Cruel Hearts (King’s Crossing #2)

Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Stella

Q uinn shows me a place to shower. It isn’t much, but the water’s hot. While I was Ash’s prisoner, I had the best of the best. Even the trim I had last month cost over five hundred dollars. I wanted to color my hair, too, but the stylist who came to my room said it wasn’t permitted.

He did that to show me he controlled me.

I didn’t need the reminder.

I wrap a towel around my torso and step out of the shower stall. Quinn meets me holding a sleeveless sundress and a cross-body purse. “Your backpack’s too bulky, and it’s a hundred degrees outside.”

The dress is cute, light pink and covered in tiny white flowers. It’s something I would have worn before I met Zane. Before he promoted me and Zarah took me shopping. When my simple life wasn’t muddied with complicated “what could have beens.”

Quinn also lends me a fresh bra, clean panties, and white ballet flats. I can run in these if I have to. She’s thought of everything.

She’s dressed similarly to me in a dress and flats, and we look like a couple of girls going to the mall for the afternoon. I don’t have anywhere to put the gun Luis gave me, and even though I don’t know how to shoot it, I feel lost without it. Quinn carries a messenger bag instead of a purse, and she says she’s armed.

One of us has to be.

I tuck the flash drive into an inner pocket of the small purse. “I’m ready.”

Quinn doesn’t have a car, and we walk through the industrial park to reach the bus stop. I’m calmer now that she’s with me, but I feel far from safe. She doesn’t say anything, just shuffles quietly beside me, the gravel covering our shoes with dust. There’s nothing to say, though I wish she would talk to me, distract me, keep me from thinking about the stupid, stupid thing I’m about to do.

“Let’s take the train,” she says, breaking the silence.

I nod. The train will be fastest, and the crowds underground will hide us better than the people riding the city buses. We ride one only to the nearest train stop. Filled to capacity, the passengers help us blend in, but I still feel exposed. Perspiration caused by the heat but filled with fear mists my skin.

The air is sticky, and wearing my dress, the backs of my legs peel off the plastic covering the seat when I stand.

It’s cooler down below, under the city, and I pause for a moment to suck in a deep breath of the musty air. We reach the turnstiles and my steps falter, but without missing a beat, Quinn feeds the meter to let us by.

I’ve been locked up way too long. My brain turned to mush, but that’s no excuse. If I don’t start thinking clearly, I’ll be dead before I can reach Zane’s building. There’s no way Ash will let me go without a fight. He’s been out of the country, but he knows I’m gone. The only questions are how long he’ll let me think I got away with it and what he’ll do to drag me back to my prison.

The crowd is thick tonight and I almost lose Quinn in the crush. I look for her in alarm, but she’s right behind me and she grips my hand when she sees the panic on my face.

An electricity buzzes around the subway, a calm before the storm. Or maybe I’m paranoid—I haven’t ridden the train in five years. Maybe the passengers have always felt like this. The anticipation. The needing to be somewhere as quickly as possible. Then I remember it’s a Thursday evening. People are in the mood to party, to get a head start on their weekends.

I loosen my muscles, hoping to relax.

“We need to get on the B train,” Quinn says, tugging on my arm.

We weave our way farther down and wait. The crowd pushes at us from all sides, and the gritty, salty smell of sweat hangs in the air. It nauseates me, and the greasy fast food Quinn brought me sits in a lump in my stomach.

A loud rumbling fills the tunnel and the light blinds us as a train streaks by in the opposite direction we need.

“Two more,” Quinn murmurs into my ear. “It’s okay.”

The trains are between stops, and I wish we would have timed it better. The crowd offers us some protection, but I still feel vulnerable.

I inch my way to the edge of the platform. I want to be the first one on the train.

Quinn rests her chin on my shoulder. She senses my urgency, and in her way, reminds me to calm down.

I pat the purse resting at my hip, the strap snug between my breasts. Nothing is in it but the flash drive. I inch another half step closer, not that it will do any good. The train rushing at us isn’t the one we need and it will fly by to the next stop.

