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At least Miles hadn’t put her in the awkward position of having to try to get her to leave without being rude.
She was just giving her freshly washed hair a rub when a knock at the door startled her from her thoughts. Wrapping the towel around her damp hair, taking one final deep breath to enjoy the fragrance of the shampoo and conditioner, she peeped through the spy-hole, tightening her silk dressing gown a little as she saw the reporter. The same reporter who’d made her story of abuse and torture into a motivational piece for women in domestic violence situations and those forced into sexual slavery. When she’d told her story, she’d never expected anything so modest, so tame.
“So nice to see you again,” Ivy grasped for her first name, finally remembering it, “Monica.” Her presence here meant her news team would be setting up for their exclusive coverage of the event downstairs. They were going to work in tandem with the wedding photographer to capture their own images, as well as check the photographer’s pictures and speak to guests and capture their special day in beautiful and vibrant words. Apparently, the public loved a good wedding story almost as much as a good horror one.
Ivy breathed a sigh of relief, thankful she’d had the wedding planner revert her ceremony to just their original guest list. The evening gathering remained the same. Overwhelming, overinflated. After all, it felt rude to fully uninvite everyone Mrs Taylor had sent invitations to. She felt guilty enough as it was for having them removed from the ceremony list, but this was her and Miles’ day,theirwedding and only the people she and Miles wanted there should be present for the most important part.
Monica glanced up and down the hall before stepping inside causing a twinge of nervousness flicker through her as Monica flicked the lock closed behind her. “You must be excited.” She smiled. Despite it being a well-practised smile, there was something off about her expression. The friendly gesture seemed… empty.
“I wasn’t expecting you just yet, can I get you anything?” Ivy gestured towards the kettle.
“Why ask me? You’re always the one to get everything you want. But it’s never enough, is it?”
“I’m sorry, what—” Ivy blinked, wondering if her ears had deceived her.
“You had everything,” She snapped. “He chose you, and you ran. I mean, I know escape was the name of the game, but he took you back. Henevertakes anyone back.”
Ivy stepped back, a frigid fear gripping her heart, causing her blood to run cold as she spotted the glint of metal in Monica’s grasp. The gun was held limply at her side, not a threat, at least not yet. The woman’s hands were shaking, but she doubted it was fear fuelling it. She just needed a moment, a way to reach the panic button she should have been wearing. But who wore electronic devices in the bath? “What do you—”
“At first,” she continued, as if she hadn’t heard Ivy speak, “I thought he was reaching out to me, you know, with the pictures on my doorstep. I always knew he’d come back for me one day. What we had was special. I knew he felt it too. Those weeks we were together were the best of my life, and when I saw you looked like me, I knew it was a message. Find you, find him.
“He was recreating what we had, but he was more extreme with you, punishing you for not being me. It was clear as day, he made you into a news story so it would reach me, so we could be together again. We didn’t know much about each other. He found me online, offered to pay all my university debts and give me a lump sum for playing his game.
“But, God, I’d have done it for free.” The hand not holding the gun traced the faint scars on her wrist before dropping to her side, her fingers twitching uncertainly. “When I escaped, I kept waiting for him to come back for me, but instead, I got the final payment and, before I knew it, things at work took off.
“I had eyes on me all the time. There was no way he could stage another kidnapping, not with me being in the public eye. That’s when he settled for a second-rate copy. Settled for you.” She pushed her hair from her face with the back of her hand, fingers still gripping the gun, before tilting her head to one side to study Ivy.
“What do you—”
“But then he sent me those other pictures.” She was gesturing now, her hand flailing about as if she’d forgotten the deadly tool within her grasp as her once blank eyes grew wilder. “I thought he was watching you, thought if I inserted myself into your life our paths would cross. I thought he was leading me to him through you. I could have run the story, another humiliating article on everyone’s favourite victim, but I had other plans, just like he knew I would.”
“You put them on my car?” Ivy whispered, sliding her foot back another step. If she could just put some space between them, she’d have time to reach the button. She could see it in the corner of her eye on the dressing table, next to her brush. But then what? Would there even be any point? No one would reach her in time, not before Monica realised what was happening and pulled the trigger. A cold dread of realisation crept down her spine, causing her limbs to tingle as the realisation continued to develop. Mrs Taylorhadbeen involved, just not to the extent she’d believed. She’d simply being supplying the ammunition, unaware the weapon she had in mind had another agenda. “Why?”
