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There’s nowhere to run. And I know the act is hopeless.
But I run anyway.
Chapter 23
Deirdre
When I wake up in the morning, I feel well-rested, and I don’t like it. Don’t like how incredibly comfortable this bed is. Or how deeply my body fell into slumber after last night. After…
After I came. Twice.
I pull the covers up over my head, as if I can hide my shame that way. What is it about Elio, and my body around him, that turns me into someone I don’t recognize? Someone I don’t know?
My phone buzzes on the bedside table, and I whip off the bedding, reaching for it. Maybe it’s my father contacting me. Maybe everything Elio told me about him leaving, about Bridget, was just a lie meant to make me fall further into this trap, this world. To make me trust him.
But there’s no word from Dad.
There is, however, a text from Brian, letting me know he’s back from Christmas break in Ottawa and wants to see me. I almost laugh, bitterly, about the change in circumstances since December. I spent weeks avoiding Brian, and now I couldn’t even see him if I wanted to. Something tells me that meeting up with my ex-boyfriend is absolutely not something Elio would allow. And part of me is pissed about that, not because I want to be anywhere near Brian, but because of the control.
But another part of me, a part low in my belly, tightens strangely. Almost as if I like this. Like the fact that the bars of my cage have both trapped me and protected me.
But I’m not protected, am I? Not from Elio. He’s the one I need to focus on, to be most worried about. I wonder what Elio would do if I did somehow meet up with another man. I wonder what he’d do if Brian tried to get to me now.
Probably wouldn’t end well for Brian.
And it scares me how that thought brings me a short slice of terrible satisfaction. Fuck, what am I turning into? Elio is not my bodyguard or my boyfriend. He’s my abductor. The possessiveness he feels over me is not something to be admired. It’s something I need to fight.
Or I will never find my way back to my own life again.
I mentally tally how much was reduced from my debt last night. Twenty thousand from the panties – Jesus Christ, I still can’t believe I’m selling my goddamn panties to the mob now – and eighty thousand from last night. Or was it seventy? I remember him getting to eighty-thousand, I remember him saying it directly against me, the words stirring over my aching clit. But I’m pretty sure I stopped then. That’s when I… I…
I came. For the second time. He spanked me, just hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to let me know exactly how much power he holds and, at the same time, how much he held back, and some buried, dirty part of me had actually liked it.
And the worst thing is, I don’t think Elio created that dirty part.
I think it was already there and he just unearthed it. Like he already understands things inside me I don’t. Like he knew exactly where to dig.
And then I remember how long he’s been watching me. How long he’s been wanting me. And I wonder how much he’s learned about me while I had no idea he was even there.
My phone buzzes again, and I scowl, assuming it’s Brian, but it’s not. It’s an email to my University of Toronto email address, sent from another U of T address that I don’t recognize. It’s a student’s email address, but I don’t know the name. Frowning, I open it.
HEY!!!! It’s Willow! I still don’t have my phone. I’m at one of the U of T libraries with my neighbour Dylan and I’m using his school email to contact you. Figured that was better than sending a text from his phone because I can log into his email anywhere to check if you’ve replied, but I don’t have a phone for him to forward a text to.
What is happening??? I heard about last night!!! That you showed up at some Titone event at the AGO decked out in diamonds. People are saying that Elio Titone practically fucked you right there in the middle of the floor you two were dancing so close and that he got you a big slice of cake after that. Elio fucking Titone cutting and serving someone cake!!! Absolutely unheard of. Was it birthday cake? Was the party for you??? What the fuck is going on???
I have no idea how to help you right now, but so help me God, if he’s hurting you, I will. Fuck Elio and fuck Darragh (who’s even more pissed off after last night, just so you know). I will steal a goddamn tank and crash through the side of wherever you’re being held to save you if I have to. Just let me know what’s happening. Let me know where you are.
Let me know that you’re OK.
Willow
My eyes blur with tears, and I clutch my phone to my squeezing chest. It feels like the entire world’s forgotten about me. Like my own life has been erased, crushed under the new reality Elio’s imposed upon it. But it’s not true. Willow’s still out there, loving me, fighting for me. Trying to help me.
She can’t, of course. And that changes the tears from ones of affectionate gratitude to ones of hopeless rage. She can’t help me. It’s not even safe for her to be contacting me this way, especially if Darragh’s as angry as she says he is. I’m an outcast, my father a traitor, and she absolutely cannot be caught associating with me now.
As much as I want to confide in her, to beg her to help me any way she can, I won’t. She wants to protect me, but I need to protect her right now. From her father and from Darragh if he finds out she’s trying to help me.
I sniff hard and angrily rub tears from my eyes with the back of my hand before I shakily type a reply. With every letter that appears on the screen, I feel like I’m pulling a door shut between us, inch by inch, until it slams and a lock clicks into place.
