‘Jesus!’ My startled heart is racing in my chest as I try to get my erratic breathing under control. I don’t have to try for long, though, because my heart practically stops beating when a man appears in the doorway. My pulse slows in my veins and my blood turns to ice. The man is naked – naked except for a blindfold over his eyes. His hands are also held behind his back, and it doesn’t take me long to figure out why. He’s restrained. My poor eyes feel like they could bleed.
He’s young, middle or late teens, perhaps. There’s no lean muscle on his chest, his legs don’t look powerful and strong, and his stomach is flat – no cut abdominals or shadows from the protruding muscles in sight.
Yet there’s no mistaking who this young man is.
Chapter 22
‘No!’ My eyes flood with tears and my hand covers my mouth. ‘No, Miller. No, no, no.’ He’s pushed into the room and the door shut firmly behind him, and then he just stands there, still and silent. There’s no sound whatsoever. Not even when the door closes. I try to force my eyes shut; I don’t want to see any more, but it’s like a vice is holding them open, denying me any hope of hiding. My mind scrambles. Find the remote control. Turn it off. Don’t watch!
But I do. I sit like a statue, immobilised by shock, only my eyes and mind functioning. My brain is relentlessly demanding I find a way to stop this – not just now, but stop it back then. He drops to his knees on the floor. I could be having an out-of-body experience. I can see myself standing to the side, screaming my anguish. Miller’s head is dropped, and I gasp when a man appears from the bottom corner, his back to the camera. I let out a sob when he grabs Miller by the throat. He looks well dressed, a black suit adorning his tall body, and though I can’t see his face, I know with perfect clarity what his facial expression is. Supremacy. Power. Arrogance in the worst possible way.
I continue to torture myself, telling myself that this is a breeze compared to what my love is enduring. The unknown man continues to hold Miller by the throat as he yanks at the belt of his trousers. I know what’s coming. ‘You bastard,’ I whisper, rising to my feet. He takes a hold of himself, shifts his other hand to Miller’s cheeks, and squeezes until he’s forced to open his mouth. Then he rams himself past Miller’s lips and begins to thrust like a deranged madman. I bite my lip as I watch Miller, my strong, powerful man, being violated in the worst possible way. It goes on and on and on. No amount of my tears and gut-wrenching sobs stop the hideousness playing out before me. My stomach turns when the stranger’s head drops back a little and he slows down, circling into Miller’s mouth like it’s so very normal, my tummy twisting further when I actually see Miller swallow. Then like nothing has happened, the guy zips up, pushes Miller roughly to the side, and strolls out.
Every scrap of breath leaves my lungs on a quiet whimper as I watch Miller lie motionless on the floor, not a whistle of his mental state clear. His cautious approach to me taking him in my mouth and his violent reaction when he woke to me pleasuring him in New York is so clear now. I’m shaking with rage, sadness, every emotion possible, and it’s all for him. I sniffle and sniff, willing him to get up and leave. ‘Run away,’ I beg. ‘Leave.’
But he doesn’t. Not for the longest time. He only moves when another man appears from the same place as man number one. He’s back on his knees. ‘No!’ I yell, watching the new man stalk slowly forward, again in a suit. ‘No, Miller, please!’ The man follows the same string of sickening movements as the previous guy, except this one strokes Miller’s cheek. My hand is back over my mouth, holding back the nausea. He starts to undo his trousers. ‘No!’ I swing around, searching for the remote control. I can’t watch any more. My hands work like demons, throwing pillow after pillow across the room. ‘Where are you?’ I yell, beginning to sweat – a mixture of exhaustion and desperation to kill what’s playing out on the screen behind me. I pull up and scan the floor, spotting it under the table. Dropping to my knees, I grab it and swing around, aiming it at the television, but my finger doesn’t stab at the stop button. It just hovers above it, twitching as my wide eyes watch Miller’s hands come from behind his back and yank his blindfold from his head.
I choke and heart palpitations send me falling back to my arse. His eyes are revealed. They’re hollow. Empty. Dark.
Familiar.
