Cruel Control by Candace Wondrak

Chapter Eleven – Juliet

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much that night after Will left. How could I? How could I get a wink of sleep when my mind could not stop replaying what happened? I was pretty sure he’d touched himself while looking at me… and I was also pretty sure I should feel some type of way.

Disgusted? Grossed-out? Weirded-out?

But the thing was, I didn’t. I didn’t feel any of that, and I should’ve. After all, Will was clearly not the sanest one in this house. The things he’d said to me, how our first encounter had gone—he was not stable. There was something off about him, even I could see that, and I’d grown up locked away.

Still, though, there was something about him that drew me in. Like a moth to the flame, it was almost unwilling. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Maybe it was the fact that he was cute, even if he was older than me by ten years. Maybe it was the fact that I was tired of doing everything Daddy wanted me to do. Maybe I wanted to live a little.

And maybe living involved taking risks.

I wanted to sleep. I tried to, but I couldn’t. The way he’d kissed me… I couldn’t even describe it. Now that was a kiss. That’s what I always imagined a kiss would be, not the frozen mouth Jaxon had given me when I’d tried to kiss him. Will’s mouth had been warm and soft and inviting, but passionate and hungry and strong at the same time. Literally, when he was kissing me, all thoughts vanished from my mind. The kiss was that powerful.

Or maybe I’d just been on cloud nine because it was my first real kiss. Only had it after my first orgasm, totally out of order, but still. I guess it didn’t matter.

And… yes, I did sleep in the thong, though it was a bit uncomfortable. Our little secret. Even though it was stupid to have secrets in this house, I didn’t care. A part of me was well aware that by doing this, I was basically giving Markus the middle finger, but maybe that was the point. Rebel against the supreme overlord of this house.

Morning came after an eternity, and I was more awake than I should’ve been, given the fact that I didn’t sleep at all. I still wore the sweater and the thong; nothing else. What I should do was get up and change, but even though sunlight streamed in through the windows, I didn’t want to force my body out of bed.

Really, I felt like I needed a freaking nap.

I didn’t know how long it was until I heard a knock on the door, and I yawned before sitting up, making sure to keep the comforter bunched around my midsection so whoever it was wouldn’t see my underwear. “Come in.”

I’d put away the clothes, all the bags piled up on the side of the room near the door. The closet and dressers were now full of clothes that were surprisingly my size, and not too bad, style-wise. I had to hand it to Will.

Maybe I should be creeped out by the bag of lacy lingerie, but with everything going on, I wasn’t. I honestly had more to worry about than fancy underwear.

Theo walked in, carrying a tray, like he was a server. On that tray was some milk, a stack of pancakes, and eggs. Way too much for me to eat, although after lying in bed wide awake for the last seven hours, I supposed I was hungry.

“Here,” he said, grinning. “Good morning, by the way.”

“Good morning,” I replied. “Nice tray.”

“Oh, you like it?” Theo started to unload the tray’s contents onto my nightstand. “Ed found it for me. Figured it would be easier to bring up your food this way, rather than balance everything. You’d be surprised, but I don’t have that great of balance. I have good precision when it comes to digging out metal shards in bodies but when it comes to balancing multiple dishes on my arms, I’m out.”

I could not hide the smile forming on my lips. “You don’t have to bring me food, you know.”

“I know, but this way, I can make sure you get what you need.” He stood, tucking the tray under his arm as he stared at me. I squirmed a bit, which was dumb, because he didn’t have X-ray vision; he couldn’t see what I was wearing under the sheets. “You are taking your vitamins and your other pill, right?”

“Yes,” I said. I’d taken to the routine of having the vitamins in the morning and the other pill right before eight at night. It was the least I could do, I guess, since Jaxon had gotten hurt because of it. I didn’t want to see him hurt again.

“Good,” Theo spoke with a genuine smile. “Now, I’ll get out of your hair.” He adjusted his glasses, and then he walked away.

He was moments before shutting my door when I called out to him, “Thank you.”

Theo paused, glancing back at me. “Don’t worry about it.” The smile he gave me then was different than the one he’d given me before, a different emotion behind it, though I couldn’t distinguish which one. I supposed it didn’t matter; I had food to eat and clothes to change out of.

