Entice (Eagle Elite #3)(42)
Author: Rachel Van Dyken

The knock on the door was soft, discreet.

“Stay.” I kissed her forehead and grabbed a bathrobe, tightening it around my waist as I opened the door. Without letting the guy in, I handed him a twenty-dollar bill and pulled the cart the rest of the way, locking the door behind me.

When I walked into the bathroom, champagne and food in hand, Mil was humming to herself.

“You hum?” I asked stupidly.

“Huh?”

“Hum?”

“What?”

I rolled my eyes. “You were humming.”

“Is that against Chase Winter’s rules? Humming in the tub? What would you rather I do?”

My body roared to life. “Well…”

“Stop.” Mil held up her hand. “Forget I asked.”

“Aw, baby, that’s like turning the key to an engine and then deciding not to drive… it’s just… cruel to the car.”

“Are you calling me a tease or a racecar driver? I’m confused.”

Sending her a smug smile, I set the full champagne glasses onto the counter and dropped my bathrobe. “Still confused?”

“Little chilly, Chase?” Mil reached for the champagne. I smacked her hand lightly.

“Little eager, Mil?”

“Ass.”

“Tease.”

She sighed, but I could tell it was a happy sigh. Mil was trying to act tough, like always, but I was beginning to see that second layer to her. All women, in my experience, were complicated. Each had her secrets and every single one had a way of hiding them. Mil’s fierceness was her armor — and it killed me to think that I could have possibly been responsible for making her gun-shy when it came to men.

“I’m getting in the tub.”

“Does that mean you’re kicking me out?”

“No.” I stepped in behind her and slowly slid down the porcelain. “It just means things are going to be snug.”

“I’m not so sure I can handle snug.”

I let out a hiss when the hot water surrounded me and a soft groan escaped from deep in my throat as I pulled her roughly against me. “If I can handle snug, you sure as hell can handle snug.”

Her soft sigh fanned across my chest, raising goose bumps that had nothing to do with being cold and everything to do with wanting a repeat performance of the last hour we’d spent together. She leaned her head over my heart. I reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear and kissed her temple.

“I want to know, Mil.”

My fingers lightly grazed that same scar again, this time pushing against it, as if by adding pressure, the words would come out of her mouth, the fear would dissipate, and she’d trust me.

“What if I tell you and you hate me?”

My heart clenched. “Mil, I could never hate you.”

“You could,” she said in a small voice. “You might.”

“Trust me.”

A few seconds of silence passed, and then Mil said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear her, “I was fourteen…”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Mil

I couldn’t believe that I was actually telling him. Never in a million years had I planned on cutting open past wounds and letting myself bleed out onto the ground.

But for some reason, Chase made me want to share. He made me believe that if I told him about my demons, he wouldn’t run away screaming; instead he’d help me conquer them.

“Fourteen?” Chase repeated. “Before or after you and I—” His voice died off.

I could feel the tension in his body as silence filled the bathroom.

“Before,” I whispered. The memories surfaced slowly, and then it was impossible to stop the pain as it pinched my chest. That’s how demons destroyed a person. The minute you opened the door to one, the rest of them followed suit, leaving you defenseless and desperate to do anything to get the door to close again.

“Mil.” Chase rubbed my arms. “It’s okay, I’m here.”

I was shaking, and although the bath water was still searing hot, I had goose bumps all over. Chase continued rubbing my arms as I talked.

“My dad… he wasn’t right in the head.”

“Understatement of the century,” he grumbled.

“Not like that.” My body felt heavy. “I’m sure Phoenix told you about the prostitution ring. Not only was he into selling young girls, but he liked to break them in himself.”

Chase’s fingers dug into my arms. My world stopped. Would he be disgusted? Maybe I was all of those things my dad had said to me.

“Mil?” Chase kissed my temple, his lips hovering over my skin as he whispered, “It’s okay, keep going.”

“One day, one of his men came and said my dad needed me for something. He was at The Cave and had forgotten his cell phone on the counter. So, being the dutiful daughter that I was, I went with the man to drop off the cell phone and ask my dad what he needed.”

Terror filled every square inch of my body. “I remember that it was really dark. They didn’t call it The Cave for fun. It was an abandoned warehouse that had lights which flickered on and off. My dad was in the middle of some circle, surrounded by a few men in suits. He asked me to come forward, so I did.”

Chase was quiet, so I kept talking. “I’m still not sure if it was his plan all along, but one of the men asked how much I was. And then another offered money for me. Someone else shouted in a gravelly voice that he’d pay over two million.” I shook my head. “It was such an astronomical amount that I thought they had to be joking. But they weren’t. My dad didn’t even hesitate. He turned to the man with the raspy voice and asked him what the catch was. The man was standing in the shadows, but I remember that he was really big, as in, for a second I thought he was a giant, but his voice… it never changed. It was gravelly, almost as if he’d somehow lost the ability to speak.”

Chase released his grip a bit on me and kissed my head again. “Did he touch you?”

“No.” I shook my head. “My dad told me to go home, but he stayed out all night. When he got home, it was the first time in years that he actually smiled at me. The next week was the best week I’d ever experienced with him. He took me shopping, kissed my mom in front of all of us, and was honestly acting like the dad I’d always wanted. Even Phoenix had been impressed. We left for Vegas later that week and that was when my mom told me.”

“She said my dad was going to sell my virginity to a horrible man. She said if I didn’t do something about it, I would die.”