook of his neck and hide in everything that was my Jake. And that thought pissed me off.
“Have you been fucking my goddamn mother while you were fucking me?” I spat, looking directly at him in the reflection of the mirror and squeezing the wet hand towel tight in my hand.
His eyes dropped to the floor and acrid-tasting bile travelled up my throat as I spun around, pushing Jake out of the way, and vomiting into the toilet. I gripped the side of the bowl, not the most hygienic thing I’d done, but my body was shaking so violently I didn’t know how long I could keep myself standing.
I felt his presence as he entered the cubical behind me, pulled my hair away from my face, and gently rubbed my lower back the way a loving partner would when their lover was sick. It was a caring gesture, one that the man I thought I knew might have done before all this.
I stood up and pushed him back. “Don’t touch me,” I snarled and held my arms behind my back, displaying my wrists to him. “Take me back.”
We walked in silence back to my room, with him holding me once more as I tried to keep my weight off my left leg. My trip to the bathroom had stretched the skin of my thigh, which opened the scab that had started to form over the incision.
Warmth dripped down my leg, and I suppressed a shiver. Just as Jake had said, she hadn’t hit anything vital, but I needed the blood loss to stop. I was getting weaker with every drop coming from the hole, and if I wanted to escape, I needed help.
Jake shifted me against his body as he felt me slow when we approached the entrance to the room. The light was on; I guess he turned it on when he came to give me water, so I could see the room at a better advantage.
The chair I had been sitting on was indeed old. The creaks and groans in protest showed if I could throw myself to the side, the back would break and release me from my confines.
The thought was an idiotic one, since I could barely hold myself up without the help from Jake, let alone toss myself with enough momentum to break a chair.
Jake gently lowered me back onto the chair, and I whimpered as I watched more blood seep from the wound. Jake’s eyes blazed as he watched the liquid slide over my thigh and drop to the floor.
He pulled me back to my feet, eliciting a moan from me, and my head flopped forward to rest on his chest. He stilled, his heart beating fast from beneath his ribs. His hands lightly traced up the sides of my chest as he reached for the top buttons of the shirt I wore and started to undo three of them.
With the last of my strength, I pushed my head from his solid pec with wide eyes darting across his face.
“What are you doing?” I whispered breathlessly, glancing down to watch his deft fingers flick at the small plastic buttons.
“You’re losing too much blood in your leg, and I need to check your abdomen,” he stated, taking his hands off me to bring them to his belt, but without his support I swayed forward, unbalanced. “I need you to try and stand up, Stevie. I need to put a tourniquet on your leg to stem the flow, but I can’t hold you up at the same time.”
I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to ask whose fault it was that I was in such bad shape that I could barely breathe, let alone walk. I was too grateful for the help to find my snarky comeback.
“Oh, good. She’s awake.” Emilia’s voice echoed in the room, and Jake froze, carefully rebuttoning my shirt with speed. My eyes darted to my mother, dressed in a black pantsuit and her hair pulled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. “Has she said anything yet?”
Jake sat me back down, this time without the same gentleness as before, and then stepped to the side so Emilia could look at me fully. He grabbed my arms roughly and secured them to the back of the chair. My teeth ground together as Emilia stopped in front of me and pulled a cream handkerchief from the pocket of her blazer.
“Are you going to tell me where Nathanial is?” she asked. Her features were soft, like she thought that if she changed tactics, I’d tell her.
I sat motionless, refusing to answer, refusing to move. She clucked her tongue disapprovingly and pushed a finger into the hole in my leg.
I tried, but I couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped my lips. I opened my mouth and panted harshly, trying to breathe through the pain as she twisted her finger deep inside. My eyebrows drew together in a painful frown, and I held my breath.
“So you can feel pain,” she stated with triumph. “And here I was worried you were so desensitised to it all after what your father did that my only option would be to kill you.”
