Fracture

24. Stella

CHAPTER 24

STELLA

The bookstore is busier than usual, and the banter of the groups around me does nothing to soothe the headache that I’ve been nursing all morning. Dylan and Levi left for the garage just after dawn, and my leave has continued on now for over a month.

I’m bored out of my brain, and have spent way too much time wandering around downtown Bellford Heights buying books and drinking enough coffee to give me the jitters.

I miss my fucking job.

The FBI gave the office the all-clear to reopen a week after the threat had been called in. Clark kindly told me that I should stay away a little longer, and so now I find myself with an armful of books, a thumping headache and a cramping belly because my stupid period is due. And Gloria Fenton-Langford’s interview airs this weekend.

Happy fucking Thursday to me.

I round the towering shelves to head to the counter, and almost drop my books.

Oswald Perlmann is standing by the door, dressed in the three piece suit he seems to live in. The chain of a pocket watch dangles from his waistcoat, and he looks so out of place in the bright and cheery bookstore, looming in the doorway like a bad dream.

His thin lips lift into a smile as I edge closer to him.

“Hello, dear.” He gestures to the counter. “I told them to charge whatever you buy to me. I’m sure I’ve missed enough birthdays to owe you a gift by now.”

“I don’t need a gift from you.”

The young woman at the register looks from Oswald to me and back again. “Is everything alright here?”

Oswald smiles at her sweetly, running a hand over his thinning white hair. “It certainly is. My granddaughter and I haven’t seen each other in far too long, I think she’s just surprised.”

“That’s one way of putting it.” I place the books on the counter and try to give the young woman a reassuring smile. “I’m sorry, I changed my mind, can I leave these with you?”

“Uh, sure I guess, I mean-”

“Thanks!” I stride past Oswald and out onto the sunny street, desperate to get as much distance between me and him as I can.

“Stella, could you give me a moment?”

How the fuck is an old man this fast?

“No, I can’t.” I snap over my shoulder, heading for my car.

“This will only take a few minutes.”

“I don’t c-” I stop short when I see a man in a suit standing by my car, dark sunglasses on, and the wire of an earpiece snaking down his neck into the back of his crisp white shirt. I turn to face Oswald, who still has that indulgent smile on his face. I jerk my head in the direction of my car. “Your employee I suppose?”

“Yes, he is as a matter of fact. Just looking out for your safety.”

“Sure you are.” I cross my arms over my chest. “I’m not interested in talking to you.”

“Stella, I am not here to cause you harm.” He ambles closer, infuriatingly calm, his hands pressed into his pockets. “I am here simply as a father, concerned for his daughter. And for his granddaughter.”

“I am not your granddaughter.”

Oswald sighs, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he gazes up at the swaying trees. “You know, I always liked you. You were a good kid. I never liked your father much, but then again, my daughter has always had extremely questionable taste in men.” He sucks on his teeth and shakes his head. “ Levi . What a name to pick for your kid. I told Gloria that biker was no good. Posing as a poor man when he was rolling in money, trying to be cool.” He jerks his fingers to sign out quotation marks, and scoffs. “And then he goes and gets himself killed on that stupid bike, and leaves my daughter a widow, and my grandson fatherless.”

“I don’t care about any of this. Leave me alone.” I turn to head to my car, and I swear to god I’ll punch this idiot standing by it square in the face if I need to.

“I know you’re in love with my grandson.”

I stop short, and take a deep breath. When I turn back, Oswald is still looking up into the bright green foliage, squinting lightly in the sunlight.

“And because you were always a good kid, I’d like to look out for you in a way I should have looked out for my own daughter.”

“I don’t need you to look out for me.”

“Oh, I think you do.” His gaze drops from the trees to land back on me, and he ambles closer, totally relaxed, in no hurry at all, as though he’s completely assured that I’ll stay right here and listen to what he has to say. “The fact is, Stella, I can make all of this go away. Everything. It will all stop.”

“What do you mean?” Dread snakes its way up my throat.

He holds out an open hand in the direction of the French cafe we’re standing in front of. “Please, come and join me. Let me buy you a coffee.” His demeanor is more terrifying than if he was outright menacing. This portly old man smiling at me, eyes crinkling, only the beard missing to transform him into a friendly Santa Claus - it’s enough to have ice running down my neck and goosebumps breaking out over my arms.

Every instinct in me screams danger, danger as I take leaden footsteps into the cafe.

