She laughs, shaking her head in disbelief as she leans back in the chair, crossing her legs.

  “Well, that worked out well, didn’t it?” she adds. “Just like everything else I try, everything else I ever wanted... Nothing ever worked out. And every time I fail, I hear his voice in my head. I see him, standing before me, tall and commanding, so disappointed in his only child. He’s always right. He always told me that my place was here, in this town, taking over the family business.”

  Family business. It’s a fucking flower shop that her parents started when she was still a baby. It’s surprising enough that Robert is clinging to it like this after what happened to Petal’s mother.

  Her expression tenses, revealing that same pained expression I’ve seen on her face way too many times.

  “He’s always there,” she adds. “I can’t silence his voice, ever. Even when I moved to California, he was always there. Every decision I made, every thought I had, everything I did, I always found myself defending it against the thundering voice of my father, even when he was thousands of miles away. I hate him for it, I wish I could just cut him out of my life. But how could I? Even after everything he’s done, everything he’s denied me, he’s still my father! He may have hurt me countless times with his misguided attempts at keeping me safe, or rather, keeping me for himself. It was bad when I fell for Kade and tried to leave everything behind once again.”

  She pauses, finally finding the strength to maintain eye contact with me for longer than a split second.

  “But it was even worse after I threw myself at you, asking for... those things.”

  She needs another pause, taking a deep breath before she concludes.

  “I never stopped thinking about it, you know. I fantasized about it. I never stopped wanting it, despite your rejection. And I know I would have gone for it, I would have fought for it, if I didn’t have this voice inside my head that keeps telling me how wrong it is. That same voice has pushed me away, pushed me to try and to want things just so I could get out of its reach. But it never worked. Nothing ever did.”

  I nod along as she speaks, feeling the weight of the burden she is about to drop on me.

  “You want me to erase it,” I presume, giving her the nudge she needs. “You want me to erase your father from your memory.”

  She nods silently, slouching a little as she awaits my response.

  “That is a lot to ask,” I tell her. “Have you thought this through?”

  She frowns at me. “Of course I have. Did you think I’d just drop by on an impulse and ask such a thing of you?”

  “You didn’t even tell me you were back in town.”

  “Because I needed time!” she argues. “I needed time to consider, to realize how much I really wanted it.”

  “He is everything you have, Petal,” I say, urgency underlining my words. “He is your life.”

  “Then erase my life.”

  Her demand feels like a hit against my chest. She cannot be serious about this. It’s impossible.

  Yet the resolve is evident on her face. She holds my gaze, sitting tall, with her back straight and her hands folded in her lap. Everything about her tells me that she’s dead serious about this.

  But there remains an unresolved matter in all of this.

  “How do you intend to pay?” I ask. “We both know you don’t have the financial means, and I’m not doing this as a friendly turn.”

  She nods. “I have an idea for that. A proposition.”

  I arch my eyebrows, jutting my chin forward as I wait for her to elaborate.

  “I’ll pay with myself,” she says, not batting an eye while her stance hardens. “You’ll erase all of me—and get everything I am in return. I’ll be yours. Entirely.” She pauses, biting her lower lip, but not in doubt. Her resolve appears so set in stone that it almost worries me.

  “It’s the only way I’ll ever get what I want. The only way I ever get to be free of his judgment. The only way I can ever give myself to you the way I want to,” she adds. “A real escape. A real adventure.”

  There’s another pause, a moment she needs to clear her throat before she concludes.

  “If you’ll have me.”

  Chapter 29

  Petal

  “It’s my birthday?” I repeat in disbelief.

  He nods. The smile on his face is cautious and laced with somberness.

  “Happy Birthday, Petal.”

  I sit there, staring at him while my head is spinning.

  “Is this why you brought me down here today? As a birthday treat?”

  He whips his head from side to side.

  “Does it matter?” he wants to know. “Don’t you think you ought to be grateful, no matter what?”

  I narrow my eyes as I catch his gaze, refusing to give him a response.

  Four years, he says. It’s been four years since the things I saw happened here. Why, of all things, did I see those images? Why that particular day?

  “That day, the memory I saw. You say it was four years ago?”

  He nods.

  “Was that the last time I was here?”

  His expression stiffens and for once, he’s the one breaking eye contact. His gaze wanders, trailing through the open living room next to us while he leans forward, placing his elbows on the table and folding his hands as if to pray.

  “It was,” he says. “The last and only time.”

  “What happened since then?” I want to know. “Four years is a long time. What happened since that night?”

  “A lot.”

  I roll my eyes. “Yes, and I don’t remember any of it.”

  “Because you didn’t want to.”

  I freeze, looking at him with an aghast expression.

  Finally. He’s finally willing to tell me.

  “What do you mean by that?” I probe, even though I know the answer to that question. Malia showed me. She showed me the girl I was before all this. The girl who made a deal with this man that has no equal.

