Page 123 of A Secret and a Lie
I’m not powerless. I’m in control. I’m not a victim.
“For the last time, I told you to leave me alone until I called you,” Percy snaps.
“I brought you a gun,” the male voice replies, somewhat nervously. “You told me to tell you if there was any troub—”
Percy doesn’t reply. He simply slams the door shut in the face of whoever stood on the other side.Did he take the gun?
What was the trouble? Is it Ford? Did something happen with him? Or is it danger entirely unrelated to me?
I can admit it now; Drake was right. Thiswasa suicide mission, especially since I didn’t know exactly who Percy York was, nor was I aware of his connection to me. This is bad,really bad.
“Where were we?” Percy inquires aloud, striding toward me, thankfully without a weapon in his hands. I couldn’t answer, even if I wanted to. “Oh, that’s right, we were just about to talk about the way your sweet voice called Grady ‘Master.’I still think about the way you sounded when you said that word. I’ve gotten off to it more than once over the years. I’ve made my own employees call me that.”
Master.The word transports me right back to the savagery I endured, the brief semblance of calm I’d regained evaporating faster than dew.
Grady’s fingers slide into my hair, fisting it painfully as his erection forces its way past my lips.
What makes this entire assault more harrowing is that I trusted him; I willingly relinquished custody of my body and mind when I gave him my submission. He betrayed that, set me up for a fate worse than death. I was naïve, blinded by my willingness to trust him.
I should’ve seen him for the vicious animal he was.
My safe word means nothing to him, becauseImean nothing to him.
The recollection of rage and promise of vengeance has me snapping back to the present like I’m a wind-up doll coming back to life. My palms are damp, my mouth wet, my stomach rioting, but I won’t be taken down like this, not byhim.I’m stronger than that. I’ve walked through the fire and come out on the other side.
Percy’s lips are still moving, but I hear nothing as I remind myself that Ididconquer that pain. I went to Hell, but I refused to let that become my home.I take a steadying breath, then another, the heady incentive of retribution sluicing through my veins and freezing my panic in its tracks. He smirks, obviously assuming that he’s gotten to me. Technically, he has, but he’s about to find out that I’ve remembered who the fuck I am.
“You’re right, Percy.”
He frowns, his eyebrows creasing in obvious confusion.
“I did used to be more compliant.”
“It’s what made me knew I liked you the moment I saw you with Grady.”
I grind my teeth at his use of Grady’s heinous name but nod all the same. He moves to the chair across from me, and I wait until his ass is in the seat to continue. “I’m not compliant anymore. I live by my own set of laws, rules that every client agrees to follow.”
He opens his mouth to say God knows what, so I cut him off. “I slept with the President last term and my wife doesn’t know,” I beginto recite the secrets from memory. “The missing money from the defense budget is in my bank account. The governor of Kansas—”
“What?” he interrupts, frowning, the lines on his face deepening.
My stomach continues to twist and turn, my throat raw, the backs of my eyes still burning, but I’m finished tolerating this brute. Men no longer rule over my life, and this smarmy animal needs to be put down like his friends.
If anything, this is a gift. I killed them all, freed myself, but now that I’ve been made aware of this last invisible shackle, sending Percy York to the grave releases me in more ways than I was expecting.
I cross my legs, stretching an arm along the back of the couch casually as I explain, “Oh, I was just listing the secrets that you stole when you poached those clients from me.”
His nostrils flare, his hands balling into fists, his voice booming as he snaps back. “Most of those clients wereminebefore they were yours. I’d been in this business for twenty-five years when you showed up and stole them all.”
Ah.Well, I’m still not giving them back.
Like a true politician, he likes to hear himself talk, and I allow him to continue. If this is how he wishes to spend his final moments, who am I to stop him?
“I have to admit, your business model was genius, though, collecting the secrets. It took me a long time, but once I learned how you were running things, I decided to do things the same way, only I was smart enough to use the blackmail I collected.”
Once more, I roll my eyes internally, but outwardly, I give him a pitying smile. “Ruling from a place of fear will never get you anywhere. That’s where you went wrong.”
This is why I built my business the way I did. Employees and clients would rather work with the Madam who’s never betrayed them, never weaponized terror, and treated them courteously, respectfully, and practiced the utmost discretion.
