My Fault (Culpable Book 1)

I woke up dizzy and with a terrible headache. All I could see when I looked around was a soft red light. In the room where they were keeping me was nothing but the bed I was lying on and a simple chair in the corner. The smell was awful, like rat piss. Music coming from outside, as in a dance club, made it impossible to hear anything but my accelerated breathing and the rapid pounding of my heart.

When I realized what had happened, I started panicking. A familiar whistling sound rang in my ears, and I’d swear I could hear the blood pumping through my body. There was a bitter taste in my mouth, and I was desperate for a glass of cold water. Whatever they’d drugged me with was still affecting me. I sat up and heard the clinking of chains: one of my hands was cuffed to the wall. I tried to get out, but in vain. Struggling to calm down, I thought of how I might escape. I’d never found my phone, so I couldn’t communicate with anyone. What scared me the most was the knowledge that my father was behind all this.

This couldn’t be happening. My father was in jail, and even if he’d gotten out, it was ridiculous to imagine the first thing he’d do is come looking for my mother and me and kidnap me. But that was what he’d done. I jerked and jerked against the chain, making a racket, hating the tears that clouded my eyes. How had I been so stupid? Why didn’t I take those threats seriously? Why hadn’t I told Nicholas?

Nick.

He must have been going crazy just then and blaming himself for everything. I’d have given anything to go back in time to stay by his side instead of leaving that house alone.

When people were in extreme situations, we always thought about the things we wished we’d said to the people we love or how stupid we’d been for worrying about idiotic little things now that we knew how dangerous life could actually be. I’d been kidnapped. That was something to really be worried about.

I heard someone open the door, and Ronnie appeared, causing me to shiver from head to toe.

“Good. You’re awake,” he said, closing the door behind him. The scant light was still bright enough to see his dark eyes, his lips, his shaved scalp. I could even see the new tattoo under his right eye: a horrifying snake. He walked over slowly and sat beside me on the bed. I pulled away from him as much as I could in the tiny space available to me.

“I gotta tell you, it sure turns me on seeing you chained up in this bed and completely at my mercy,” he said, eyeing me up lustily. I cursed the hour when I’d decided to put on that tight dress, but now all I could do was try to control my breathing and my fear. “I don’t know if you know this, but you got a bangin’ body.” He rested a hand on my bare ankle. I tried to push it away, but he pressed me into the mattress.

He could do anything he wanted to me.

“You know what? When I decided to race against you, it never crossed my mind you might be the daughter of a NASCAR driver. I was pissed when you beat me. If I remember right, you told me I was a dumbass and I should learn how to drive.”

His hand climbed up my leg.

“Don’t touch me,” I ordered him, unable to get away. I wished this was all just a nightmare and I would wake up in Nick’s arms.

“Well, this dumbass is about to get his revenge for that night, bae,” he said. By now, his hand was on my thigh. I shifted aside, but he got on top of me, and I struggled under his hips. Tears were running down my cheeks. “I’ll bet your little boyfriend won’t even take one look at you once I’m done. I’m gonna tear that thing up so bad he won’t want it back.”

“Help!” I shouted desperately, trying to get him off me. He laughed, holding me down with one hand while he took off his belt with another.

“Can’t no one hear you, stupid. No one who cares, anyway,” he said, leaning down and running his tongue over my breasts.

I turned my head away in desperation.

“Don’t touch me!” I shrieked.

He grabbed me around the neck and pushed me down into the mattress with one hand, and with the other, he pulled up my dress.

“No!” I shrieked, nearly tearing my vocal cords. “Let me go!”

The hand around my neck squeezed tighter, and I could hardly breathe.

“I’m gonna put it in you every which way, and you’re gonna stay nice and quiet,” he hissed, bringing his face close to mine. When he did so, his grip softened just enough for me to scream:

“Get me out of here!”

Then the door opened. The flickering red light from outside filled the room, and what I saw then scared me even more than my would-be rapist: my father was there, looking terrifying.

“That’s enough. Scram,” said that voice that had petrified me as a little girl, the voice that had threatened my mother thousands of times and that still pursued me in my dreams—the only voice I’d heard that night I was beaten nearly to death, the voice that haunted me as I had escaped through the window…

Ronnie cursed, and before getting up, he slapped me across the face. It was so quick I didn’t see it coming, and it stung.

“Nah, now it’s enough,” he said, getting in my father’s face and then walking out.

My father didn’t say a word, just stood there in the doorway watching. Only after a moment did I dare look up. He’d changed… His hair used to be blond like mine. Now it was white and cut very short. His arms were twice as big as before and covered in tattoos. Whatever he’d been doing those past few years had changed his appearance entirely. He was now even scarier than Ronnie.

My father shut the door behind him, grabbing the chair in the corner and turning it around, sitting with his arms propped on the backrest.

“You sure have grown, Noah. It’s…incredible how much of your mother I see in you.”

All the fear and pressure I’d felt when he was near had returned after six years.

“The night they arrested me,” he said, staring me straight in the eye, “I lost absolutely everything…and it was all your fault. What I still can’t figure out is how a little girl managed to do that to me. Not even your mother could stop me when I took my frustrations out on her… But with you, it was always different. You were my little girl. I loved you. I promised myself I’d never hurt you. You weren’t like your mother. You were a fighter. You’d make sure your voice was heard.”

“What do you want?” I asked, trying to control the sobs rising in my throat.

“What every man in this world wants most, Noah,” he responded with a horrible smile on his lips. “You took everything I had…your mother, my home, my freedom… I want money, the same money that’s supporting my family right now. I thought it would be hard to find you all, but the only thing it took was looking that bastard up on the internet, and there you were, all standing there like a happy family. When I got here, I figured out your new brother didn’t run with the highest class of people. I was following him, and I saw him and Ronnie get into a fight in a bar. After that, all I had to do was tell the kid my plan and he was in.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My father was crazy. Prison had damaged him.

“I’m going to get everything I can out of that scumbag who stole my wife, not to mention that little shit who’s been feeling you up all week.”

So he had been following me… I’d thought it was my imagination, but now I knew I was right. They’d been planning this for some time, and my father had tortured me with those letters, knowing he scared me more than anything in the world.

I looked at the face of the man who had given me life but nothing more. I hated him, I hated him with every fiber of my being… If I ever had loved him, that love had vanished the moment he’d laid hands on me.

“William Leister’s a thousand times the man you are. You’re worthless, You think you’re special because you can beat up a woman? I hate you! And you’re so stupid, I’ll bet the only thing you’ll get out of this is another trip to jail, where you should spend the rest of your miserable life.”

I didn’t even stop to breathe. I didn’t care what he did to me. For a moment, he just sat there and listened, and his face showed a succession of feelings that finally ended in rage.

He got up and slapped me across the face. It stung, but I wasn’t going to let him know that. I never thought he’d touch me again, but even now that six years had passed and I’d gone to another country, he’d found me and was punishing me again.

The second blow came right afterward, splitting my lip. I could feel the blood drain down my chin.

“Don’t open your damn mouth again,” he said, turning around and walking out. My nerves were frayed, and now, the tears started to flow.

I don’t know how much time passed, but the physical and mental exhaustion of the previous few hours made me fall asleep. Then I was shaken awake and something was stuck to my ear.

“Talk,” my father said in a rage.

There was only one person I would have given everything to be with just then. I’d dreamed of him, and the mere thought that he might be listening made me want to cry until I had no strength left. I needed him. I wanted him to save me, to break through that door and wrap me in his strong arms. I wanted him, him and no one else.

“Nicholas,” I whispered. A second later, they took the phone away and left me alone.