Chapter 17

DYLAN

The rain is pouringas I push back into my office after my lunch date with Miranda. Jesus, that woman. She hasn’t told me a lot about her past but I’ll bulldoze down her barriers one at a time. I swear I will.

In time, she’ll learn she can trust me with everything. And while I’ve never historically been a patient man, with her I can go as slow as she needs.

I close my eyes, savoring the taste of her on my lips. The sweet smell of her. The feel of her body clenching around me.

Then I shake my head and grin. Jesus, I have actual work to get done this afternoon, but later tonight…

I whistle as I head up the elevator.

Later tonight I’ll be happy to do some more explorative boundary busting.

The pep in my step must be obvious because Darren is in the lobby chatting with Sylvia, our interim Executive Assistant while Hannah is on vacation to visit her grandkids.

Darren turns my way.

“Are you… whistling? What’s got you in such a cheerful mood.”

I throw out my hands. “It’s a beautiful day.”

Both Darren and the young blonde woman behind the desk look in confusion to the window where it’s gray and the rain is pouring.

I just laugh. “Oh, and there’s the fact that I’m in love. That might have a little something to do with it.”

Darren’s mouth drops open. Literally drops open and I laugh, walking up and shutting it for him. “Watch out, little brother, you’ll catch flies like that.”

I walk past him, giant smile still stretching my face. “Be in my office in twenty, Dare. I know you’re flying out to the manufacturing plant outside Bangkok in a few hours, but we need to call the investors together. I want to make the contract with ProDynamics happen after all.”

“What?!”

I hear Darren’s footsteps hurrying behind me as I head toward my office. I smile at the shock on Darren’s face. “But what about the future of robotics? And being on the cutting edge and all that shit? You’ve been fighting for RISC for months!”

“What can I say? Between all the trouble we’ve been having in testing and you wearing me down about it every day, I’m finally listening to reason.”

And the idea of Miranda being the liaison for the length of the contract, yes, I like that very much. Everybody wins. We can try the RISC chips in another few years after they’ve worked out all the bugs and they’re more stable.

“That’s great news,” Darren says as we step into my office, “but are you really saying this didn’t have anything to do with a certain brunette beauty that had you scampering off when you never take lunch? She works there, doesn’t she?”

Then he pauses. “Oh.” Another pause. “I see.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “It’s not like that. If we aren’t going with the RISC chips, there’s no reason not to use Pro processors. They tested among the best of the older style. You know, the kind you’ve been nagging me to go with, ad nauseum. I don’t get what the problem is.”

But Darren doesn’t look happy like I thought he would at hearing the news. To tell the truth, he looks grim. “Look, brother,” he claps a hand on my shoulder, “I hoped this thing would fizzle out on its own and I’d never have to have this talk with you…”

I shrug his hand off. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

“I had my guys look into her.”

My jaw clenches and I only barely stifle the impulse to shout my next words. “You what?”

He holds up his hands. “Look, Dylan, this girl shows up out of nowhere and suddenly it’s like you’re a different person and now with this contract. I just had to make sure she was legit. So I had some of my guys do some digging and—”

“And nothing.” I stand up and get in my brother’s face. “You and I know better than anyone how false things can look without context. What if she ran a so-called search on me? She’d think I was a… a rapist.” I almost choke on the last word and I can’t believe Darren would pull this shit.

But Darren just stands up taller. “I’d say I’m sorry but I’m not. Dylan, you need to hear what I found out. Did she tell you that she used to date Bryce Gentry?”

“What?” I bark, taking a step back like he slugged me.

“Yeah.” Darren’s nodding. “They dated for two years. She could still be working for him, even while he’s in prison. He could be trying to manipulate you into another scandal or—”

“Shut the fuck up,” I shout, turning my back on him and pacing away several steps. Miranda dated Bryce?

She dated…

My stomach drops to the floor as I remember that day. Before I found Chloe, Bryce was bragging about that night. That night after I left.

“You had fun at our party the other night, didn’t you? You missed the best part, though.” Bryce smirked. “It really got rowdy after you left.”

He laughed as he pulled out his phone and pushed play on a video. “Look. We fucking broke the bitch but she loved every second of it.” And there was the woman with the leather hood on, limbs splayed out helplessly as Bryce crouched over her, his foot on her face as he fucked her ass from above.

Her whole body jerked with the force of every merciless down thrust.

The cameraman walked around them, leaning in especially close so you could hear her pathetic whimpers as she cried.

“She was sobbing by the end, you would have fucking loved it,” Bryce laughed. “Oh, wait for it, wait for it—” he pointed at the screen.

A high-pitched wail strangled its way from the woman’s throat.

“See, the bitch still cums. That slut loves the fucking pain. I taught her to. She’s my bitch. It took a couple years but now she can’t fucking cum without it.”

“Damn,” I said, looking at the video, hard as stone and wishing like fuck I’d stayed to the end of the night. “Wish I had a girl like that.”

I’m going to be fucking sick again.

Was Miranda the girl?

Please Jesus, let Miranda not be that poor girl.

I masturbated to thoughts of that night and that video for years. Fucking years, even after I found out what a sociopath Bryce Gentry was.

It took a couple years but now she can’t fucking cum without it.The pain.

And Miranda was with Bryce for two years. And most of the time, she needs pain to come. Oh Jesus. It was her. It was her, wasn’t it. What sadistic shit did he do to her to make her not be able to cum without pain?

I think of everything she told me about her happy childhood in Ohio. Her mom and dad, still happily married after thirty-five years.

What the fuck did I think had happened to her to make her like sex the way she did? Why didn’t I ever ask? Why didn’t I demand to know?

I grab my hair and yank as hard as I can but it’s not enough. I shout and run at the wall, slamming it with my fists.

I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know about the other men she’d been with. And I hoped, I don’t know, maybe some people are just into pain. Maybe she didn’t have to have demons in her past like I did.

But Bryce fucking Gentry?

Part of what was released in the Gentry files were videos of him raping women, multiple women, in the most horrific ways—

My fists go through the thin drywall and I kick and kick and kick at the boards underneath until Darren is pulling me backwards.

“Dylan!” he keeps shouting but I throw him off, turning on him.

“Was she the girl? That night, was she the girl? That we both…” Oh fuck, even beyond whatever Bryce did to her, there was what me and my own brother had—

Darren looks away and his voice is quiet as he admits, “Yeah. It was her.”

I stomp to my desk and hurl my lamp against the wall but it’s not enough. Not nearly fucking enough. I heave my entire desk onto its side, sending my monitor crashing to the floor. Still not fucking enough. I— We— Darren was at her mouth while she was trapped in that godawful leather hood and I— I—

I kick my fucking chair and then—

I can’t fucking stand looking at my brother for one more second. I have to get out of here. Maybe if I run far enough, fast enough, I’ll wake up from this fucking nightmare.