Firethorne

Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

Maya

H is nostrils flared as he panted and stared back at me. I knew I was getting to him, challenging him like this. Proving him wrong. Tarnishing the saviour complex he seemed to think he had and exposing him for what he really was.

After a beat, he strode towards the kitchen, and I heard him open the fridge door. Then he strolled back out again, twisting the cap off a plastic water bottle and taking a swig. I think he’d have poured himself a large shot of whisky if he could, but there were no glass bottles in this apartment. There was no glass at all, not even to pour a drink into. Everything was plastic or shatterproof so it couldn’t be used as a weapon or to cause harm. He said this place was to protect me, but it was set up to protect himself from me fighting back.

My eyes tracked him as he marched back over to the sofas and sat down opposite me. He placed the bottle on the table between us and leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees, wringing his hands together. His black hair fell over his eyes, shielding him. But when he spoke, his deep voice felt like a knife cutting through my soul.

“I’ve been working to avoid this, to protect you from all this even when you were nothing but a rumour I heard whispered in the hallway. A name written on a contract. Just black ink staring right back at me. Maya Cole. The next victim.”

I felt sick, and he glanced up at me, making me realise I must’ve made a sound to show this, despite myself.

“So, I did what I do with every girl that’s passed through that house,” he went on. “I researched you. Found out where you lived, where you studied.”

“Do you have many girls coming through the house?”

“A few,” he answered, without really answering.

I wanted numbers, but when I pushed him, asking, “Did you save all of them?” he shook his head regretfully.

“Most of them. Not all. But the ones we got out are living new lives now. Sometimes, things happen that are... out of our hands. We’re working undercover, so it doesn’t always go to plan. We try our best.”

I wasn’t sure if I believed everything he was saying, but at the same time, I dreaded to think of any other girls that’d been at that house. Girls that it hadn’t worked out for. But I also picked up on one other thing he’d said.

“We?” I asked. “You said ‘we try our best’. Who else is working with you?”

He took a moment, probably to think about how best to respond. Then he said, “I have a friend called Trent who works alongside me. Also a few contacts that I can trust, but I’ll get back to that later. It’s not important.”

It was to me.

He reached for the water again, took a sip and put it back down. I waited, eager to hear what else he had to say.

“I made enquiries about you at your university. They told me you were a first-class honours student, that they had high hopes for you. You were a deep thinker, a hard worker. They had nothing but praise for you. So, I put a plan in place to try to get you to stay there. Does The Earnshaw Scholarship ring any bells by any chance?”

I cast my mind back, and with a hesitant shrug, I answered, “Maybe. I’m not sure.”

It didn’t.

“I set up a fund. That fund was called The Earnshaw Scholarship.”

“You created a fund for the university?” I frowned, not understanding what he was saying.

“I created a fund... for you ,” he replied. And I had to catch my breath for a moment, as memories came flooding back to me. “The fund would’ve covered all your expenses for the remainder of your course. Tuition fees, too. You could have stayed there, and it wouldn’t have cost you a penny. I’d have made sure you were safe there, Maya.”

I remembered my tutor telling me about a scholarship, he even gave me the papers. And like a fool, I threw them in the bin, thinking it was pointless.

“But you left the university without even applying for a money pot that had your name on it. You left before anyone could stop you.”

“I didn’t know—” I spoke up, but he butted in.

“You didn’t trust that something good could happen to you. I get it. Your father had fucked up his life, not yours. But you carried the burden of his betrayal. It wasn’t your wrong to put right.”

“He’s the only family I have,” I said by way of a feeble explanation, but he ignored me, carrying on with his story.

“So, I moved to my next plan. I had Trent follow you on the train down to Firethorne that night. He delivered the first message to warn you. We knew by this point you weren’t going to back out of anything, so we figured we’d prepare you.”

“Trust no one,” I said, recounting the first message I’d gotten that was thrown into my lap by the man on the train. The man who disappeared into thin air.

“Exactly,” Damien replied. “And you did well with that. You didn’t trust anyone... at first .”

“And so, you decided to leave me a dead fucking rat,” I added, spearing my gaze on him.

“I used the shock factor.” He shrugged. “It got the message across. They were all liars. Lysander was pouring God knows what kind of shit in your ear, and Miriam had her claws out, ready to sink them into you. Beresford was an asshole, so there’s no change there, and my father scared you. You tried to hide it, but I could tell. I think I did too, in a way. You held yourself well, but you were never going to win. Not against them. You’re too kind, too thoughtful. You were the perfect candidate for them to walk all over.”

