Chloe (Made Men Book 3) (7 page)

T
he crazy events
of the weekend had come and gone, just like their last week of school. Sitting in science class, the final class of the semester, they turned in the project they had finished at Elle’s.

Chloe had an emotional breakdown that night after she had awoken from her nightmare and become vulnerable enough to reveal her dark secrets. She had ended up telling Elle everything that had happened to her that horrible night. She had also told her about her parents and what it was like for her at home. Thankfully, Chloe didn’t regret it. She and Elle were in the same boat of secrets and had nowhere to turn except each other.

She’s the only one I will ever tell.

Chloe looked up to Elle. She was strong, whereas Chloe was not. She didn’t show her fear to the world, whereas she did. Therefore, she found herself depending on Elle to survive this hell and to keep her sanity. At this point in her life, at its lowest, the most important thing to her was their friendship.

Brrring.

Quickly, all the students ran out of the classroom, eager for Christmas break. Even the teachers were scurrying to leave.

Elle and Chloe continued to stay put, waiting for the hallways to clear. They were being extra careful because, now being two, their target was bigger.

“You’re going to come and spend the night at my house during the break, right?” Elle asked.

Um …

Laughing, Elle could see what she was thinking. “Next time, we can stay up all night, watching movies. We will just pull all-nighters, so no need to sleep.”

Chloe’s lips turned up into a smile. “Okay, deal.”

“I think it should be good now.”

They both stood, gathering their things, and ventured out into the hall. Chloe followed a step behind her, and even though the hallways were pretty much cleared out, she still kept her head toward the ground. The science class was in the back of the school, so they had a good distance to go, and Chloe didn’t want to take the chance of someone mocking her face on the way out for the last time.

They were getting closer to the front of the school and only had one turn left to get out of the halls. When Elle took the sharp turn first, Chloe heard the massive
whack
that sent Elle flying back to her butt.

As she held her nose, the blood started to trickle down her hand and face.

Chloe felt every muscle in her body freeze as she looked at the twisted expression on Sebastian’s face with a big biology book in his hands. Her mouth dropped open to scream, but a cold hand appeared over her lips, keeping her silenced.

The devil’s voice whispered in her ear, “
Stay still, little girl.”

Chills ran up her spine as she waited for her turn from Sebastian’s wrath. She knew she should move, run, or help. She could feel something deep down inside of her screaming at her to do just that. However, it was as if the devil’s hands were holding her still. She could feel them gripping her wrists.

“You need to fucking keep your eyes to yourself, bitch.”

Elle’s shirt was getting stained redder and redder by the second.

“I wasn’t going to say anything. I don’t care what you do.”

“What the fuck did you just say to me? You don’t care what I do?”
Sebastian went to smash the book over Elle, but she covered her head just in time.

The book smashed into her forearm hard enough to hear a small crack.

“Keep your fucking mouth shut, both of you.” He looked at Chloe and raised the book again.

The invisible hands cuffed her wrists more securely, causing tears to brim her eyes
.

“Or it’ll just hurt worse.”

Elle grabbed Sebastian’s leg. “No …!”

“Don’t you tell me no.” Sebastian reared the book back toward Elle again, giving her barely enough time to cover her head. He connected the book to the same arm, but this time, the cracking sound was much louder, solidifying a break in the arm.

A smug look crossed his face as he left.

“You’re one lucky, little girl,”
he whispered before his invisible hands slowly disappeared.

“Chloe …? Chloe, are you all right?” Elle’s pained voice finally rang through her ears.

Blinking away the tears in her eyes that rained down her cheeks, making her scars glisten red, she looked down at Elle. She was able to see the destruction Sebastian had caused once again.

“I-I’m s-so sorry. I t-tried to—” She began to violently shake.

“I know you did.” Elle slowly got up off the floor, careful not to put any pressure on her hurt limb. “I’ll be okay.”

She wiped the tears off her face when Elle did the same and then looked around, expecting someone to come help.