“Because he’s watching you, you see. He sent me those. Do you know how much it hurt, knowing he kept you so long, seeing pictures of him doing the things to you he once did to me? You paid the price for not being me though,” she rubbed her wrist again, once more drawing Ivy’s attention to the faint scarring. Faint, unlike the pronounced, soul-deep wounds she’d suffered at his hand. The woman before her was hardly marked, butshehad been violently branded. “I thought if I came to you, he’d find a way to reach out. Find a way to reconnect with me.
“But it’s not him. He’s not the one who was sending me those pictures, is he?Youdid something, you know something.” Her free hand pushed through her hair again, the wild look further igniting in her eyes. “I looked into it, you know. His boat was reported lost at sea around the same time you were rescued. What did you do to him?”
“You saw the pictures. I was in no state to do anything.” Ivy stepped back again, feeling her heel hit the skirting board. The towel slipped free from her hair, falling to the floor at her feet, jostled free as her back pressed against the wall.
“Why did he make you call him Owner?”
“He said I was his property.”
“He never made me call him that. Why you? What made you so special? You didn’t even want him. Not like I did. He never let me sleep in his bed, but he let you in there. What was so special about you? Why did he choose to keep you? Was it the pain? I could have taken what he did to you. I could have taken anything for him.”
“He was sick. He brainwash—”
“Don’t you dare!” Ivy gasped, feeling the barrel of the gun press against her stomach. “He wantedyouto bear his children. He made me get an IUD. What is it about you? Why you? You’re nothing special.” Her disgusted gaze trailed up her dismissively, fingers flexing around the weapon, causing Ivy’s eyes to widen.
“You don’t want to do this, Monica,” Ivy’s voice trembled, a drop of sweat mingled with the dampness of her hair as it trickled down her face. “You’re right, Owner loved me. He wanted me to have his children. But there was a plan.” Ivy tried to breathe still her nerves, calm the closing of her throat that threatened to steal her voice. She hadn’t survived all this just to have it stripped from her at the last minute. Monica was convinced the photos had been from him, yet in the next breath said they hadn’t. She was still believing her own narrative, her own ideas. She had to play to that, feed the confusion. “As soon as I was carrying his first child, he talked about bringing someone else aboard. I didn’t understand at first, but I do now. I can see it. Looking at you, it was you. He wanted you. He just wanted to make me bend to his wishes, be his willing incubator. But like you say,Iwasn’t you.
“He made a mistake and I was punished for it, but it was you he wanted. You were the person he wanted to go back for, the person he was craving.” Ivy closed her eyes, praying silently her deception would work, praying the woman who was trained to see lies and draw out the truth wouldn’t hear the deception in her voice through her need to believe the lie.
“You need to know how it feels,” Monica raved. Ivy wasn’t sure she’d heard anything that had been said. It seemed her mind had room for only one conversation, the one she dictated. “You need to know what it’s like to have the person you love ripped away from you.” Ivy felt her blood turn to vitriol. She already knew what it felt like to lose the person she loved. She thought she’d watched Miles die. It had destroyed her in ways she never imagined, hurt her to the core, to a place deeper than she thought possible to the very place grief and pain was born. “When I realised that woman was the one sending me the pictures, I thought I’d use her as bait. She made itsoeasy for me.”
Dread erupted through her like a live wire, reminiscent of the charge in that damn chair. Mr Taylor’s words about Mrs Taylor being missing echoed in her mind. He thought she’d come here, she’d have one last crack at stopping the wedding, he’d thought—Oh God, a dawning realisation sent another current of fear chasing through her, she’d said bait.
“Where’s Miles?” She’d had a message from him this morning. He’d been safe then, and now? Had this woman come from harming him, harming his mother? She scanned the reporter’s appearance. No blood, no signs of a struggle. She looked perfectly put together, hair tied back neatly, and a crease-free designer label pantsuit hugging her slender frame perfectly. She didn’t look like she’d just come from hurting the man she loved. But she also smelt clean, freshly showered.
