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But at least he would imprison her in his room with him. He might never truly let her into his heart, but for now at least, his room was enough.
Quill pulled back and looked hard into her eyes. Time, as Saskia knew it, stopped. She waited for something from him. Anything that would give her some hope that he could let himself care for her, that he could risk some piece of his heart for her soul’s survival.
Instead, he said, “Miss Roth, in a just world, we’d both be in prison right now. And in a sense, we both are.”
19
Book Two: The Escape Artist
Forty-three days. That was the amount of time Claire's captor kept her imprisoned. Three years had passed since her escape, yet every night when she closed her eyes she was back in that dank basement with her tormentor.
“Not so high and mighty now, are you, Rich Bitch? Living off daddy's money. Where is he? Where is your family? Why aren't they looking for you? Why has no one come for you?”
She flinched as he gripped her hair and jerked her face close to his.
He poked a grimy finger against her forehead, pushing her away from him again. “Because nobody wants you. You're just like every other spoiled brat disappointment. No one filed a missing person's report. You didn't even make the news. Poor poor little rich girl. What's it like to know even with all your money, you don't matter any more than me in this world?”
Claireshook his words out of her head and took a long slow breath. She had to leave the apartment today. There were things she needed, and she had to go out. She almost never went out. What if he found her? What if he took her again? She always wore sunglasses and a hoodie, at least this time of year. And she only went out in the daylight. She was very very careful. Still, no precaution ever felt like enough.
The tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. He'd planned to kill her that night. She'd seen it in the change of his demeanor. He'd grown bored with her. He was ready for a new toy to torture. He'd fucked her and pimped her out to all his gross friends, and now he needed fresh meat. She could only think the wordfuckedin her mind. She couldn't let herself think the real word of what he'd done. It would make it real.
If it was real then her life was over. Things would never be okay again.
Who was she kidding? She knew it was real. She knew he was out there. And she was still his prisoner even now. He'd probably moved away or was wrapped up in another victim by now because she knew she wasn't the only one. She hadn't been the first, and she knew she wasn't the last.
Guilt gripped her at the thought of the others he must have hurt by now because she didn't have the courage to go to the police. She didn't trust they could keep her safe. What if he found her before the police could find him? What if the charges didn't stick? If he found her again...
He was right, no one had missed her. Her parents had been abroad. They barely talked to her anyway. They only saw her on holidays. He'd taken her in July, so when she'd escaped in late August, she'd had months to try to pretend she was okay before Thanksgiving rolled around. And the fact that they hadboughtit? It was only more evidence of how distant they were from her, how little they truly knew her.
They'd taken in her still-gaunt form and thought she was on a fucking diet. They'd had the nerve to say: “Claire, darling, have you lost weight? You look fabulous.” Fabulous. Who the fuck went around sayingFabulous? How could she look fabulous when her eyes were dead and hollow? Did they thinkheroin chiclooked healthy?
She was so fucking alone.
She'd been alone in that basement, but back then alone had been better than when he was there. Now she was alone in her apartment, afraid to leave most days, afraid to connect with anyone because she couldn't stand to be touched, she couldn't bear for anyone to know, and she couldn't trust ever again. But she'd never felt more alone than she had that first year at Thanksgiving and then Christmas as her family had been oblivious to the changes within her.
How could they not see she was broken?
Not only could she not go to the police, she hadn't told her family either. Her father would find the whole thing embarrassing. He'd blame her if she dared to bring the authorities into it, dragging the family name through the mud. And she hadn't realized how shallow her friendships were until she'd tried to spend time with them after everything.
She was never going to connect with anyone again. But still, every day she got up, washed her face, took a shower, forced food down her throat, and existed. Because she didn't have the courage to end her own suffering.
Although she hadn't been abducted from her home, her captor had taken the bag she'd carried with her. He had her driver's license. He'd known where she lived and everything about her. As soon as she'd gotten free, she'd found a new apartment and gotten a new driver's license, and she'd gotten the most top-of-the-line security system money could buy. She'd bought a gun and slept with it beside her bed even though she now lived in an impenetrable fortress. She'd paid one of those high-priced image firms to scrub her entire existence off the internet. She'd deleted all her social media accounts.
And none of it felt like enough.
Even with a big trust fund and practically unlimited money at her disposal, she lived a half-life because she was too afraid for anything more. She couldn't even bring herself to leave this fucking city. Claire had used her last bit of courage to move to this apartment. In thesamecity. Like the dumbest little victim in the world. So fucking stupid, why didn't she just go far far away? She should have left the country, gotten as far from him as possible, somewhere he couldn't follow or find her.
But she knew why.
There was no running after something like that. An experience like that breaks you beyond the point of feeling safe anywhere. If she fled to another city or another country, what would stop the next monster who found her? There was always another monster. And if she moved that far away she'd be in strange surroundings. She just couldn't. She needed a routine and everything to be familiar. Everything being the same was the last bit of safety she had left.
She'd long ago given up the dream of finishing her degree and going to work for a museum. It seemed silly now. It wasn't as though she needed the money. It would have been a self-indulgent bored rich girl job. She'd wanted to restore art, but she was the one who needed restoration.
The only sound in her apartment now was the ticking of a wall clock. Claire stared at the door for a long moment. It was ten a.m. The city was alive. It was public. It was safe. She told herself this every day that she had to go outside. Her little pep talk to keep on living. She was going to crack soon, just fucking break down. Just snap and lose her shit forever. She fought back the tears and, with a shaking hand, reached out, and opened the door.
Ari sleptin the guest bedroom of his own house. He couldn't be in his room right now, not with his pet gone. He couldn't look at the place she'd slept without disgust. And maybe a bit of sadness. Holly had decidedthis was fun and allbut she'd gotten a modeling contract in Paris, and of course she was going. So C-ya. Basically.
She'd been a brat, anyway. Ari hated brat subs. It wasn't that he had no sense of humor, he just hated women who topped from the bottom. How hard was it to find a girl who could be truly obedient? The phone rang, disrupting his brooding. The nameKanelit up on his cell.