The single light in the center of the engine casts a bright white glow over the narrow tunnel.

The crowd presses closer, and I shift on my feet. I’m not the only one impatient to board. I just want to get this over with, and I steel myself for the force of the train as it’s about to speed by.

Quinn wraps her arm around my stomach.

Someone shoves me from the side, and irritated, I glare in that direction. I can’t get any closer to the edge of the platform.

Dark eyes narrow.

I swallow.

His intent is clear, but in that split second there’s nothing I can do.

Quinn screams, her fingers scrabbling with the fabric of my dress. It’s not enough to keep me from falling, and I slam onto the tracks.

My ribs burst into flames. Funny how that’s the first thing I think of, not the fact that I’m going to die.

I turn my head and watch the train bear down on me.

Shrieking fills my ears. Urgent shouts from people standing on the platform and the train’s brakes squealing and sparking as the engineer attempts in vain to avoid running over me. He won’t be able to stop in time, and I picture myself cut into bloody ribbons. I wonder if it will hurt.

I hide my face in the crook of my arm, and my life literally flashes before my eyes. How many shitty foster homes I endured, the five torturous years I spent under Ash’s thumb. With my chin up and my back straight, I lived through it all.

I can’t curl up and wait for the train to kill me.

Struggling to focus, I push up onto my elbow.

I roll onto the other set of tracks seconds before the train would have run me over, wheels screeching. The train speeds by possessing such a momentum the engineer couldn’t hope to harness it, and I fight back a scream.

Sirens blare, a shrilling that threatens to deafen me. The emergency alarm. I’ve heard them go off whenever someone was in danger on the tracks. Today, that someone is me.

Subway employees jump off the platform and help me to my feet. I’m woozy, blood rushing to my head, and I stumble. Train security boosts me onto the platform and hustles me unwillingly into an office. Quinn must be freaking out, being separated after my near miss, but I don’t have a phone and can’t arrange to meet her.

“Ma’am, are you all right? Do you need us to call an ambulance?” The man has kind brown eyes, grey hair, and a matching mustache.

I’m not all right, but not in the way he means. “I’m okay. Just a bit shaken.”

I grapple for my purse and yank it open. I need to check the flash drive isn’t broken. It’s there and in one piece, and I want to cry, so thankful my evidence wasn’t destroyed.

Reluctantly, he lets me go, but there’s nothing anyone can do. The man who pushed me is long gone, and in the dim light, I couldn’t see his features clearly enough to describe him. There will be security footage, but if I couldn’t see his face, a fuzzy video won’t help the authorities identify him. It’s common in a big city like King’s Crossing. People falling onto the tracks, I mean, and the cops won’t bother looking for long, if at all. I was counting on the anonymity the city would give me, but I was stupid. It took Ash less than twenty-four hours to find me.

My legs are wobbly as I walk up the stairs, and I reach the sidewalk above ground mentally and emotionally exhausted. The evening sun is blazing, and the heat warms me. I’m so cold —it must be shock. I start to shake, and I stagger to a bench near the entrance to the train stop.

I wait for Quinn, my arms wrapped around myself, trying to keep in the warmth. People walking by stare, but they leave me alone.

This is Ash’s doing. I don’t have proof, but I know it’s him. He knows where I am. Maybe not what I’m trying to do, but he knows I didn’t leave King’s Crossing the minute I escaped his building. I should have left. I should have said to hell with Zane Maddox and his loyalties, but I didn’t, and now it’s too late.

Ash won’t stop until I’m dead.

I don’t know how much time passes until Quinn finds me. Crying, she sits and hugs me to her. Her tears wet my shoulder, and I let her sob.

“I’m okay,” I say, rubbing her back. “It’s going to be okay. The faster we get this flash drive to Zane, the sooner we can leave. Quinn, Ashton Black isn’t going to leave me alone.”

