Page 20 of Fear the Reapers
I was curled up on their smoky grey couch in the middle of a reality T.V. binge on their gigantic flat screen.
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t like I had much of a choice.” I countered, twisting on the couch to face him.
“We had business to take care of.” Ezra spoke up as he and Tristan walked up to flank Cyrus on either side.
After I reflected on the events of last night, Ezra was the last person I wanted to see. He was an asshole and an egotistical asshole at that. He may have hit the nail on the head with my mommy issues, but he was way off about my scars. I wouldn’t touch Malcolm with a fucking ten-foot pole. Luckily for Alex and I, his vile ass didn’t have a fascination for touching little girls, just beating them. Regardless, my past was none of his fucking business and I refused to let him get under my skin again.
“That’s fine,” I responded coolly, “though I’d like to start work soon, I can’t imagine leaving me to sit here all day is helping to pay off Malcolm’s debt.”
“Work?” Cyrus answered with a single brow raised. “No offense, darling, but you aren’t cut out for our kind of business. Why the fuck would we make you work?”
“But how else would I pay off the debt?”
“You are the debt,” Ezra spoke up, tilting his head with a smirk, “paid in full.”
What?In a split-second all the air rushed out of my lungs and the living room that once felt ostentatious became suffocating. His words shook me to my core and left me dumbfounded in the aftermath.
That wasn’t what I agreed to.At all.
Fucking Malcolm. It had to be his doing. The Reapers had no incentive to lie. With their power, if they wanted to keep me, they would.
Seeing the confusion on my face, Cyrus continued.
“In exchange for his life, Malcolm offered yours. This contract doesn’t have an end date, Princess. You are ours, indefinitely.”
Cyrus went into further detail, but my ears stopped listening. My expression was blank as a war of emotions rushed through me.I was theirs…I wasn’t going back to Alex, not now and possibly not ever. I wasn’t just repaying a debt; I was the goddamn debt.
Nausea bloomed in my gut.This wasn’t possible.This had to be some kind of mistake. I never agreed to any of this. I needed to leave, but even I wasn’t foolish enough to think that they’d just let me walk out of here unharmed. I knew too much. Had scoped out their living quarters and had clearance with their security teams. I knew each of their faces so intimately that I could describe them from memory, and their anonymity outside of their inner circle was sacred.
I was upset, though mostly with myself, for being so fucking naïve.This explained so much.Why I couldn’t leave the property of my own free will. Why the guards went through such great lengths to ensure that I couldn’t see where we were going and why they had taken my only means of contacting Alex before I had even arrived. I was in deep shit and the reality of it was I had no one to blame but myself.
Slowly rising from my seat, I excused myself and made my way out of the room. Once I was out of their line of sight, my feet ran towards the nearest restroom. The moment my knees landed on the cool ceramic tile, my stomach began heaving its contents into the toilet. Silent tears streamed down my face as my body curled in on itself.
What have I done?
Chapter 12
Tristan
She’s hiding something.As I watched Stevie walk back into the living room, the nagging thought reared its ugly head again. Since her arrival, I’ve had my people meticulously research everything there is to know about Stephanie Alexander.
According to the sealed records I called in favors for, she had a pretty tumultuous childhood. Her father died when she was eight years old. Child protective services called on her behalf at least a dozen times before age thirteen. Orphaned at fifteen. From ages sixteen to eighteen she was in and out of juvie for a slew of charges, including petty theft and more than a few cases of physical assault. At nineteen there were a few medical bills from a lengthy hospital stay, but no record of what took place. Since then, her record has been virtually spotless. She’s laid low and even held a job for the last few years at a local coffee shop. Still, something didn’t add up.
As I scrolled through her court documents on my phone, the other phone in my pocket vibrated with a new notification. I ignored the disruption and went back to scrolling. I’d had her phone for less than twenty-four hours and there hasn’t been a single hour that has gone by without a fucking text or call. Worst of all, every single notification was from some dude named Alex. Who the fuck was this guy?
I heard about the crazy shit she pulled with Ez, so Alex being her boyfriend was pretty unlikely. He was probably just some pussy-whipped ex-client distraught over the fact that he’d never get to touch her again.
It crossed my mind to peek at the messages, but I ignored them instead. Snooping through her phone was beneath me and my people already hand-delivered all the pertinent information. Something about her just felt… off.
Chancing another glance at her while Ez and Cyrus bickered, my eyes latched onto the purplish bruise marring the side of her face. I hadn’t noticed it before, but it didn’t come as a surprise. Cyrus told me about the scars on her body and the fresh wound on her arm. I checked our cameras and while one guard, who we would deal with personally, got too fucking touchy with her; all evidence showed that she arrived with the wound. Someone from her old life was hurting her and probably had been for some time.
The need for vengeance burrowed under my skin. No amount of violence or retribution would ever change what happened to her, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to find the person responsible and deliver the fuck’s head on a platter.
I almost asked her for a name. The words danced on the tip of my tongue. But before I could get them out, my dark thoughts got in the way.
Just what the fuck was I expecting to happen?
Even if, by some miracle, she gave me a name, and I found the fucker who gave her those scars. Then what? Would I profess my need to kill him because he hurt her? Would I tell her that since she walked through that fucking door, I haven’t been able to stop obsessing over her?