It was an hour before noon when someone else came to see me. This person knocked on the door quietly, and after I told them to come in, when I saw who it was, I couldn’t help but run over to him and hug him.

Yes, okay, it was a mistake, it was stupid, but I couldn’t help it. I felt so bad. So, so bad. Plus, you know how bruises were. They looked even worse after a few days.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to Jaxon’s shoulder as I hugged him. He, I noticed, was slow to hug me back, and when I let him go, when I gazed at his face and the bruises on it, I felt my heart hurt.

I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t care at all, but I did. Dumb.

Jaxon shrugged it off. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.”

“No, it’s my fault that happened. If I wouldn’t have—”

“Don’t,” he interrupted me. “Don’t do that to yourself. Markus had a hunch that hurting me would get you to bend to him, and he was right.” He let out a sigh. “I’m not mad at you, Juliet. Really, I’m not. And I’m not mad at Markus, either. Sometimes things aren’t pretty in the family, but that’s just how things are around here. I’m used to it.”

Used to getting beat up? Or used to terrible consequences? Either way, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

“I’m sorry for avoiding you lately, but…” He stopped, rubbing the back of his neck. “I needed time to think.”

“About what?” Not sure I even wanted to know, but the words left me before I could stop them. Staring at Jaxon, knowing his handsome face was so bruised because of me, it hurt. It hurt me more than words could ever describe.

It took him a while to admit, “You.”

I didn’t know what to say, and so I didn’t say anything. Should I feel guilty for seeing Will last night, for totally forgetting what happened to Jaxon while I was with Will? All these feelings inside, they were so very confusing. I didn’t know how people dealt with them—but maybe they had a better handle on them than me because they grew up dealing with them, while I only had to deal with Daddy and trying to make him happy.

“Markus came after me because he was trying to make you fall in line,” Jaxon said, eyeing me up, the emerald orbs clouded over with emotions I could not read. “I thought I was putting enough distance between us, but maybe I didn’t put enough. Maybe he saw something, heard something, I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?” I was almost afraid to ask.

“You don’t like me, do you? You don’t care about me, right? I mean, I’m the one who broke into your house and brought you here,” he said, reminding me of something I was very much aware of. “You don’t have feelings for me… do you?”

“Do I… do I like you?” Was he really asking me that, point-blank? I mean, I didn’t know why I was shocked, but I was. I also didn’t like the way he looked at me while he asked me those questions. It was almost like the mere possibility of me liking him was something he disproved of.

Like it wasn’t something he wanted.

A pang of hurt hit my heart, and I had to break eye contact with him—and then I had to take a step away from him. Couldn’t stand too close, you know. Might give him the wrong idea, that I liked him or something.

I didn’t.

Did I?

And if I did, if I did sort of, weirdly like Jaxon even though he’d kidnapped and brought me here, what did that say about last night and Will? And then, of course, there was Markus, who didn’t want any of these guys to touch me, let alone look at me wrong.

“Does it matter?” I asked, finally able to meet his patient gaze once more. “Does it matter if I do, if I don’t?” I had more to say, but apparently Jaxon could not wait until I was finished; he had his own piece to say.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it matters, because if you do, then I’m a weakness to you, and Markus will use it. He knows exactly how to use people to break other people, and I don’t want to be a part of it.” He shook his head. “Not because I’ll get hurt. I don’t give a shit about me, Juliet.”

“Then why?” I wanted to beg him to help me see the entire picture, to help me see the truth. Truly, I did not understand why it was such a big deal to have a tiny crush on the guy. I mean, Jaxon was cute, his dimples were adorable, and even though he’d brought me here, he was saner than a lot of them. Plus, he was closer to my age than anyone else, other than that Bennet guy, who’d tried to kill me with a fork.

But we weren’t going to think about him right now.

Jaxon’s expression read conflicted and torn, and yet kind of angry. At me? At Markus? I couldn’t tell. “Because you’ll get hurt,” he shot back. “Because by hurting me, he hurts you. It’s better for you to not care. Don’t you see that?”

“I can’t change the things I feel inside.” And to try, I knew, would be pointless. Some things just were, and even though it was stupid, I’d developed some kind of feelings for this guy, as hot and cold as he could be.

