Page 22 of Broken

Everything happened so fast. One second, I was watching Grant prowl towards me and the next, my head is spinning and there is a burst of pain shooting through my nose and face. Out of instinct, I bring my hands up to my nose and they are wet, but because of the black spots dancing around my vision, I’m struggling to see. Then it's like everything catches up with me and crashes over me at once. Grant just punched me in the nose. I have blood pouring out into my hands and tears streaming from my eyes. I had no idea I was crying because my vision is filling with more of the black spots. The ringing in my ears feels deafening and I’m sure if I could see the room, it would be spinning. Nausea fills my stomach and I desperately try gasping for breath through my mouth. All the blood and whatever damage the punch did is preventing me from inhaling through my nose. I know I am starting to hyperventilate and my mind is whirling. It's a mixed up place of pain, confusion, darkness, and panic. My legs begin to feel like they are made of jelly and before I know it, the whole world turns black.

When I finally come around, I find I am propped up on my bed, surrounded by cushions. My nose had stopped bleeding and my eyes were no longer watering. However, my head was still very much banging. In fact, if someone doesn’t mind telling the brass band that is currently parading through my skull, that they can fuck right off, that would be great. I can still feel a pulsating pain on my right cheek, spanning below my eye and across my nose. I tentatively try to move my face muscles but that just increases the pain and makes the floaty spots appear in my vision again. So, I guess that is nature's way of telling me not to do that. When I feel the pain in my cheek, it’s like a flashback to the fact Grant punched me and I need to find out if he is anywhere near me still. My senses are all over the place and I need to use my eyes.

Peeling my eyes open as gently as I can is easy enough on the left side, but on the right side, no matter how much I try to open my eye fully, only a sliver of light gets through. Obviously, that eye is so swollen, the eyelid is almost shut. Fuck knows how terrible I must look right now and I chase away the sob that is building in my chest. I can feel sorry for myself later, but right now, I need to assess the danger.

It turns out that danger is not too far away. In fact, he is propped up on the bed at the side of me, holding a towel to my nose to ensure the bleeding is stemmed. He isn’t pressing too hard, so I’m guessing the majority of the bleeding is over. As I gaze up at him through my good eye, I feel confusion over what I see. He is looking at me with this mix of contempt and disgust, but there is also a little fleck of sadness glistening in his eye. Does he feel bad for what he did? I don’t have time to focus on something that I could be misinterpreting. I raise my hand up and take hold of the towel before shuffling as far away from him as I can get on the bed. Admittedly, it is not far, but I don’t have the energy to actually get up and I just need this small victory. I hear Grant release a dark and sadistic laugh at my actions, but I ignore him. Slowly, I raise the towel up into my line of sight and see that while there is a lot of blood on it, most of it has now dried and there doesn’t appear to be any fresh. To confirm, I raise my hand and gently press around my nose. It causes all kinds of pain, but no more bleeding, which is a bonus. With everything that is going on, I can’t help but wonder why Grant is still here. I know he has a big party tonight, that’s what I was supposed to be getting ready for. His guests must have arrived, so why isn’t he down there with them? I need him to leave this room. Hopefully, when nobody sees me downstairs, Ryder will come looking for me. I need him to come and find me.

“Why aren’t you downstairs with your guests?” I snarl, hoping I can get rid of him, but he chuckles.

“Oh, princess, have you forgotten already? This is our engagement party. I can’t go down there without you.” He practically sings the words and is in complete denial that, who knows how many minutes before, he punched me for no good reason. But he must have had a reason. If I’m going to keep myself safe from this monster, I need to learn everything that triggers him and make sure I avoid those things.

“Grant, why did you punch me? I did everything you told me to do. I followed all of your rules. I’m so confused and I don’t know how to be a good wife for you if I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.” I try my best to sound genuine, like my main goal in life is to please the sick bastard.

“Why the fuck did you do that to your beautiful body? I always thought that you were so perfect, despite your financial problems. But all this time, you were hiding this shit under your clothes. Why?” he sounds genuinely disgusted as he talks and I can tell that where he would normally be perusing my body, now he can barely stand to look at me. My heart starts to race and I start to feel hope. Maybe now that he has realised I’m not his dream woman, he will let me go. I love the fact that the beautiful art I have always seen as my armour, is actually acting like it right now!

