Page 30 of Shattered
If the mask wasn’t there, she would have seen me raising my brows. The nerve inside of her to ask me these questions—she either had nothing left to lose, or she wasn’t afraid of me.
“It gives me control.”
Her lips parted. “That’s a textbook answer. Come on. Give me therealreason.”
The word ‘real’ held on her tongue. “Are you mocking me, Melissa?”
“You asked me for the real paintings,” she said quietly. “What’s fair is fair.”
I didn’t care about what was fair, but the fact that she had actually asked and wanted to know, made me want to indulge her. I took a step closer to the bed.
“You could take a woman, the same age as you, same ethnicity, the same background, and put her underneath Ivy Ledge Bridge. And for the simple fact that she was doing a job determined as undeserving of basic human rights, she would have eighteen times more of a chance of being murdered.” I came closer, straightening my stance, towering over as she shrunk into the bedding. “Judges have a minimum sentencing requirement once a victim is proven guilty of prostitution. Never mind the assault that they survived. So why would they ever go to the police? Why would they seek help from law enforcement, an establishment they are supposed to trust for protection, when that establishment doesn’t trusttheirword? Tell me, Melissa. Who is left to take over and put an end to the fucking violence?”
Her lips were closed, eyes wide. Dark, reflecting mine.
“Go on.” I stood at the edge of her bed, my legs resting against it. She pulled her own legs back, tucking them underneath her. “Tell me that what they’re doing is illegal. That they deserve to be arrested because they were breaking the law when a man broke their nose. That they deserved it.” I leaned down, resting my hands on the sides of the bed. “Tell me that they’d be better off in prison, than living their own peaceful lives. That they don’t deserve freedom because they were doing their job.”
Our faces were close, the sheet of leather taut against my skin. She stared into the plastic covers hiding my eyes and saw nothing.
“Tell me, Melissa. What do they deserve?”
“Who hurt you?”
I straightened, pulling away. She may not have seen my eyes, but she saw through me. On a whim, I told her the truth.
“My mother couldn’t go to the police when she was being harassed by a client,” I said. I turned towards the closed window. “She decided to take a chance with her own life, instead of risking prison. She didn’t want me absorbed into the legal system.”
“Your mother is dead?”
My mother’s dark eyes filled my mind.Hide, baby,she had said as she shoved me in the closet.Stay here. Don’t come out. Her last words to me before I watched a man strangle her to death.
I snapped my chin at Melissa. “Save your sympathy. Another client took care of me until I was an adult.” My adoptive father had found me still hiding in that closet the next day. I had known him from before. He had always been kind to me. My voice softened as I added, “The majority of clients are decent. But it only takes one.”
I ran my hands along the blind slats, wondering why I had said any of it.
“You hide yourself,” she said. “Just like you told me not to.”
“If you saw me,” I said as a heaviness crowded inside of me, “the real me, you wouldn’t be able to take it.”
“I’m looking at the real you right now.”
I turned towards her. Her dark brown eyes were like caverns burning in the night, waiting for the moment to make things right again.
“How long ago did Jake rape you?”
She looked away, focused on the clock on her dresser. The candle flickered in the shadows. “I don’t want to talk about that,” she said. “To be honest, I don’t remember. We were drunk.”
“Does that give him an excuse to force himself on you?” She didn’t respond. I stepped closer once again. “How long ago was it?”
“Recently? A few weeks ago. Right after Aldrich—” she started, but then stopped.
Those words were all I needed to piece together the missing information. He waited until she was particularly vulnerable, having killed someone to protect her friend. He used that insecurity to get her drunk, using his own drunkenness as an excuse to hurt her.
And this was the most recent time.
“You threatened him, didn’t you?” she asked. I leaned down. “We were both drunk. It’s not a big deal.”
“You must think you’re the only one,” I said. She quieted then, biting her lip. Her eyes fell over my groin, and you could see the filthy thoughts storming around in her mind. “What?”
