CHAPTER ONE
Lucas
The look on her face makes me feel sick.
I shouldn’t have said it.
I’m glad I said it.
Maybe now she’ll go.
We’re standing in my living room, between the couch and the granite countertop that divides the kitchen from the den. I’ve got my jeans on, but my chest is bare. I slide my shirt over my head to get away from her wide eyes.
When I look at her again, she is absolutely still. Her eyes, stretched wide a few moments ago, are honed on me. Her mouth is neither twisted nor open. Her expression is defined by…lack of. It’s like someone pressed pause on Leah. She doesn’t even seem to be breathing.
Her mouth opens on slow motion, and words rise up and out her throat. “Is mother…alive?” That last word sounds like glass about to crack.
I stand there for a second, weighted with tension, while I calculate the pros and cons of lying to her. Mother is dead. I cracked her neck. Leah knows she’s dead—the whole damn country knows—but Leah fears her. And when fear is involved, the lines of reality get blurry.
If I tell Leah mother is alive, she might get the hell away from her. From me.
I work to catch my breath. My chest feels so right, I’m worried I’ll pass out. In the midst of my struggle, clarity comes to me. I can’t lie to Leah. Not about Mother. I need her to go, but I can’t stand the thought of Leah scared. And she would definitely be scared if she thought Mother was alive, and I was going to see her.
I suck another breath back. “No.”
She shakes her head, like she’s confused. Her arms are folded under her breasts. Her brows are drawn together. “But you’re going to her— to that house?”
I look away from her accusing eyes and wonder how I should spin this. How I can make her think—how I can let her know—how fucked up I am. How I can make her want to get the fuck away from me without scaring her too badly in the process. I walk over to a coat closet behind the couch. I can feel her eyes burn through me as I pull my boots out. Then I sit down on the couch to put them on. I’m not looking at her, but I can feel her shadowing me. There are so many things I could tell her—things that might make her go—but I can’t commit to any of them, so I give her a pared-down version of the truth.
“It’s my house now. I own it.”
“You bought that place?” She sounds astonished. Worried.
Good.
“It was an auction,” I say flatly. Silence yawns around us. I finish tying the laces of the first boot.
“Why would you want it?”
I slide the second boot on my boot and reach my gaze up to meet hers. “I like to go there sometimes.”
Her eyes are wide; her face is tightened by concern. “What do you do there?”
Again, I contemplate lying. I could tell her I fuck women there, in Mother’s bed. I could tell her I go there to fast and pray. I could tell her I go there to sleep inside her bedroom. She’s seen my place here—how it looks like Mother’s house. Leah must already think I’m a few coins short of a dollar. This could be the tipping point for her.
Tying the laces of the second boot, I scowl up at her. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“Do I?” Her mouth is slightly agape, her head bent as she stares down at me.
I finish tying and rise up to my full height. I’m surprised to find that I’m about a foot taller than she is. I didn’t know that. I can count the hours I’ve spent in Leah’s presence, face-to-face, on my fingers.
Staring at her face makes my pulse pound. Her lips…I want to trail a finger over them. “That house belongs to me.” After all, I was there longer than any of the others. Two full years longer than the next captive, a girl Mother named Snow White. “You don’t know who I am, do you Leah? I mean who I really am. Did the media ever find out? Did you ever put the pieces together?”
She didn’t. I know she didn’t. If she had, we would be having a much different conversation. She wouldn’t be signing up to fuck me, that’s for sure.
But I want to taunt her with this. I want to emphasize how little Leah really knows me. Make her feel foolish. Maybe even make her feel a little scared.
She shakes her head. I watch as interest hones her face. “You said in there your name is Lucas.”
That was a mistake. She doesn’t need to know who I am. There’s no point. But there is a bomb that I can drop. One to nudge her just a little bit off kilter. “I was there for five years. Just me and Mother for the first two years. So in my mind, the place is mine.”
I watch her jaw drop open. “You were...you were there for how long?”