The Sordid Promise (22 page)

I used the ‘search a phone’ function through our shared calling plan to locate her phone. It worked successfully, allowing me to retrieve her phone from inside one of her clutches in the back of her closet.

I hooked up the charger and waited patiently. After two minutes, the phone booted up and vibrated. I went through her texts, but found nothing. I looked through her contact list and noticed she had two different numbers for me. I called the second number that had no attachment to me whatsoever. It didn’t ring. Instead, it went to the generic recorded voicemail message.

I searched around the room, touching upon the many places she could’ve hidden the other phone, but found nothing.

Glancing around, my eyes froze at the one place I didn’t check; her makeup vanity. I pulled out one of the drawers and alongside the blush and lip products by Nars and Chanel, I found a burner phone.

Seconds seemed like hours as I waited for the archaic phone to charge. I flipped it open, trying to navigate through a phone that lacked the touch screen features I was accustomed to. It was easy to find what I was looking for, because it was clear the phone was purchased with one thought in mind; to talk to Dr. C.

They made plans to meet, but my mother consistently backed out. Eric became suspicious. Almost eleven months ago, she requested he visit her at Harvest Investments.

The correspondence ended after that.

“Nik?”

I jumped and bumped my head on bed frame.

Eric moved to help me to stand. “What are you doing sleeping on the floor? Why did you leave without a goodbye? I could’ve come back with you.” He suddenly smiled as he tried to neaten up my hair with his fingers. “I’m so use to sleeping with you, it’s hard to sleep without you.”

“Where’s Maisha? Why didn’t she bark?”

He glanced at the door. Maisha wagged her tail and licked her chops. “I think she likes me now. I gave her a steak for breakfast.” He looked around my mother’s room, seemingly dismayed by the mess. “Why are you in here? Something you want to talk to me about?” He gazed over my body, looking for something. I knew what he was looking for, just as I knew why he didn’t seem fazed by the scars on my arms and thighs when he first saw them.

I brushed past him.

“Hey.” He stepped in front of me, stopping me in the hallway. “What’s up with you?”

“Why Dr. C.? What does that stand for?”

His eyes darkened a tad, but his expression remained devoid of any discernible emotion. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know how I feel about this.” I shook my head as I felt a throb at the back of my skull. I maniacally rubbed at it. The throb continued, making me feel sick to my stomach. “Don’t know how I should feel. It doesn’t matter now, because I don’t love you yet. What happens when I do? Game over?”

He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and rubbed his forehead. “I’m trying to follow you here, but I can’t.”

I held up my finger and marched around my mother’s bedroom. The phone, nor the laptop were where I left them. I started throwing things around as I searched for the items. Her laptop was moved to the top of the closet. In an effort to pull up the sites, I opened it. Instead of what I was looking for, I was faced with the blue screen of death.

“No. NO! I know what you’re doing.” My hands throbbed with a burning itch. An itch I had to scratch. “Trying to make me go crazy. Trying to make me look crazy. Then, maybe marry me and have conservatorship over my money. Then, you’ll have everything you want. Is that the end game? Is that what you want?”

Looking perplexed, he folded his arms across his chest.

“I’m not crazy,” I said dimly. “It makes sense.”

He abruptly grabbed my hand and held them out to me, forcing me to take notice. I’d scratched the flesh off the back of one of my hands. “Does it? Does it really make sense to you? —whatever it is you’re thinking?”

“You
know
what I’m thinking.”

“As much as I’d love to know everything that goes on in your mind, I don’t have that super power.”

“Suicide Angels. Ring a bell? I used to go to the site all the time and troll. My mother took it the wrong way. She thought I was seeking assistance to kill myself, but I wasn’t. It was for shits and giggles. She found you and posed as me. What happened when you two met?”

His expression was dead. Like he didn’t know where I was going with any of it. Like he was concerned for my health. Like I was crazy and making up this fantastical story up on the fly. “I’m not fucking crazy!”

“Shh. Calm down.” He pulled me down the hall and sat me down on the edge of my bed while he remained standing. “I’m not saying you’re crazy.”

“I’m not crazy,” I pressed wetly. “I don’t know how you did it. How you made me feel like I was still on medication, but I know. Those pills you gave me, they were sugar pills, weren’t they?”

“Nikki, you lost your mother, and I have yet to see you really take that in. It can...affect your judgment, sleep patterns...many things. Just get some rest. I’ll be here when you wake up.” I hated the way he spoke to me. It was liken to a therapist trying to subdue an unruly patient.

“I know what’s going on.” I stood body to body with him. “I know she met with you and said she’d give you her company if you did her two favors. I know I was one and she was the other. I’m onto you.”

“You’re being irrational.”

“No. I’m not crazy!” I yelled. “You took a payout to sleep with me. I knew your plan all along. Make me fall in love with you, then marry me. Just when I think things are good, you’re going to kill me, so you can get my money. If that won’t work, you’ll try to trap me with a baby or worse. You’re no different than my father—both greedy men who don’t know what love is. How could you do this to me? How could you be him? He tried it with my mother and failed, and you won’t get past me.” I shoved him. “I fucking hate you for doing this to me. Get out. GET OUT!” I slapped him, hard.

When his head snapped back, he gripped my hands in one of his and thrust me back on the bed. He straddled me in a way that pinned my arms down at my side underneath his knees, painfully. He pressed his palm across my mouth to stifle my screams as he reached around and pulled something from his back pocket. A syringe. He stuck the tip in his mouth, pulling off the cap. “If you can’t keep still this will hurt, Nikki.”

