She dumped me off on my grandma’s doorstep and went to live her life. I was only grateful to her because I adored my grandmother. She was what my mom should have been. Then she randomly showed up and took me back. You can assume I didn’t have the most stable upbringing after that happened.
A beep echoed through the house, and I jumped. Suddenly alert, I sat forward and strained to hear. What was that? The downstairs door clicked shut and a feminine curse reached my ears.
I knew this voice.
Rising to my feet, I strode towards the top of the stairs and peek over the solid banister. All at once, my cellphone began to ring and Rebecca’s icy eyes collided with mine. I didn’t need to see the screen to know who was randomly calling me.
“Don’t answer that!” she shouted, the desperation in her tone set me on edge.
“What is going on?”
She laughed bitterly. “You have no idea and for that I envy you. I really do. You’re so fucking lucky to be--.” She stopped herself and took a deep breath, smoothing a hand through her pristinely styled blonde hair.
This woman was clearly frazzled.
All signs pointed to Alaric being the cause. He wasn’t here and she was. It made this spectacle even odder.
“He’s going to be pissed at you too now. If you want out, you need to come with me. Neither of us can be here when he gets back.”
“Out…?”
“Go home, Catalina.”
“I am…” I trailed off, almost telling her I was home. Ironic how that worked out. I’d gone through a lot of unnecessary struggles to leave this place, failing every time. Now that the golden opportunity was presented right before me, I was hesitating.
It wasn’t that I had a sudden change of mine. It was my not wanting to leave Alaric.
He was a wicked man who never did anything to redeem his actions, but those same traits were what made me fall for him. Not his money or his status.
His cock was a bonus. He was a beautiful man, undeniably, but it was that unapologetic madness of his that I found most enamoring.
The problem was the secrets he kept and that my grip on reality could slip at any moment with him. There was still the major question of how much of my time here was real and how much of it was a dream?
I had yet to accept that there was something inside me that got off on the gruesome scenes on a reel inside my head. Yet, I wasn’t devastated by Alaric making two women disappear in his basement.
I was admittedly fickle and not in the best headspace to make decisions that were morally and sensibly correct. But Rebecca was not an ally or a friend.
I hadn’t forgotten the dinner comments or all the open hostility she always gave me. She could take me from this house and easily dump me off somewhere.
I watched a lot of daytime soap operas. I knew women could get a bit looney over good dick and high-value men. Alaric was that and much more.
I had the obsession she wanted. I wasn’t going to give it up to satisfy her. Besides, it’s better the devil you know. Isn’t that how the saying goes? This was different when Alaric was the one stopping me. I trusted him far more than I did this ice queen.
“What are you waiting for? We have to go!”
The front door swung open again before I could reply and tell her she was wasting her time. Demitri walked in wearing his professional attire with an added accessory clenched in his hand.
Rebecca whirled around in her six-inch heels and placed her hands on her hips. “You stay the fuck away from me!” she snarled.
He looked up and saw me standing here and gave a nod of acknowledgment along with what I dared say was a trace of a smile.
“Afternoon, Miss Haven.”
I gave an awkward wave, flinching when Rebecca started to screech. The taser in his hand buzzed continuously as he held it to the side of her neck. When she collapsed into an unconscious heap, I noticed a puddle of liquid spreading across the hardwood floor.
She’d pissed herself.
Demitri was unfazed by me watching him. He slid the tranquilizer into his shirt pocket and bent down to grab hold of her legs. I watched him drag her back out of the house. Her perfectly styled hair swept right through the urine and a Jimmy Choo heel was left abandoned in the foyer.
I remained exactly where I was, bewildered by what I just witnessed. My phone began to trill for the second time. I took a step away from the banister and answered.
“When I call, you answer. I don’t care if you’re in the middle of dying.”
“If I’m doing that it would probably be because of you…”