The man staggers back in shock, frantically working at his trousers as Miller rises to his feet, danger coming from every naked pore. He said he killed a man. This man here. My arm goes limp, my finger relaxing as my hand falls to the floor. Now I really know what’s going to happen and I can’t even be sorry for the sadistic thrill I know I’m going to get from watching it play out. Miller in this footage may not be as physically lean and cut, but it would be foolish to underestimate the sheer violence radiating from him. He starts to stalk slowly forward, his face straight, no hint of anger evident at all. He looks completely composed. He’s a robot. A machine. He looks lethal.
I slowly stand, silently willing him on.
The guy’s hands come up in defence as every muscle on Miller’s body visibly engages, ready to pounce . . .
And then the screen goes blank.
I gasp, frantically stabbing at the play button on the remote control. That can’t be it! I need to see him hurt him. I need to see him get revenge. ‘Play, damn it!’ I yell, but after a lifetime of punching the button, nothing happens. ‘Fuck you!’ I scream, hurling the remote control across the room with brute force. I don’t even flinch when it smashes against the front of one of Miller’s paintings, shattering the glass sheet protecting the canvas. I whirl around, heaving and shaking. I feel cheated. ‘Miller,’ I exhale, bolting across his flat and running like an unhinged nut down the corridor towards his studio.
Bursting through the door clumsily, I pull to a halt and search him out. He’s sitting on the edge of his old worn couch, elbows braced on his knees, his face in his palms. But shocked wide blue eyes are revealed quickly. I see life in them. Light and energy, none of which were there in that footage, and none of which were there when we first met. It’s all evolved since we’ve found each other, and I’d rather walk the fiery depths of hell than see it all lost. A painful sob fights past my anger and I start running to him, only vaguely registering him standing through my blurry vision.
‘Olivia?’ He starts forward tentatively, frowning. He’s shocked I’m still here.
I launch myself into his arms. Our naked bodies crash together hard, and would probably hurt if there wasn’t another agony consuming every nerve ending. ‘I’m so fascinated by you,’ I sob, constricting him around the neck, melding myself to him.
Miller accepts my overpowering clinch and holds on just as tightly, maybe even tighter. My rib cage is under incredible pressure, jeopardising my breathing, but I couldn’t care less. I’m never letting go. ‘I love you, too,’ he whispers, sinking his face firmly into my neck. ‘So much, Olivia.’
My eyes close and all of the anxiety from the horror scene falls away under his thing. ‘I wanted to see you do it,’ I admit, reasonably or not. I feel like I need that part of the puzzle. Or maybe I just need to be sure he really did kill that wicked arsehole.
‘Charlie has it.’ He doesn’t ease up on his hold, which is fine because I don’t want him to. He could squeeze even harder and I wouldn’t complain.
My mind settles, allowing me to think clearer. ‘He’ll take it to the police.’
Miller nods a little into my neck. ‘If I don’t play ball, then yes.’
‘And you’re not going to play ball, are you?’
‘I’m not doing it, Olivia. Not to you. I couldn’t live with myself.’
‘But you could live with blood on your hands?’
‘Yes.’ His answer is swift and decisive before he wrestles me from his arms and gazes down at me. ‘Because the alternative is your blood on my hands.’ I lose my breath but Miller continues, saving me the trouble of finding any words. There aren’t any. And I know now, one hundred per cent, that there’s n
othing I can do to stop Miller from killing Charlie. ‘I have no remorse for what I did to that man. I’ll have even less for Charlie. But I would never forgive myself if any harm came to you, Olivia.’
My eyes clench in pain at his honest words and I finally allow myself to take some time and evaluate what they did to him. He was young in the video. Amid all the other shit this poor man has endured, when did that happen? How many times did it happen before he flipped? Did Charlie organise it? Undoubtedly. And now he wants to subject him to some Russian woman who wants to degrade him again. Never.