“I have had these tattoos for years, Grant. They are my personal body art and each part symbolises something important. They are a part of who I am and I’m sorry if knowing I have them is off putting for you,” I say, as politely as I can manage through gritted teeth.

“Don’t worry about it. I made a call while you were sleeping. We have an appointment with a specialist next week. He says it will take time and it will be painful, but he will be able to remove that trash from your body.” I just sit there, looking at him, even more dumb founded. He wants to take my armour from me. No fucking way am I letting him do that.

“No! Weren’t you listening? These tattoos are important and hold sentimental value to me. Each of them signifies something that happened to me and together it is like the roadmap of my life. I don’t want to get rid of it,” I shriek. I know I was trying to stay calm, but the idea that some doctor wants to remove my ink has me terrified. I scurry off the bed and begin pacing around the room, trying to ground myself by feeling the softness of the carpet below my bare feet. The movement is too much for my head and the band restarts again, but luckily, at a lower decibel. The black spots are still there in my vision, so I try to reduce my erratic behaviour. I don’t ever want to be unconscious near Grant again because I do not trust him. Taking big deep breaths, in and out, helps to calm my dizziness, but my fury at Grant still rages on.

I hear his footfalls crash to the floor and instantly time freezes as he gets up off the bed and stalks towards me. The fact I freeze on the spot makes it easy for him to reach me in next to no time. He gives me the once over with his eyes and I can see the disgust there, but there’s something else there too. It’s like he wants to hate me, he needs to, but there's a part of him that doesn’t. He’s so difficult to read and I never know what he is going to do, so I just stay rooted to the same spot.

“This is not up for debate. My father always said when he set out the standards of a woman fit to be my wife, she must have unblemished skin. I have managed to negotiate your unfortunate upbringing and have ensured Father that as far as anyone else knows, you are the perfect wife for me. So, you see those disgusting things have to go.” He is talking a mile a minute, and at this point, I’m not sure if he is trying to convince me that it will work, or himself. He knows that even with the tattoos, I will never be good enough to be his wife and fuck, that is fine with me. The sooner he realises that, the better.

“You are right, this is not up for debate. I will not let you remove my tattoos. You can drag me to the hospital, but I will shout and scream. I will fight you on this every step of the way,” I say, looking him in the eye and standing as tall and proud as I can. The confidence I feel from my tattoo is helping me to stand up to him. I see he is about to say something back and I'm sure the rage on his face is an indicator it wouldn’t have been something good. Luckily, his phone vibrates in his pocket, distracting him, and he takes it out to read the message. As soon as his eyes pass over the words, the look on his face changes back to his blank, unreadable mask. Whatever was in that message may have just saved me today, but I have a feeling it’s just delaying things in the long run.

As I’m frozen to the spot waiting for Grant to respond to my very clear violation of his ‘obey me’ rule, instead of continuing his advancement towards me, he changes course. He puts the phone away and heads over to the wardrobe. After several seconds of looking through the mass of colours that are hanging in there, he settles on a teal coloured knee length wrap dress. It’s made out of a beautiful, soft cotton and while there is nothing overly special to look at, it still looks gorgeous. He walks towards me holding the dress out in front of me.

“You have been insolent towards me far too much tonight. This is a matter we will resolve at a later date, but you will no longer keep my guests waiting. You have five minutes to fix your face and put this on, then you will come and meet my friends. But let me be very clear about this, Ava, I will not forget this behaviour. It’s not acceptable and you will be punished. I will not tell you what the punishment is or when it will be, but I can assure you that when it is over, you will be desperate for me to remove your tattoos myself.” He whispers the part about the punishment quietly and directly into my ear. The feel of his breath and the vibrations of his voice, combined with the anger in his threat, sends shivers down my spine. The little hairs on my arm stand on end and he must see that I visibly start to shake because it makes him laugh. He puts the dress in my hand and pushes me towards the bathroom. His warning that I have exactly five minutes and not a second more, has me trying to frantically apply makeup to my swollen eye. Even with a really good concealer, which this is, you can still tell I have bruises spreading under both eyes and that one is almost swollen shut. But I do my best, which is not easy given my hands are shaking and my brain is whirling. I try to push the threat of punishment out of my mind because I know it’s just as much a psychological punishment as it will be a physical one. He wants me worrying and obsessing about when it will be, what it will be, and I have no intention of giving him that satisfaction. Obviously, at this point, I am trying to bullshit my own brain because, of course, I am terrified.

