Page 11 of The Knight (Endgame 2)
“Stop,” he snaps at me.
“Stop what?”
“Looking at me with those puppy-dog eyes. I’m not going to take your food too.”
I glance down at the rest of the kolache in my hand. He could use this more than me. And I do have some money to get more. Maybe there’s another way to make it stretch. Maybe—
“Christ,” he says, voice tinged with frustration. “I told you this wasn’t fucking Sesame Street. The people here will take as much as you give them, and then take more than that.”
Anger strengthens my resolve. It’s one thing to share my food, another thing to be lectured by him about it. “If that were true, you could have taken the bag when I first got here.”
“Hey, just trying to help. The sooner you get out of here the better.”
Lord save me from men trying to help. They’re the reason I’m in this mess.
“Excuse me if my trust fund suddenly disappeared, but this is all I can afford right now.” The sarcasm in my voice covers up the fact that I actually did have a trust fund. And it actually did suddenly disappear.
He shakes his head. “You want to end up like Chastity? Go right ahead.”
Sunlight punctuates his words as he opens the door. Then he’s gone, leaving me in darkness.
Chastity. I wonder if it’s her real name. If so, it’s a cruel irony. It might just be pretend, a stage name, meant to entice men with faux innocence. That’s what men like, isn’t it? Youth and naivete. A blank slate to impress themselves upon.
I remember the men at the auction for my virginity. God, I can never forget their rabid expressions, their hungry eyes. What is it about inexperience that drives them crazy?
Why does being untouched matter so much?
I’ve been touched. Between my legs I can still feel the echo of Gabriel’s tongue. But it’s a long way from the sexual experience of Chastity. Multiple men, night after night. My stomach clenches, threatening to throw up the single bite. I close my eyes, fighting the reaction. Will may be an asshole, but he’s right. The sooner I get out of here, the better.Chapter SixThe sounds of moaning, of grunting, of cursing follow me into my dreams. They turn into demons and angels, pleasure and pain—into a man with golden-brown eyes and sharp words.
The next morning I take a little extra time doing my hair and makeup. A strong woman looks back at me, pretty and confident—like the portrait of my mother that hung over the fireplace. Except at my age she had been in college and wearing a promise ring from my father. Today I’m going to visit Uncle Landon to find out what happened to my house, on the outside looking in to my own life.
Shoving the key and cash into my back pocket, I head out the door.
And stop in my tracks.
A sleek black limo idles in the center of the parking lot, the gleaming black stark against the backdrop of cracked concrete and cigarette-littered gravel. It’s not for me, I tell myself. It can’t be.
It’s probably one of Chastity’s customers.
At eight o’clock in the morning. In the cheapest motel in Tanglewood.
The driver steps out and nods to me in that deferent, discreet way that drivers have. My stomach sinks. He opens the back door and stands beside it, a silent invitation. A tacit command from the man inside.
My feet move me across the pavement, breath trapped. It’s that moment when you’ve slammed your finger in a door, before the pain has registered, when your mind is all too aware of what comes next.
The shadowed interior hides his face, but I know who it is before he speaks.
“Good morning,” comes the low voice of the man who made me come on his desk. The door shuts behind me, enclosing me in the warm darkness.
“What are you doing here?”
A shuffle of papers. The scratch of a pen. As the darkness solidifies, I see him reclined in the back of the limo, focused on a stack of papers in front of him. Working, like I’m a distraction. “I’m your ride.”
He doesn’t even look up. “Excuse me?”
“To Landon Moore’s office. That is where you’re going, I assume.”
My eyes narrow. “How do you know that?”
Finally he looks up, his golden gaze searing me. “Because you’ll do anything to get your house back. It’s the only place you feel safe, isn’t it? The only place you felt loved?”
My stomach clenches. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I don’t think you need me to answer that.”
Because he knows everything that happens in the city. He could have had me followed after I left his office yesterday, but odds are he knew where I was before. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather walk on nails than ride with you.”
I pull the latch to discover that the door is locked. From the inside.
