Page 116 of Reckoning

But I can’t deny how my body reacts. I can’t deny how much I actually want it.

Koen

Itake my time taking care of her, washing her body, drying her off, brushing her hair too. She’s like my perfect little toy right now. Maybe that orgasm made her docile. It’s certainly silenced the bratty side of her.

She’s watching me carefully, studying me like she’s expecting me to get my cock out at any moment, and though I’m more than happy to do just that, we can’t spend the entire day in bed. At least, I can’t.

She sits on the barstool, watching me prepare what is now a very late breakfast and we exchange a few words. I like that she’s not over the top chatty, desperately trying to fill the silence. I like that instead she seems content to just be in this moment.

She eats more than her usual and when I point this out she mutters under her breath about someone making her extra hungry.

And then my phone pings.

I pick it up, grunting at the intrusion. Only, Sofia’s phone goes off. Not just once, but over and over.

I narrow my eyes glancing from her to the screen, reading the message from Tia before I open up the social media app.

A strange, strangled sort of cry escapes Sofia’s mouth but I see the images, I see the video anyway.

She’s lying there, exposed, clearly high off something. There’s no one else in view. If you didn’t know better you’d think she’d gone on an all-night bender, that she’d lost all sense of reality.

It’s been posted to her account, it’s like she’s uploaded a library’s worth of content and I flick from one image to the next.

“What is this?” I ask.

Sofia throws her phone, actually launches it across the room. Her face is ghostly pale, she looks like she might just pass out.

“Sofia?”

“I, I didn’t post that.” She says quickly, like I’d think otherwise, like she’d even have had the time. “Someone’s hacked my account.”

“Why?”

She covers her face, shrinking back into that awful scared creature she becomes when her trauma takes her. “They did it.”

“Who?”

“You have to believe me.”

Christ, the way she says that it’s like she expects me to just turf her out. To call her an addict and wash my hands of her.

“Who did it?” I growl, grabbing her hands, forcing her to look at me.

“I, I don’t know.” She says. “I know that sounds like bullshit, I know how it looks…”

“I don’t give a fuck how it looks.” I snap. “Tell me what is going on.”

She sniffs, wiping her face. Her voice is so quiet now, so small, and I fucking hate it. “They keep setting me up. They made it look like I crashed that car, they were the ones who drugged me back at the Montague House, at the ruins…”

“And now they’ve hacked your account.” I murmur.

“Please, Koen, please believe me.”

“Why the fuck would I not?” I ask and she blinks like my words make no sense. “Sofia, you’ve spent the entire night and morning with me. What moment would you have had to do this? And why would you?”

I run my hands through my hair, thinking it over. Of course it’s a stitch up. Sofia’s been here, away, safely out of the public eye for weeks now. I bet her moving in here wrecked all their plans.

I grab my phone, staring at the images again.

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