Grounded (Up In The Air #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Mr. Manipulative

STEPHAN

I’d been woken up after only a thirty minute nap, but I still knew I wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep. And I couldn’t leave her here alone, though I knew not to try to interfere again.

So I stayed. I ate and played video games, texted Javier a lot, and worried. I didn’t like to be a worrier, but where Bianca was concerned, I just couldn’t help it. If she was okay, I was okay, and if she wasn’t…

I remembered the first time I’d seen her. She’d been wearing baggy jeans, and a hoody that covered most of her hair, but she hadn’t been able to disguise the fact that she was breathtakingly beautiful, with clean features and a perfect complexion.

We’d been at a homeless shelter, but neither of us had lingered. At our age, if you stayed around people that wanted to help you for too long, it was inevitable that they would try to help you find your parents. It was always a good-natured intention, but almost insulting in its way. As though we’d have been living on the streets if we had any other acceptable choice… But even that was unfair, I knew. Some of the lost kids weren’t really lost. Sometimes they were mad, or trying to worry their parents, or even just trying to prove a point that they didn’t need anybody.

I knew at a glance that she wasn’t one of those. Yes, she had a proud tilt to her delicate chin, but she was no spoiled brat. She was like me. She had nowhere to go. She was truly lost.

I had followed her, keeping my distance, instinctively wanting to make sure she was safe. If she was like me, perhaps we could help each other. She looked about my age. Maybe we could keep each other company. The thought gave me a pathetic amount of hope.

I stayed far away, just observing, but it wasn’t long before I saw the old man stalking her.

I knew where she was headed. There was a warehouse not far away. It was a popular spot for squatters. None but the homeless were interested in the place. I trailed them there.

It was getting dark out, and so I didn’t recognize the large man that stepped into my path. I squinted warily at the one who had stopped my progress, trying to make him out in the dark.

“Old Sam has a fight for you,” the man said, and I vaguely placed who he was. I was almost positive his name was Mike.

“Now isn’t a good time,” I told him, shouldering my way around him. I wasn’t comfortable leaving her alone near that old man for even a minute, not in the darkness, where no one would care what was happening.

I began to walk briskly towards the warehouse, my eyes shifting around frantically, trying to make out all of the shadowed shapes.

“You’ll be sorry if you get on his bad side!” Mike shouted at my back.

I completely ignored him.

I was almost to the broken side entrance when I heard a faint noise down the alleyway. It had been a muffled grunt, a feminine one, and that was enough to have me tearing down the alley with no hesitation.

I saw the old pervert first, since he was on her back. He already had his pants down around his ankles, and was working at the front of her pants with one hand. The other was over her mouth.

He cursed, drawing the hand at her mouth away to punch the back of her head at the same time that she screamed.

I pounced with a furious roar. My vision went red for a long time, and I couldn’t form a coherent thought again until I felt a soft touch on my shoulder.

“You can stop. He won’t be bothering me now,” she said, her voice soft and gentle.

I stopped beating his head against the ground, letting go to study my bloody hands.

She tugged on my shirt, trying to get me to stand. “Come on. I know a place where you can clean up. You shouldn’t have to have his filthy blood on your hands.”

She took my arm and began, in that gentle way of hers, to lead me behind the building. Her every touch was like a question. She was sure of her actions, but I didn’t think she was capable of being bossy.

I looked at her, so afraid of what I’d see in her eyes.

She met my look, and hers was full of gratitude and understanding, and not an ounce of fear. “Thank you so much. I didn’t know that there really were nice men in the world. I thought that was a myth, but you saved me.”

That did it. I was lost.

“I’m Bianca,” she said with a sad smile, her eyes a little lost, as she cleaned me up.


“I’m Stephan,” I told her numbly. It had been so long since anyone had cared for me, or touched me in any way, that I felt almost in shock at her actions.

“You’re like me,” she said quietly, still working gently to wash the blood from my hands and wrists. She didn’t look up.

I had to clear my throat to speak. “What do you mean?”

She glanced up then, meeting my eyes squarely. I saw the strength in her from those eyes, and her quiet resolve. “You can never go back home.”

My jaw clenched, and I nodded slowly.

She never showed a hint of fear for me, and the longer I knew her, the more I realized that, considering her past, she’d had every right to.

We never asked if we’d be staying together, we just never separated.

“You don’t ever have to worry about me…trying what that old man tried. I’m gay, so it’s not an issue,” I told her the first night we slept huddled close together, sharing one thin blanket.

It wasn’t only to assuage her fears that I told her. If my preferences were going to make her recoil from me in disgust, I wanted to know it sooner rather than later.

