Chapter 7

7

ASHER

M y heart is pounding inside of my chest, and I silently plead for it to settle as the room on the other side of my wall finally goes quiet. I think the alcohol must have gone to my head or something, that's the only explanation as to why I feel so funny right now. I inhale and exhale rapidly, desperately trying to calm my breathing and heart rate, as I assess the mess now in my room. I knocked over a lamp and then bumped my chair into my desk as I attempted to get across the room and ignore what was quite clearly going on in his.

What the hell is wrong with him?

And more importantly, what the fuck is wrong with me?

Sweat trickles down my back and my hands itch to touch something, and it's as if every inch of my body stands to attention.

I feel… I don't know what I feel, but it isn't normal, and as I begin to try and dissect my interaction with Lincoln, flashes of unwanted images mix together in my head of my best friend being held down and raped. Of my brother slicing her stomach and legs, just for the pleasure of seeing her bleed and hearing her scream. Those fucking screams, I can hear them even now as if it is st ill happening right in front of me, and bile burns at the back of my throat as I stumble from my bed to the bathroom.

Vomit chokes out of my mouth as I think about what he did to her, what he did to all those girls, while I just stood by and watched. I may have saved Elle, but there were so many more before her, after her, and I just let it happen. Then I think about how I spent my nights after saving Elle, how I was invited into their sick fold of fun and games, how they thought I was one of them.

I think about all the women I fucked under my father's roof just to make him believe I was a true heir. I can barely remember any of their faces, but I can still feel their breath on my cheek, and their hands on my chest. I can smell their perfume, and hear their moans as they ride me. I can see myself bending them over in the corner of his parties and fucking them for his pleasure and demand. Just doing whatever was expected of me as the son of a Donovan, and it makes me sick how I used their bodies for pleasure, and then discarded them as if they were nothing.

The entire bottle of vodka I just drank comes back up, and my heart is still pounding in my chest as I fight against night after night of the heinous horrors of my childhood. I think about the day I was shot, about how easy it would have been to just give up and join my father and brother in hell where we belong, but then there is the smallest of lights in the biggest pits of darkness.

Cassie.

My daughter is everything to me. It's as if the second she was born someone ripped my heart from my chest and let it walk around outside of my body. I look at her, I see her smile, and suddenly I feel something good, something worthy of this life, of being her father, and all those nights, and all those girls fade into the background. Because if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have her. Every time I feel like giving up I just think of her, and I know I have to endure anything and everything I can to survive whatever comes our way.

I let images of her cascade through my mind as I slump against the sink, breathing deeply as her beauty erases all the pain. I think of Elle and how happy she is, of what it's going to be like to watch her marry her first love and know that she survived, that she escaped, that I helped her before things got worse. The two of them ease the ache in my chest, and I feel my heart rate beginning to slow, but then they disappear and in their place are dark eyes smiling at me. There's a wicked smirk, a flirty remark, and Logan grinning at me like a fool with puppy dog eyes. It doesn't matter how many times I knock him back, how many times I push him away, he still comes back for more, like he can't bear to be away from me.

Then suddenly his eyes are replaced with a green set that assesses my every move. I see glasses, and a computer, his promises to protect the two girls I love most. I see the knife in the back he took to save my daughter, and the look in his eyes as he stared down at me bleeding out on the floor the day I was shot. I feel his warmth as he pushes closer to me, the smirk that tugs on the corner of his mouth every time he utters that maddening nickname. Yet instead of the anger I usually push out towards him, I feel something different. Lincoln's presence calms me somehow, like he knows exactly what I am going through, like he knows what I did, but doesn't care. Like he understands me, and it's only then with thoughts of the two of them in my mind, do I realize my heart rate is completely back to normal and I can breathe easily again.

That's the last thing I remember as I slowly drift off to sleep to the images of a Rebel and his boyfriend.

The next morning I startle awake, the bathroom floor cold and hard against my cheek as I try to remember where I am. I push up, wi ncing at the throbbing in my head and the dryness in my throat, as I push away the images that haunted my dreams as I slept.

When I look in the mirror, blue soulless eyes stare back at me and I cringe at the shadows beneath them. I strip down and climb straight into a cold shower to try and make myself feel better, basking in the feeling of the icy cold water against my sore muscles as they awaken. I pour some of my body wash into my hands and massage it into my skin, ignoring the bullet hole in my chest as my fingers glide over it. Once I am fresh and awake, I step out, wrapping a warm towel around my waist and heading to my walk-in closet.

By the time I am dressed and leaving my room, I can hear the tell-tale tone of my daughter's giggle floating up the stairs, and it makes everything inside of me feel better. I follow the sound until I find her and Marcus eating a bowl of strawberries at the breakfast bar.

