“Two.”
There! I saw her again. Her fists hammering glass, her mouth open in a silent scream. Keeping my eyes on her, I ran, afraid to take my eyes from her, fearing she would disappear. One hand touching the glass as a guide, the other out front, seeking something solid so I could turn. I was like a blind man who could fully see.
“Kane!”
She began to recede, to fade. The harder I ran, the farther I seemed to be from her. I hit another wall, then another before finding the opening and sprinting in its direction.
“One.”
I was in the right passageway this time, I knew it, but Eliana was losing hope. Her fists were bloodied as she sank to the floor, tears running like a river down her face.
“Thirty seconds.”
“No,” I screamed, not recognizing my voice as it tore from my throat. I was getting closer. Twenty feet. Ten. Five. One.
Bam. I rebounded off another glass wall after hitting so hard my nose shattered from the impact.
“Fifteen seconds.”
I turned around and hit another wall. Turned to my left and hit another. To my right was another. Sticking my hands out, I turned in a circle. All the openings were gone. I was trapped, Eliana only inches away on the other side.
“Ten seconds.”
She was on her feet, her palms pressed to the glass. I stood in front of her and pressed mine to hers.
“I love you,” I yelled as the masked man walked up behind her.
Her blue eyes begged me to save her as she whispered, “I love you too.”
“Three.”
He was close.
“Two.”
He was there, his hand encircling her throat.
“One.”
He squeezed, and Eliana’s mouth opened to scream my name…
***
“Kane!”
Hands were on my shoulders shaking me, and I tried so hard to float up out of the darkness and into the light of her voice.
“Baby, wake up!”
I blinked, and Eliana was there. Alive.
“Kane, wake up. It’s me. Wake up.”
I shot straight up in my bed, heaving in a breath as if my lungs had been starving for air. So fuzzy. Why couldn’t I blink the sleep away?
What was happening to me?
“Kane?” Eliana’s voice was gentler this time, her blue eyes blurry but there, leading me from the darkness. “What’s going on? Are you sick? Drunk?”
As I was trying to unwind myself from the blankets, I realized I was naked. Everywhere. Eliana gasped, and I looked down and saw what she saw. A used condom barely hanging onto my limp prick.
I inhaled and nearly choked on the fumes of the scotch that seemed to surround me. I didn’t understand what was going on.
In the distance, a toilet flushed, and a door clicked.
As one, Eliana and I looked up. And there, in the doorway was Alize, fully naked too.
Eliana gasped and took several steps backward. Beside her, Target growled.
Very slowly, Alize made an attempt to cover herself. “Sorry, darling. He just wouldn’t let me say no.” A smile played on her lips. “He’s very convincing.”
I tried to get up. I tried to stand. I tried to reach for Eliana as she turned away and ran.
But all I could manage to do was puke.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Eliana
My fists hurt as I pounded on Zoe’s door. Her eyes were wide when she opened it. “What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t talk, so instead, I just barged through, not stopping until I was at the kitchen sink, splashing water on my face. Soft hands were on my shoulders, holding my hair back as I washed the misery away.
When I turned off the faucet, those same hands guided me to a chair. I sat and Target, the good boy that he was, sat on my feet.
“What happened?”
Even after walking for hours, I still couldn’t believe the words that were about to come out of my mouth. “I caught Kane sleeping with my mom.”
Zoe’s mouth opened, but she was as speechless as me for several long moments. “When? Where?”
I held up a hand. “Don’t you dare ask me why.”
She didn’t. Instead, she got up and poured me a tall glass of wine. I gulped half of it down in a single long drink.
“Okay, tell me what happened.”
“It was after the revenge porn public announcement shoot. Target and I walked in the door, and I expected to see Kane there. His first physical therapy of the day was over, and he didn’t need to go back for another couple of hours. I’d stopped to get Chinese and thought we’d have some lunch.”
“And…?”
“He wasn’t in the living room or kitchen. I checked the weight room and his office. He wasn’t there either, so I went to the bedroom to see if his keys were there. Instead, I found him.”
Zoe’s hand was over her mouth. “Oh, El. Found him how?”
“Asleep. Well, that’s what I thought at first. But he was sweating and shaking, like he was having a nightmare. I went over to him, and I noticed these scratches, they were almost like claw marks on his chest. And there was a hickey on his neck.”
I closed my eyes, reliving those moments in full detail.
“Zoe, he started screaming, and I tried to calm him, but he grabbed me. I shook him, trying to make him wake up. There was this smell, like alcohol was everywhere. Like it was coming out of his pores.”
“Then…?”
“Then he opened his eyes, but it was like he couldn’t see me. He started fighting off the covers, trying to get out of bed…” I inhaled deeply, breathing back the sob that wanted to escape. “There was a condom, Zoe. It had clearly been used, half on and half off him.”
I could hear the flush of the toilet. The turn of the knob. My beautiful mother. Her beautiful body. Marks on her breasts.
“Alize opened the door and stood there naked. After a few seconds, she tried to act embarrassed, but I could tell she was just gloating. When I was dating Brett back in college, she told me I could never keep a man like him happy. She told me the same about Kane.”
A tear fell. The first. I blinked hard, willing it to be the last.
“And you left?”
I nodded. “Yeah, no sense watching her rub her success in my face. The driver, Deke, was downstairs. He followed me around until I was ready to come here.”
My phone buzzed, but I didn’t even look at it. It had been buzzing for hours now, and I kicked my purse with my foot. I drained the glass and looked down at my left hand, the beautiful diamond glittering back at me.
I didn’t cry when I took it off and handed it to Zoe. “Will you give it back to him? Get my clothes? Or not. I really don’t care anymore.”
On shaky legs, I stood up and poured another glass of wine, all the way to the brim.
My phone buzzed again.
I heard Zoe get up and dig through my bag. Then her phone began ringing in the other room.
She padded out, and I sipped my drink, looking around the apartment. My new home. Whitney had done a beautiful job furnishing it. It was fresh and young and warm.
Whitney was helping me with the wedding. I’d have to call her to let her know it was off. And Holly to cancel the cakes. And Marsha. And Nana. It was all too much.