“The fuck he’s not,” she says, and I smile. The Quinn who cries is not the girl I know and love. The Quinn I know will laugh when a foster dad beats the crap out of her. The Quinn I know tells schoolyard bullies to eat shit and die. The Quinn I know runs her own purse counterfeiting operation and can, assumedly, shoot a gun. At least, it seems like she can—she handled hers at the warehouse competently enough. “I’ll kill him before he touches another hair on your head.”

Those are good words, strong words, but they’re only words. I lived with Ash for five years. Was privy to information he probably forgot he was exposing me to because he treated me like I was less than the dirt on his shoes. The things I heard would make anyone vomit, but I soaked it in, to remember. To remember that what Ash learned, he learned from his dad, and before his death, Kagan Maddox and Clayton Black were best friends.

“Let’s go,” I say. We’re only targets if we sit here any longer.

She wipes her eyes with the hem of her dress. “How do you feel?” she asks, her voice watery.

“My ribs hurt where I landed, but I’ll be okay.”

We don’t try to ride the train again, walking instead. Maddox Industries is miles of blocks ahead of us, and Quinn uses the time to ask, “How mixed up are you with these people?”

“You don’t want to know,” I say, but she needs to—protecting me will get her killed.

Stopping at a sidewalk café, I sit in a wrought iron chair, and Quinn follows. A waiter dressed in jeans, a white dress shirt, and a black apron tied around his waist asks what we’d like, and Quinn orders two coffees.

He serves our Americanos, heavy on the cream, and he asks if there’s anything else we need. We decline, silently shaking our heads, and I wait for him to go inside the café.

In a low voice, I start at the beginning, unsure of what Quinn remembers. “I’d only been working at Maddox Industries for six months when I met Zarah. She was still grieving her parents’ deaths, and she didn’t know what she wanted to do, with her life or at the company. She toured the payroll department, and my boss asked if she could shadow me. We got along, and she invited me to her penthouse for wine after work that night. I kept expecting not to like her, and I labeled her a snob before I got to know her.” I worry my dress’s skirt between my fingers. Somehow, my fall ripped it. “Then Zane came in, moody and half naked, and before I knew it, I was his executive assistant and he was fucking me in his office. I fell hard, Quinn. I think he did, too.” I like to think he did, but five years is a long time and what’s real and what’s not is hazy in my memories.

Quinn brushes her trembling fingers over my cheek. “I can’t blame him, Stella. I saw you fall, and, oh, God.”

“I don’t mean to keep hurting you,” I say, tears filling my eyes.

“I know you’re straight, honey. It’s my own stubbornness that won’t let me give you up.” She rubs her thumb over my bottom lip and then wraps her hands around her mug. “Tell me more.”

“One night at Temptations, Zane introduced me to Ash. They’ve been best friends all their lives. I told him Ash threatened me, but he didn’t believe it.”

“Asshole,” she mutters.

I huff a sad, quiet laugh. “Yeah. All that was going on at the same time he was trying to figure out why his parents were killed. You said it was because Kagan Maddox was doing some bad stuff. On the night of Zane’s party, Ash said he had proof that it was true.”

“How did you end up trapped at Black Enterprises, Stella? Why did Zane let it happen?”

“At the hotel, I overheard Ash and Zarah fighting. He was selling her as a high-class prostitute. He’d told her he had proof Kagan had been involved in black market deals and if she didn’t do what he said, he would tear down her family’s company and destroy Zane. Zarah wanted to protect her brother. I don’t know how many times she let Ash sell her before I found out.” I press my lips together. Zarah let Ash abuse her to protect Zane and her family’s reputation. She was more than I had ever given her credit for.

“How did Ash get his hands on you? You know better, Stella. Watch out for yourself first, most, and always. Didn’t you learn anything in foster care? From Maryanne?”

“I fell in love, Quinn. You know how that is.”

She flinches, and it breaks my heart. I hate hurting the people I love.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Zane had already lost his parents. I couldn’t let Ash take Zarah away from him, too. He offered a trade, me for her, and I took it. Ash could have me if he left Zarah alone and didn’t tell Zane about Kagan’s illegal deals.”