She removed her finger and wiped it on the cotton tissue, folded it over, and placed it back in her pocket. She looked over me to Jake.
“I have meetings set up for today that I can’t reschedule. Keep her company and get the information I need. Force it out of her, Jacob. Just don’t kill her if it can be helped.”
A couple more days passed. At least, I thought they were only a couple of days. The wound in my leg had gotten infected, and with the lack of sleep, food, drink, and antibiotics, I was not in a good place.
Emilia had tried to up her threats to get me to talk, stating the borrowed time I had remaining for my life was nearing an end. If I hadn’t grown up with a cruel father, trained by some of the most fucked up operatives working for the Jones brother’s dad, Henry, and subsequently now Will, I might have believed her.
But after her one outburst when she plunged a knife into the front of my thigh, she hadn’t touched me again. Shouted, spat, and got frustrated, sure. But never hurt me. At least not physically. Something like sepsis would kill me before she ever did.
Mentally, however, she was a sadistic bitch.
We had been left alone in the room for the past couple of hours, just mommy dearest and I, as she described in detail how Jake would go back to her after being with me and fuck her hard.
If they were just stories made up to torment me, I couldn’t tell. I was so tired and everything she said cut worse than any knife. Keeping my poker face from slipping took all of my strength.
“This whole plan took months to put into motion,” she said during one of our heart-to-heart conversations, mainly one-sided from her end. She dragged over the metal chair, the scraping of iron against ceramic tiles making my teeth ache, and she sat facing me with a nasty smile hooked on her painted lips.
My head felt heavy, like someone had their hand resting on the crown pushing against me as I tried to keep it up. My eyelids weren’t much better, wanting to stay closed at every blink, but I refused to shut them for even a second when I wasn’t alone.
“The day you met him in the café,” she started, and leaned over to her purse and pulled out a compact mirror, opening it and examining her reflection. As much as I hated the woman, she was always flawless when she came to talk to me. Never a hair out of place, or smudge of mascara under her lashes. “Jacob had been visiting the café, ensuring your little errand boy would pick up his routine on the security cameras for weeks.”
She closed the small mirror with a click and returned it to her bag. Crossing her legs, she clasped her fingers and hooked them around a knee, twirling today’s choice of heel at her ankle. Matte red or glossy pink maybe, the colour wasn’t registering as she continued to speak.
“He kept telling me how desperate you were for him. Letting him touch you each time you were together.” She sneered. “I must say, I am disappointed. My research showed you never slept with a target. I thought he would have had to try harder. But then again, I guess with the company you keep, you must only let those with tattoos and power between those skinny legs of yours.”
She dragged her eyes over my body and shook her head in disapproval.
“If you just told me where I could find your sister, I could make this all better, sweetheart. Get you the help you need.”
“Why do you want him?” I croaked, my voice scrapping up my throat so that it came out as barely a whisper.
Emilia stood, flattening the front of her tight black dress, which emphasised her curves and hugged her chest. Again, going to her bag, she pulled out a bottle of water and cracked the lid. I accepted the cold liquid when she held it out, learning when to pick my battles. Water was something I didn’t want to fight over.
“Kelso Bay is under new management, as I assume you have heard,” she said, moving the bottle away so I could breathe between sips. “The new management is, well… me.” She gestured her opposite hand to herself and raised one shoulder like she was trying to show off.
Kelso Bay meant nothing to me. As far as I knew, it was the neighbouring town and there was some stuff going on, but Will handled it. I stretched for the edge of the bottle, letting the water flow down my throat and over my cracked lips.
“Hmm, maybe you didn’t know,” she mused to herself, watching as the water soaked down my filthy shirt. “That William Jones always did have a penchant for thinking he was more important than anyone else to share details.”
Emilia took the bottle away and replaced the lid, then put it on the floor by my feet as if she was leaving it there for me to have later. My arms were tied behind my bloody back and even if I could get free, they were so numb I don’t think I would even be able to grab the bottle if I tried.