“Try,” Jaxon pleaded with me. “Try, because if you don’t, he’ll use me again, and next time, it’ll be worse. I don’t want to be the instrument he uses to hurt you.” His voice dropped to a whisper, to a bare whisper I felt rattling my bones, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

I stared at him for what felt like forever. At the slight crease between his brows, at how his chest rose and fell with heavy breaths, at the way he stood, as if he was ready to pounce into action, even now. I stared at the bruises on his face, imagined the bruising on his stomach, and as I looked at him, everything inside me hurt. I hurt because he hurt.

He was right. I knew it in that moment. Caring for anyone in this house would be considered a weakness, a weakness Markus would gladly use to get me to bend to his will. Was the cold, hard truth enough to make me change course, though? Was it enough to force me to not feel anything towards the handsome, crazy faces around me?

I didn’t know.

Two words left me while I was lost in my own head, two words spoken so softly, I hardly heard them myself: “Then don’t.”

Jaxon said nothing for the longest while, watching me, waiting for me to explain. But when I didn’t, he finally said, “You know it’s not that simple. Not here.”

“Do I? Do I know that?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. I still don’t know what the heck goes on here. I don’t know why I’m here, what my dad did to make Markus want me here. I don’t know anything, but I know this—” I took a step toward Jaxon, and his entire body tensed. “—you’re not a bad guy. You’re not. Markus is… you’re nothing like him. When I look at him, I don’t feel the same thing I do when I look at you. You’re not bad, Jaxon.”

I couldn’t tell if my words affected him or not, if he believed me or not. I mean, who the heck was I? Just a girl. Just a girl who knew nothing about his life, and yet I believed what I told him. Was he rough around the edges? Sure. Did he kidnap me? Yeah, but did that make him a bad person all around?

No.

No, it didn’t, and it killed me to know he didn’t believe it.

“You can choose whether or not to listen to Markus,” I said, taking another step closer to him. I wanted to hug him again, show him comfort, tell him over and over how sorry I was he’d gotten so hurt because of me. “You don’t have to let him use you against me. You could… you could go. We could go together.”

I knew it the moment I said it: I went too far. One step too far, and I could see the semi-receptive walls I’d started to bust through get built back up, brick by brick until he was firmly against me.

“No,” he said. “You’re wrong. I am a bad guy, and I always will be. My debt to this family and what they’ve done for me can never be repaid. I won’t go against the family to get you out of here—and if that’s not enough to make you realize that I’m not this knight you have built up in your mind, nothing will.” He moved away from me, shaking his head. “It’ll go better for you if you don’t care about anyone else in this house besides yourself.”

And then he left, not saying a single word more. Jaxon didn’t even look at me as he went, no glances over his shoulder or any of that.

I watched him go, his words slow to sink in, and when he was gone, I felt suddenly so very weak. My legs gave out, and I collapsed to the floor, staring at my hands. They were the hands I’d grown up with, clean hands, not a single blemish on them. Jaxon’s hands, I knew, were not as clean. They were dirty, rough. Those hands of his had done things that I probably couldn’t even imagine, and yet, as I sat there, staring at my hands, I couldn’t force myself to think of him badly.

Liking him, liking anyone, was a weakness in this house, it was true. I did not want to see Jaxon get hurt again because of me. Did that make me pathetic? In Markus’s eyes, probably.

Markus.

As I thought of the man, as I remembered everything he’d told me, what he did to me, as I pictured his pitch-black stare, his tall, suit-wearing body, I got to my feet, knowing I had to have a talk with him, whether he was responsive or not. Whether he cared enough to listen to me or not. Forgive my language, but screw that guy.

I left my room, leaving the door wide open as I went.

I’d be lying if I said I was not afraid of Markus or what he could do. If he could hurt Jaxon that badly—and Jaxon was family, adoptive, but still—what would he do to me to make a point? There was nothing off-limits, I’d bet. He already said as much.

But just because I was afraid of him did not mean I would back down and cower in fear. Just because he had all the power did not mean I would sit down and shut up. I didn’t owe him anything. The only man I’d listen to without question was Daddy, and he was not here.

