Julia was understandably upset at the idea of going through such an invasive procedure. It was far easier to determine paternity when the baby was born, but Julia still had a few months left of her pregnancy. However, he explained that Goddard had reached out to an attorney from the Valley, a neighboring city on the other side of the interstate. His lawyer was a man who would twist her words and try to convince the jury she asked for it, that she was a consenting participant in her abuse, so she begrudgingly relented to the paternity test. It didn’t matter that she was underage and legally incapable of giving consent, they would crucify her in the media and make the last months of her pregnancy a nightmare.
“Who’s the attorney?” Nassir asked, sounding bored rather than curious. It was such a simple question, one that I would have asked myself if I was at all familiar with the legal system. I wasn’t prepared for the answer to send my world careening off its axis.
“Aaron Cartwright. He’s made a name for himself over the last few years taking on some big cases. He got a cop killer acquitted and that guy who kept those girls chained up in his basement for three years off on a technicality. He’s salivating over this one. Offered to do it pro-bono when Goddard got in touch.” I thought I was going to pass out. My past nightmare was now colliding full force with my current one.
I was having trouble breathing through the panic that was clawing at my throat. The room around me started to spin and I barely heard Keelyn ask me if I was okay. “Do you need to sit down, Noe? You look a little pale.”
I felt like I was going to hurl. I put a hand over my churning stomach and looked everywhere but at the prying eyes coming from everyone in the room. “It’s been a long few days. I’m tired.” Horrified was more like it. Of course, Aaron had gone off to law school and was getting people off the hook who were just as awful and demented as he was. He probably sympathized with the monsters he represented. I knew firsthand that he understood them, that he came from the same kind of tattered and torn fabric that made them. I never thought I would see him again, or hear his name, unless it was ripped out of me in the middle of the night when I couldn’t escape the things he’d done. I couldn’t believe he was smack dab in the middle of everything that was going on now.
Goddard. The man had gotten away with more than murder for a long time, so clearly, he wasn’t stupid. We were so busy keeping track of him, we never stopped to wonder if he was doing the same kind of research on us. He could have easily found a low-rent attorney in the Point or one from the Hill who might be attention hungry and looking for glory, but he hadn’t. He’d deliberately found the one person who would make me run. The only person I feared enough to turn my back on the young girl who needed me and the man I was growing more reliant on every single day. He’d played his hand well, and when I wasn’t terrified and choking on panic, I would take a minute to be impressed by how well the old man played the game. But right now, I had to go.
I had to vanish, disappear, dissolve into nothing. I needed to get my ass on the first train or bus out of town and never look back at this fucking city again. I needed to escape. I needed to be where no one relied on me. I needed to get somewhere that stormy gray eyes didn’t follow my every move and catalogue my every thought and feeling like I was some kind of newly discovered creature. One that he was determined to figure out and tame. I needed space to get my head around how easy it had been for him to get through my walls. Until I heard Aaron’s name, I didn’t even realize I was standing on the ruins of everything impenetrable I’d built up over the years. I hadn’t noticed the bricks crumbling to ash every time Snowden Stark touched me, or pushed me to do more, or caused me to think harder and be better. He wanted me to want things and he’d managed to make that happen. I wanted him, but not nearly as bad as I wanted to get someplace where Aaron Cartwright couldn’t find me. A place he would never, ever think to look.
“I just need . . . ,” I cleared my throat as the words squeaked out too high and shaky. “I’m going to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I grabbed my backpack from the floor, clutching it like it was a lifeline and not an anchor that weighed me down. I started for the elevator, intent on getting out of the club and hitting the streets when Nassir’s smooth as silk voice stopped my hasty retreat.
“You can use the private bathroom up here. You don’t have to go all the way back down to the club.” He was watching me carefully, eyes dissecting my every twitch. He might pretend to be a heartless bastard, but I knew he cared about Stark and he made it clear he knew that Stark cared about me. He wasn’t going to let me evaporate into thin air because it was going to piss his boy off, and he wasn’t having any of that.
Too bad. I was beyond caring what either he or Stark thought about my need to flee. All I could think about was getting somewhere I felt safe, somewhere nobody knew me and wouldn’t look for me.