“I’m not a fucking pushover,” I snapped.

“I never said you were. I said you were kind and thoughtful. There’s a difference.”

“Not to me there isn’t.” I took a breath then hissed, “And then you broke into our cabin like a fucking stalker, writing on the bathroom mirror and scaring us both half to death.”

He laughed at me then.

“Scaring you both ? Really ?” He shook his head like he was mocking me. “Do you even remember what that message said, Maya?”

“Of course I do,” I barked. “It said ‘he’s the devil’.”

“And did you never stop to think who the devil was?”

“Your father, obviously.”

Damien’s head shot up, eyes blazing with fury as he hissed, “No, Maya. Not my fucking father... YOURS!”

The adrenaline that hit me like a ten-tonne truck made my stomach swirl and my brain want to shut down.

I knew.

At the back of my mind, I knew things weren’t as rosy as I wanted to believe they were.

But I’d always hoped in my heart that it wasn’t true.

“He sold you, Maya. Without giving two shits about you, or what happened to you. He sold you to my father. The bonus being that you were a virgin, perfect for a fucker like The Butcher. And do you want to know what the real killer was for me?” I couldn’t respond. I felt paralysed. “That he thought he was being noble, bringing you to the house himself. He thought it’d make the transition easier if he was there to see it all play out.” He shook his head again in disbelief. “Like that was going to help. He was fucking clueless. He had no idea who he was messing with.”

“I just... I can’t... I don’t believe...” I couldn’t get my words out, so I settled for one. “Why?”

“Because he was broke and couldn’t handle it. Because you were all he had. And my father is as evil as yours. They saw an opportunity.”

“My father wouldn’t do that,” I said, feeling totally and utterly shell-shocked.

Damien rolled his eyes, and with exasperation he said, “Grow up, Maya. Of course he would. He did. You need to open your eyes and see this for what it is.”

“If he knew you were going to send me to The Butcher, he wouldn’t have agreed to it. Maybe he didn’t really understand?—”

“He knew exactly what he was getting you into,” Damien interjected. “And he didn’t care. All he thought about was the money. And it was a lot of fucking money. Don’t let his last-ditch attempt at showing some sort of humanity cloud your judgment. He did what he did. End of.”

“I need to speak to him,” I proclaimed, but Damien shook his head again.

“You can’t ever see him again, Maya. It’d be too risky. He can’t be trusted, and the whole reason I brought you here was to get you to safety. If you saw him, that’d be compromised, big time. And besides, I have no idea where he is.”

“What do you mean you don’t know where he is?”

“I mean exactly that. Since the night we took you, he’s been missing. He’s probably off somewhere enjoying the cash he made off the back of your misery. Mind you, he didn’t get the full settlement. Your leaving meant he forfeited any claim to that. That’s the one thing my father is relieved about throughout this whole mess. He’s desperate to find you, but he’s glad he didn’t transfer all the cash before your father disappeared.”

“He wouldn’t leave me,” I whispered to myself.

“Your father would do anything for money,” Damien said. “And I tried to tell you. I had to keep my cover, but I tried to let you know.” He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts, running his hand over his mouth before he went on. “That day, when I found you in the library, I saw another opportunity to give you the truth. To show you what was going on. Did you even read those books I sent?”

“Of course I did,” I answered truthfully, my mind still stuck on my father, wondering where he was, what was really going through his mind. Why would he do this to me? Did he really do this to me?

Damien quirked his brow and said, “And what happened at the beginning of The Mayor of Casterbridge , Maya?”

I swallowed, the sickness roiling inside me.

“The main character, Michael, was down on his luck, so he took his wife and daughter to the market, had too much to drink... and he sold them.”

“He fucking sold them,” he reiterated.

“But how was I supposed to see a parallel there? How was I supposed to know that was a message?”

“Because you read into everything, Maya. You’re a thinker. And I was clutching at straws by this point, desperate to find anything to get through to you without showing my hand.”

“You could’ve just told me.”

“No. I couldn’t. This operation is too delicate. Too important to risk anyone overhearing anything, especially from me. I’d risked too much already by telling you to leave and offering to drive you to the fucking station.”

He was throwing so much information my way I could barely keep up.

As my mind whirled, I asked, “I get why you gave me the copy of Sons and Lovers. You knew it was my favourite. But why Wuthering Heights?”

“I thought you might make a link there, too, you know, Catherine Earnshaw. She’s the main character; my scholarship fund was the Earnshaw Scholarship. Yeah, weak, maybe, but it was something.” He smiled a regretful smile. “And anyway, everyone should own a copy of Wuthering Heights. It’s fucking awesome.”

