Chapter 3—The Last Fight.

Rebecca's POV

I packed in the dark.

I moved slowly, through the flat trying not to wake him. I took my mother's raffia bag. Two blouses. A change of clothes. The photograph. And from behind the loose tile in the bathroom, the reason I had gotten up at all — the envelope. Fourteen hundred dollars, saved in small amounts over eight months, skimmed from grocery change and whatever he had not bothered to count.

I slipped the envelope into the bottom of the bag and zipped it closed.

The flat was silent.

I held my breath and listened. From the bedroom, I heard the steady rhythm of his breathing. He was fast asleep.

I crept toward the front door, the bag pressed against my chest so it would not bump against the wall. My fingers found the handle. Cold metal. I turned it slowly, millimeter by millimeter —

Click.

The bolt slid back. I pulled the door open an inch. Cold air rushed in through the crack. I could see the corridor outside, the flickering hallway light, and the stairs down to the street.

Before I could take a step further, I heard my name behind me.

"Damon—" I whispered.

His voice came from behind me, low and calm, and my blood turned to ice water.

I spun around.

He stood in the bedroom doorway with his arms folded. He was not wearing a shirt. The moonlight cut across his chest and his face, and his eyes were wide awake. He had not been asleep. He had been waiting.

"Going somewhere?" he asked.

My heart slammed against my ribs. I did not answer. I turned back to the door and pulled it wider.

His hand slammed against the wood next to my head before I could move. The sound cracked through the flat like a gunshot.

"No," he said quietly. "You don't get to walk out. Not tonight. Not ever."

I pressed my back against the doorframe. My breath came in short, sharp bursts.

"Let me go, Damon."

"Let you go." He laughed in a short, ugly sound. "Let you go where? The street? You have nothing. You are nothing. You think anywhere out there wants you?"

"I don't care what wants me. I would rather be nothing alone than nothing with you."

Something flickered across his face.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key, my key. The one I had turned in the lock. He held it up between two fingers, let it catch the moonlight, then slipped it back into his pocket.

"Nice try," he said. "But the door locks from the inside. Did you forget that part?"

I looked past him. The kitchen window — too small. The balcony door — locked, and we were three floors up. There was no other way out.

I ran for the balcony anyway.

I made it three steps before his hand closed around my arm and yanked me back. I stumbled, caught myself on the wall, and kept moving. My fingers touched the balcony door handle —

He grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled.

The pain was immediate and white-hot. My head snapped back. My whole body jerked off balance. I grabbed his wrist with both hands and tried to pry his fingers apart, but he just pulled harder, dragging me away from the door, back toward the kitchen.

"You think you can just leave?" His voice was right in my ear. "After everything I've done for you? After I pulled you off the street? You owe me, Rebecca. You owe me everything."

"I don't owe you anything!"

I twisted hard to the left. Half my hair ripped free from his grip. I stumbled forward, caught the kitchen counter, and my hand closed around the first thing it found — a ceramic mug from the drying rack.

I swung it without thinking.

It hit his arm and shattered. Coffee-colored shards flew across the floor. He swore and let go, and I ran.

I reached the front door. My hands shook so badly I could barely grip the lock. I turned it, pulled the door open and again he slammed it shut, his palm flat against the wood, right next to my face. I felt the impact through my skull.

"No," he said again. His voice was very soft now. That was worse than the shouting. "You are not leaving this flat until you sign."

"I already signed. I signed your paper. Let me go."

"The contract is on the table." He tilted his head toward the kitchen. "You signed nothing. You refused. Remember?"

I looked at the kitchen table. The contract sat there, ten pages, neat print, exactly where it had been before. I had not signed it. I had told him no. And he had locked the door while I slept and waited for me to try to run.

"You planned this," I said.

"Of course I planned it. Did you think I would just let you walk out with my money?"

"Your money?" I stared at him. "That money was mine. I saved every cent."

"You saved nothing. Everything you have, you have because of me. The roof over your head. The food in your stomach. The clothes on your back." He stepped closer. "And now I am asking for one thing. One thing, Rebecca. And you will give it to me."

I pressed my back against the door. My chest heaved. I could smell on him, alcohol and sweat and something else underneath.

"No," I said.

He moved so fast I did not see him cross the room. His hand closed around my jaw, squeezing until my teeth pressed against the inside of my cheeks.

"You will sign," he said, "because if you do not, I will throw you out right now with nothing but the clothes on your back. No money. No bag. No photograph of your dead parents. And I will call every person I know in this city and make sure nobody gives you work. Do you understand me?"

I could not speak. His fingers pressed into my cheeks.

"Do you understand?"

I nodded as much as his grip allowed.

He let go. I slid down the door and sat on the floor, my face throbbing, my breath coming in ragged gasps.

The contract sat on the kitchen table. He pushed it toward me with a pen on top.

"You can sign it here," he said, "in this flat, with a roof over your head. Or you can sign it on the street after I have thrown you out with nothing. Your choice."

I looked at the contract. Then at him. Then at the door I could not open.

I took the pen.

My hand shook as I signed. The letters came out jagged, uneven, but I signed. My name. The date. Line after line after line.

He took the contract from me the instant the pen left the paper. He read every signature, nodded once, and the softness left his face completely — as if it had never been there at all.

"Good," he said. He straightened up. "Your ride will be here in an hour."

I looked up at him from the floor.

"Today?" My voice cracked on the word. "You are sending me today?"

"Why wait? Sooner you go, sooner it's done."

I sat on that floor and looked at him — at the man who had massaged my back, who had rubbed my stomach when I was cramping, who had made me believe I was worth something. I searched his face for anything. A flicker. A crack. Something that looked like the person I had loved.

There was nothing.

"Did you ever love me?" I asked. "Even at the beginning. Was any of it real?"

He picked up his phone and glanced at me briefly — the way you glance at something on your way out of the room.

"Love," he said, "is for people who have it all."

He walked into the bedroom and closed the door. A moment later, I heard him laughing on the phone.

I sat on the kitchen floor with my face throbbing and let the last small thing go — the last small hope I had not known I was still carrying until I felt it leave.

Then I got up. I walked to the bathroom, turned on the tap and washed my face. The water stung the cut on my cheek. I looked at myself in the mirror — at the bruise already forming under my eye, at the blood on my lip, and at the deadness in my own eyes.

I picked up my bag and made up my mind that I was going to disappear. Anywhere was better than here. He had unlocked the door.

I walked out, with my bag hanging over my shoulders. My face still stung and my body felt sore. I walked for what felt like hours, even though it had just been a few minutes.

I remembered Damon's words. "I'll make sure nobody ever gives you a job," and tears rolled down my cheeks.

I screamed in frustration and pain and bitterness and agony, and then I turned back and walked back home.

Damon was walking out of the house when I returned. "You should've tried leaving, let's see how you survive." Then he laughed and entered the cab he had booked for himself to take him to probably meet one of his whores.

An hour later, someone knocked.