“I couldn’t handle being a mother,” she stated as plainly as if she had just told me she doesn’t like toast. “Excuse me, one child was fine. But when your father insisted that I give him one of his own and then another, well, that was not what I sighed up for when I married him.”
She returned to her chair and tucked one foot behind the other, settling down to continue the story that was the life of Emilia Matthews.
“Your grandfather chose him to be my husband, an arrangement we were both happy with. A masculine face for the front of the company when I eventually took over when your grandfather stepped down.
“Together, we would play the happy couple living in marital bliss in public, then be free to do whatever with whomever behind closed doors. A win-win for everyone.
“Until he actually fell in love with me and messed everything up. Threatened to go public with our arrangement and my father’s dealings if I didn’t give him children, and then if I didn’t play the doting housewife and so on.” Emilia twirled her hand in mid-air, indicating there were more demands my father wanted from her. “But then I realised I was made in my father’s image, and I didn’t need a man to be the face of an organisation I was entitled to. Your father hadn’t spent years dedicating his life as I had. The game in this world needed changing, and I was the one who decided to do it. Because I could.”
“You are just like your mother: manipulative, vengeful, and trying to make your way in a world you don’t belong in.”
“I am nothing like her.”
I closed my eyes, hearing the last words uttered from my father’s mouth, and I heard my own voice telling him how he was wrong. But he wasn’t wrong. Not completely.
Nausea fluttered in my stomach, a mixture of infection-induced queasiness and the realisation I was my mother’s double.
…because I was in a man’s world, playing a game dictated by rules laid out by men…
“What does this have to do with Nate?” I asked again, my breathing shallow as I listened to her story, but her words had no meaning. They were just sounds echoing around my mind that didn’t want to make sense, no matter how much I tried.
I just couldn’t pass out. Not with her here.
“I am expanding,” she said, gleefully clapping her hands together and holding them between her breasts. She paused, her smile dropping slightly at my lack of response, and rolled her eyes. “You really are a slow girl, aren’t you? I need an heir. You are so far up William’s backside that you can’t take over. Christina, the poor girl, is too soft, and since you murdered my only son, Nathaniel will need to do. Actually, works more in my favour since he is one hundred percent me.”
“You really don’t care that your perverted son is his father?” I seethed.
“No outside DNA mix. He’s a pure Matthews.”
“He’s not some fucking show dog,” I spat, the little life I had left rising to the top at the mention of my nephew, and my shoulders sagged in pain.
The room had dropped in temperature throughout the whole conversation, chilling me right to my bones. Shivers racked along my arms and legs, pulling at the dried blood surrounding the stab wound, which was raised, angry, and throbbing.
“Of course, he isn’t, you silly girl,” Emilia said in a patronising tone as she stood and gathered her items from her feet. She looped her handbag in the crook of her arm and closed the distance between us.
She patted my greasy hair once, then retracted her hand in disgust and rubbed her fingers over her palm.
Somewhere in the distance, the door opened and closed. Jake’s heavy footsteps filled the room, and then he was beside Emilia. I blinked up to look at him, my head lulling to the side in exhaustion.
“I need to go now. You’re not looking too good, so maybe it’s time you reconsider giving me what I want. Help me help you, Stefany.”
I heard murmuring between Jake and Emilia, then the clacking of heels fading into the distance, and then the opening and closing of the door again.
My eyes closed and refused to open. I just wanted to go home. Why hadn’t Alex come for me?
The back of a large, warm hand pressed to my forehead. I blinked. Jake looked pissed off and worried.
“Fuck, Stefany. You’re burning up,” he growled.
“You’re sweating and shaking at the same time,” he seethed.
“Stefany, open your eyes,” he demanded.
I wanted to, I really wanted to, so I could look into Jake’s deep ocean blue eyes, but I couldn’t. All I could think was Stefany.
He called me Stefany.