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Of her flustered cheeks and downcast eyes.
Did she offer herself to him? Is this all just a game for her?
Hot water rains down on my heated flesh, but it’s not taking the edge off.
“She’s a Lolita,” Asher’s words mock me, and I grit my teeth and punch the shower wall until blood coats my knuckles and pain takes away the small ache in my chest.
I drive to the office at over ninety miles per hour.
It’s late, but I know Lee works well past normal hours. He practically lives at the office, so he will still be here.
Parking the car, I ride the elevator up to his office and sure enough, he’s seated behind his desk pushing numbers into his keyboard, the fucking loser.
“Erik,” he says my name like I’m a random person off the street and not his partner.
This company was my idea, cunt.
I stride to the leather chair opposite his desk and slump into it.
Lifting one leg, I rest an ankle over the knee and clasp my hands together, using two index fingers to point at him.
“I want to be a silent partner. I keep the same salary, the same shares, perks. I can come and go if I want, but I probably won’t want to.” I state, and he pulls a face that’s half amused and half confused.
“That’s not how a silent partner works,” he states, like I’m fucking stupid.
“I know you fucked the girl, Lee,” I grind my jaw as his unhinges and his skin pales.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
I hold a hand up and gesture with a head jerk to the camera in the corner of the room.
All the floors have them. I don’t have access, but he doesn’t know that.
Closing his eyes he curses under his breath.
“You’re asking too much. It’s just a fucking fuck and it wasn’t even a good one,” he grinds out, my insides deteriorating at his confirmation.
It was a hunch, but I didn’t want it to be real.
She doesn’t love me or anyone, she just needs money and her pussy is how she gets it.
“I wonder if your wife would see it that way, or your father. Fucking a teen girl in your office, using her vulnerability and need for a scholarship. Fucking shame on you, Lee,” I growl.
He caves at those words, slamming a fist down on his desk.
“Be grateful I’m letting you keep your job,” I taunt.
“I’ll get the paperwork drawn up,” he grits out.
“You do that.”
He doesn’t realize how lucky he is to still be sitting at that desk.
At one point I’d envisioned sending him hurtling out the window so vividly I thought I’d followed through on the urge.
When I pull up back at home my stomach drops to see Ebony’s car in my drive.
Ebony knows there’s a monster lurking inside me.
On some level she’s always known, but she’s never witnessed it up close, not that she knows of anyway.
Jumping from my car, I race inside and come to a halt when I see her standing in the bedroom doorway, a tear running down her beautiful cheek.
“Eb,” I whisper her name. “Maggie called me,” she says, her eyes holding sadness.
Taking the steps separating us I take her hands in mine. “Maggie is a cunt.”
Snorting, she laughs through the tears trickling onto her cheek.
“You know you can’t keep her in there, right?”
I don’t answer, and she lifts her brows.
“Erik, you know that, right?” her voice takes on more urgency.
“Why didn’t you let her out? You obviously looked inside,” I ask, and she drops her eyes to the floor, her small shoulders lifting in a non-committal shrug.
“I’ve lived my whole life trying to erase our past, to pretend that mother didn’t mess us up. But she did, Erik, and being caught in between you and this darkness she created in you is not something I can run from or hide from. I would never betray you or risk losing you, so tell me you know you have to let her go, and I will be ok with that.”
Taking her into my arms I hold her against my chest and sigh.
She’s always been my anchor. I don’t need anyone else.
“I’m going to let her out,” I promise.
Alice really got her nails into me deep, but she’s no delicate bird with broken wings.
She a fucking bird of prey, seeking out her next victim.
Twenty-Eight
Chapter
ALICE
Clicking of the locks unhinging makes me sit up.
The closet is more like a room than a box, but it’s been terrifying being locked inside with no idea of what he’s doing on the opposite side of the door.
Fucking Maggie ruined everything.
Light creeps through the gap as the door expands open and Erik stands in the entryway looking dashing as all hell.
Why does he have to be so beautiful?
“Come,” He demands, and I get to my feet, hiking up the shorts I stole from his clothes in here, one of his tee-shirts settling around my thighs.