  “I mean that I erased your memory, because you asked me to do it, Petal,” he says, his eyes finding mine with a stern yet benevolent expression. “You came to me, like many others have before. I have a talent. I don’t know why or where it came from, but I’ve had it ever since I was a child. I knew I could make people forget certain things, but I didn’t know how to control this gift for the longest time. It took years to refine it, to develop a technique that allows me to target certain memories and erase them from a person’s mind. Very much like you’d delete a file or an entire folder from your computer.”

  I’m holding my breath as I listen, elation spreading throughout my chest as I watch the blanks being filled in. I knew parts of this, fragments even, but now he’s finally allowing me to see the whole picture.

  If this is a birthday present, it may be one of the best I ever received.

  “How... how do you do it?” I want to know, taking advantage of him being so talkative.

  “It’s a delicate procedure and one that comes with a lot of risk. That’s why I charge generous sums for it,” he responds. “I talk to my clients first, long and extensive. About everything. About the things they want to forget and their reason for it, but also about everything else that makes them the person they are. I need to be aware of these intimate details so I know where to stop. Then, I sedate the person, to put them in the right state. And then... I talk to them.”

  “You just... talk to them?”

  He shrugs. “Basically, yes. I know what to say, how to use their hazed mental state to take the burden off of them. I ask them to tell me all the things they want to forget, and then I add some, relying on what they have told me before being sedated. They walk out with a void, leaving their bad memories behind.”

  “And you take it,” I say, catching his sinister gaze. “You keep the memories that they unloaded on you.”

  “Someone has to. I can’t make myself forget.”

  I bite my lower lip, bewildered at my emotional response to his tale. I feel sorry for him.

  And I feel guilty.

  “That must be such a burden,” I say. “To store all those things that people wanted to forget.”

  The smile on his face widens and he lets out a huff, laced with a little chuckle. I cast him a dazzled look.

  “You’ve said those exact same words before, Petal,” he explains. “A few months ago. You said the exact same thing to me.”

  Our eyes latch on to each other for a few moments as ominous silence stretches between us. I’m surprised at his revelation, even though I shouldn’t be. Of course, we’ve had this conversation before. I just can’t remember a single thing about it.

  Because I didn’t want to.

  “But I... I didn’t just ask you to erase a certain memory,” I say, caution lacing every syllable as I try to find the right words. “I asked you to delete everything. I wanted to forget everything about myself.”

  He nods, his face strained as he averts his eyes to look down on the table between us.

  “Why?” I probe further. “What was so terrible about me or my life that I asked to have it all erased?”

  He throws me an ominous look. “If I told you now, it would all have been for nothing. You had your reasons, and I respected them. Not everyone did.”

  “Everyone?” I repeat. “You mean like the girl? My friend? She didn’t approve of this? Is that why she’s here? Or... was here?”

  He nods. “In a way, yes. She was here to protect you, to keep an eye on you, to calm you and give you support, in case I went too far with you.”

  “Was...,” I repeat. “She was here, but she no longer is? Why? Where is she? What happened to her?”

  Instead of giving me a reply, he checks the time on his wristwatch, letting out a deep sigh.

  Is he waiting for something? Or someone? I’ve never seen him check the time before.

  Just as I’m about to give voice to my questions, he gets up from his chairs, picking up both of our plates and carrying them over to the kitchen.

  “You know she told me,” I announce, desperate to keep his attention and to continue our conversation.

  It works. The plate lands on the kitchen counter with a weirdly loud sound as he turns around to me, arching his eyebrows in angry astonishment.

  “I mean, she didn’t tell me,” I correct myself. “But she... she showed me a video. Of myself.”

  He lets out an angry growl, supporting himself on the counter as he shakes his head, fixing me with an expression that speaks of disappointment and fury.

  “Of course she did,” he snarls. “I should have known.”

  “But it was a good thing!” I insist, now jumping up from my chair as well. As soon as I’m standing, I’m weirdly aware of my nakedness, especially when I notice his eyes journeying across my body, taking in the view of me with lust flickering in his hazel look.

  I withstand the urge to cover myself, allowing him to observe me all he wants as I approach. The leash loosens, gathering toward my feet as I reach the kitchen counter, standing opposite to him.

  “It gave me the reassurance I needed at the time,” I tell him. “I could tell that she was scared of showing me, because she wasn’t supposed to, but I’m so glad she did. Because it was exactly what I needed to allow myself to give in to you.”

  I can feel the heat rise to my cheeks, knowing that he sees me blushing right before him.

  “All the things that happened since then, they could only happen because of that,” I go on.

  But he shakes his head now.

  “That’s not entirely true, Petal,” he objects. “They could only happen because you wanted them enough to discard everything else. They happened because you gave yourself to me.”

  He leans forward, placing his finger beneath my chin as he tilts my eyes up to his.

  “You never asked me how you paid for this,” he whispers, his face close to mine. “I told you, my services are expensive, way too expensive for a girl like you. And you asked for a lot. You didn’t want just one tiny detail erased from your memory, you wanted it all gone. You wanted a clean slate, a new chance to become someone else, someone new. And you paid by allowing me to decide who that person will be.”

