We’re about to enter the junior studio on the opposite side of the building when Mara catches up with me.
“Excuse me!” she pants, her cheeks flaming pink. “Could I speak to Mr. Blackwell for a moment?”
The other panel members turn to look at me, to see if I’ll comply.
Sonia is particularly curious. She knew something was up the moment I told her to offer Mara the studio. The discounted rate was a fabrication, invented by me on the spot. The same with this grant. It’s all leverage to get Mara right where I want her: completely at my mercy.
“Of course,” I say quietly. “The rest of you go on without me. I’ll join you momentarily.”
I lead Mara down the hall to an empty studio several doors down. I step into the clean, deserted space. She hesitates in the doorway, afraid to be alone with me.
“Are you coming?” I ask, eyebrow raised.
Pressing her lips together, she marches into the room, closing the door behind her.
I wait for her to speak, watching the rapid rise and fall of her chest, thrilling at the hectic spots of color on her cheeks.
She’s illuminated with fury, eyes blazing, cheeks flaming. Her dark hair swirls around her face, defying gravity from the pure electric tension between us. Her thin hands tremble, and she digs her nails into the thighs of her jeans.
“I know it was you,” she says, her voice low and hoarse.
I’m enjoying this so much I can hardly stand it. Her rage, her fear, and the delicious predicament I put her in, all mixed together in a potent cocktail. Her expression of shock when she saw my face, and the awful struggle as she had to discuss her work with the panel, while her brain must have been twisting and turning inside her skull . . . I’m so glad I have it all recorded. I can’t wait to watch it over again tonight.
“What was me?” I say mildly.
“You know,” she hisses. Her whole body is shaking. I’d like to hold her against me, to feel those tremors vibrating through my frame . . .
“Please explain.”
Her eyes glint with tears of fury, but she refuses to let them fall. Her lips are swollen and chapped, as if she’s been biting at them . . .
“Someone snatched me off the street. They tied me up, cut my wrists, and left me in the woods. You were there. I saw you. You stood over me, staring at me. You saw I needed help. And you walked right over me. You left me there to die.”
“What a bizarre accusation,” I say. “Do you have any proof?”
I know she doesn’t. I just want to see how she’ll respond.
“I saw you,” she hisses. “I’ll tell the cops.”
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.” I tuck my hands in my pockets, tilting my head as I look at her. “That would cause a lot of problems for you. You’d lose the studio, of course. The grant, too.”
“Are you threatening me?” Her voice rises, the edge of hysteria sharp as razor wire. “Why are you doing this? Why did you do this to me?”
She holds up her arm so her loose bell sleeve drops away, revealing the long, jagged scar across the wrist. The scar is still healing, raised like a welt on the skin.
“I didn’t do that,” I scoff.
Mara falters, her upraised hand dropping an inch.
Interesting—she doesn’t actually know who cut her.
“You were there,” she insists.
“So what if I was?”
She startles, shocked that I admitted it.
“Then you did this!” she shrieks.
“No,” I growl. “I didn’t.”
In one swift step, I close the space between us. Mara tries to turn and run, but I’m much too fast for her. I seize her by the arm, yanking her toward me, holding up that accusing hand and branded wrist.
I look down into her terrified face, pinning her in place with my gaze as much as my fingers locked around her wrist.
“There’s no limit on predators in the world,” I hiss. “And no lack of damaged girls to attract them. I doubt this is the first time some man honed in on those bitten-raw nails and that flinch when anybody gets near you. Just those fucking scars on your arm are a billboard screaming, ‘I like to hurt myself, come hurt me too!’ ”
“What are you talking about—” she stammers.
“THOSE,” I bark, yanking up her sleeve, exposing the other scars, the old ones, the thin silvery crosshatches that weren’t caused by anyone but herself.
Now the tears are running down both sides of her face, but she’s standing still, looking up at me, furious and defiant.
“I bet you’ve been preyed on by every cromagnon with a cock since before you started menstruating,” I sneer.
“Get fucked,” she snarls back at me.
“Let me guess,” I laugh. “Alcoholic father?”
She wrenches her arm out of my grip, stumbling back, breathing hard.
I let her go because she has no idea the real grip I have on her—she’s a little rabbit wrapped up in my coils, and she doesn’t even know it.
“Alcoholic mother, actually,” she says, tilting up her chin in defiance. “Shithead stepfather—but hey, at least he was creative. The mom is just textbook, isn’t she?”
Her voice is steadier than I expected.
She’s shaking harder than ever, but she still hasn’t run.
“If you didn’t attack me,” she says, “then why didn’t you help me?”
I shrug. “I don’t help anyone.”
“You offered me a studio.”
I laugh. “I didn’t give you that studio to help you.”
“Why then?”
She looks up at me, almost pleading, desperate to understand.
I don’t mind telling her.
“I did it for the same reason I do everything: because I wanted to.”
To Mara, that makes no sense.
For me, it’s the ultimate reason for anything in this world.
I get what I want.
“You can’t bribe me,” she says. “I’m not going to keep quiet.”
I snort. “It won’t matter either way. No one will believe you.”
Her face blanches, her breath catching in her throat. That touched a nerve. Poor little Mara has been disbelieved before. Probably in relation to the “creative” stepfather.
Stepping close to her once more, I look down into her terrified face and I tell her the brutal, unvarnished truth:
“I own this city. With money, with connections, and with pure fucking talent. You try spouting off about me and see what happens . . . you’ll look unhinged. Unstable.”
“I don’t care,” she whispers.
I let out a low laugh.
“You will,” I say.