“No. I think it’s better if I head downstairs. When I say I have to go to the bathroom, I mean I have to go.” I left no question about what I meant. The handsome lawyer looked properly disgusted and the teenaged boy who trotted into town with Julia snickered in the way all teenaged boys tended to at toilet humor.
I jabbed at the elevator button like my life depended on the car showing up in the next couple of seconds, because it felt like it did. Once the metal doors swished open, I practically jumped into the interior, turning to push the button for the ground floor only to catch Julia’s questioning, terrified eyes. I told her I would protect her, that I wouldn’t leave her. I was a goddamn liar.
“I’m so sorry.” It sounded just as pitiful as Stark’s apology had the night he got me back from Goddard’s men. It sounded just as useless, as well.
The doors closed and I pressed a button for the floor that had the private rooms. I didn’t trust Nassir to let me go. If he put one of his guys on the front door, there was no way I was getting past them, but I knew from pictures all over Instagram that the club had a private terrace used for the high rollers and big spenders. They were also the people who paid for sex and debauchery, the likes of which Goddard could provide, but that was neither here nor there. The private patio was just high enough that jumping over the edge and down into the alley below was risky, at best. Flat out stupid and irresponsible was closer to what I was doing, so I couldn’t stop and think too much about it. Sure, running away with a broken ankle was going to be a hell of a lot harder than skipping town with two working legs, but there wasn’t a chance Stark was going to let me go when he found out Aaron was back in the picture. He would make a broken bone seem like nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
The bar in the VIP area was closed since the club didn’t open until late into the night. I sent a quick prayer up to whomever might be listening and feeling generous with their miracles that the doors leading outside wouldn’t be locked. I heard something that sounded like an electronic click but I refused to stop and think about what it was as the heavy, glass door swung open under my hands. I bolted to the railing and gulped when I looked down. It seemed a lot higher up in person than it appeared on the Internet. There was no question that going over the side and landing on the asphalt below was going to hurt, bad.
I couldn’t see another way around it, though. I was like an animal caught in a trap. I was willing to chew my own leg off in order to get free. I had to get away. There was no other choice. I could feel my past breathing down my neck with hot, acrid puffs of air and it was suffocating me. I tossed a leg over the metal railing and briefly closed my eyes. I deserved a break. Maybe I would land on some trash or hybrid car. Something soft or something that would crumple easily and break my fall.
I pried my eyes open, preparing to hurl myself into oblivion, when I caught sight of the shiny, sparkly, perfectly maintained fire escape leading off the far side of the terrace. I couldn’t believe a guy like Nassir Gates bothered with something as mundane as keeping his club up to code. I decided next time I saw him, which would be never, I was going to give him a kiss of gratitude. I didn’t even care that Keelyn would kick my ass over it.
I ran to the ladder, used my foot to kick the latch that held it in place, and sighed in relief as the separate parts started to roll toward the ground below. I was scampering down the side of the building before the last rung hit the cement. When my feet were back on solid ground, I shot a look up to where I had come from and noticed that there were surveillance cameras on every corner and along every outside wall of the massive warehouse. My escape wasn’t going unnoticed and I didn’t have to wonder if I really was breaking free or if Nassir was letting me go. If I gave it too much thought, I would stop moving and I couldn’t afford that.
I darted out of the alley, pulling my beanie down over my head and tugging a hoodie on over my thin t-shirt. I kept my head down as I melted into the shadow and shade that was always present in the Point. The darkness used to be my friend, used to be the place I knew I could hide. The gloom and the gutters was where I always felt safe, but now Stark knew where to look for me. And I knew he would. Even though I’d been working at putting space between us, driving a wedge at the same time I pulled him closer, he would look. He wasn’t going to let me go without a fight, because I knew him. I understood him. I appreciated all of him, and I told him that over and over again when I let him take my body and challenge my mind. My heart was starting to get jealous of all the other parts of me that were full of Snowden Stark, which was another reason I needed to hit the bricks. I didn’t want to fall for a man who claimed to be heartless, but was anything but. I had too much on my own plate to take on his search for his lost ability to love. If he found it, I was a goner. As it was, I was barely hanging onto my resolve to protect my heart from him and his awkward, untried affection.