It’s busy inside as well, wait staff rushing around and serving croque monsieur and cafe au lait to the chatting patrons. Oswald and I take a seat at the back, and I’m sitting ramrod straight, eyeing him uncertainly as he leans back in his chair and gives an order I don’t even hear to the smiling waitress.

Why am I here? I should run. I should get out of this cafe and run home and start packing my shit. I should insist that Levi, Dylan and I get the fuck out of this town right now.

Instead, I stay where I am, staring at the old man who takes out his phone, then pats his pockets looking for his glasses. He withdraws them from the pocket of his jacket, and places him on his nose, looking down at his phone and swiping his fingers across the screen.

“Technology is truly incredible,” he says with a dry laugh. “My god, when I remember how excited my brothers and I were when we got a phone installed in the house. We used to sit on the floor and just stare at it. And if it rang, we all ran like it was going to eat us alive.” He eyes me over the rims of his glasses. “Your generation has no idea, growing up with all this stuff at your fingertips.”

“Lucky us.” My knuckles are probably white under the table, digging into my purse in my lap, but I refuse to let him see how nervous I am. “So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

“Ah, yes.” He puts his phone down on the table and leans back in his chair. “My grandson. My daughter informs me you and he are, well… To put it delicately, Gloria says she caught the two of you in a compromising position?”

“You could say that.” I raise my eyebrows at him. “That’s what you wanted to talk about? You want details or something?”

Oswald's lips twitch into a smirk. “You don’t mince words, do you?”

“No point mincing anything besides my opponent, first rule of law school.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You see me as an opponent, Stella?”

“I don’t know, are you?”

I keep my eyes locked on his as the waitress comes and sets down two coffees and two almond croissants. Oswald only breaks his gaze to smile up at the waitress and thank her, before turning back to me.

“You know, I was there for my daughter’s interview, the one that’s airing Saturday.” He reaches for the sugar dispenser and pours a generous amount into his cup, stirring it slowly with the silver spoon. “I sat in that studio, and had to listen to my child recount just what she had gone through in that marriage. All the terrible things her husband had done to hurt her. The humiliating things he subjected her to. Things a father should never have to hear.”

“They’re all lies.”

Oswald withdraws the spoon from his coffee, tapping it gently against the porcelain cup three times, before placing it down on the saucer. “You seem very sure of that.”

“Because I am. I lived in that house. I saw them together. My father didn’t care enough about Gloria to do anything remotely humiliating to her.”

Oswald lifts the cup to his lips, taking a small sip. “Your father was incapable of love, I think. Though I’m told that before your mother became a raging alcoholic, he was obsessed with her. That is…” He lifts his eyes back to mine. “Until he had a new object of his obsession.”

I feel sick. I’m going to faint or throw up, I can’t decide which.

“How old were you when he started asking you to pose naked for photographs?”

How does he know this ? I suck in a breath, unable to hide my trepidation, and Oswald’s face betrays his silent triumph.

“Well? How old were you?”

I swallow hard, my eyes stinging, and I blink rapidly, desperate not to cry right now. “I was ten.”

Oswald sucks on his teeth, tearing his almond croissant in half. “Ten years old. Still a baby.”

“He said it was lucky I developed early. I never knew what that meant.”

Oswald shakes his head, taking a bite of his food and chewing slowly. “Terrible. Just terrible. I’m sorry, Stella.”

“How long have you known?”

“Since a colleague of mine showed me the pictures.”

My blood runs cold, and I grip the edge of the table to steady myself. “When?”

“Ohh, now let me see.” He taps his fingers against the tabletop. “I’d say it would have been around thirteen years ago.”

“Wh-what?” I choke out. “No, that was… That was when… You mean, you knew? When Gloria married him, you knew?”

“I’ve always known.” His level gaze makes my heart drop into my feet. “Like I said, I never liked your father. But I did see the value in what he could offer my daughter.”

“And what’s that?”

“What she should have had, all along. A place in the White House, the first lady of this country. Her pathetic biker boyfriend was never going to offer her that.” He shakes his head, the feathering of his jaw the only sign of his contained rage. “That man was a menace. But one that was… Easily dealt with.”

His meaning dawns on me slowly, and goosebumps break out over my skin again. “What do you mean?”

“I have a way of dealing with people I need dealt with, Stella.” He swipes the screen of his phone, and pushes it towards me.

I look down at it, at the grainy video playing on the screen. I swear I stop breathing. The room caves in on me, and I’m hot and cold at the same time, watching the video loop and play again and again.

