Page 145 of Fallen Princess: Shadow Stalker

“Siren,” Callum addresses me with concern all over his face. “Did you have a flashback? Of him?”

I nod, trying to catch my breath back. My free hand goes to my chest scar, and I caress it as if it’s to soothe my nerves.

“You know what happened?” Jagger asks him.

“I asked him not to tell you three because I knew the truth would set you into monsters and on a mission to find him. Plus, I wasn’t ready to talk about it. Now I know why I was never ready to talk about it.”

They remain stunned but silent, obviously wanting me to continue.

“My mind blocked the truth. I spent ten years trying to piece what happened to me together, and at some point, years ago, I thought I did, but something always prevented me from talking about it to someone. Even to you guys. Now I know why.”

Each man takes a seat somewhere nearby. Asher remains close to me, still holding my hand.

“They deserve to know what happened,” Callum says. “But it’s your story to tell, siren.”

I nod. “As do you, Callum, you only know a small part.”

Asher squeezes my knee with his free hand, “We’re here for you, Eddie.”

“I think what I have to tell may ultimately change the way you view me. It may completely destroy us, but I shouldn’t have to bear the weight of this anymore.”

These men are the catalysts to free me from the prison I put myself in all these years.

“I can’t just erase my past. What happened to me happened. I have to be strong and let you know, be completely honest, and have faith in the outcome. Fear is a weapon he’s using against me, and I need to liberate myself.”

Jagger brings me a glass of water. I free my hand from Ash, take it with a shaky hand, and drink it. The liquid is like velvet, going down my dry throat.

I hand it back to someone and push my hair back with both hands as I contemplate telling my story.

I’m really going to do this and tell them everything

“Ten years ago, Brittney, the girls, and I went to a bar in LA to celebrate her getting a role in some series or movie. I don’t remember what it was. You guys had already flown back to England as Oliver summoned you for something,” I close my eyes as the images play in my head.

“We already established that Oliver planned to release the video of us with ZMA media and wanted you guys out of LA and away from me when the scandal broke. That night at the bar, someone must have slipped something into my drink as I started to feel ill, so I went to the bathroom and threw up. Thinking I came down with a stomach bug, I told the girls I was leaving, but they were all so wasted that I doubt they even noticed my leaving.

“What happened next is a little patchy. I remember being at home, but I wasn’t alone. I know by that point I was drugged but still able to walk and somewhat talk, but he was controlling me as if I was a puppet, and I relied on him to guide me around. I discovered later that my passport was missing, so I knew he had taken it, and I think that was the reason for taking me abroad.

“I don’t remember getting on a plane, but I know he took me somewhere foreign. I came around in the back of a car or something, and when I looked out, all I remembered was that we weren’t in theUS. Until today, I didn’t realize he kept me on a ship or yacht. I always thought it was a hotel room because of the luxurious linens and décor. But even then, he kept me drugged so I wouldn’t remember much.

“Over the years, I pieced it, bit by bit. I remember the pain of trying to stay conscious, trying to find a way to escape, trying to find something I could kill him with, but he was meticulous. For five days, he kept me chained by my neck, nude, locked in a cabin, and continuously raped me. Every night, he would sleep beside me, and if I was conscious enough, I would try and get up to escape, but the chain would alert him, and he’d yank me back.

“As my punishment for trying to escape or for biting him to hurt him, he’d use humiliation to get back at me, he’d invite his men to watch me use the bathroom, and sometimes he’d tie me up and let them watch as he did all kinds of things to me. He allowed them to touch me and do unthinkable things to me, but he never let them rape me with their dicks. That was reserved only for him. Eventually, I caved in and stopped fighting him, and he stopped inviting his men. He dehumanized me, and I became a mere vessel for him to assault me.

“ I didn’t lie to you when I told you I don’t know who he is. He wore a black mask the whole time and spoke to me through a voice device. He called me hislittle mousebecause I was too easy to catch.

“At the time, I had no idea how long I had been gone, but I remember flying back with him on a private jet. I stayed calm as much as someone could in such a situation, afraid he wouldn’t return me if I reacted otherwise. I woke up on my living room floor, not remembering anything. But the TV in my kitchen was on, blaring out the scandal with the video, and then Oliver phoned me to more or less tell me I was being fired from the band. Things started to slowly come back, but it felt more like a bad dream than it actually happened to me.

“I had tried phoning all of you, but at the time, I never realized Oliver had planned for the video scandal to happen. The sad part was that no one even realized I was kidnapped or missing all those days. Not a single soul worried for me. I didn’t know where you were. I thought the scandal was your way of breaking up with me. You have to remember I had just suffered a nightmare for five fucking days. That same evening, the masked man with his two soldiers broke into my home. Now I realize they are pros at disabling security systems.

“He found me in the safe room, held a knife to my neck, and said my life will always be in danger. And if I ever spoke about it, he would come and kill me. So I couldn’t go to the police. I didn’t feel safe. If something slipped and he found out, he would have killed me. And then there was the whole video scandal on top. If the media got hold of this, they would have eaten me alive, saying it was probably some fabricated bullshit to take the attention away from the scandal.

“Catalina returned to LA the next day. She had taken some personal time off and went to see her family in New York, but she flew back when the scandal broke, and the media circus surrounding it blew up.

“She found me in my bedroom staring into space, wrapped in my duvet. She said I was pale, like a dead person in a zombie-like state. That’s when she suggested we take a break. I told her I needed to disappear for a while, but she insisted on joining me. What I told you about Mexico and being on the run for a long time was all real.

“For years, I kept asking myself what I did to invite this evil into my life. There had been times when I contemplated ending it all. He stripped me of my human rights. My life was stolen from me in the most violent way possible. It took an extremely long time; that never-ending feeling just lingered on, but it seemed like it took forever to reclaim the shattered pieces of my life.”

I open my eyes, my face drenched in the tears I shed, my vision a little hazy.

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