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“What’s wrong with you?” I ask. “Stop creeping around his place like a lovelorn ghost. It’s pathetic.”
Turning, I march back to the kitchen, drop in a pod, and make an espresso. I wander to the outdoor balcony when I see his computer sitting on the coffee table. I already know there’s nothing on it because I’ve used it to go online. I check it again anyway.
Nothing.
Not even an open Google tab. And when I go to the search history, it’s just the sites I looked up… news feeds and a gossip site.
I grab my phone, head outside, and call Dad. Voicemail.
Hmm. “Maybe he’s working.”
Usually he answers my calls, but there are days when he doesn’t. I call Grant next. Voicemail again. I don’t know why that makes me uneasy, but it does. Usually, at least one of them will pick up. Next, I try Amelia. I clench my phone tight in my hand. No answer.
She should be on her way to school.
So many frenzied thoughts grab hold of my mind. I try to focus on something other than my family being MIA. Anything, literally anything except last night. I scrub a hand down the front of my face. No, dammit, I don’t want to think about last night. The humiliation of Malone’s threat to use me as a party favor and I—I believe that he wasn’t going to. I mean, I do now. But it still wrecked me. Made me want to commit grievous acts of violence against him.
I pace the length of the balcony, more memories bubbling up right beneath the surface of my sanity. Him tying me up and fucking me, whipping me, and then fucking me again. The first time with the vibrator, the last time with his cock.
Thinking about how insane, how almost spiritual and mind-bending the whole thing was is too much. I cried. I fucking cried. I still don’t even know why.
And it still burns shame deep and hot into me.
I gulp down the rest of my espresso and hurry back inside as if I can escape those thoughts lingering on the balcony. They still haunt me as I walk toward my bedroom.
Something catches my eye before I make it there.
The door he normally keeps locked is open a crack.
I stop and push it open.
There are parts of a watch, a set of small tools, and a notebook on the desk.
He also has a second laptop and an iPad. The iPad’s off, and it looks like he’s working out the client list, or trying to, judging by the scribble on the open notebook page.
Peering at the computer screen, I see feeds of the dock, Sugar Hill, Uncle Grant’s building, and the main office.
I frown, my stomach clenching as bile starts to churn hot and fierce.
With a shaking hand, I pick up the notebook. A folded page falls out. I open it, and the bile races up, scorching a path to my mouth.
The threats. And dates.
Normally, I’d put it down to Malone recording them so he can work out when they were sent and maybe who sent them.
Except… they don’t correspond. And…
I want to throw up.
There are ones that I know haven’t happened. Against Grant, against Dad, and against my life.
Planned threats.
“Oh. My. God. He’s behind them. He fucking made these threats.”
The room spins and I stagger, grabbing the edge of the desk to keep from falling.
The notebook falls from my fingertips. My pulse jumps into my throat, hammering the side of my throat. I practically run out of the room.