"Daddy, look River got me strawberries," she giggles excitedly, and warmth spreads across my chest.

"He did? That's awesome, baby girl," I grin genuinely, moving towards them both, dropping a kiss to her head, and offering Marcus my fist to bump. "Where's Mommy?" I add in question, looking around but finding no sign of her.

"She forgot she had an early meeting in town with the foundation so she left us to fend for ourselves, didn't she?" Marcus purrs, doting on my daughter so completely that I can't help but feel anything but happiness.

"But I thought you teach an early class at the center on Tuesdays?" I ask, moving to pour myself a coffee, and I see him nod.

"Yeah, I'm just writing a text to cancel it now, Elle couldn't get out of her meeting, so I volunteered to watch Cass," he shrugs, like it's no big deal, and to him, it isn't. He loves Elle, and loves my daughter even more. I couldn't ask for anyone better in their life, but I know he loves the center and those kids too.

"Well, I can do that, I pushed back my first two meetings," I explain, not adding the reasons why. "I can take over here and you can go teach your class," I tell him, knowing with the throbbing still in my head that I won't be getting any work done until I have drowned my body in caffeine.

"Are you sure?" He asks, and now it's my turn to nod.

"Of course I'm sure, we've not had a daddy daughter breakfast date in a while, have we, Angel?" I move my attention to my daughter and she looks up at me like I'm her hero, like I'm the most important person in the world, and it makes me feel invincible.

"Yessssss!" She squeals, throwing her hands in the air towards me, and I place my cup of coffee down and pull her into my arms for a cuddle.

"Sold," I reply, bringing my nose to her hair and inhaling deeply, letting her entire presence settle all the demons inside me.

"Thanks man, you're the best," Marcus tells me, and I almost laugh.

"I don't think I have ever been called the best before," I reply dryly, and his eyes turn solemn, as if he recalls all the things that plague my nightmares. Not that he could know, but then my daughter interrupts before any of them can take place.

"You are the best, daddy," Cassie tells me as she pulls away from me, looking up at me with nothing but adoration in her big, baby blue eyes.

"Sometimes the smallest people have the biggest impact," Marcus says, as he kisses my daughter's head in a way so similar to me, and then slaps me on the back with a smile. His words resonate through my entire being as he leaves, but all I can do is stare down at my daughter with a smile, because he's right.

My childhood wasn't really a terrible one, not in hindsight. I mean yes my mother left, and my father was worse than the devil, but I still had a relatively good childhood for the most part. I was treated well, and having the last name Donovan opened more doors than I cared for, and it still does now. It wasn't until that night in the woods that I realized the cost of it all, the true price of being a Donovan, yet still I was never really hurt.

The amount of girls I encountered after Elle left is more than I can bear to think about, and the one thing I always remember about them is their dead eyes. And I don't just mean the ones who were raped and murdered in front of me, of course their eyes were dead. No, I mean the ones who were forced to walk around in their underwear at all the parties, who were given off to myself and others for nothing but our entertainment.

As a girl, Elle King was robbed of her innocence, she was taken when she was still a child, and forced into acts so sinister, that my mind will never be able to erase them. She was brought to the woods where she was raped and almost killed, surrounded by filth and fucking rodents until her screams became unbearable because she felt nothing but fear and pain.

As a boy, I was led to an expensive and neatly-dressed bedroom, where woman after woman was led inside until my virginity was nothing but a mere memory. I did everything you can imagine with them under my father and brother's instruction, until I was deemed to be trusted and left alone, and every single time I felt nothing.

I learned a long time ago to not let myself feel anything, to turn off my emotions and trust nothing and noone. The one person in life I let in was taken from me and I will never forgive myself for it, even though she has, but when I look down into my daughter's eyes like I am now, it's hard to remember those horrors.

From the second I found out she existed something inside of me snapped and I knew I was going to be changed forever. I was no longer going to be the weak little boy who was beaten by the horrors of his family business, no I was going to be a man who protected the ones he loved with everything he had, and I did. I gave up everything to have this life and I can't bring myself to regret a single thing, not when it brought me here to her.

"You're the best too, Angel," I tell her honestly, pulling her back in for another embrace and cherishing every second of it as I add, "You're the best thing that has ever happened to me, and will ever happen to me, do you know that?" I feel her nod against my chest, and I swear for the first time in a long time I feel like I could cry, and not out of fear, but out of love.

My daughter is here with me, she's safe, she knows her worth, and she knows she is loved more than ever by the people that surround her. I can't ask for anything more in this life, not when I've already taken so much, I don't deserve more, but she does, and I will give it to her every single day until the day I die.

