Claim Me (Stark Trilogy 2)

“They’re relying in part on the fact that I inherited his money.”

“You did?”

He nods. “My first million. It was kept out of the press. I paid Charles a good portion of that money to make sure it stayed out of the press. My enemies will argue that a million dollars is a strong motive.”

“That’s what they’re arguing? But you were just a kid.” Everyone in the world heard the story at the time it happened. Young tennis superstar Damien Stark’s coach committed suicide by leaping to his death from a Munich-based tennis center. “And you were already making money.”

“Most people with money want more.”

“It’s still a ridiculous argument,” I say. “He probably left you the money for the same reason he killed himself. He felt guilty for being an abusive slimebag.”

“I’m not sure Richter ever felt a moment of guilt in his life,” Damien says. “At any rate, I believe they’re putting more stock in the witness than into the money.”

“So who is this witness?”

“A janitor. Elias Schmidt. He actually came forward right after Richter died, but my father paid him off and he disappeared before he said anything to the police. Evelyn was around during all of that. So was Charles. There was a tell-all book in the works that was going with the hypothesis that I’d killed my coach. They got it shut down and the rumors locked up tight.”

I’m trying to follow all of this. “So the janitor was paid off, but he came back?”

“No,” Damien says. “He didn’t come back. The German police found out about him and they went to him.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” Damien says calmly. Everything about him is calm, and I realize that he’s gone into corporate mode. He’s relating the details of the transaction, but he’s not getting emotionally involved. “But I think my father tipped them.”

I am beyond shocked. “What? Why? Why on earth would he do that?”

“To punish me for not giving him any more money.”

I can’t help the shiver that rips through me. My relationship with my mom is fucked up, but this is out in the stratosphere.

The truth is, I’m scared. “But they’ll cave once you put on your defense. It’ll be fine. I mean, it will cost you a boatload of money, but you have about a billion boats of money, right? And you’re innocent, so eventually they’ll drop the charges.”

“Money helps,” Damien says, “but it’s not a guarantee. And innocent people get convicted all the time. And besides,” he adds, his voice as level as I have ever heard it. “I’m not innocent.”

24

I stare, certain that I could not possibly have heard his words right. “No. No,” I say. “Richter killed himself. He jumped off a building and committed suicide.” If I say it enough, it will have to be true.

“He fell to his death, yes.”

I stare at Damien’s face, this man that I have fallen for so completely. Does he have it within him to kill a man?

The answer is not long in coming—I know that he does. He would kill to protect me, I am certain of it. And he would kill to protect himself.

Suddenly, I no longer doubt his words. I shiver, but not because I am horrified. No, I tremble because I fear that I will lose him. That he will be convicted for protecting himself against a man who was truly a monster.

“Nikki,” he says, his voice infinitely sad. “I’m sorry. I’ll go.” He starts to get up off the bed.

“No.” The word seems ripped from me, and I grab hard to his hand and pull him back down. “Don’t leave me. You did what you had to do. What your father should have done, the bastard. I swear if I’d been around back then and knew what that son of a bitch was doing to you, I would have killed him myself.”

Slowly, Damien closes his eyes. I think that it is relief that I see on his face.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” I say gently.

Damien lets go of my hand and stands up. For a moment, I’m afraid that he is leaving anyway, but then I realize that he just needs to move. He walks around the bed, then pauses in front of the Monet. Haystacks in a field and the splendid colors of sunset.

Sunset.

That is our safeword. The word that Damien told me to pick that very first night that I was his. Mine to use if he went too far.

I look at him, and I hope that he will not invoke the word now. I know that it must be hard to go back, to tell me what happened that night. But I need to hear it. More, I need for Damien to tell me. And I fervently hope that the secrets he is so used to keeping won’t tie his tongue now.

“Damien?”

He doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t even move. But I hear his voice, low and steady. “It started when I was nine. The touching. The threats. I won’t tell you the details—I don’t want those memories in my head, much less in yours. But I will tell you it was horrible. I hated him. I hated my father. And I hated myself. Not because I was ashamed—I was never ashamed. But because I had no power to stop him.” He turns to me. “I learned how important power is. It’s the only thing that can truly protect you, and back then, I had none.”

I barely nod, afraid that if I speak or react too much, he will stop talking.

“It went on for years. I grew bigger and stronger, but he was a huge man, and as I got older he added more threats to his repertoire. He had photographs. And there were—” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “There were other things that he threatened.”

“What changed?” I say gently. I don’t want him to relive all those years. I just want to know what happened the night that Richter died.

“All that time he never—he never raped me.” His voice is so low and monotone that it gives me chills. “When I was fourteen, we were in Germany at a tennis center in Munich. I went up to the courts on the roof one night—I don’t remember why. I couldn’t sleep, I was antsy. Whatever. He came up, too. He’d been drinking. I could smell it on him. I tried to go back down, and he blocked me. He tried—for the first time he tried to take his sick games further.” Damien meets my eyes. “I didn’t let him.”

“You pushed him off the roof?” I can barely hear through the pounding of my pulse in my ears.

“No,” he says.

I’m confused. “What happened?”

“We fought,” he says. “I hit him with my racquet. He grabbed it out of my hands. Smacked me across the back of my head with it—I’m lucky the wound wasn’t visible, or the police might have been more interested in me at the time. But it was a nasty fight—and we were at the edge of the roof, an area without the fencing that was by the courts to keep stray balls from going over. I don’t remember exactly what happened. He lunged for me, and I got a good shove in. He stumbled backward and then tripped over something, I’m still not sure what. He was drunk, so maybe it was his own two feet. He went over, but he managed to grab the ledge. He was hanging there, and I was frozen to the spot. I couldn’t move. He called for me to help him.”