"I'm sorry," I say, dully.

"If you'd believed me," he sighs. "No, it doesn't matter. I was going down no matter what. I was so stupid. He set me up. Your father. It was a trap and I fell for it, hard. Completely. He beat me."

"Tell me what happened. The truth. All of it."

He turns from the window and falls into a side chair. His hair is still wet when he slides his hand through it. In short sleeves, the feathery tattoos on his arms shiver. I remember being wrapped in those arms, tracing my fingernails over those designs. My touch excited him. Would it excite him now, or disgust him? When he sees me biting my lip his nostrils flare and his whole posture changes. A little quiver of fear flutters through me, flavored with excitement. He looks away, his jaw set.

"You want the truth?" he says, and his voice never wavers. "I love you. That's the truth."

"What about the girl?"

Brittany. Her name is Brittany. I won't say it, I won't give it voice.

"She was lying."

"About the s.e.x, or all of it?"

"All of it. I should have seen it coming. I was set up."

"You said. Set up how?"

"Your father played me," he says, coldly. "Played on my one weakness, too. He was very smart about it."

"What weakness?" I'm about to say redheads but I bite my tongue.

"The possibility of freeing you from him forever. I thought I had a shot at taking him down. This is what happened."

Chapter Fourteen.

Victor I never knew what happiness was until I woke up with Evelyn in my arms. When she slept she would curl up in a ball and press against me, the tip of her nose pressed into my chest, the soft feathery touch of her breath on my skin. She always tucked her arms under mine and half the time she'd throw a leg over me, too, like she was trying to wrap me up so I couldn't get away. It was our third year together. Soon I would be graduating from college. She had another year if she chose to continue her studies. I was pushing her to declare a new major. She could do whatever she wanted and I'd pay for it. She didn't need her father's approval, and she didn't need him. I had her, I would take care of her. This was the best day of my life. The school year would end soon. We'd decided that after sneaking around for the last two summers we'd be open this year. Eve was ready to confront her father.

Once I graduated, everything would be mine. All of it. The company, the house, the estate, the fortune.

The first thing I was going to do was accept Martin Ross' resignation from the position my mother had secured for him. I'd make sure Mom was well taken care of. If she wanted to take care of her husband in turn, that was her business. I hadn't spoken with her about it yet, but I think she knew. She refused to believe me about the abuse, and I couldn't very well tell her I'd spent hours with Eve with both of us in the nude, tracing the ridged scars on her back. I never imagined he'd left permanent marks on her until she disrobed for me in the light for the first time. I wasn't sure what the marks were that first night when it was dark in the room and she wouldn't come out from under the covers. When I saw, I knew. Scars. From the edge of a belt biting into her skin. They were old and faded, just lines in the way old scars are, but that's what they were. He'd whipped her until she bled.

I wanted to kill him. Twist his head right off his skinny little neck. For Eve's sake, I didn't. I'd just send him far away from her and keep her for myself. I won. I saved the virgin princess from the monster. In a couple of months everything would be perfect.

We'd even talked about the idea of children a few times. Not really talked, like a serious conversation, but once in a while one or the other of us would drop a line about the kids we were going to have, here or there.

Eve stirred next to me. I always woke up first. I liked watching her sleep. She looked so peaceful with her head pillowed on my arm, her pale hair tousled around the bed. Her eyes fluttered open and she stretched, and put her arms around my neck. Bare under the sheets, she pressed her chest to mine. Her nipples were hard and it wasn't from the cold. Late March, so it was cold in the room but we were piled up in blankets. She had a roommate and a dorm of her own but she might as well have lived with me. Her hands slipped under the covers and I rolled her onto her back and kissed her. She giggled into my mouth and wrapped her fingers around my c.o.c.k. I was already hard for her, I woke up ready as usual. After our first few months together we were committed, so she went on the pill and we stopped using protection.

Nothing was so sweet as entering her. Eve was wet and ready, her hot silky walls gripping me as I moved on top of her and entered her in a slow, gradually building thrust that made her let out an anxious, throaty moan that ended in a breathy little gasp. She was shivering and there was gooseflesh on her arms, so I pulled the blankets up a round our necks and warmed her with my breath. She felt so small and fragile beneath me, delicate in a way that made me move slowly, savor the sensations of moving inside her. Every gentle thrust made me shudder, and then she dug her heels into my thighs and urged me on, faster, harder. She only seemed fragile, it was an illusion. She'd been whipped into something harder than that. When it's cold enough, ice is harder than steel. Eve melted in my arms, but the strength didn't.

Her nails clawed into my back and she bit my shoulder. It stung, it hurt, and it only made me want her more. Rocking the whole bed with my movements. She slid her arms around my neck and bucked her hips under me.