It took me a while, mostly because this place was still too huge and confusing to me, but I eventually found my way to his office. His door was closed, as it always was, and I breathed in a deep breath, readying myself for what would surely become a fight. A one-way fight, probably, but a fight nonetheless. Markus was stupider than he looked if he thought I would back down like an obedient dog.

Okay, the man didn’t look stupid at all. That was just me trying to pull an insult from my severely lacking insult repertoire.

I wanted to bust right in, but I knew if I wanted the man to listen to me, if only for a moment, I should knock. The last time I’d busted in after getting the pills from Theo, he’d taken me by the neck and kicked me out. I didn’t want that to happen this time.

No, this time would be different.

I knocked.

His low, commanding voice came from inside, “What?” He sounded snippy, like he wasn’t expecting anyone, and I steeled myself for the upcoming confrontation. Markus Scott was not a man you should ever approach when he was angry, but then again, was he ever not angry? I didn’t think so.

I pushed in, closing the door behind me, holding myself straight even as Markus’s dark eyes flicked up at me. He held onto a pen, and whatever he was writing ceased to be of any concern to him the very moment he saw me. A suit, as always, clung to his wide body, his tie a sleek black, the shirt under it a dark red.

The color of blood.

Markus made a deliberately slow gesture in putting the pen down, folding his hands atop each other as he looked at me. “What do you want?” His voice came off snide and cold, the blackness of his eyes narrowing at me.

I moved closer to his desk, standing opposite him. Probably a bad idea to get so close, and yet I needed to make a point, whether he was receptive or not. “You are a horrible man,” I told him. “You’re cruel, mean, and hateful. I don’t like you.”

The corners of his mouth nearly smirked at that. “Should I feign insult, or should I only note your feelings for future reference?” Though he deadpanned his response, he still sounded like he mocked me. The jerk.

“How can you hurt someone who’s family? How can you live with yourself and what you do?”

“Juliet, I do what I must. That’s always the case, and you’ll find that never changes, no matter how complicated things get.” Markus eyed me up, scrutinizing me intensely. “And, for your future reference, you have no idea what we do here. If you knew, I suspect you would not be as bold as you are right now.”

I leaned onto his desk, my hands flat, and though I wanted to slink away from him and his stare, I said, “Then tell me. What is it you do? Why am I here? What did my dad do to make you think you had to kidnap me?”

“The truth,” Markus started, and for a moment, I actually thought he was going to tell me. My heart skipped a beat and everything. But all he finished with was: “Sometimes it’s not what we’re expecting. Call me psychic, but I don’t believe you’d be able to handle it, as delicate as you are.” He spoke the word delicate like it was an insult.

And from him it was.

“Delicate?” I echoed, aghast, unable to hide how insulted I was by his choice of words. “I’m not delicate. You haven’t broken me yet, Markus.” What I said must’ve been a challenge, for I watched, nerves fraying, as Markus slowly got to his feet. Even though there was a desk between us, he could reach over it and grab hold of me quite easily.

Which was exactly why I pushed off his desk and took a step backward. As long as there was enough space between us that was longer than his arm, he would not be able to reach me. And that was the goal. Keep those big, strong hands off me so I could think straight.

Because if they got on me? When those hands touched me and held onto me like he hated me and wanted to put me in my place? My body did some weird things, things I was not proud of. Was it possible for your body to be on another level than your mind? That was the only way I could explain it.

“Aren’t you?” Markus asked, running a hand down the front of his suit, the movement drawing my gaze instantly. Such a slow gesture, almost tantalizing in how controlled he was in every single way. “Aren’t you, though? Don’t fool yourself by believing otherwise. You’ll only end up hurting yourself worse.”

“I don’t care,” I said, hoping I sounded more convincing than I felt. Truth was, I didn’t know what I was. Weak? Yeah. Too innocent to be surrounded by these men and their immoral, dangerous selves? Definitely. But I liked to think I was not freaking delicate like a flower—I wasn’t waiting for bad weather to knock all my petals off.

He took a step around his desk, and with each step he took, I matched it backward, not wanting to let him close. “Such bold words coming from such a blind girl,” Markus said, angling his head down to me. He was well over six feet tall, definitely the tallest man I’d ever met… not that that was saying much, considering.