Elle used the arm of her black hoodie to wipe some of the blood off her face. “No one’s coming.” Then she zipped up the rest of her hoodie to cover her blood-splattered shirt and put up the hood using her good arm. “No one cares.”

Looking around once more, it looked as if the hallways had been deserted years ago.

She’s right; I couldn’t even care enough to help her.

The tears blurred her vision again, but she tried her best to push them back down. “Why did he do it?”

Holding her broken arm to her chest, Elle winced. “When we came out of class, I saw him buying weed off a senior in the halls. I thought I turned my head away fast enough, but I guess not.”

That was why she had no clue what had pissed him off and why he had wanted them to keep their mouths shut. She always kept her head to the ground, so she never noticed what went on in the halls and didn’t see the faces of those who called her a freak.

Chloe picked up Elle’s satchel from the ground and put it on her shoulder with her own book bag. “Come on. I’ll walk to the hospital with you.”

The hospital was thankfully just a street over from the school.

“But isn’t your mom waiting to pick you up outside?” Elle asked.

“No, she’s always an hour late. I’ll text her to pick me up there.”

Elle nodded. “I’ll call my mom and tell her when we get there that my last indoor soccer game didn’t go so well.”

It was wrong for them to chuckle at that, but the two had to make light of the situation somehow.

Walking through the rest of the school, Chloe noticed how the teachers turned their heads or ducked into a room as they passed. There was one fact Cassandra and Sebastian Ross made clear to the whole school the moment they had first walked through the school doors, and that was how their father had funneled donation money to the school. The principal and the teachers would look away from the murder of Elle Buchanan for a million dollars. The beating of a girl whose parents couldn’t afford to donate a dime came at a much cheaper price.

No one ever fucked with the Ross’s, and no one ever would, because the Ross’s were one of the richest families in Kansas City, if not the richest.

“Why’d you do it?” Chloe quietly asked her.

“Do what?”

“Stop him from hitting me.”

Elle waited until they reached the freedom from the school before she spoke.

“I haven’t been able to sleep since you told me, and I’m hoping now I’ll be able to get one night’s rest without having my own nightmares of what happened to you.”

S
taring at her new bedroom
, in her new house, it should have brought her peace to start over fresh with the New Year ringing in. It didn’t. It just solidified what she had lost, and now she added the house she had grown up in to that list.

A knock on the door came a moment before the door swung open.

“Ready?” her dad asked.

Wringing her hands, she tried to give it one more shot. “You can’t tell them that I’m sick?”

The door came to a close as her father stepped into the room. “No. Get fucking used to the spotlight. Now come on.”

Feeling the impending doom in her stomach, she stood and adjusted her black dress that her mother had picked out with long sleeves to cover up the real horror show she was.

“Remember, none of that germaphobe bullshit. Suck it up and pretend to like it when they shake your hand. Do you understand me?”

Solemnly, she nodded.

“And try not to stutter,” he added harshly.

“Yes, Father.”

When Maxwell was satisfied, he opened the door for them to leave.

Walking through the house, she felt the bile in her stomach started to rise. The city liked to call it “the little white house,” but to her, it seemed like the opposite. Everything was so white, cold, and empty that it made her feel as if she were locked up in an insane asylum.

I am …
and the people who were holding her hostage there certainly made her feel as if she would be classified as insane.

Hearing the commotion draw closer, she wanted to turn back. However, her father was a step behind her, watching her every move. She had no option except to face what was coming.

Reaching the room, she saw there were TV crews and cameras filling up the space. Again, if it weren’t for her father behind her, she couldn’t have made it to her place beside her mother.

The ceremony started within minutes. A man handed a Bible over to her mother, and she watched as her father placed his hand upon it.

“I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution and Laws of the State of Missouri, and the Laws and Ordinances of the City of Kansas City, Missouri, and that I will, to the best of my ability, faithfully perform the duties of the Office of Mayor in the City of Kansas City, Missouri, during my continuance therein.” Maxwell paused for just a moment. “So help me God.”

