Panic flared. I couldn’t handle it if Brax broke down. I didn’t have the strength to soothe him as well as me.

But he dissolved, looking more and more distraught by the second.

I sat up, scurrying to him, making sure my body stayed covered. My knees pressed against his as I took his face in my hands. “It wasn’t your fault. No one would have been able to stop them.” My body tensed, remembering Leather Jacket. “No one, okay? We were outnumbered. You need to forgive yourself.”

Brax hung his head. “Don’t you hate me? For not listening? I spent the last two months thinking you were dead. To have you come back to life, wounded, and mentally screwed up…”

I flinched. I was a lot of things, but mentally I was fine. Q wouldn’t win. I would get over him.

He looked into my eyes, stricken. “I woke up in the men’s bathroom, alone. And you were gone. I don’t know how I got back to the hotel, but somehow I did. The police arranged a search party, but no one had hope. They called it off after a week, and the Australian embassy got involved. They sent me home.”

He laughed darkly. “They sent me home without you! How did they think I could go on with my life? I wanted to stay and search myself, but the police said they’d been to the café, and it was boarded up. No one was there.”

Brax took my hand, squeezing painfully. “Where did they take you?”

I was prepared to listen to Brax’s story. It was obvious it ate him alive, but my story… I couldn’t. I couldn't tell him the horrible experience in Mexico. I couldn’t tell him about the rape when I ran away. I couldn’t tell him how much Q meant to me. How much I craved him—even now. I would take it to the grave.

Brax grabbed my wrist, spying the barcode for the first time. Running a thumb over the lines, he murmured, “They did this to you? The low life wankers.” He flipped my wrist as if he could peel it off and make it disappear. “Why did they tattoo you?”

My hand went behind my ear, terror raging. I still had a tracking device in my neck. Q may have taken off his GPS responder, but what if the Mexicans could find me again? Did it automatically fail after time? I needed to find out how to deactivate it, immediately.

Forcing myself to be calm, I said, “Don’t worry about me; tell me what happened to you. So you got home? I’m so sorry you were on your own, Brax. I’m sorry I left you.”

My own tears fell, caused by guilt and the knowledge Brax suffered and stressed. His nightmares would’ve been horrific.

“When I got home, I tried everything to investigate where women were taken from Mexico, but once stolen, most girls were never found. Some were located in Spain, Saudi Arabia, but never alive.

“My heart broke, coming to terms I’d never see you again.” His voice caught, and he looked with such agony, I shrivelled. “Then you called! I wanted to kill myself for not picking up. But my boss had been calling constantly, begging me to return to work, and I put it on silent. When I heard your voice, your panic, the fact that you were alive. Shit, I wanted to break the phone into little pieces for not being able to talk to you.”

His chest pumped as his hands curled. “But you gave me a name. A f**king bastard called Q Mercer. You gave me a lead. I had no idea what you were doing in France, but I called the Feds, and they took over. They found a wealthy man living in Blois who owned mega property. I did some research, but couldn’t find a single image of him, or what he could be doing with you.

He sighed before continuing, reliving his own nightmare. “The police stayed true to their word. They said they’d investigate, and if they found you, they’d make him release you and put him in jail. I hope to God they hang him.”

The thought of Q dead had horror stabbing my heart. The hate in Brax’s voice chilled me and I rushed to intercede. “Q Mercer wasn’t who I thought he was. I escaped and found myself in worse trouble, but Q rescued me.”

I couldn’t stop the shiver as Brute shot into my mind. Forcing it away, I added, “He helped me heal, then let me go.” Those two paragraphs would be all I uttered on the matter. It was my life, tied with a pretty pink bow.

Brax screwed up his face. “You’re saying he just let you go? The police never showed up?”

I smiled. “The police arrived, and thank you for helping them find me. But Q was going to give me up all along.” My heart twisted, wishing it wasn’t true. “You see, he rehabilitates women who are broken and sold. He buys them, but once they’re healed, he sends them home.” I couldn't stop the swell of pride in my chest. Q wasn’t a monster. He may think he was, but a monster would never do that. A monster would torture and rape and kill. Not offer freedom after a life of misery.

