Page 122 of A Secret and a Lie
The calmest person in the room is often the strongest, so the key to success is keeping a level head, no matter how disgusting I find this man.
“Do you know what else I remember?” The greasy politician strides closer, and when he stands before me, he thrusts his fingers into my hair. I let him, though I grit my teeth, controlling the urge to curl my lip as I wait to see what he’s going to say next. “I remember this as being black and about eight inches longer.”
What the fuck is he talking about?Is my natural hair something Henry shared with him?
My eyebrows crinkle as I maneuver my head out of his grasp. He must read the confusion on my face because his lips twist into a gruesome smile that makes my insides churn. “I think I recall youbeing a far more compliant whore than you are these days, and one hell of a sucker. At least that’s what I heard.”
Before I can stop them, my eyes widen, and he chuckles, the sound crawling beneath my skin. “Didn’t notice I was there, too, did you? Understandable, given howoccupiedyou were that night.”
That can’t be right. Surely, I’m misunderstanding, except…
My chest seizes as the words he’s spoken settle over me like a noxious gas threatening to suffocate me.No, no.
How did I miss this? I put that night behind me, and it’s been so long since anything truly took me back there.
The feel of the unyielding hardwood floors digging into my kneecaps as if I were kneeling on razor blades. The omnipresent fireplace to my right, watching as the worst night of my life unfolds with unseeing eyes. The nauseating scent of cigars and liquor masking the unmistakable hint of Italian food that seems to linger.
My scalp burns, but it doesn’t begin to compare to the pain searing through my core, radiating through the rest of my body. But the worst agony is happening in my chest, my precious heart splintering further by the second.
Fat teardrops fall from my face to the floor, adding to the small puddle of drool and misery on the wood below my chin. A ripple of dark, sinister chuckles resounds, but I don’t know what they’re laughing at. Probably me.
Percy’s voice cuts through the horrific nightmare I endured. “Leo told me he had something special with you, but I didn’t believe him until I saw it with my own eyes, even though you were my top earner.”
Leo. Something special. Saw it with my own eyes.My brain trips over itself in an attempt to make sense of what he’s telling me.How doesLeoplay into this?
“Yourtop earner?” My voice is more ragged than I’d like, if a little unsteady. Although, at this point, it’s a miracle I was able to speak at all, especially with the bile rising up my esophagus.
“You didn’t know.” He tilts his head, his expressionmocking and sinister. “That’s right, Leo worked for me. When Grady mentioned the obedient submissive he was training, I had to see for myself.”
Vomiting becomes a veritable possibility as my mouth waters with dread. “You organized that, that…event?”
His smile is all wrong, a thing of nightmares. “No, that was all Grady, but I certainly wasn’t going to miss the show.”
I swallow hard, chest constricting as it becomes more difficult to suck down air, and I realize with horror that I’m in the middle of what’s sure to become a full-blown panic-attack if I don’t regain control of myself. It’s been ages since I had something set me off—years, actually—and this is a terrible time to break the streak.
Unfortunately, my trauma doesn’t seem to care.
Just then, there’s a knock at the door, and Percy huffs as he goes to answer it. But I can’t get a hold of myself to move; I’m frozen, unable to hide or think straight enough to potentially defend myself. If the man on the other side of that door has a weapon, I’m as good as dead.
Everything hurts. I feel as though I’m being split in half as spasms of agony rocket through me. I’m vaguely aware that I’m bleeding, but I don’t dare move a muscle or make a sound. My body has shut down, numbness setting in to cope with the ineffable situation.
I can’t die here.
Something hot and wet splashes across my face and I suppress the urge to be sick…barely. Suddenly, I’m pushed into a new position, a chunk of my hair being ripped out from the force of the action, forcing more tears to leak from the corners of my eyes. My face is pressed to the floor; the side of my nose scrunched against the spot where my tears and spit has gathered.
I squeak as my arm, still sore and healing from Leo’s torment, is wrenched into an uncomfortable position behind my back. A loudcrackechoes through the room, but I don’t part my eyelids to see what made it, nor do I feel it if it lands against me. I’m…empty now.
The men steal the jagged shards of my soul one piece at a time, leaving me with nothing but a hollow chest and a broken body. There’s a singlesliver of solace floating in my subconsciousness that I latch onto like a lifeboat amid this storm: a man a whole continent away.
The frightening ghosts of my past mingle with the knowledge that I’m not in control right now. In the back of my mind, I know that if I don’t pull myself out of this spiral, my heart could beat for the last time on this disgusting couch.
My stomach riots with nausea as suppressed memories from that night flood the beach of my mind in tidal waves. I can’t seem to build a mental barricade fast enough to keep them out.
Screwing my eyes shut, I force myself to take measured breaths the way I taught myself in Amsterdam.
Breathe in for four counts, hold for four, breathe out for four, hold for four.
I repeat the box breathing technique several more times until my vision returns to normal and my mind grips onto a frayed thread of reality while Percy is still momentarily preoccupied.
