Chapter 21

TWENTY-ONE

DOMHNALL

I pace back and forth in the hallway while Caleb stares at his phone.

“Where’d you get this woman, anyway?” I ask for what feels like the hundredth time, glaring towards the door of the room where the young therapist insisted on talking alone with Brooke.

What kind of doctor shows up with messy hair in a bun, wearing a stained t-shirt and loose pajama pants? Sure, we called her at the ass crack of dawn, but still. It doesn’t seem very professional. Not to mention, it took her about a thousand years to get here.

And then, once she finally did, she didn’t listen when I tried to explain to her that I needed to stay in the room with Brooke. Brooke just stares lifelessly at the wall when I’m not there. But the therapist only looked at me nonplussed, then ushered me out of the room, anyway.

Caleb waves a hand, not looking up from his phone. “She’s in contact with the club.”

I storm over to where he’s standing. “You keep saying that. What the fuck does that mean? Is she someone’s sub? A domme who wants confidentiality? Fucking what ?”

He finally puts his phone down. “She’s a local student getting her Ph.D. in Abnormal Psych. She’s been emailing the past few months, asking if she can interview members of the club for her dissertation.”

“Tell me you’re fucking joking.”

He holds up his hands. “Obviously I can’t let her, for confidentiality reasons. And I told her this was strictly off the books but that if she wanted to come in as a voyeur sometime, maybe I could arrange a strictly anonymous visit.”

“That’s not my fucking point. I need a professional. And you brought me a fucking hack?”

“Not a hack. She sounded very informed on the couple of phone calls we’ve had and has some impressive publications. She knows her stuff. She was the best person to call.”

“You mean she was the only person you had to call.”

He shrugs. “If she can’t figure something out, we’ll take Brooke to a real doctor.”

The door finally opens, and I leap forwards to confront the woman who’s curly haired bun is now lopsided, glasses falling down her nose. She shoves them back up, then glances at me before immediately focusing back on Caleb.

“She’s in a depersonalized state,” she starts.

“What’s that?” I butt in. “Like dissociation?” I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, but I feel like that’s a word I heard in my dominant training somewhere along the way.

The therapist—Professor Roberts—glares back my way. “It’s a type of dissociation.”

“Fine. What does it do?” I ask impatiently.

“I was about to tell you. If you’d give me a moment to speak.” Another glare.

I shut my mouth even though I want to shout a hundred more questions. The pent up energy inside me needs an outlet. I need to fix this. I need to get in there with Brooke. I need to see her. Hold her. Make it right.

She takes a quick breath. “Depersonalization is when you detach from yourself. From your body, your mind, your feelings. It lets you feel like you’re on the outside of your body. Sometimes like you’re watching your thoughts and feelings from a distance. Sub-space can be a healthy way for people to access this space safely, because it can also be euphoric. Some think healing, even, because it provides a safe way into depersonalization, and back out through aftercare.” Her glare turns harder as she seethes, “When practiced properly .”

I’ll take this lady’s rage and all Caleb and anyone else wants to dish out on me. Later .

“What can you do to fix her?” I demand.

“It’s not like we can give her a pill or wave a magic wand and fix her.” She looks at me incredulously.

I glance at Caleb. Her initial suggestion isn’t pills. Okay. She’s already passed my first test.

I cross my arms, foot tapping impatiently. “What then?”

I detest not being the one with answers. I run my life in a very particular way to make sure I’m in control of every room I step into. And now, when I need it the most, I’m fucking floundering. I don’t know what the hell to do, and it makes me want to hurt something. Tears. Screams in response to measured strikes. That’s what I need. Instead all I can do is stand here and tap my fucking foot, relying on half-a-doctor to fix things.

Professor Roberts puts her thumb to her mouth, biting her nail and pacing a little. “I’m not a doctor. I can’t design a treatment plan. I shouldn’t even be talking to you after consulting with her since you aren’t family. It violates all sorts of doctor/patient confidentiality shit?—”

“Fine,” I bite out. “But like you said, you’re not a doctor yet. So say you hypothetically ran across a case like this. In a fictional, hypothetical school scenario. What the fuck would you do?”

Professor Robert’s eyes come towards me and she stops gnawing on her thumbnail. “I suggest taking her back home to a familiar environment where she feels loved, comfortable and safe. Until she starts to feel like herself again. Considering her current state and recent amnesia diagnosis, I would want to consult with her residing doctor. I’d want to ask if they think dissociative amnesia could’ve been a cause of her original memory loss, perhaps catalyzed by the blow to her head.”

“What?” I bark. “The amnesia’s real?”

“I thought you ran a safe, ethical club,” the woman continues furiously to Caleb, still refusing to look at me. “Is this why you won’t let me observe? She looks well-nourished enough, but when was the last time she had a shower?”

Shame cows my head. You’re a stupid fucking incompetent little bitch dog, aren’t ya boy?

I squeeze my eyes shut and turn away from Caleb and the Professor. I know that care of the sub always comes first and foremost. Full stop. I never should have started playing with Mads, no matter what. No matter my rage and thirst for revenge. Especially because of my thirst for revenge. Fuck.