“Where did you get this?”

“I have my ways.”

I can’t tear my eyes from the screen. From the woman, flopping between three men, who take turns to shove her head down into their laps. To push their dicks into her while another man holds her down. Her eyes roll back in her head, and she’s clearly drunk, and high. One man ejaculates on her face. Another holds up her legs so one of them can fuck her ass. Her mouth opens in a silent scream, but the man claps his hand over her mouth.

I look so different. I barely recognise myself. Gaunt and hollow. A shadow of who I am now.

But I remember waking up after that night. I remember waking up sticky with cum and shame, on the floor of a seedy motel that I had no memory of stepping foot into. The three men at the club had offered me one drink after another, had fingered me roughly on the dance floor, and I hadn’t cared at all.

Then I’d let one of them take me to the bathroom, and he’d fucked me without a condom. I’d lain back on the counter, and let him press into me, staring at the speckled ceiling of the nightclub bathroom, watching it turn into a haze as I dreamed of Dylan, as tears stung my eyes wishing he was there with me.

That was the last thing I remember clearly. After that, it’s nothing but flashes of rough carpet against my ass, of choking on sweaty flesh and tasting salt, gagging on the smell of body odor. I’m not even sure I said stop, or no. I’d begged them to not hurt me, but that had probably been in my own head.

They’d drugged me, just like my father had, and I’d let them use me.

Just like my father had.

My lip trembles, and Oswald reaches across the table to take the phone back.

“I’m so sorry to upset you, dear.” He puts the phone back in the pocket of his waistcoat, his eyebrows drawn down. “That footage, it was hard to watch.”

“How did you find that? I didn’t… I didn’t even know they filmed it.”

“No, I suppose you didn’t.” He exhales through his nose, clasping his hands over his rounded belly. “I know you made some terrible choices, Stella. And I would hate for those choices to be visited back on you.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No, not at all.” He holds his hands up. “I’m merely saying that no one’s past should ruin their future. And that it would be a shame if this, and the other records of your transgressions, were to become public.”

“A video of a woman being raped doesn’t ruin her reputation anymore, Oswald, this isn’t 1950.”

Oswald laughs indulgently, and shakes his head. “Oh my dear, you are so sweetly naive. Have you seen what happens to women like you when these things become public? What people will believe about you? It’s no secret you were a mess after the boys went to prison, and this, along with the fact that you’re taking two men to your bed, and one of them being your stepbrother, well…” He raises his cup back to his lips, taking a sip and shrugging lightly. “It wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine what sort of damage all of this could do to your reputation.”

“What do you want, Oswald?” My throat is threatening to swell shut and stop any words coming out at all.

“I want you to break it off with Levi and Dylan.”

“No.”

He ignores me, breaking off another piece of his croissant. “I want you to publicly announce that Gloria was nothing but supportive, that she was an exemplary stepmother, and that any accusations against her made by the media are nothing but lies.”

“No.”

“You will do all of this, and then you can have your life back.”

“I don’t think so.”

The old man shrugs, taking off his glasses to clean them with the white tablecloth. “You will do as you’re told, and I won’t have any arguments over it.”

“And what if I’m pregnant?”

Oswald wasn’t expecting that. His eyes flash to mine, narrowing dangerously. “I beg your pardon?”

I smirk, leaning on the table. “What? You know where babies come from, Oswald. And Levi, Dylan and I have been doing a whole lot of that.”

“You have an IUD in place, I know that from your medical records.”

I adopt the ruse, and shake my head, mirroring his own laugh from just a moment ago. “Oh Oswald, you old men really know nothing about anatomy, do you?” I lean on my elbows on the table. “It fell out with my period, a while ago, and I just didn’t bother replacing it. And those two men, well, they’ve left enough cum inside me to populate all of Europe.”

“Don’t be vile.” Oswald’s face is anything but friendly now.

I’m startled at how easily I’m lying to him, and I’m not even sure why this is the lie I chose. But I can see I’ve gotten right under his skin.

“So, Oswald, you might be a great-grandfather soon.”

“You filthy whore,” he snarls, his face menacing under the overhead lights. “Get rid of it.”

“No.” I rise to my feet, taking my purse with me. “And if you ever threaten me again, I will make sure everyone knows exactly how involved your family was with what happened to me. Do not test me again. Do you understand?”

Oswald says nothing, just regards me with a lethal gaze.