He’s going to kill you, Nikki. This was his plan all along.
I screamed louder, but it came across as a muffled din through his hand.

“So be it.” He painfully jabbed me in the neck with the needle. I felt the cool rush fill my veins. My muscles began to relax and fall heavy.

He slipped back to straddle my waist and pulled me to sit up. Clutching the back of my head, he brought me forward and kissed me softly. “It’s a sedative. A very strong one.”

“You’re a horrible man,” I mumbled.

“Yeah,” he sneered, “I tried to tell you. It only gets worse from here on out, baby. I want you to see me for the monster that I really am. Too many people see it and pretend it isn’t there. But, not you, Nik. Because I know when you find out everything…it’ll only bring us closer. It has to sit on the shelf until the perfect time. Not yet. You’re not fully invested in this yet. But when you are, you will know everything.”

I wasn’t sure if I understood him correctly. I wasn’t sure if I understood him at all, but with my body falling to the control of the drug, I convinced myself that I hallucinated it.

I jumped out of bed a little too fast and had to take a moment find my bearings. The room spun as if it was on an axis. I felt...hung over.

Eric stood by me while performing a balancing act to hold a serving tray.

I visibly relaxed. “You can’t scare me like that while I’m sleeping.”

He lightly smiled. “I noticed. Never again will I greet you with breakfast in bed while you’re sleeping.” He gave me a smile, kissing my forehead as I got back into bed.

I studied his face. “I was—I had a bad dream.”

He set the tray over my lap. “How do you feel?”

“Better,” I deadpanned.

“I’ve been thinking about taking a full leave of absence from work.”

“Why would you do that?”

He searched my eyes and I studied his face. “It’s no secret that I’m worried about you. Don't take that as an invitation to talk about last night. I never want to go through that with you again. It drives me to the fucking edge when you don’t believe in me.”

I clasped my hand to his jaw and gave him a reassuring smile. “I believe in you, Eric. It’s just…you don’t know the extent of what’s wrong me. Sometimes my mind goes wild with ideas that make me paranoid. Things that make me fly off the handle about the littlest things. For that problem…I
need
my medication.”

“Check your tray.”

I looked down. Next to the plate was one small pill. “Why only one?”

“Your paranoia is the only issue. Rather not have to tranquilize you every time you have an episode.”

I studied his face again, trying to remain relaxed. Internally, I was pissed. I looked at the tray of food. An omelet filled with vegetables, with what looked to be fresh squeezed orange juice and toast points awaited me. I swallowed the pill down with the glass of orange juice.

Satisfied that I took the pill, he turned to the full length mirror in the corner to finish dressing. In his tailored crisp white shirt and patterned black tie; the man was certainly made to be in a suit. The silken material fell over the back of his form in the most perfect way. As I watched him fumble with his tie in the mirror, I softened.

I slipped from underneath the tray to stand between the mirror and he. “You’re dressed very handsomely. Where are you going?”

He raised a brow with a smirk. “Work. As I always do.”

“You’re asking me if I’m okay, but it seems you forgot how to knot a tie.” I took note of his trembling hands. I wasn’t sure if it was anger…or nerves. His facial expression wouldn’t help me with the answer. “Why are you in a full suit anyway?” I deftly slipped my hands around the silk tie, prepping it for a four-in-hand knot.

“No. No,” he chided me with a furrowed brow. “A half-Windsor, baby.” I nodded and redid the ends. “And how do you know how to do this?” he asked with palpable skepticism.

“First boyfriend had a corporate job and didn’t know how to—“

“No need to continue,” he shot me down with cutting curtness. I glanced up at him, wondering if it was jealousy I witnessed or something else. He sighed, running his hands over his perfectly coiffed hair. “Reason why I’m not often in a suit? Tailoring every pair of dress slacks I buy is a pain in the ass. Big cock problems.” I grinned, causing him to mirror my expression. As he did, his hands ceased their shaking.

I tightened the knot carefully. Tipping up on my toes to reach his taller height, I timidly kissed him. He quickly wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer and gave me a deeper kiss. His tongue teased me as his lips tugged at my bottom lip, forcing my lips to part. He slipped his tongue inside and tickled the roof of my mouth. My trepidation was abandoned as a feverish sensation emulated from my apex. I immediately grasped the sides of his dress shirt as I tried to remain grounded.

“You’re making my cock so hard, Nik,” he whispered throatily into my kiss.

I smiled again, taking my lips from his kiss. “You’re going to be late.”

“You don’t know when I’m supposed to show up.” He bit into his smirk as he grabbed my behind with one hand and squeezed. His other hand tugged at the length of my hair, directing my neck to arc. His tongue laid thickly up my side of my neck, ending with a biting kiss on my lips. I soughed his name as I felt helpless in his hold. “I really want to give you a punishing fuck for tempting me, because I can smell how wet you are right now.”

The way he looked at me. The way he looked in his suit. Inwardly, he was more flawed than I was. I knew it. I felt it. But what was outside, was prepossessing. I fought so hard against his seduction, I lightly quaked. “Y-you’re going to be late,” I pressed weakly.

“….and you are irresistible.” He moved to kiss me again.

I pressed my fingers to his lips and shook my head. “Tonight, okay?”

He sighed, seemingly of annoyance.