“I wouldn’t be so blind if you would just tell me the truth,” I said. “Stop hiding things from me. I can handle it!” I rose my voice, even though it was a mistake. I should’ve realized it then: you never rose your voice when you were talking to Markus Scott. You never challenged him, not unless you were willing to deal with the consequences, and right then I truly had no idea what the consequences would be.

He kept approaching me, and I kept stumbling back… until I backed myself up against a wall. Very stupid. I wouldn’t recommend it.

Markus stood less than two feet from me, his hands hanging at his side, for once not shooting up and grabbing me by the throat. Still, I expected it, and it was like the skin on my neck burned hot in anticipation.

“Not to change the subject, but how is Jaxon doing? Is he healing well? He’s been hiding ever since I took a fist to him that night.” Markus’s voice dropped to a whisper, “I do hope you’re doing what you’re told, Juliet, being the good girl I know you are.”

Those words did not sound right coming from him, and I fought the way a tingling chill swept up my spine as a result. I was not his good girl. If I was anyone’s, I was Daddy’s. This man could… well, screw off.

And to bring up Jaxon, what a jerk move.

“I don’t know,” I said. “He doesn’t want to be around me anymore, probably because you think there’s something going on between us.”

His jaw ground. “I don’t think. I know.” Markus left no room to argue, and his legs closed the distance between us in one long stride. Suddenly that strong, muscular body of his pressed against mine, pinning me to the wall even harder. His hands, however, did not move to touch me. “Even if you’re too ignorant to see it, I do. I can’t say I blame either one of you, although if I had to choose someone to blame, it would be Jaxon. He knows you’re off-limits.”

It took everything in me to lean my head back, to gaze up at him and ask, “Why? Because I’m yours to break?”

“Precisely. Mine to break, mine to control, mine to do whatever the fuck I want with,” he paused, “at least until Daddy gets ahold of himself. He still hasn’t responded to my message. I admit, I’m growing a little concerned.” His dark eyes narrowed down at me, the stare of the devil himself, if he was a man in a suit. “Perhaps we’ll need to send him something more, something he won’t be able to ignore.”

Was he lying? He had to be. Daddy would never ignore a message from Markus, especially if I was in that message. Daddy would want me back. He’d want to do everything he could to get me back.

Wouldn’t he?

“Like I said before,” I whispered, “you’re cruel, you’re mean, and I don’t like you.”

His chest rumbled, and it took me a moment to realize it. Markus Scott was laughing at me. Just a low, smooth sound, but a laugh all the same. It instantly riled me up, and I swore if I was not pinned against the wall, I’d have turned around and left.

“Does any prisoner like their tormentor?” he shot back. “You don’t have to like me. In fact, it’ll make things better if you don’t. Either way—” Finally, a hand lifted from his side, and it was slow to curl around my neck. Not squeezing tightly, not choking, but simply holding. Holding me to remind me that he was the one in power here, not me. “—I will make sure your dear daddy knows you are not in good hands.”

I didn’t like it when he called Daddy that. It felt like he was making fun of me, which he probably was. But I said nothing, only glaring up at him as best I could while fighting the innate urge to close my eyes and let the man do whatever he wanted to me.

I mean, that was messed up, wasn’t it? He could put a hand on me and all logical thought flew out of the window. It didn’t make sense. Not one bit.

“But back to what you said earlier,” Markus muttered. “You want to know what we do? I think I can arrange something. Go back to your room. Wait like a good girl, and I’ll come get you when it’s ready.” He pushed off me, his large frame giving me his back as he returned to his desk.

I blinked, because there wasn’t much else I could do, not while the ghostly sensation of his hand on my throat lingered, not after everything he’d just said. I stood there, my mouth hanging open slightly, wondering if he was really going to show me what went on in this house, why everyone was so cryptic.

Why they talked of attempted murder like it was nothing.

Something wasn’t right in this house. You could taste it in the air. It wasn’t stale, but there was a heaviness to it, something I could not name. I’d thought it was just because I’d been kidnapped, but now I didn’t think that was the reason. This house, these people… I had the feeling if I called it a labyrinth of pain and misery, I’d be wrong.

Wrong because it was so much worse.