“Thanks for the coffee,” I say, before heading out of the cafe and into the sunshine. The man by my car is gone, and I panic for just a split second that he’s planted a bomb or something in my car. My reason takes over, and I give myself a shake as I start the engine. He can’t have done that in broad daylight.

Every car that drives behind me is a tail. I’m convinced of it. I take the term defensive driving to a whole new level, weaving in and out of traffic to avoid anyone following me for too long. By the time I get home, I’m sweating and shaking, and desperate to wash this feeling off me.

I pull out my phone and type out a text to Dylan.

Please come home asap. But don’t tell Levi .

Three little circles whirs almost immediately as Dylan types back a response.

Why? Is something wrong?

Please just hurry.

I’ll be right there. Are you OK?

I just need you.

I need to tell Dylan, and I don’t know how to tell Levi. I know this is going to draw us all in deeper. I head up to the bathroom, and throw on the shower. While the water heats up, I stare at my face in the mirror.

And I realize I can’t tell them what just happened.

They’ll just kill more people. I can’t be responsible for that. I can’t have them getting into a rage and getting themselves caught. I’ll lose them. I can’t lose them again.

Oswald was goading me. He’s going to try and trap them. Gloria is going to go on the air and say how awful my father was, how abusive he was, and paint herself as the victim. My stomach drops as it all starts to fall into place. As all the messy pieces start to knit themselves together.

Gloria is going to tell the world they killed him for her .

I clutch a hand to my mouth. I have to be wrong. I have to be.

But whatever she has planned, I can’t tell Dylan and Levi. If they head out into the night and kill Oswald, and Gloria, it’s going to destroy everything. I can’t do that. I just can’t.

I strip off my clothes and get into the shower, pressing my trembling hands against the tiles. Breathe. Breathe, and remember this is real. I stave off the panic attack, letting the warm water rush over my head. I press my hand to my stomach as another cramp tenses my muscles, and blood starts to trickle down my legs.

I stay there for a long time, letting the water wash away all the blood, until there’s a soft knock on the door and Dylan walks in. He looks alarmed for a minute, then raises his eyes to me.

“ Guera ?” He steps towards the shower. “What happened? You worried me.”

“I was being stupid. My… My period was late, and I freaked out.”

Dylan’s eyebrows shoot up. “You thought you were pregnant?”

“Mhmm.” I nod and smile. “I did. But I’m not. My period just came.”

Dylan perches his hands on his hips and exhales heavily. “Jesus Christ.”

“Sorry to scare you.”

“I mean, I’m fine, I just…” He huffs out a nervous laugh. “Sorry, it’s just kind of caught me off guard. I didn’t think it was possible for you to get pregnant right now.”

“I mean, IUDs can fail, Kovac.” My voice shakes slightly, and I hope my smile isn’t wavering. “And you two have been doing a pretty good job of shaking things up in there.”

He laughs out loud, running a hand over his head. “I guess we have.”

“Would it bother you if I was?”

“No.” He says quickly, his eyes locked on mine. “Not at all. If it happens, it happens.”

“Do you want to come join me? It’s lonely in here.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “You’re on your period, you sure you want me in there with you?”

“Orgasms are great for cramps.”

Dylan smiles and shakes his head, but immediately starts stripping off his clothes. “What the lady wants, the lady gets.”

I know I’m reverting back to old coping mechanisms. I know this probably isn’t healthy. I know I shouldn’t lie to them, and I waver back and forth on whether or not I’m placing us all in more danger than if I just told them what the fuck was going on.

But as Dylan lifts me up against the wall and fucks me hard, as my body reacts to him and he murmurs dirty words in my ear, I can’t even consider what the future looks like for us right now.

“I love you,” I gasp, my arms wrapped around his neck.

“Fuck, I love you.” He hooks one of my legs over his arm, groaning as he sinks deeper inside me.

I press my head back against the tiles, clenching my eyes shut, tensing my body with everything I’ve got and forcing myself to release to him. My orgasm doesn’t bring sweet relief though, it shatters through me as I gasp Dylan’s name and tears bite at my eyes.

Dylan presses his mouth against my throat and moans loudly, shuddering as he comes inside me. I wrap myself around him, biting my lip to stop it trembling, and wonder what the fuck we’ve gotten ourselves into. What ticking time bomb Gloria and Oswald have placed right underneath us.

I can’t think about it. Not again. But as Dylan dries me off and gets me comfortable, wrapping me up in bed and getting me tea and a hot water bottle, I can’t help but feel like my pretty little life I’ve built for myself is all about to come crashing down around me.