She just wiggled closer. “I wasn’t worried, Stephan. It didn’t even occur to me that you would try to harm me. You’re a good guy—a hero. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. I feel so safe with you. Safer than I’ve ever felt.”

Her words gave me a warm feeling in my chest, and above her head, my eyes filled with foreign tears. For the first time in years, I felt a fierce joy in my heart. Maybe I’d found a person who could love me. Maybe I’d found a family.

I was beyond relieved when James reappeared about two hours after they’d gone upstairs, though I would have been more so if Bianca had been with him. He wore only a pair of black athletic shorts, and he was covered in sweat. His hair was tied back and his eyes were scary. He carried a small laptop in his hand.

I swallowed hard. I wanted to see Bianca, needed to know that the scary thing in his eyes wasn’t more than she could take, but I knew she trusted me not to interfere, and I valued that trust.

“We need to talk,” he told me.

I nodded. I would take any information I could get.

He sat beside me and opened his laptop. He set it on my lap. A video was playing on the screen. I watched it for maybe a minute before I had to turn away, blushing profusely. I handed it back to him with a grimace. “Jesus! Why would you show me that, James?”

“So Bianca hasn’t mentioned it to you?”

I was livid in a heartbeat, ready to punch him. “You showed that to her?”

“No! Of course not.”

My eyes widened in realization. “That’s online?”

He nodded, looking miserable and furious all at once. “I don’t know how. I’m looking into it. But I need to know if she knows about it yet. And I need your opinion. Will she leave me if she sees it?”

I rubbed my temples. “It’s old, I assume. Long before you met her.”

“Of course. I didn’t even know it existed until a few weeks ago.”

“It will be upsetting. And she’s so skittish. I just have no idea what she’ll do, James. She’s so different with you. When she left you the first time, I was almost certain that she’d never give you another chance. All the rules changed for her when you came into the picture. I just can’t predict what she’ll do with you. But don’t let her see that video. That certainly won’t help. Knowing and seeing are two different things.”

“How can I stop her? You know her. She’ll want to see it for herself. I just know it. This is killing me, Stephan. What can I do?”

I shook my head. “So this is what has you so upset? It’s not that she went out without security?”

I watched his fists clench and felt mine copying the motion.

“It’s both. Do you know what she f*cking did? She went all by herself to meet her brother. Sven Karlsson. He even has the same f*cking name, and she went alone to see him.”

I felt my gut clench. “What happened? Is he like her dad?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’ll find out. Don’t worry about him, Stephan. I’ll make sure he’s well vetted before he breathes the same air as her again. I swear it.”

I nodded. I knew he would. And I saw that I’d been wrong to doubt him. Even in this dangerous mood, he was still only thinking of Bianca. He’d been like that from the start, which was why it had been so easy for me to share her with him. There was just something so steady about him. He’d swept into our lives with such a benevolent sort of authority. The messed-up, wounded kid that still lived inside of me longed for his approval, and he was generous with it, too. He thought I was amazing—he told me so often, and he found me worthy to help him take care of Bianca, who I knew he adored more than life; it took one to know one. He filled a role of both friend and mentor for me that I hadn’t realized I’d been missing, which made it even harder for me to fight with him. But when it came to me and Bianca, he had to know that her side was my side. There could never be a question of that. “I’m sorry I tried to interfere, James. It’s just so hard for me—“

“It’s fine,” he cut in impatiently. “We have something else to discuss.”

I nodded for him to go on, relieved that he didn’t seem to be holding a grudge.

“I know your first inclination is going to be to tell me no, but remember that this is for Bianca. I want her out of that house. He knows where it is, she was attacked there, and every time she’s there without me, it drives me absolutely out of my f*cking mind crazy. She won’t leave that place until you do. I know it. I need you to sell your house.”

I blinked at him, totally thrown for a loop.

“There’s a property next to mine that I think will suit you well, and you would still be neighbors. She needs that. You know she does. I’m buying you that house. And you need to help me convince her to sell hers. She’ll resist the idea, but this is important. She needs to get out of there. My property is much safer.” He seemed to sense my uneasiness. “I’ll give you time to think about it, but you’ll see that I’m right. I know you’re uncomfortable with my buying you a house, but it is literally nothing to me to do this, so if you can’t do it for yourself, do it for Bianca.”

I knew he was a manipulative man. Generous, but manipulative. I honestly didn’t think he could even help himself; he was so used to getting things his way. Even knowing that, though, I considered the idea.

Playing by his rules means staying close to her forever. As I realized that, it wasn’t even a question for me.