His smile faded and he hung his head. I thought he’d told me everything, but there was still more to come. So much more. And I didn’t know if I’d survive after this.

“Trent was monitoring communication, checking the dark web. We knew something was going to happen imminently. I asked Cora to keep you out of sight for as long as she could so we could devise a plan.”

“Cora knew?”

“No. She had her suspicions that something wasn’t right. She’s seen enough girls come and go, sometimes in the dead of night, only staying for a matter of hours, others lingering for a day or two. You were the longest guest we had. But no, she didn’t know. Or if she did, she never spoke about it.”

“Guest,” I huffed. “I wasn’t a fucking guest.” And then remembering the last message he sent me, I said, “I don’t understand why you’d steal one of Lysander’s sketches and leave it in the cupboard for me to find the way you did.”

Damien smirked.

“What makes you think it was Lysander’s sketch?”

I didn’t respond. And he went on.

“I drew that. Didn’t you notice the difference in style?” I’d noticed that it was better. I’d just thought he’d improved. “Lysander isn’t the only artist in the family. But that wasn’t the point. I knew you were beginning to trust him, so I wanted you to know you weren’t alone. That there was someone good looking out for you. That we weren’t all liars there.” He paused. “And look at how that turned out. He proved once again what a spineless little shit he is.”

“He held me, that night. He tried to stop me running off.”

“I know,” Damien replied. “He’s bragged about how he tried to stop you every time my father mentions anything about that night. He’s proud that he tried to help our father, which shows how utterly clueless he really is. But I’d thought, maybe, he might have a shred of humanity in him. I knew he was a fucker. I knew what he wanted to do to you at that party. That’s why I fucked about with the outfits and then showed you who he really was. I couldn’t help myself. But I never thought he’d give you up like he did. I thought he might’ve done something to help you. But, once again, he proved that he is nothing but a puppet for our father.”

“You drew that sketch,” I said, my mouth dry and my eyes watery with tears I didn’t want to shed in front of him. Everything was hopeless. My life had become a desolate wasteland of nothingness. Like some kind of apocalyptic movie, a dystopian nightmare that I didn’t know how to fix.

And yet, Damien grinned back at me as if this was all going to plan. His plan.

“It was a pretty good sketch, wasn’t it?” he replied with a wicked glint in his eye.

“And you knocked the drink over at the party to save me.”

“That was to save you from Lysander and Miriam. That night... it wasn’t my finest hour.”

I felt a ripple of shame wash over me.

“I meant,” he went on, probably reading between the lines and seeing the flicker of shame, like a whisper on my face that I pushed away. “I shouldn’t have let my moment of weakness be seen by my father. Once that happened, everything escalated.”

“Why would you go to all that trouble?” I asked. “Why do all that... for me?”

“Because I won’t stop until he does. I won’t rest until I know women are safe from men like him. Mind you, Miriam has the Firethorne evil streak running through her, too. What did you do with that necklace she gave you? It had a tracker in, you know. I overheard her talking to my father about it.”

“It’s still in the bedside drawer back at the cabin,” I replied in a daze.

My chest was heaving as I breathed deeply, my heart still pounding as I tried to make sense of it all.

We remained silent for a moment, not knowing what to say. There were no words.

And then Damien sat up, and with a wicked grin on his face, he said, “And now that I’ve told you all of that, there’s only one more thing left for me to say.”

“What?”

He steepled his fingers together, that grin growing wider.

“If you ever repeat anything you’ve heard here today, or let anyone know that in this worthless body, beneath these blackened, charred ribs, lies a heart that isn’t totally pitch black... I’ll have no choice but to cut out your tongue and boil the flesh from your bones, just for good measure.”

I glared back at him, speechless. And after a beat, he threw his head back and laughed.

“I’m just kidding,” he said, and then he stopped laughing and glared back at me like a psycho. “Or am I?”

This man was the definition of a mindfuck.

“I guess we’ll never know,” he went on. “Unless you talk. But you’re not going to do that, are you, Maya?”

“No,” I replied, and he nodded.

“Good. Because I’d hate for whatever friendship we’re developing here to have its throat ripped out before its even had a chance to sing.”

“What?” I frowned; my eyes narrowed on him.

“Bad analogy, I know,” he replied flippantly. “I was just picturing throats being ripped out and the words just... kind of... fell out.”

And with that, he stood up, strode over to the door, and left without another word.