“But you’re saying that’s not true, so what are we looking at?” Quinn asks, holding her coffee mug to her lips.

The sun is starting to set and orange, pink, and purple tinge the sky. The view from my room gave me a spectacular show every night, but nothing can compare to being out in it.

“Ash knows I’m gone, and he wants to kill me.”

“What’s on the flash drive?”

“Proof Zane’s dad is clean, and that Clayton Black is not.” She wants to know more, but it doesn’t concern me anymore. “Ash didn’t let me say goodbye, and Zane thinks I abandoned him. He hates me now. I just need to get him this drive and then we can leave King’s Crossing and I’ll never look back.”

“Sounds good to me.” She pauses. “How are you holding up?”

She mentions it, and it’s then I notice my ribs aching. “I’m sore.” I sigh. “I won’t blame you if you tell me to go to hell. I can’t love you the way you love me. I’m asking for too much, and I don’t have anything to give in return. You should go back to New York. Let me handle this, and then I’ll meet you out there, if I can.”

She shakes her head. “No fucking way. Ashton Black is out to get you, and there’s not a chance in hell I’m leaving you alone.”

“I’m sorry I got you involved,” I whisper.

Quinn slips out of her wrought-iron chair and kneels on the sidewalk in front of me. “You have always found the good in people. It’s one of the things I love about you best. It’s gotten you into trouble, but don’t turn jaded or bitter. You can help Zane, and then we’ll go. The two of us.”

I rest my forehead against hers, grateful she didn’t leave when I told her to. I need her. I just wish I needed her the way she needed me.

“Let’s go back to the warehouse and regroup. You need a drink and some painkiller.”

I don’t disagree. It hurts to breathe. “Okay.”

We ride the bus back to the industrial park, and I sit next to her, leaning my head on her shoulder, absorbing her presence. My need to touch isn’t about being scared of Ash—it’s about being alone. Ash treated me like an invisible slave, and everyone else did the same. He didn’t touch me, only used my skills to work me to the bone. If I would have stayed, I would have died from loneliness. Not only because I missed Zane, but I missed human contact. People die in isolation, solitary confinement, and after five years, I was so close.

Once we’re safely inside the warehouse, Quinn disappears, saying she has work. I force myself to let her go.

I shower and gently prod at the bruise forming over my ribs. I’m lucky I’m not dead, but Ash won’t stop until I am. In fact, me getting away may have made him angrier and even more determined.

Quinn asks to sleep with me, and against my better judgment, I let her. Knowing how she feels, I shouldn’t encourage her, but for five years I slept alone, always on edge, always waiting for Ash or someone else to come into my room and do whatever he pleased. Toward the end, I almost hoped. Hoped Ash would sell me, just to have someone touch me.

Ash fucked with my head.

She holds me and skims her fingers over my leg.

I’m about to stiffen, but she stops, and in another second, she’s sleeping.

In the dark, Quinn’s touch becomes Zane’s, and I remember one of the times we made love in my apartment, how gentle he was, how tender. How he’d moan my name when he came. How he’d make me come, his fingers swirling around my clit.

I miss him. Who we were before Ash came between us. I’m imagining things. There was never a time he wasn’t. I just wanted there to be.

Tears soak into my pillow.

Zane despises me. He’ll never love me again.

It’s what I gave up to protect him.

If only he hadn’t had such unshakeable faith in Ash. If only he’d had that unshakeable faith in me.

The bottom line is he hadn’t trusted me because of where I came from. Underneath all the “I love yous” was suspicion, and I can’t blame him. It’s what I thought of Zarah. I kept expecting her to show her true colors because I was biased and believed rich people stereotypes.

Zane thought because I was poor, I wasn’t to be trusted, and he didn’t.

Now I have irrefutable proof, if only I can get it to him.

I won’t stop trying.

Ash will have to kill me first.

I wake up to an empty bed, but a fresh outfit lays on top of the ratty comforter. Another dress and more lingerie. I hope this is the last outfit I’ll need to borrow.

