Page 3 of Cruel Dominion

The driver, a tall, imposing man with an earpiece and sunglasses, waited to collect me when I stepped off the bus in town.

Anna Vaughn, his sign said. A name I hadn’t gone by in over six years.

It wasn’t too late. I could just turn around, get back on the bus. Keep traveling up the coast.

“Miss Vaughn,” the driver said, catching sight of me amid the other travelers. He must have been briefed well on my appearance to recognize me. I looked nothing like the Anna who left home. Full of life and spite. Lacquered and plucked and outfitted in Chanel.

I was a hollowed-out shell of that girl now. In worn Converse sneakers and a Lana Del Rey t-shirt. Sporting bruises like a necklace around my throat and cheetah spots down my arms.

I nodded once and the driver tucked his sign under his arm and indicated the exit, where I could see a sleek silver sedan parked outside, idling in the street to keep the interior temperature just right in the hot Cali sun.

“Do you require medical assistance?” the driver asked as he opened the door for me.

“No, thank you.”

He frowned at the single rolling duffle bag I dragged along with me.

“It’s all I have,” I answered his unasked question. Escaping in the middle of the night as I did hadn’t exactly left me time to pack up all my belongings. In truth, I didn’t have all that much to begin with and most of it was thrifted or bought at dollar stores.

He took the duffel, placing it into the trunk as I breathed in the smell of the ocean.

Carter. The beach. The heavy moon over the water.

It all came back like a sucker punch to the gut, and my nose wrinkled as I got into the sedan and slammed the door behind me, eager to get the briny scent out of my nose.

It wasn’t long before the familiar facade of the house came into view through the wrought iron bars as we made our way up the winding drive. Home sweet home. The driver tapped a key card against the intercom panel and the gate slid open. My stomach dropped.

Fuck.

I clasped my hands in my lap, hesitating when the sedan stopped outside the grandiose entrance, bracketed by tall white pillars and gilt-edged doors.

You have no place left to go, I reminded myself.

Josh took almost everything from me. Including most of my money to gamble away or spend on booze. It was a small miracle I was able to squirrel away the few hundred dollars I did to be able to leave him when it got really bad.

At least the others didn’t take money from me. I met all my exes serving drinks at the Butterfly Room, a high-end members-only bar, patronized by some of the richest people in St. Louis.

So, all my exes were wealthy in business, music, and other industries with the occasional trust fund brat. It was no surprise they were pushy and controlling with me. It didn’t help that I had a taste for a certain type. The brooding ones. The ones who liked it a little rough. The dark spirits who fucked like there were t-minus ten minutes to the apocalypse.

With a weakness for walking red-flags, it was no surprise that I was a magnet for troubled men. More accurately: for assholes. Had been since I was sixteen and met my first one on the beach.

That was why Josh, sweet, blue-eyed Josh who had a normal job and drove an older model car felt so safe. I couldn’t have been more wrong about him.

“Miss Vaughn, good afternoon,” a man with a headset on said, sweeping the tall front doors open before I could even knock.

I nodded, giving him a strained smile. It was a mask I’d have to get used to wearing if I expected to stay here.

Rosie, our housekeeper, was the only person I’d called to give a heads-up I was coming. Hers was the only private number I still knew by heart. Aside from Rosie, staff turnover tended to be high at the Vaughn Estate. I didn’t want to be at the gate, trying to convince the security staff that I was Anna Vaughn.

The one who was supposed to be away on a charity mission in Malawi building sustainable housing for the less fortunate. That Anna Vaughn. It was my dad’s cover story for my disappearance and it was a good one. I wished I had spent the last six years making a difference in people’s lives rather than wearing low-cut tops for tips.

“Thank you, David,” the man at the door said, taking my duffel from the driver with a raised brow.

I felt fairly safe in assuming my father wouldn’t be home this early on a Wednesday, but as the man shut the door behind me, I heard the unmistakable sound of Testoni shoes on parquet flooring approaching from the east hall.

Hudson Vaughn appeared in the entryway. He looked the same as I remembered, with just a bit more silver in his mahogany hair. Tall and regal, with a cut marble face and ice in his blue eyes.

The look he gave me would’ve been enough to paralyze me once upon a time, and that same sinking feeling tried to open a hollow pit in the bottom of my stomach. I lifted my chin.

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