“This is The Room,” I say simply.
“You bring women here?”
“If they’re ready for it, yes.”
“How do you know if they’re ready?”
I pause. It’s a good question. One I should’ve asked myself a long time ago. “For starters, they have to understand how it works here.”
She fidgets in place, gazing around at the things hanging from the walls. Straps, toys, leather harnesses suspended on hooks in the ceiling. “You’re in control, I’m guessing?”
“No.” I step closer to her. She flinches again, but she stays where she is. Once again, I admire her bravery.
“Then who is?”
“They are. You are, if you choose to be.”
She shakes her head. “I’m confused. That’s not how I thought it went.”
“That’s because you still believe that control means you get to tell others what to do.”
“It’s not?”
“It is—on the surface. But it’s far more than that underneath. When your brother hits you, when he brainwashes you, do you think he’s controlling you?”
She starts to nod, but then she hesitates. It’s a trick question and she knows it. “Well…”
“Wrong, Renata. You’re in charge. You always have been. Because you decide whether or not to accept those reins. Those commands.”
She shivers, despite the fact that it’s warm down here. “I’ve said no again and again in my life,” she whispers. “It hasn’t made a damn bit of difference.”
Her tone is soaked with sorrow. There’s a story somewhere that she hasn’t told me—not completely. She hinted at it earlier. But down in this room, reality doesn’t feel quite real. It’s more like a dream. And the truth feels a little less jagged, a little less frightening. In The Room, we can confront our own darkness.
“Tell me,” I whisper. I’m close enough to touch her now and I want to, so fucking badly. But I have to wait. Wait until the moment is right. Wait until she understands.
“I told him no so many times. It didn’t stop him. Not even once.”
“Drago?”
“No,” she says in a voice so low I have to strain to hear it. “Worse.”
“Tell me,” I urge again. “I’m listening.”
Her eyes find mine in the near-darkness. They’re full of unshed tears and she’s shaking from head to toe. I can’t resist it anymore—I reach out and lay a hand on her neck.
She flinches from the contact at first. But then she sighs and settles against it. It’s like she’s drawing strength from it.
“I was married once, you know,” she says in a tiny whisper.
“Married?”
She nods slowly. “This is the first time I’ve ever let myself say that out loud. I tried to bury all my memories of it a long time ago. But it turns out that what’s buried doesn’t stay that way for long.”
“Who was he?”
“He was a nightmare,” she says simply. “A biker. His name was Logan. He ran with a crew—the Smoking Reapers Motorcycle Club—that ferried drugs and women up and down the coast. They were… They were bad men, Kian.”
I see where she’s going before she even says it. “But Drago thought they would help him.”