My dreams of Zane made me wet, and drawing my knees up, I let my thighs fall open. I imagine his hot mouth on my pussy, and I swirl my fingers around my clit. The last time a man touched me was when Zane fingered me on the patio of the Lyndhurst. I come, and tears run down my temples and into my hair.

Ash took one fear and twisted it into another. I traded places with Zarah believing, no, knowing, I would live the life of a whore, sold to anyone who could afford to pay Ash’s prices. In exchange, they’d be given the freedom to do whatever they wanted to me.

Instead, he turned me into no one.

It was only after a three-hour crying session in the bathroom that I decided to use my invisibleness as a weapon. I learned everything I could about Black Enterprises, Clayton, and Ash.

I shower and shave. I’m not as sore as yesterday, but I’ll need more painkiller to keep the throbbing under control. I dress and double check the flash drive is still in the white purse. It is. I’m glad Quinn didn’t insist on knowing what’s on it. Her ignorance may keep her alive.

It’s the only proof I have that Zane will believe. Seeing it in black and white, he has to.

Quinn’s upstairs sitting in the office Luis brought me to the night I broke in.

She’s dressed similarly. Again, we’ll be two girls on the way to the mall, although the disguise didn’t work particularly well last time. She’s talking on the phone and tapping into a newer-looking laptop. Securing delivery of a product. I tamp down a smile. She sounds competent. In charge.

Quinn Sawyer found her niche.

“Okay, bye,” she says and disconnects the call. “You look good, Stell.”

“Thanks. You have good taste.”

Tilting her head, she says, “In more ways than one. Let’s head out. We’ll stay above ground this time. In fact, I borrowed Luis’s car. It will be a lot easier.”

I look over the warehouse, and workers fill the long tables now. It’s the first time I've seen any hint of the sewing they do. Luis is walking around, supplying material to the stitchers and replacement needles if their sewing machines need them. I wonder what brand they’re making today. “Can we get a coffee?”

She playfully smacks a kiss on my mouth. “Can’t save the world without caffeine.”

We drive through a Starbucks, and I order a large café mocha. I revel in the chocolate and sugar, but I wish it could give me courage. I used all mine up escaping Ash’s building.

I feel more protected in Luis’s old Cadillac than I did walking through the train station and I shouldn't be surprised, but Quinn is a good driver. The morning traffic has died down, and she asks as we idle at a red light, “Are you going to ask to see him?”

“Yeah. I want to put the flash drive in his hand myself, but if security stops me and won’t let me up, then at least I know it’s in his building. I can only do so much.”

There are so many things potentially keeping me from him. He could have told his security to throw me out. His assistant might not let me into his office. He could be in meetings or on a business trip.

To access the ramp attached to Zane’s building, you have to register your vehicle and show your ID badge to the security guard. We won’t be allowed in, and Quinn parks in the public parking garage a block away. I gulp down the rest of my coffee.

“Ready?” she asks.

I grip the strap of the purse she gave me. “No, but I have to do this. Clayton, Ash, they aren’t who they pretend to be. Zane’s life could be in danger, and he needs to see what’s on this drive.”

“Okay. Stella...I—” She turns the key in the ignition, killing the engine. “I’m glad you came back. I...I hated you, a little. For disappearing. For running off to Italy without saying goodbye. I hate what you went through, but I’m glad you didn’t do that to me. I’m so selfish.” She wipes tears off her face.

“Quinn, no. I’m sorry. I should have gotten word to you, somehow, but I wasn’t thinking about anything but surviving through the day, and the next, and then the next. If I would have tried... You don’t understand. Ash Black is a dangerous man. He and his father have power you can’t even imagine. It took five years of planning to get away.”

“Yeah. I’m selfish. You lived through hell, and I’m pissed you didn’t say goodbye. I’m such a bitch.” She sniffles.

I rest my hand on the curve of her jaw. “You came when I called.”

“Of course I did. I had no choice.”

“That’s what counts. Come on, let’s get this done.”

“What if Zane doesn’t believe what’s on that drive?” Quinn asks, unbuckling her seatbelt and voicing my worst fear.

