Page 37 of The Sinner's Bargain

It had taken all of thirty seconds to pinpoint why that name hit every alarm bell in my head. I’d only heard it the one time, from a distance.

“Jarrett Brixton is about to sign a massive contract with Lacroix. They’re best friends. Known each other for years. Practically brothers.”

It was the incentive Father had been trying to offer the man on the phone just the day before, hours before I was supposed to be in the plane to meet Jarrett.

Lacroix knew Jarrett.

They were business partners.

Of all the yards I had to run through to escape a monster, what were the odds that I would walk straight back to where I started?

I sat down hard on the corner of my bed. Tears liquid drops of acid burning my eyes. My heart hurt with the injustice. It ached in the bone cage of my chest.

I never stood a chance. Even with everything Malcolm had to do to help me, I got myself in even hotter water. How could I have ruined everything so badly? It was all laid out in simple terms, and I still managed to fail like I had failed my entire life. Maybe Mother was right all along. Maybe my only gift to the world was to say nothing. Do nothing. Just exist for the pleasure of others. My body was the only thing I had to offer anyone because I had nothing else.

A sob caught on the shards of glass embedded in my throat and ripped, filling my mouth, and spilling recklessly into the room.

Then another immediately followed on its heel, shredding a hole inside me, and letting lose years of fear, regret, helplessness and pain.

So much pain.

So much neglect and loneliness.

Before I could tell my traitorous emotions to stop, stop before someone heard, I was gasping around the jagged pieces of all my failures. I was doubled over, clutching at my empty belly, and heaving onto my knees.

I tried to muffle the guttural wails behind bloody fists, the inhuman gasps for breath, but I had lost control.

Again.

I was spiraling and even as I needed to finally come apart, the voice begged me to stop before Mother heard. Before she stormed into the room with her steel tipped stick, and I was put in the box. It didn’t matter that Mother had no idea where I was, or that she couldn’t possibly hear me, I needed to stop.

But I found myself on the floor, practically beneath the bed. Knees to my chin. My body a tight fist around itself, desperately fighting to keep the pieces together.

By the sheer grace of what was left of my strength, I pulled myself up and into the bed. My top was gray with dust from the floor. My skin was gritty, but I curled up at the foot of the mattress and stared at the vast smear of gloom clinging to the sky. It hit me in that moment that I was truly and completely alone. In the past, I always had Malcolm. No matter what happened. He was there.

Now it was me and me alone, and I was terrified.

I didn’t know the world.

I had never been anywhere without Mother to talk for me, to address every issue. The last time I’d seen a movie was at one of Mother’s friend’s daughter’s tenth birthday. I couldn’t even remember what it was. We didn’t have a TV at the house and Mother would never get one; it corrupted girls. I had no friends and only ever interacted with people Mother needed to impress. Malcolm had a laptop, but Mother would have skinned me alive if I went anywhere near it. Malcolm was my only source to the outside. He would tell me stories of his time with his friends and the things they would do together.

I did have books, but Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, and Emily Brontë were not going to be any help in this century. I had to figure it out on my own.

I had to be strong.

For Malcolm.

The skin on my bottom lip tore under the assault of my teeth. Blood stung sharp on my tongue.

A knock interrupted my misery and I had to scramble off the bed. I brushed dust off my clothes and hair the best I could and wiped the tears from my eyes, but I knew my cheeks would be patchy, my eyes swollen. It couldn’t be helped.

The most put together I could be, I opened the door to the man who had walked me back to my room after breakfast. His blue eyes searched my face, his a perfect, blank mask in place.

But the weight behind his scrutiny made me shamefully aware of my appearance.

“Mr. Lacroix would like to see you,” he said quietly.

I kept my gaze down but offered him a slight nod that I understood.

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