Finally getting the dress wrapped around my body and tied in a secure loop at the side, I look at myself in the mirror. I’m squinting with one eye and the other just looks bruised, but the concealer has done a really good job covering up the majority of it. If it wasn’t for the half swollen shut eye, nobody would be any the wiser. Looking down at the dress, I feel a bit confused. From what I have learnt about Grant in the short time that I have known him, he’s all about image. I had to wear a frickin cocktail dress to dinner when he was the only one present. Yet, for a party to introduce our engagement, he has me dressed in what I can only describe as a very beautiful, but casual, summer dress. This is the type of dress you would wear to go shopping when it's hot. There’s nothing overly flattering about the way it clings to my body. I have tied it in the middle in such a way that it shows off my smaller waist and emphasises my hourglass figure, but that's the most it does. Grant usually enjoys staring at my tits and arse, he loves any opportunity to show them off. The fact he is choosing not to do that tonight has my nerves on edge. Part of my brain is saying that it's probably a smart casual dress code for the party and he doesn’t want me to look too sexy when he introduces me to the people in his world. I know again that this is bullshit, but I have to keep telling my brain something or I am going to freak out.

The sound of Grant’s fists pounding on the bathroom door and his shouts about time being up and that I need to drag my arse back into the bedroom makes me physically jump. My nerves are already fried and then to be caught off guard like that has me shaking even more. Giving myself a mental pep talk that includes my usual ‘calm the fuck down’ speech helps slightly, but my nerves are still on edge. My heart is racing and I can feel the pounding in my ears as my shaky hand goes to open the door.

I walk out with a false confidence, but it is irrelevant because I barely register to Grant. He doesn’t look me over or ogle my body the way he usually does. Instead, he seems like he is itching to go, and when he looks at me, he has a glint of mischief in his eyes. He takes hold of my hand, and at first, I think he is going to mention the fact that my palms are disgustingly full of sweat but he doesn’t. He just smiles his usual manic grin and ushers me through the door. At this point, he is all but dragging me down the corridor and I am just going along with it. As we reach the door for Ryder’s bedroom, my heart skips a beat as it does everytime I walk past it. But today, instead of my mind daydreaming about that hot and sexy night that we had together, I’m imagining what Ryder will do when he sees my face.

I know when Ryder and I talked about what would happen after our night together, we said it couldn’t change anything. His job is always going to be the most important thing in his life. It’s something I really fucking do not understand. I mean, you look at Grant and you can tell he is your typical gangster, crime family, or mafia person, whatever the hell they call themselves. But Ryder could not be further away from what I would associate with those guys. He is not a bad guy. I could never see him hitting a woman or killing someone. I know he said he is here as the brains behind the operation, but if he is that intelligent, he could do anything. Why a life of crime? The Ryder I have in my head, who spent the best night of my life with me, and that I’m pretty sure I’m slowly falling for, he wouldn’t hurt anyone.

I must stall slightly outside of Ryder’s door as I’m imagining all the ways this could end tonight. I’m not ashamed to admit I have even considered the big extravagant knight in shining armour theory where he rides in on a white horse, scoops me up, and we ride off into the sunset together. Ok, so I know that logistically the majority of that will never happen, but I like the idea behind it. I like it very much. That is playing on replay in my mind constantly on the walk downstairs.

As we reach the first floor, I can hear the party in full swing downstairs. It looks like they are in the living room and dining room. The doors have been left open and people are just milling about throughout the entire ground floor. They are all holding different shaped crystal glasses, depending on what their drink of choice is. There are catering staff in black trousers and white shirts flying around, making sure that everyone has a drink in their hand. There are also some holding silver platters that are filled with different types of vol-au-vents. Everyone seems to be chatting and having a great time, but the one thing I do notice is that they are all in black dress suits and ball gowns. I am severely underdressed to meet all of these people. Is this my punishment? Do I have to meet the high society people dressed as a plain Jane? Because it's not much of a punishment. I don’t care what these people think of me, it’s only Grant here whose reputation will be smudged. That thought brings me joy and a slight smile crosses my lips.