Swallowing back a sob of despair, I choke out, “Then there’s nothing left. The Blacks can keep doing what they’ve always done because they’re working with the very people who are supposed to be stopping them.”

“Then will you give up?”

Nodding, I whisper, “Then I’ll give up.”

I push out of the sedan. I’ve never needed a parking ramp. When I worked for Maddox Industries, I didn’t have a car. Quinn parked on the third tier, and we ride in the little glass elevator to street level.

It’s hotter than hell outside, and my dress sticks to me.

My heart thrums. Hopefully, this will end it. Probably not for me. Ash, or someone who works for him, will hunt me down and won’t stop until I’m dead, but Zane will know the truth. It’s too much to ask he would protect me in return for the information. Hell, he could even do what Quinn suggested. He may not believe what’s on the drive and accuse me of lying. I could be endangering my life, and Quinn’s, for nothing.

Because Zane is too blind to see the truth.

We stand near a small group of pedestrians at the corner and wait for the light to change.

Quinn smiles. I don’t deserve her helping me, sheltering me. I try to smile back, but the light turns green and she nudges my shoulder. The countdown on the streetlight begins—we have thirty seconds to cross the intersection.

It’s a beautiful, sunny day. Too hot, but I remind myself to store the heat in the marrow of my bones...I have many cold, desolate years ahead of me.

We reach the middle of the crosswalk, and I try think of what to say to the security guards. Maybe one of them will remember me, but if not, I’ll need to lie. I don’t have any business in the building, but they don’t know that. I sigh and wince. Before we left, I forgot to ask Quinn for more ibuprofen, and every breath stabs pain into my ribs. Sweat prickles my skin adding to the discomfort.

Several people are crossing in both directions, and while I don’t make eye contact, I try to look for anyone who may be acting suspiciously. I can’t let someone sneak up on me again.

We’re almost to the other side, and Maddox Industries towers above us, majestic, made of concrete, steel, glass, blood, and bone.

I focus my thoughts on seeing Zane in person. I haven’t searched for him online, didn’t dare discover the man he’s become. Did he grow up from the little boy who cried on my lap, grieving his parents, into a heartless and cruel man? Or did the pain turn him compassionate and kind, taking after his father? He’s almost thirty-one years old. Does he have a wife? I swallow. Children?

It breaks my heart another woman is living the life promised to me in soft whispers in the dark after making love. I stumble, tears blinding my vision, and Quinn bumps into me.

A loud pop! echoes through the air. Her body presses into mine, and I ignore the unfamiliar sound and turn to apologize for my clumsiness. I part my lips as she crumples to the ground, the pavement sizzling under the unrelenting sun.

Chaos breaks loose and people around us start to scream, but I stand, frozen. Quinn lies in the street, bleeding, the wound too close to her heart. I drop to the scorching pavement and pull her to me. An anguished howl tears out of my throat, and I keen to the bright blue sky, the hot, black asphalt burning my legs, little rocks digging into my skin.

Pedestrians run toward the building, and I'm all alone in the middle of the crosswalk, holding Quinn to me, her blood, sticky and sweet, soaking my dress.

An ambulance wails, and a squad car, siren blaring and lights flashing, careens toward us.

I’m lost in a storm of grief and fear. That bullet wasn’t meant for Quinn.

Ash will do whatever it takes to keep me from seeing Zane.

The ambulance parks near us, and paramedics dressed in crisp black jump out of the back. They lift Quinn off the ground, intending to lay her on a stretcher, but she grabs my arm and tries to speak. Her lips move, but nothing comes out.

I lower my head to hers, tears dripping off my chin.

“Run.”

“I won’t leave you,” I cry, clutching her to me. I won’t let her be alone.

“Stella, run.”

Two paramedics secure her to a stretcher, and her eyes meet mine. She’s right. I have to finish what I’m risking my life to do.

While the paramedics attach an oxygen mask to her face and yell medical jargon at each other, I lift Quinn’s messenger bag off the ground.

Without looking back, I meld into the crowd.