Brax relaxed a little. “So, he never touched you? You were kept safe and protected this entire time?” Eyes dropped to the sheet I pressed against my throat. “What about the marks on your body?”

I sat straighter, hoping like hell I hid the truth. “I got those when I ran away. I lived in luxury, and made friends with his maid, Suzette.” I beamed brighter, fighting watery grief threatening to crush. “I’m fine. Honestly. Together, we can get our lives back on track.”

He cocked his head, and, for a moment, I wondered if he didn’t buy my lie, but then he reached for me. I climbed into his arms.

Brax kissed the top of my head, murmuring, “It’s all going to be better now. You’re home. I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”

I snuggled closer and didn’t say a word.

Chapter 23

*Woodpecker*

A human is adaptable. A human heart is not.

A month trickled past, and I resumed my old life as if I’d never gone. Two weeks after returning, I called my parents.

Brax told them what happened in Mexico, and they cremated an old stuffed unicorn of mine, then scattered it in the back garden, believing I was dead. In their old, foggy minds, my reincarnation was a messy ordeal, not a happy second chance. The conversation was stilted and hard.

I never called again.

I became addicted to raging songs, just like Q. The lyrics shared my pain, letting it unleash from festering inside.

Your memory won’t leave my head

haunting me, hunting me, driving me crazy, I wish I were dead

every time I close my eyes, you’re there, ready to suck me into dark desires

reality is where I no longer want to be, my dreams are my salvation

I will cut you out, chop you up, break every bone in my body

if only it meant peace from your dark melody

I never played the songs when Brax was home, but when it was just me and loneliness, words rained with heartache and need.

In my dreams, Q visited, and I woke to shooting stars and orgasms. By day, I forced myself to act and lie and be Tessie. The truth and Q blistered my heart; I became as successful in hiding my feelings as he was.

My secrets stayed locked behind a fortress of blue-eyed innocence. My body healed and the whiplashes no longer showed. But they blazed bright and red on my soul.

Some nights, I twisted my ni**les so hard, just to try and recreate mind-tripping lust like Q, but it never worked.

The vibrancy and encompassing life he’d given became a distant, dark paradise. Reality took over. I sat my final exams for uni. They let me take my tests late, due to circumstances, and I passed with flying colours. Brax took me out for dinner to celebrate, but I fumbled through the evening, aware I’d snipped another anchor keeping me here. I had an education now. The only thing tethering me was Brax. And day after day proved it wasn’t enough.

I tried to recapture Q’s mansion on my tatty sketchpad, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get it right.

I reconnected with Stacey, and friends from uni, and started looking for work in the property industry. I coasted through life in a semi-aware state. Smiling, laughing even, but everything was muted—covered by a filmy screen, never letting me see bright colours, or smell rich scents, or enjoy exquisite pleasure.

Thirty-six days after Q abandoned me, two things happened that rocked my bland world.

Brax subtly changed. I noticed he spent a lot of time putting out the garbage. I didn’t care, and only curiosity made me follow one night.

Sneaking outside our apartment block, I found him talking to our neighbour across the hall. She had her face in Blizzard’s fur and a look of adoration in her eyes for Brax.

My fingers convulsed as my heart raced faster—the first spike of emotion in a month.

I never stopped to consider the life Brax led while I played kinky slave with Q. He cared for her—the tentative sweetness he’d shown me when we first met—glowed in his eyes.

Oh, my God, did he resent me for coming back into his life when he thought I was dead?

I was so selfish to never consider it. After the first morning, we pretended as though nothing happened. We never discussed it, and I never complained when we didn’t have sex again. I didn’t want to admit it, but living with Brax, accepting his kisses and hand-holding, felt like I cheated on Q, which was idiotic and frustrating as hell. But my body hated me for betraying my master. Subsidizing real Q for dream Q, I grew wet while I slept, and trembled for release.

I lingered like a voyeur as Brax helped the girl stand, holding her for a moment longer than necessary. The look of implicit excitement in her eyes made me yearn. Yearn for another.

