“Troy?” I stand quickly and grab his hand. “What are you doing here? Were you taken too?” I look behind him to see if anyone else is there. For a slight second, I hope he’s here to help us. It’s short-lived as he shoves me off and I lose my footing, crumpling to the ground.
“Why the fuck is she here?”
What? This can’t be right. Caroline was the one to set all this up. She was the one who sent Hunter looking for him. Right?My head is still fuzzy from being hit, so it’s hard to process what’s happening right now.
“She saw us taking the kid. You said leave no witnesses,” a guy says from outside the room. I can’t remember if he’s the one who hit me or not, but he must have been there.
“That means kill her, not bring her, you idiot.” He rolls his eyes, then grins when he hears the man say, “Sorry, boss.”
“Boss?” I snarl at the term as rage takes hold within me. “You’rethe one doing this? Taking these kids?” I look at all of them, scared out of their little minds. My throat closes with emotion. This man was meant to protect them. To see that they all get a fair shot in the world. Not find the weakest and easiest to grab. “Why?” It’s said on a breath barely above a whisper, but I think he was waiting for me to ask. He had to know I would.
“Why? Because I can. Because I’m doing the world a fucking service. Don’t sit there and say you wouldn’t want a few of these troublemakers out of your life.”
I flinch at the way he describes them, making me think of Reese and how stupid I was to ever think to compare him to this man, this monster. Reese is many things, but he would never hurt someone without cause, especially a kid.
I shake my head. “No. How could I? They’re just kids.” I throw out my hands to them so he can see, really see, how young and scared they are. But there’s only a sparkle in his eyes as he looks at them. Something I never noticed before. “What happened to you?” I don’t mean to say it out loud, even though I’m thinking it. But I get his attention, and I’d rather it be on me than them.
“You want to know what happened?” He tilts his head and takes a few steps over to me. Squatting down, he pulls a piece of my hair away with a single finger. I flinch back, not wanting him to touch a single part of me, and he lets me. “You want to know how I became the big bad man?” He says it with such glee that I can’t help but fear the look in his eyes. He’s completely unhinged. Who knows for how long, but he’s smart enough to know how to play the part in the public eye. No one would have suspected this. Not a soul.
Which makes fear sink further into my stomach. No one knows to look at him as anything but the principal he appears to be.
He looks around as he talks. “You could say it’s because my old man left me nothing after years of promising me everything. Or that my wife’s family cut us off while they enjoy millions doing nothing but sitting on their asses and thinking they’re better than everyone. Or maybe….” He turns back to me and leans in, lowering his voice. Everyone can still hear him, though. It’s so deadly quiet in here that for half a second, I even think we’re alone. “Maybe it was you. Maybeyou’rethe one who did this me.”
“What?” He’s crazy to think I had anything to do with this.
“Yeah, maybe it was the sneaking around that did it. Being the doting boyfriend and high school football player, all the while fucking you behind closed doors like the slut you are.” He twirls my hair in his fingers. “You weren’t a bad lay, just an easy one. But you put up some fight, some resistance. Just enough to get me to see that I like that.” I pull my head back again, but he holds tight to my hair this time, yanking me closer to him, and I fight to scream at the sudden pain. “I like it a lot.”
I’m racking my brain, trying to see, to understand what he’s talking about. He never raped me. I was always willing. But—
I would gasp if I had the room to do so. I always said no at the start. He would push, just enough, going further each time, making me think I was into it. By the time we actually slept together, Iwasinto it, but it took me some time. I didn’t trust him. But, like he’s proven, he’s good. No one would suspect a monster in sheep’s clothing.
My eyes roam back to the girls. He still has me by the hair, so I can’t see all of them, but I wonder how many he did it with. How many did he push just a little here and there to make them think it was what they wanted? Or did he even play that long with them? Did he just take what he wanted, enjoying the struggle of it all?
I start gagging and soon throw up, but he clamps my mouth shut. “Swallow it.”
I cough, but with my mouth closed, there’s nowhere for it to go, making me choke on my own vomit till he shakes my head back and forth.
“Swallow it,” he repeats, and I do, finally. “Good girl.” He slides the backs of his fingers down my cheek. I don’t flinch away this time, just glare at him.
“If it’s money you want, I can get you some.”
He laughs in my face. “Fucking hell, Bailey. I pay your salary. I know how much you’ve got, and it’s not even enough to cover the cost to one fuck one of these bitches, much less to buy one for keeps.” He stands and dusts himself off.
I shake my head. Even if I told him everything, he would never believe me. “Thank God we got that annulment. You and Carolyn are fucking made for each other.” Both are evil in my eyes and always will be.
“Oh please, you know you were missing me. Only thing Carolyn is good for is getting messages out. No one will think to look at me when it’s her who’s making the calls to bring them in, even if she has no idea why. Even so, I did get the better sister in the end.”
“What?”Sister?
“Yes, sister. You and….” He looks at me, really looks, and then starts laughing his head off. “Oh my God, you still don’t know? I thought you were the smart one.”
“Know what?”
“You and Carolyn are sisters. Didn’t you ever wonder why she hated you so much? Why we all did?”
I just shake my head because it makes no sense.
He walks closer, looking down at me, not coming to my level this time. “You’re her dad’s biggest mistake. He went slumming one night and knocked up your drugged-out mom. He dodged a bullet with that junkie, but you didn’t go as easily. They all thought you would die. No baby could have survived with that much heroin in their system. But you lived. Even got a fancy new family with the nurse who brought you back to tiptop shape.”