I rolled onto my back, taking her with me. It felt so f.u.c.king good when her weight pressed her down in my lap, driving my shaft deep inside her. She sat up and let the blankets fall away, and wriggled her hips in a circle, eyes closed, biting her lip in concentration. Eve had confessed to me that she thought she was ugly. I had no idea where that idea came from. She thought her nose was too long and sharp, I thought it was cute. She thought she had a weasely face, I thought she looked like some exotic fox. She thought her hair was dull and lifeless, I thought it was like burnished silver and felt like silk. She thought it was ugly the way the veins stood out under her skin when she was cold, tracing a road map across her skin. I thought it made her beautiful and strange. I held her by the ribs as she moved her hips in rolling thrusts, her face pinching in an adorable mask of pleasure as she rode me.

Eve doubled forward and I grabbed her hips to stop her movement, made her go still. She sat on me with my c.o.c.k buried inside her until I gently pushed her off and rolled her onto her side, and pressed against her back. I guided myself inside her from behind, lying against her, and cupped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in my hands and buried my face in her sweet smelling hair. She smelled like lilacs, from her favorite shampoo, and she smelled like Eve. There is no other smell like that. Eve just smells like Eve. I moved one hand down her stomach, slowed my own movements. It was agony to hold back. By now I knew her body perfectly. She grasped my wrist in one hand, clasped the other to her chest over mine. With my c.o.c.k inside her and my fingers working her stiff little c.l.i.t, she started to pant and tighten up almost instantly, her moans turning into little squeaks as she squeezed my wrist. I started to thrust harder as I could feel her getting close, let myself go. It was tough to time it this way but I had practice. When she started to shudder and her body tensed like coiled springs I knew it was coming. She was so hot and tight. I wrapped my arms around her body and exploded inside her as she thrashed against me, kicking her little feet, bucking in my arms, the little noises she made almost pained. After a while she went limp, lying sideways on the bed. I didn't draw out of her.

"I have a cla.s.s," she sighed.

"When?"

'Ten."

"It's nine. Let's do it again."

She smiled softly and disentangled herself from my arms.

I had a suite to myself in the uppercla.s.s dorm. I could afford it, after all. That meant I had my own bathroom and was treated to the sight of Eve traipsing naked through the room to pluck a cleanish towel from the pile by the bathroom door and step inside. She started the shower and steam poured through the door. Eve liked hot showers more than anything. After lying there for a few minutes to catch my breath I got up and followed her in, slipped into the shower behind her and started soaping up her back. She had her hair in a wet cord, thrown over her shoulder. After she stood under the water, shivering from the chilly air despite the scalding steam, it was my turn to soap up. She did my back first, and she pressed against me and wrapped her hands lightly around my c.o.c.k.

"I thought you had cla.s.s," I said.

"I do, but I don't want to leave you like this."

She pressed her cheek against my back and stroked my c.o.c.k in her hands. I could almost feel her smiling. It never took her long this way. Soon I was fully hard and not long after that I was leaning on the wall while she quickly, lightly stroked me off. I groaned loudly as I lost in her hand, cupped around the pulsing tip of my shaft. She let the water sluice her hands clean, leaned against me to kiss my cheek, and stepped out.

When I was actually washed up, I stepped out after her. By now she was dressing, already wearing a pair of sweat pants and a bra as she dried her hair. I went over and flopped on the bed. I had no cla.s.ses until noon. Eve pulled on a t-shirt and then a hoodie I gave her last year. She always left so d.a.m.ned early for cla.s.s, but she liked to be the first one in the room for whatever reason. I stood up to kiss her before she left, and gave her b.u.t.t a squeeze while I was at it. She giggled and batted my hand away and gave me a look that said later, and then she was off.

I sprawled out on the bed and watched the clock. Around eleven I got up for real, after half-dozing for an hour or so, thinking about having Eve again. I rose, put on something halfway presentable, and grabbed my notebooks. Eve practically took a bookstore to cla.s.s with her. I carried the bare minimum, the notebooks I needed and some pens. I'd take my laptop if I needed it, but I didn't today. It was a leadership course, a senior seminar type thing, and I'd spend most of my time listening to the self proclaimed eccentric professor bulls.h.i.tting. You've met the guy, even if you've never met him specifically. He liked to mention early and often how he was rich running all these companies and quit to be a business professor instead. He a.s.signed a book because he had to and told the students not to buy it, and half the cla.s.ses were lectures about shoes or TED talks. He liked this one from a guy that got high with a bunch of different cultures. Once in a great while we actually talked about business ethics.

You can imagine how much I was looking forward to that. Resigned, I headed out the door. Then my phone rang.

I didn't know the number. I leaned against the wall by the door.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Mister Amsel?" a female voice said.

I blinked a few times. "Who's this?"

"My name is Brittany Andrews. I work at the company."

"What company?"

"Your company," she said. "I need to talk to you."

"So, talk."

"In person. I'd rather not do this over the phone. I don't feel safe."

I blinked a few times. "Fine. I get out of cla.s.s this afternoon. I'll pick up my girlfriend and..."

"No. It has to be soon, and alone. This is a big deal, Mister Amsel. I'm scared. I don't know what to do."

"Okay. A public place, then. Where are you, anyway?"