Just as I’m about to walk down the stairs to face the crowd, Grant pulls my hand into a different direction. Instead of going down the stairs, he pulls me off to the right, along the corridor on the first floor. This is his wing. I was told from day one I wasn’t allowed down this part of the house. It’s Grant’s private section of the house and all I know is that he has a bedroom, bathroom, and what I think may be a private study area. Now my heart really is starting to race. With people, I’m safe. This does not feel safe and so I stop.

“Grant, where are we going? The party sounds like it is going on downstairs,” I say as politely as I can. He obviously knows this, but I am trying not to antagonise him.

“We are going to my personal study. I have had Vic bring a few of my close contacts upstairs so I can introduce you to them personally. These men are very important and very powerful, you will do to remember that. With the backing of these men, I do not need that of my father. They are keen to support me and even more excited to meet the woman I have finally decided to settle down with. So, let’s not keep them waiting.” Grant’s practically dragging me towards the room and my heart is racing. This doesn’t feel right and I’m not afraid to admit I am freaking the fuck out right now. The idea of being stuck in a small room filled with dangerous men who all support Grant seems like a disaster waiting to happen. If these knobheads think he’s a good leader, they have to have something mentally wrong with them and I really don’t want to find out what that is. But I also know that pissing Grant off even more could be just as dangerous. So, stuck between a rock and a hard place, I take a big deep breath and walk towards the room.

Grant opens the door and the room is exactly how I pictured it in my head. It is covered in dark mahogany. There is just wood everywhere. On the floor, the ceilings, the walls, and the big desk that sits off to one side is just this massive mahogany monstrosity. It’s exactly how you would envisage an old fashioned office to look like. There is nothing modern, spacious, or airy about this place. There is one window on the wall opposite the desk, but it is covered by blinds. There is no personalisation to the room at all. No pictures on the walls, no family heirlooms, only essential items. Other than the desk, which features the usual computer and big leather chair, there are some filing cabinets, a couple of wooden chairs, and on the window side of the room, there are two sofas. I would imagine under normal circumstances this room would be bare and boring. But from the minute I walk in, it’s buzzing with excitement.

There are around fifteen men of all ages, races, shapes, and sizes dotted around the room, either seated or standing up. They look like there is nothing in the world that would connect them. On one sofa, there is an old bald man who looks like your typical Daddy Warbucks type rich guy, and he is talking to a thin African man with big afro styled hair. He is covered in tattoos and is wearing the most hideous velvet purple suit I have ever seen. He looks like your stereotypical eighties movie pimp. The idea that the pimp and Daddy Warbucks have anything at all in common to talk about is hilarious. But there are more pairings like this all around the room.

I’m not ashamed to admit that before my eyes fell on all these odd pairings, I did scan the room for Ryder. My heart sank when I saw that he wasn’t there. The very small amount of calm I had managed to talk myself into went straight out of the window when I saw he wasn’t there. When Grant closes the door behind us and gives me a cocky grin before pulling me close to his side, it finally dawns on me that I’m trapped.

“Gentlemen, welcome! So good that you were all able to make this little last minute gathering. But as I’m sure you can imagine, this is such special news, we just couldn’t wait to share it.” I cannot believe how much sway Grant obviously has with all the men in this room, because as he speaks, they all stop what they were doing and their eyes fly to meet us. He grins out at his adoring crowd and squeezes my hand, which I'm sure indicates I should be doing the same thing. He is about to carry on with more of what I’m sure is utter bullshit in his speech when the door behind us creaks back open. I turn to look and my heart starts hammering in my chest when I see the person entering the room is Ryder. He has his eyes downcast as though he is trying not to look at me and he is carrying a tray with two glasses of what I’m sure is the most expensive champagne Grant could order.

Walking around us and straight to Grant, Ryder has still managed to look everywhere but at me. So much for my plan that he would see my eye and rescue me. He first holds out the tray to Grant and it gives me time to study him, which is one of my favourite pastimes. Ryder always looks gorgeous, but today is something on a whole new level. I am so used to him being laid back in sweats or jeans, I never thought to imagine him in a suit, but even if I did, my brain couldn’t have created this. He is wearing a crisp black suit with a dark grey shirt and they are all nipped and tucked to fit his body perfectly. The trousers hug and show off his arse perfectly without being tight. The shirt stretches across his chest and down over his rippling abs and the fabric is so thin, I can almost see every line. He is mouthwateringly beautiful and as he moves over to hold the tray out to me, I risk a look at his face.

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