  I inhale audibly, not moving an inch as he moves even closer, his lips finding mine in a soft kiss that’s nothing more than an innocent peck, but so sensual that it plays havoc with my needy self.

  Chapter 30

  Petal

  I want to kiss him. I want him to touch me, to take me.

  The things we did, the things he showed me, and the things I was allowed to learn about myself thanks to him—just thinking about it kindle a desire within me that is too strong to be ignored.

  But it looks like I’m not left with a choice in this matter right now. Despite my obvious flush and my palpable need for him, he doesn’t go in for a kiss. He doesn’t pull me toward him to wrap his strong arms around me and lift me up, detaching the leash to bring me where he wants me.

  Instead, he retreats, adding only a quick and gentle yank to the leash around my throat before he retreats.

  “Stay here,” he says, already walking away from me. “I’ll be right back.”

  I follow him with an anxious expression unfolding on my face, unsure what to make of the fact that he’s leaving me all by myself, with nothing but this leash keeping me in place.

  He hurries, running more than he’s walking as he leaves the kitchen out to the hall. I can hear his steps as he flies up the stairs, leaving me to assume that he’s fetching something from the bedroom upstairs.

  Or from the dungeon.

  My heart jolts with excitement, overshadowing everything else. For a moment, I even forget about the possibility to leave.

  I know I could. My eyes trail down to the hook, inspecting the clip at the end of the leash from afar. I would need to unscrew the clasp, which would probably take less than a minute.

  Enough time to unhook the leash and get out of here. The doors are probably locked, but I’m sure the windows aren’t.

  I could.

  But I don’t.

  Instead, I take a step back, and then another, creating distance between me and the clasp of the leash that would grant me freedom if I opened it.

  I don’t want it. Not now. Just a few days ago, I would have given anything to get away from him, to flee from this prison, no matter how gilded it may appear.

  But everything is different now. I still don’t know who I am, but I know why I’m here. I know I decided to be here, and even though I can’t relate to the past version of me who made that decision, I don’t want to betray her either. Fleeing now would ruin all of this.

  If the things he said were true.

  There’s still a possibility that they weren’t. I’m a blank canvas, void of any understanding about myself, my life, my past. He could tell me anything.

  But she couldn’t. The girl in the video shared fragments of the same story he just told me. That video is as much proof as I can hope for.

  But the girl who showed it to me disappeared, and he refuses to tell me why that is. It’s obvious that something has changed, that letting me down here and telling me all these things was not purely meant as a gesture to celebrate my birthday.

  It was more than that. Something is moving out there, and maybe it took her away from us.

  But why won’t he tell me?

  Once again, my head is spinning with questions so violently that it almost makes me dizzy. I tear my eyes away from the kitchen and the little hook that keeps me in place, turning back to the table where we just sat together like a normal couple, eating a spaghetti dinner. Normal, except for the fact that I’m butt naked, wearing nothing but a collar that’s chained to the kitchen counter with a long leash.

  I meander around the table, the tips of my fingers trailing along the tabletop absentmindedly while I try to calm the turmoil inside my head.

  I never really paid much attention to the magazines and newspaper he pushed aside before serving the food, and now, as I stand next to the table, confronted with their headlines, I wonder why.

  I throw a quick glance back over my shoulder to make sure he’s still upstairs before I reach for the open newspaper on top. It appears to be a local one, thin and lightweight, with very little to report.

  But the headline on the front page catches my eyes right away.

  New leads in Bridgewater murder investigation.

  It’s not the title itself that makes my heart stop for a few seconds, but the first paragraph right beneath it.

  After striking terror for almost four years, the Bridgewater murderer has left his latest victim to be found at Lake Nippenicket, sticking true to his usual proceedings. But this time, the victim revealed new clues to the authorities, possibly providing crucial evidence that could lead to finally solving this ongoing case.

  My eyes are glued to the paper, racing along the rows as if I can’t read the words fast enough.

  There’s a murderer at work in this area, maybe even this town. A murderer who has been active for the past four years.

  A murderer who sedates his victims with a remedy that only very few people have access to. And all of his victims are young women around my age.

  My age, and the other girl’s age.

  My heart is pounding so hard and violently that it feels as if it’s trying to hammer its way out of my chest.

  Was it all a lie? Am I...

  “Put this on.”

  I jump up, evoking a shocked gasp as I let the newspaper glide down to the table. Turning around on my heels, I stare at him, my pulse speeding so much that it causes a dangerous vertigo I have no use for right now.

  Jayson is walking toward me, holding something in his arms that I haven’t seen ever since I woke up in this house: a pile of clothes. Not just a white gown, but actual clothes, a set of simple but elegant cream colored underwear with feminine laces all around, a pair of blue jeans and a casual blouse in red.

  My eyes flit back and forth between him and the clothes as he presents them to me, almost pushing them against my bare chest. Reluctantly, I reach for them, taking the pile out of his hands, and as soon as I do, he plants a kiss on my forehead and turns around, busying himself with the clasp of the leash.