What was I thinking? I wasn’t. That was the problem. Why didn’t I look at the records Moira sent over? I never even checked the email.

“What?” Caleb holds his hands up. “No! This situation just went off the rails. I swear. This is not usual club protocol.”

I yank my phone out and thumb through my many emails to find Moira’s. “If you know her history, you know there is no home to go back to,” I mutter as I keep searching. “There’s nowhere safe and cozy for her to land. ”

There. I click on the email and bring up the attachments.

And my jaw tenses at the second line. Age: estimated* 22-24 .

What the fuck ?

I shake my head in denial. That can’t be right. I knew her nine years ago. She’s two years older than me, and she was nineteen then. So she’s twenty- eight now, not— Not?—

I mean, it’s true she still looks really young now but?—

I shake my head again. She couldn’t have been… I quickly do the math and feel sick. She couldn’t have been thirteen when I fucking knew her back then.

No way.

My eyes scan through the rest of the report. The estimated age had an asterisk beside it, so I follow it down to read the notes: *X-rays indicate bones have not completed fusion .

What in the actual fuck? If this is right, then… She was barely older than Moira. Holy fucking shit, I’m going to be sick. We never had sex or anything. But we made out plenty.

My hand clenches around my phone in a white-knuckled grip.

That motherfucking bastard. If he wasn’t already dead, I’d find him and cut off his balls while he was still alive to fucking watch.

He sent her out when she was just a kid in mid-drifts and booty shorts to do his dirty work. She was just a fucking kid .

And I was dumb enough to fecking fall for it. What the fuck else did he make her do? He was an evil, viciously sadistic motherfucker and she lived with him.

I was so caught up in my own fucking pain, I never truly considered it. A year with the man manipulating me, four months of which he destroyed me both body and soul, and it shredded me in a way I’ve never recovered from.

But Brooke, Madison—whatever her real name is, she was Rachel to Alfie, and Emma to Romaine—she spent thirteen or fourteen years with the monster by the time she’d met me. Who knows how her father had twisted her mind and soul by then.

Her father loved inflicting pain. He probably arranged for her to see what he was doing to me and then yanked us apart when it would inflict maximum damage.

He enjoyed destroying a person’s soul and watching while it happened. I knew he always loved using Madison against me, but what if he was using me against her at the same time? Playing evil fucking games on both of us? God, he must’ve enjoyed watching us destroy each other far more than he ever could.

And afterwards… how many years was she with him? What the fuck did he do to her? I’ve seen her body, and it doesn’t have any marks on it. But I knew her father well enough to know he loved to lash a mind as much as he did the body.

Holy fuck.

She’s an innocent. The amnesia’s real and? —

She’s been an innocent all along.

“Fuck this.” We’ve left her alone for too long.

I shove through the door to get back to her.

Brooke’s there shivering on the couch, naked; the blanket I covered her with before the doctor came has fallen heedlessly to the floor. She looks so pathetic and uncared for, and I want to go whip my back until I’m bleeding, on my knees, and unable to walk for a month.

Bad dogs deserve to be whipped, don’t they, boy?

I hurry over to her and wrap her in the soft cable-knit blanket again, lifting her back into my arms. “You’ve been such a good girl waiting here for me.”

Her eyes lift to meet mine and she smiles at me like I’m the sun just lifted over the horizon.

“Such a good, good girl,” I whisper, my voice breaking.

She beams and nuzzles her face against my chest.

“Fuck me.” I look up at Professor Roberts standing just inside the door, eyes locked on us. Then she glares, first at me, then Caleb.

“Unfortunately, it looks like he’s the only one she’s bonded to right now,” she says to him. “I’m supposed to be teaching class in two hours but I’m not comfortable leaving her alone with some drunk asshole who doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. You better stay with them.”

“I promise, I’ve sobered up,” I growl. “And here, take my phone. You can monitor us whenever you aren’t in class.”

I carry Brooke in my arms with me as I walk towards the Professor. I can’t bear not to be touching her when she’s in such a vulnerable state. She might have been just a kid back then, but she’s a woman now. And she’s mine. I won’t let anything bad happen to her ever again.

I can fix this. I can . I just have to get back in control. I’ll fucking fix it .

“Take my phone,” I repeat.

Professor Roberts levels me with her eyes, but it’s easy to shift Brooke in my arms so I can reach in one pocket and pull out my phone. I hand it over to the Professor.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” she asks suspiciously.

I tell her the passcode. “Every room in this house is wired with cameras. You can watch my every move. Cut my balls off if I do something you don’t approve of.”

She narrows her eyes but takes the phone, if only so I can grasp Brooke with two hands again.

She shakes her head at us, eyes cutting between me and Caleb. “I should call the cops.”

But then she glances at Brooke. I look down too, wondering what she’s seeing. There’s Brooke, face absolutely peaceful as she curls into my chest. The happiest little kitten.

Fuck. Just how deeply did I break her?