I waited for green jealousy. I waited for rage. I waited for anything…something to show I cared.

Nothing.

Brax laughed at something she said, ruffling Blizzard’s head. A smile slowly bloomed on my lips.

Brax liked another. He no longer used me as his crutch, and I no longer needed him as mine. Realization thundered with a hundred drums and lightning bolts.

Happiness. Freedom.

Brax didn’t need me.

I’m free!

Emotions frothed and stirred. The leash tying me to Brax—the one woven and threaded with obligation and friendship—snipped, leaving me unbelonging.

For the first time in my life, I was mine. Completely alone. No one had a right to me. No one owned or claimed me. Blazing joy blew away my mediocrity, my need for people to care.

I cared for me. Je suis à moi. I am mine. The French affirmation was ridiculously perfect.

I whispered it, tingling with possibility. “Je suis à moi.”

* * * * *

The next night, I said goodbye to Brax.

While he went to put the rubbish out and flirt with the neighbour, I pulled an old backpack from under the bed and packed. Turning on the radio, I bobbed to pop music, welcoming a new beginning.

Clothes I didn’t like, accessories I no longer cared for, I stuffed in the bottom. For the first time in my life, I was going out on my own. No back-up plan, no safety net. No one to rely on but me.

I didn’t have a destination in mind. But I knew I wanted to make good on my promise. The promise I gave to the woman who tattooed me in Mexico. I told her Karma would bite her ass. I wanted to be that Karma. I wanted to hunt and hurt every person involved, and stand up for all the women who didn’t have a happy ending like me.

I was done being weak and passive. I’m done being Tessie.

Looking at my newly plastic-wrapped wrist, I smiled. Over the past month, I’d had the middle of the barcode lazered off. I embraced the pain; after all, Q taught me pain was pleasure.

He roared into my head.

“Only think of me and what I’m doing. There is intimacy in pain, esclave. Let me make your pain my pleasure.”

I shook the memory away, ignoring the clenching between my legs. God, I missed him. Missed his egotistical coolness, his super-hot violence.

But I thanked him, too. Without his cruelty, I would never have found the core of iron deep inside.

Smiling, I traced the small bird in flight trapped between the two ends of the barcode. Beneath the sparrow were the numbers: 58.

It was morbid. Wrong on so many levels to brand myself as slave fifty-eight, but Q was the highlight of my life. The poignant centrepiece who would never come again.

When I was old, married, bored, and drained, I wanted something to remember him by. The tattoo of bird and number would always hold those memories. A lock box of sadistic pleasure available to relive in the privacy of my mind, whenever I needed a shot of fire.

Sighing, I grabbed the last thing in my wardrobe.

The grey dress I’d left Q’s home in. A song switched on the radio.

Your touch consumes me, frightens me, beguiles me

you want to capture me

I want to be your victim

you want to ruin me

I want to be your broken

you show me your darkness

and I’ll give you my light

The lyrics slapped me around the head, and I stared at the dress for ages. My heart didn’t know if it wanted to beat or die. In a horrible moment of disgrace, I sniffed the material. Soft lingers of citrus and sandalwood gripped my stomach with love and hate. Two equal feelings, so different, yet not different at all. They were both one thing: passion.

Screwing the dress into a little ball, something crinkled.

Frowning, I pulled the envelope free that Franco gave me. I’d been too chicken to read it. Instead, I hid it in the dress, hoping I would forget.

I never forgot.

But now, I had strength. I was in control of my destiny. Sitting on the bed, I slipped a finger under the tacky glue to open.

Heartbeats jangled as I tipped the envelope upside down. Brax’s silver bracelet fell out.

It landed in my lap and I could only gawk. Q returned my bracelet.

“Merde!” he swore. Standing, he scooped the bracelet from the carpet and dangled it above. “This is mine. You are mine. Get that through your head if you ever want it back.”

That was a lie. All of it. He relinquished the bracelet so easily—like I was never his. If he made the commitment to fully own me, I wouldn’t have spent the last month in purgatory.