As Markus sat down, his eyes were on me once more. “I told you to go,” he said. “If you do not, I will rethink on showing you anything. Is that what you want?” His question was a loaded one, and even though I wanted to stay and argue with him—show him that, somehow, I could still stand tall no matter what he said or did to me—I pushed my back off the wall and left.

I left because I had no other choice. Of course I wanted to see. At least it would be some truth amongst all these secrets. I needed to know what was going on here so I could try to picture how Daddy fit into all of this.

I still didn’t know what Daddy did for Markus, but I had the sinking feeling it wasn’t good.

Back in my room, I paced the length of it for what felt like hours. It probably wasn’t that long, but I didn’t pay attention to the clock. It occurred to me that this could be some kind of trick, a game of Markus’s, but was he really the type of man to play games? No, I didn’t think so. He was terribly straightforward in everything he did… minus telling me the truth about why I was here.

Would I not like the truth? Would it hurt me? Maybe, but that shouldn’t matter. I was here, I was stolen out of my freaking house, so I thought I deserved to know, whether it would hurt or not. Let me be the judge of that, not my jailer.

After a while, the anticipation in my body turned to anxiety, and I began to worry. Every bit of doubt that could’ve possibly crept into my mind funneled its way inside, blooming and exploding exponentially. I felt like throwing up, which was dumb, since I didn’t even know what was going to happen.

My door opened, shaking me out of my thoughts, and with the sheer violence behind the action, I assumed it was Markus—but when I turned around, I found it wasn’t. It was Jaxon, and he looked even angrier with me now than he’d been earlier in the morning.

He stalked inside, glaring. “What did you do?” Jaxon asked through gritted teeth. “What the fuck did you go and do, Juliet?”

I had no idea why he was so angry, and I was sure my reaction made that evident. “What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.” Well, besides go to Markus and make demands of him, but I wasn’t going to admit that out loud to him.

“Really? So that’s why Markus came to me and told me to bring you to the second-floor office?” His voice shook with emotion, and I had no idea why. “You don’t know anything, Juliet, but once you do, you’re going to regret it. You’ll regret it, and you’ll wish you would’ve just let things be.”

Everything he said only made my heart pound harder in my chest. If I felt like throwing up before, I felt even worse now. I felt like curling into a little ball, hiding away underneath the bed, and closing my eyes while wishing this was all over. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d done it. The first time in a while, but not the first in general.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered, desperately seeking to do just that. That’s all I wanted, to understand what was going on here, to get the truth. Was it really that bad?

Jaxon’s bruised face scowled. His cute dimples were nowhere to be seen. “You will,” he muttered with a frown. “You’ll understand, and then you’ll wish you didn’t. You could’ve lived here in ignorance—and trust me, in this house, any little bit of ignorance is bliss. But no, you had to go and rile Markus up. He’s going to make you regret it. You might think you’re getting what you want, but you’re not, and you won’t realize it until it’s too late.”

I took a step towards him, gulping down all the anxieties in my system. “Tell me what’s going on—” I tried reaching for him, but he twisted away, sidestepping me with reflexes that were more than enough to have been used to avoid that beatdown from Markus.

“No,” he growled out, “you’ll see for yourself soon enough.”

Before I could say anything, before I could say a single word to try to make things better, to lessen his fury toward me, he grabbed me by the wrist and started to drag me out of my bedroom. Jaxon held onto me harder than he ever had, fingers biting into my flesh so hard I had to wince. Hurting me, being rough with me, not seeming to care at all.

Was the Jaxon I’d known until now just a lie? Was anything in this house not a lie wrapped up in pretty packaging?

As he jostled me along, to the stairwell, to the second floor, I bit back anything I might’ve said. If this was how things had to be, fine. I’d be fine. So what if I’d come to enjoy the time I spent with Jaxon? None of that mattered, obviously. Nothing at all mattered, and that’s what hurt me the most, I think.

I was brought to an office I’d never seen before, practically thrown onto the rug, near Markus’s sleek black shoes. I lurched onto my hands and knees, biting back the emotion residing inside over how Jaxon was treating me. It wasn’t right.

None of this was right. But I guess that’s the thing when it came to Scotts.

Right or wrong; it didn’t really matter. Here, there was no God. There was no devil. There were only men… and these men had the blackest, vilest of souls.