At that moment, Chloe tried her best to smile next to her parents as the cameras began flashing a mile a minute. The oath her father had just taken solidified the truth of what had happened to her never coming to the light. Maxwell had successfully achieved everything he had been working for to become the mayor of Kansas City, and it had come with a price.

The devil had come to make him pay in his daughter’s blood.

A small part of her hadn’t thought he could take the oath after what had happened that night, but she had been wrong. Maxwell had just swept it under the rug, and all of Kansas City would never know the devil himself resided there.

“Congratulations, Mr. Mayor.”

Another pit in her stomach began as the congratulatory handshakes started.

“Happy New Year, Mrs. Masters.”

She took a small step back.
Please ignore me.

A hand extended out to her. “Happy New Year to you, too, Chloe.”

Staring at the manly hand extended to her, her mouth ran dry. She could feel her father’s harsh gaze on her.

She slightly lifted her hand before putting it back down. “I-I’m sorry. I’m a g-germaphobe.” She made sure to say it just loudly enough for people to hear so that it would spread by gossip, or if she were lucky, the newspaper. That way, she would never have to shake a hand ever again, and that was a win she needed, being the mayor’s daughter. The amount of places and events she was going to be forced to attend to shake the hands of strangers in the future was something she didn’t want to think about.

The room had gone silent at her words, and the focus had been drawn to her, scaring her shitless. The people around the room all looked as if they were examining the scars on her face and thinking one unison thought:
freak.

She felt it then, the bile slowly creeping up her throat.

“Excuse m-me.”

Running out the room, she could hear her father explaining how she had been feeling under the weather. She could hear his unspoken words that were just for her, telling her that she should be afraid. Very, very afraid.

Managing to keep from vomiting, she went to her room as quickly as she could and locked the door behind her. Her breathing was heavy as she backed away from the door, wondering if she had made the right choice.

There was only one way to find out.

* * *

H
e took
a swig of his beer and sat back in his chair, smiling at the TV screen. The sight of her brought back the feelings he’d had the last time he had seen her. He thought his work looked beautiful on her, and he felt satisfied that, every time she looked in the mirror …
She sees me.

Laughing wickedly, he could tell, even though he was no longer physically hurting her, she was fucked up mentally.

“I told you it would just hurt worse, little girl.”

* * *

T
he loud banging
on the door had her hiding under the covers.

“Unlock this goddamn door right now!”

Even though Maxwell had learned how to become a functioning alcoholic over the past few weeks, she could hear the drinks he had consumed tonight in his bellowing voice.

“You embarrassed the hell out of me and your mother tonight!”

Fear started to creep in as it went quiet. She had greatly underestimated her father’s wrath, and she just prayed she was going to survive.

Boom.

A
body slammed into the door.

Chloe had been wrong.

Tears streamed down her face, caught upon her pillow that was now getting soaked.

“If you don’t open this fucking door right now, so help me God, I’ll make it worse for you.”

The whisper of hands cuffed her wrists.
“Stay still, little girl, or it’ll just hurt worse.”

Her father was becoming the devil’s disciple. The fear she felt inside of her rivaled the fear she had felt while standing in the presence of the devil.

Bam.

The door flung open, and pure rage filled the room

Chloe held on tightly to the covers as she furiously held her eyes shut, hoping this was all just another nightmare.

Maxwell stalked to her bed. “Let this be your first lesson.”

A second later, Chloe felt him roughly pick her up with her blanket before he threw her across the room a second later. Being touched through the covers didn’t burn her skin like it would have if he had touched her flesh, but it still hurt.

The blanket had broken most of her fall, but she did take a good bang to the head against the wall.

Sitting up, she watched her father through tears as he walked over to her. The sight of him made her blood run cold.

“You’re going to learn that crying won’t help you. I’m done listening to it.”

One final tear rolled down her cheek. Chloe didn’t know it, but it would be the last tear she would shed.

Maxwell moved while she closed her eyes.

So help me God.