Third Debt (Indebted #4)(13)

Every day was worse than the one before it.

I was lost.

Alone.

Unwanted.



Life was a death sentence.

The press hounded me for interviews on my disappearance. My assistants pestered me with hundreds of new designs and orders. My father tried to talk to me about what happened. And my brother suffocated me with love.

It was all too much.

It drove me to boiling point.

In the beginning? I suffered physical healing from the Second Debt payment. I coughed often, doctors checked me for pneumonia, and the bruises on my chest took forever to fade. I used the pain as a calendar, slowly ticking off the hours Jethro left me all alone and unresponsive. I waited for a message from Kite007. I became obsessed with daydreams of him swooping in and taking me away from the mess of the press and envy of misguided people.

At night, I lay in a room that’d been mine since I was born. The purple walls hadn’t changed. My unfinished designs draped on headless mannequins hadn’t vanished, yet nothing was home anymore.

I felt like a stranger. An imposter. And the sensation only grew worse.

The strength and power I’d found on my own dissolved. My joy at suffering fewer vertigo attacks disappeared as I went from managing the incurable disease to suffering the worst I’d ever had.

Yesterday, I’d suffered nine.

The day before, I’d had seven.

I had more bruises on my knees, elbows, and spine in just a week of being a true Weaver again than I ever endured at Jethro’s hands.

Every second the same questions hounded me.

How was I supposed to return to my old life?

How was I supposed to forget about Jethro?

How was I supposed to give up my strength in order for my brother to adore me?

And how was I supposed to forgive my father and be grateful to him for rescuing me?

How.

How.

How?

The answer…

I couldn’t.

For a week, I tried. I slipped seamlessly into my previous world. I toiled in our Weaver headquarters, answered emails, and agreed to fashion shows two years from now. I painted on a mask and lied through my teeth.

I became a master at ignoring what my body told me. Throwing up was a bi-weekly occurrence and my dreams were full of accusations. Memories of Jethro coming inside me played on repeat—hinting at one thing: Am I pregnant?

Or had I just escalated to vertigo-cripple?

Everywhere I turned there were magazine articles, newspaper speculations, billboards, and BBC broadcasts. I had to face banners of my dead mother and grandmother in Piccadilly Circus. I had to close my eyes as buses drove past with the Hawk family crest painted on their sides. And I had to swallow back bile as advertising for the latest ‘must-have’ accessory plastered park benches and taxi stands.

What was the ‘must-have’ jewellery?

My diamond collar.

Everyone wanted one. Everyone wanted to see mine, touch mine—ask me endless questions about the unopenable clasp and the meaning of such a beautiful but despicable piece.

I was a living specimen. Plopped into a goldfish bowl and made to perform like some circus freak. I was the ‘unfortunate Debtee’ and Jethro Hawk was the ‘loathsome Debtor.’

Vaughn had destined us to a life of gossip about family feuds and incomprehensible contracts.

Every night when we gathered to eat in floundering silence, I wanted to stab my twin with a steak knife. I wanted to scream at him for announcing to the world how ludicrous our two families were.

People laughed at us.

People gawked—not only had V brought to light the evil insanity of the Hawks, but he’d also shown what a cruel, vindictive race our own bloodline had been.

It didn’t seem to matter to him. He’d freed me. He’d turned a private agreement into an international affair. As far as he was concerned, I should be grateful.

I would’ve preferred to deal with rumours Jethro had put into play the first night he stole me: the photos of him holding and kissing me—doctored and delivered in a perfect alibi of a relationship turned elopement.

That was reasonable.

This was unbelievable.

Now everyone had those photographs—printed over tacky magazines and exposed in newspapers with headlines: ‘The Man and His Toy.’ ‘How Far Can Legacy Go?’ ‘Multiple Murders Go Unpunished.’

Every sordid detail of my family was unearthed and published. However, the facts on the Hawks were extremely vague. The press hadn’t uncovered that a motorcycle club lived on the grounds. They didn’t mention diamond smuggling or their massive wealth.

All it would take was for me to agree to a private interview and announce to the world about Cut’s underworld dealing, his meticulous record keeping, the Weaver Journal, and the videos of debts extracted. That evidence would buy them a one-way ticket to jail.

But their lives belonged to me. I wanted to be the one to take them down. I wanted to watch them perish—not waste away in a cell where I couldn’t reach them to make them pay.

That’s not the only reason you’re staying quiet.

I sighed. The main reason was because I was in love with a Hawk and would stay silent to protect him.

I’d gained my freedom. Jethro would, too. I would make sure of it.

Throughout the torture of the first week, Vaughn was in his element. He smiled with model good looks, wrapped his arms around me as he performed for the cameras, and showed the world the bruises on my wrists from the ducking stool.