‘I need to get that,’ Miller says as the phone rings. He lifts me from my feet and carries me out of the studio into the kitchen. He doesn’t release me to take the call, instead holding me just as tightly with one arm and answering his phone with the other. ‘Hart,’ he greets shortly, resting his bum on the table and dropping me to my feet between his thighs. I’m still stuck to his front, but he doesn’t complain or ask for privacy.
‘Is she there?’ William’s irritated tone is perfectly clear to me and likely to be, considering my cheek is welded to one side of Miller’s face and his phone to the other.
‘She’s here.’
‘I just took a call,’ William tells Miller. He sounds hesitant.
‘From?’
‘Charlie.’ Just the mere mention of his name sets my panic off again. Why is he calling William? They’re archenemies.
‘So suffice it to say he knows for sure that I’m sleeping with the enemy?’ There’s a touch of irony tickling the corners of Miller’s question.
‘Hart, he has copies of the footage.’
My heart slows down. I feel it, and I know Miller feels it, too, because he clings on that little bit tighter. ‘Let me guess – if anything happens to Charlie,’ Miller says quietly, ‘there are two people with instructions on how to find the copies and what to do with them.’
There’s a long pause, and I see William in my imagination rubbing stressed circles into his grey temples. ‘How’d you know?’
‘Sophia told me. And she told me she destroyed all the footage.’
The shocked gasp that travels down the line cools my skin. ‘No.’ William sounds almost defensive in his counter. ‘And you believe her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Miller,’ William goes on carefully, using his Christian name for a change. ‘Charlie is untouchable.’
‘You almost sound like you don’t want me to kill him.’
‘Fuck.’ William heaves out a sigh.
‘Goodbye.’ Miller tosses his phone onto the table without care or attention and places his arm around me.
‘William knows,’ I mumble into his neck, only just comprehending the last few moments’ conversation. ‘He knows what’s in that footage?’
‘I guess he suspected. Charlie has only confirmed it. There have always been rumours about a night at the Temple that resulted in the death of a man by my hand, but that’s all it was. No one knew the circumstances and no one knew if it was true. It’s like the best-kept secret of the London underworld.’
Miller wrestles with me a little, encouraging me away from him. We’ve been stuck together so hard and for so long, it feels like he’s ripping a plaster slowly off my naked skin. I hiss a little, then grumble my protest, but he just smiles fondly. I have no idea what there is to smile about. Reaching up timidly, he gently strokes across my forehead, moving into my hair, pulling it away from my face. ‘I’m amazed you’ve still not turned to dust, sweet girl.’
I smile a little, searching his face. ‘I’m amazed you’re resting your naked bum on your dinner table.’
He reins in his smile, trying to scowl. ‘My table couldn’t be any more polluted than it already is, thanks to my beautiful girlfriend.’ He stops and seems to consider something for a moment. ‘Are you still my girlfriend?’
Albeit insanely inappropriate, I can’t help smiling brightly at my beautiful love. ‘Are you still my boyfriend?’
‘No.’ He shakes his head and takes my hands, bringing them to his mouth and kissing each of my rings and my knuckles in between. ‘I’m your slave, sweet girl. I live and breathe for no other purpose but you.’
I pout as I look down at his waves, his lush lips making side-to-side brushing motions over the tops of my hands. I don’t like the word slave. Especially following what I’ve just witnessed. ‘I prefer boyfriend. Or lover.’ Anything but slave.
‘As you wish.’
‘I do.’
He forces his face up to mine and gets nose to nose with me, searching my eyes. I feel like he’s feeding off the light he claims to find in them. ‘I’d do anything for you,’ he whispers. ‘Anything.’
I nod, feeling my irises burning from his concentrated gaze. ‘I know.’ He’s proven that. ‘But you can’t go to prison.’ He can’t fight for his freedom and then get locked up. It would be insane to consider that as a potential out. Seeing him once a week for . . . however long it might be won’t be enough.
‘I couldn’t survive a day without losing myself in you, Olivia Taylor. It’s not an option.’
Relief makes me dizzy. ‘So what now?’