"I'm at work at the company. In Philadelphia."

"It's going to take me over an hour to get there. There's a coffee shop on the corner outside the office."

"Too close. Someone might see me."

"Fine. I know a pizza place on Market street, at third. Right on the corner."

"That will work. I'll be waiting for you."

She hung up on me.

I stared at the phone. This was like some next level spy movie s.h.i.t. I did have cla.s.s, but no one would care if I skipped and Eve would gladly help me with the homework from my afternoon cla.s.s. Still, I'd be gone for a while.

It was a long drive. Eve made me promise to stop getting so many speeding tickets after they threatened to yank my license, so I took it slow and easy. Almost an hour and a half later I was cruising downtown Philly looking for a place to wedge the Firebird into a parking spot. I finally gave up and pulled into a paid lot, and walked down to the pizza place. In the afternoon it had grown warm, t-shirt weather. When I stepped into the pizza place, a woman stood up from a wrought iron table where a half-eaten pepperoni personal pizza sat before her. She saw me and headed over.

I'm going to admit it. She was hot, very hot. Tall, and shapely in a way that shows under conservative business attire. Long legs that looked great in spiked heels, and curly bright red hair in a frizzy ponytail. She had a kind of no makeup look going, and bright green eyes. High cheekbones, a heart shaped face, the works. A few years ago I'd have already been working on getting her number and getting her guard down, but today I shook her hand. Her attractiveness was a quality that I noted, just something that was there. It wasn't something I imposed on myself, it wasn't discipline, it just was. All of a sudden I went from a ladies' man to a man that could only see two women in the world. Eve, and the other ones.

I sat down with her at the table and motioned the waitress over. She brought me a c.o.ke and a healthy pile of boneless wings which I greedily slathered in blue cheese as I ate.

"What's this about?"

Brittany swallowed, hard. She put her hand on mine. I quickly pulled it away and gave her a look.

"It's not like that. I'm sorry," she said. "I'm really scared. I found something I shouldn't have."

"Who are you, exactly?"

"I'm Mister Ross's personal a.s.sistant," she said, and swallowed, hard.

Oh, cute. My mother's new husband has a ten-out-of-ten redhead personal a.s.sistant. I wonder if he introduced them at the company picnic?

Probably not.

Brittany drummed her fingernails on the cast iron. I chowed down.

"Spit it out," I said, after a choking swallow of c.o.ke. s.h.i.t, why did I order the extra hot sauce?

"I found evidence that your stepfather-"

"Martin," I corrected.

"I found evidence that Martin is involved in some shady things. Do you know what a bust out is?"

I shook my head.

"It's a kind of organized crime scheme. The criminals exploit a company by extending its line of credit until it goes bankrupt, then use the money the company borrowed to buy its own a.s.sets and resell them, then hand off the bad debt. An extortion scheme, basically."

"Okay. So Martin is involved with this? He's going to bust out Amsel?"

"No, I don't think that's even possible. The company is huge. Do you have any idea what your net worth is?"

"It's my mother's net worth until I graduate, and yes, I have a rough idea."

"Lately the company has been underwriting a lot of mergers and acquisitions. Your father is in charge of them. He has a partner he's working with."

She opened her satchel and slid a folder across the table to me. I wiped hot sauce off my mouth with a napkin and spread the folder open, and sucked down soda to cool the burn. It didn't help.

I read through the file.

"What am I looking at, exactly?"

"Amsel acquired this office supply company last year. Your step... uh, Martin has been channeling funds from the company into his private accounts. See these loans they've taken out?"

"Yeah. I've never heard of this bank before. That's a lot of money."

"I think they're part of the Russian mob."

I gave her an incredulous look and glanced down at the file again. "You're kidding."

"He's been meeting a lot with somebody named Vitali. They went on a yacht cruise together about six months ago."

"He has a yacht?"

"It belongs to this Vitali."

"You have the dates?"

"Yes."

I took a deep breath. "Why'd you come to me? Why not go to the police?"

"Russian. Mafia."

"Right, but what am I supposed to do about this?"

"It's your company. You have pull that I don't. You can go places I don't. I don't have proof here, Mister Amsel. Not iron clad proof that will stand up in court and put these men away. If I go public with this, I'm dead. Martin scares me," she started to choke up. "He's... he's not like other people. He's hollow inside. Dead. I'm nothing to him. He goes through a.s.sistants like crazy. I've lasted longer than the last three combined. I should just quit, but this is hurting people. This office supply company has thousands of employees and they're all going to lose their job when the company folds and Amsel sells off the a.s.sets. I need access to higher level files and accounts. Access you have. You're not connected to any of this. You're the only person I can trust."

"Okay. Let's go."

"This isn't going to take a few hours, Mister Amsel. It's going to take weeks, months even. We need to be very careful. We can't tell anyone about this. Do you understand?"

"Yeah. So what now?"

"I'll be in touch. I have to get back to the office before I'm missed. Look around and make sure n.o.body is following you."