We make breakfast together, then make cakes while singing along to the Tangled soundtrack, and then she invites me to a doll-filled tea party, which is how Elle finds us. Holed up in her bedroom, with tutus around our waist, and cake around our mouths.

"It seems I'm late to the party," she coos from the doorway, and when our eyes collide I see nothing but love and it amazes me.

Elle King doesn't hold onto the past. She harbors no hate or regret, she had her demons and she fought them, slayed them really, and now she surrounds herself with family and love and happiness, and she has never looked better. My best friend has a tainted soul that is still somehow pure, she has killed monsters, and been hurt in ways I am still trying to recover from, but in a way she was born for this. She was born to be a Queen ruling over us all, and I thank my lucky stars that I get to call her my best f riend, and that my daughter gets to call her Mom.

"Mommy," Cassie claps happily at her arrival. "Tea party, come on," she flaps her hands signaling for Elle to join us, which of course she does without hesitation. She has killed for her daughter, so of course she is going to partake in a dolly tea party.

Cass finds the tutu that she knows fits Elle's waist, and by the time she sits down next to me, we are in matching apparel, as we smile down at our daughter.

"Look at her," she whispers, admiring our daughter right alongside me. "How did we make such an awesome fucking kid?" She asks mindlessly, and I have to laugh slightly through the images in my mind.

"It was all you, baby girl," I tell her, knowing that the more of her my daughter has, the better. I want her to be a King, well a Royton, never a Donovan.

Elle puts her head on my shoulder and snuggles into my side, as Cassie pours her a pretend cup of tea to join us. "Ash, you will never understand how good you are, and it breaks my heart, because you're the best person I know, and you deserve the world. I just wish you'd love yourself enough to allow it."

I don't respond, because I don't know how, and I think she knows that because she gently kisses my cheek and then throws herself fully into her role in the tea party, and we don't discuss it any further. I spend another hour with the two of them until I finally have to relent and leave to head into the office. So, I kiss the two of them goodbye, discard my pretty pink tutu, and head down to the garage.

The whole drive to the office, I can't help but think about how I am going to face Lincoln after what transpired between us last night. The whole interaction was over the line, and I'm hoping we can just pretend it never happened and move forward as normal. When I arrive, I head straight to my office, not bothering to glance down the hall in the direction of his, just like nor mal, and I move my focus to work.

For the next two hours I am on back to back calls with existing clients, catching them up on the progress of their files and what we are doing to help them. By the time I am done, I have skipped lunch, and I head to Eliza's desk to see if anything needs dealing with before I head out for some food.

"Mr. Donovan," she greets me as soon as she sees me, and the name grates on me just like always, but still I smile.

"Good Afternoon, Eliza, anything pressing that needs my attention?" I ask, and she nods, running her finger down her notepad to find what she is no doubt looking at.

"Yes, actually, sir. A Mr. Parker called for Mr. Blackwell. I sent him the message, but he hasn't returned my call yet, and Mr. Parker has now called twice looking for him, can you speak to him?" She pleads, and I presume that Mr. Parker must be persistent if he has already called twice, but it's the other thing she said that snags in my mind.

"What do you mean you sent him the message? Just go down to his office and let him know he has an urgent call," I tell her with a slight edge to my tone, knowing she is normally more proficient than this.

Eliza looks at me with a slight frown before she replies, "Mr. Blackwell isn't in the office today, he's out."

"What do you mean he's out? Where is he?" I demand, my attention now fully on her.

"He came in early this morning, made some calls, sent some emails, then asked me to rearrange the rest of his day because he needed to go and see his boyfriend," she explains in great detail, yet her words have me stumbling.

"His boyfriend?" I repeat in confusion, shaking my head at her.

"Yes, you know Mr. Logan Royton, correct?" She replies, frowning further, because she knows full well I know who Logan is, he ha s been to the office countless times, and not because his last name hangs over the damn door.

"Yes, I know him," I snap in frustration as irritation begins to burn inside of me. "His boyfriend? Are you sure that's what he said?"

She is already nodding. "Yes, quite sure, sir," she responds with a soft smile, and she opens her mouth to add something else, but I cut her off, turning to leave.

"Okay, thank you, Eliza," I call back in a sharp tone, storming back to my office and slamming the door behind me.

Looks like I am the only one around here that actually takes this job seriously, because you don't see me gallivanting up to New York to see my significant other. No, I'm here helping people with their troubles, not fucking my own away, but I suppose Lincoln Blackwell has more important things to do with his time, or should I say more important people to do.