He cuddles me fiercely before roughly releasing me and wiping at his cheeks. His face takes on an edge of determination, and when I should expect this to settle me, I find it unnerves me. ‘I need you to listen to me carefully.’ His palms rest on my shoulders, holding me in place. My heartbeat quickens. ‘Charlie thinks he has me cornered. He thinks I’m going on that date and trusting he’ll hold his end of the deal. And just in case you have any doubt racing through that mind of yours, he would never have upheld his end of the bargain.’ He taps my temple gently, giving me high brows.
I don’t like where this is heading. Miller looks too determined, and I can see with clarity him trying to inject me with some, too. I’m not sure he can. ‘What are you telling me?’
‘I’m telling you that I’m going to the Temple. I’ve accepted Charlie’s out, and—’
‘No! I hate to think of you with her.’ I know that’s the least of our problems at the moment, but possessiveness is getting stronger by the second. I can’t control it.
‘Shhhh,’ he hushes me abruptly, placing a finger over my lips. ‘I thought I told you to listen carefully.’
‘I am!’ I’m going to lose my mind. ‘And I don’t like what I’m hearing!’
‘Olivia, please.’ He takes my shoulders and shakes me a little. ‘I need to go on that date. It’s the only way I’ll get into the Temple and close to Charlie. I won’t be touching that woman.’
Close to Charlie. I withdraw, wide-eyed. ‘You really are going to kill him, aren’t you?’ I don’t know why I’m asking. He’s told William. I heard it with my own ears, but maybe I thought I’d wake up. This is the longest nightmare ever.
‘I need you to be strong for me, Olivia.’ His grip increases, almost to the point of pain. He pushes his lips to my forehead and breathes in deeply. ‘Trust me.’
Seeing the pleading in Miller’s eyes jars something within me, and then the flashbacks from the repulsive footage replay over in my mind. It only takes a second for me to recall the overwhelming need I felt to see Miller hurt that man. To know justice had been done. I want this to be over. I want Miller to be mine now. And then Miller’s words. They make perfect sense now.
You possess every part of me, Olivia Taylor. For all of the wrongs I have done and all that I am yet to do, I’m asking for your mercy. Only your love will see me through this hell.
‘OK.’ I don’t even shock myself with my easy acceptance. This is an easy decision. I’m suddenly full to the brim with resolve. I’m sound-minded and determined.
I want to be free of the invisible chains, because I am shackled, too. But more than anything, I want Miller to be free. Wholly free. He gets to decide who he belongs to. He chooses me, and that can’t happen until this shit is over. He’ll never be mine until this is finished. No interferers. No living on the edge. Our histories will be as th
ey should be. History.
‘Do it,’ I whisper. ‘I’ll be here for you. Always.’ His eyes fill with water and his chin trembles, fuelling my own tears to build. ‘Don’t cry,’ I beg, placing myself into his chest and guiding his arms around my back. ‘Please, don’t cry.’
‘Thank you.’ His words are disjointed and gruff as he cuddles me fiercely. ‘I don’t think I could love you any harder.’
‘I’m quite fascinated by you, too.’ I smile sadly, already planning what on earth I can do to busy myself when he sees through his promise to kill Charlie.
Can you die for one night and come back to life?
Once we’ve finally relented and given up our holds of each other, Miller takes his phone and wanders out of the kitchen to make a few calls.
In the meantime, I wander pointlessly around the kitchen, searching for something to do, anything to clean up or tidy. Nothing. I sigh my exasperation and find the dishcloth under the sink, then set about wiping up watermarks around the sink that aren’t there. I go over and over the same spots, rubbing at shiny stainless steel until I can see my face in it. It’s an awful sight, so I continue with my senseless wiping.
But then I pause.
Boom . . .
I slowly turn, armed with the damp cloth, and rest against the sink, looking across to him at the entrance. He’s leaning on the doorframe, spinning the phone slowly in his hand.
‘OK?’ I ask, folding the cloth and turning away from him to put it in its rightful place, thinking I should try an attempt at normal. I laugh at my stupid endeavour. I have no idea what normal is.
When I get no answer, I pivot slowly, biting my lip nervously.