Page 83 of His To Erase

Frank’s expression darkens. “You still don’t get it, do you?”

I lift my chin, even though every part of my body is screaming. My lungs. My legs. That small, broken part of me that wants to disappear before he can say whatever comes next.

“I don’t belong to you.”

“You do, actually.” His tone is calm. Almost gentle. And that’s what makes it worse. He reaches into his jacket and tosses something at my feet. It flutters once, then lands face-up.

I stare at it, and in the photo there’s a man holding a gun, and I can see Frank’s face is blurred in the corner. I’m standing in a hallway, bleeding, and my eyes are wide and terrified.

I stop breathing.

My brain tries to reject it, telling me it’s fake, or doctored somehow. I remember that hallway. I remember the blood. I remember being dragged like a fucking rag doll while men talked about me like I wasn’t right there.

No. No, no, no.

The word no beats in my chest like a war drum, over and over, but I don’t move. I just stand there—shaking and silent—because for the first time, I don’t know if I’m going to survive this.

I don’t know what’s worse, the memories… or the fact that he’s been sitting on them this whole time, pretending to be someone he wasn’t. What else did he lie about? I feel used. I feel violated. And I feel so fucking stupid for not figuring it out sooner.

“This was supposed to be our new beginning,” he murmurs, like he’s reminiscing about a love story instead of a fucking crime scene. “But then he came in. Meddling prick thought he could outplay me.”

My eyes snap to his face.

Frank smiles, but he ignores me. He crouches down and picks up the photo, brushing it off like it’s a memory worth keeping.

“Don’t worry, baby girl,” he says softly. “He won’t touch you again.”

The words don’t hit all at once. He’s talking about Steven. My stomach flips, but I don’t give Frank the satisfaction of reacting.

“Where is he?”

Frank’s smile turns to a blade. “That depends,” he says, tilting his head. “Are you ready to be mine again?”

I move before I think—pure instinct. I lunge like a cornered animal, but he’s faster. His hand clamps around my wrist and squeezes. Pain flashes white behind my eyes. I choke on it, biting back a scream, but my knees give out when he yanks me forward and slams me into the wall.

“You’ve got one chance to make this right,” he growls, breath hot on my skin.

I look him dead in the eye and spit in his face.

His hand lashes out, and the slap, which honestly feels more like a punch lands with a sickening crack.

Pain detonates across my cheekbone, and I drop like a stone.

I hit the floor hard. My palm scrapes against the wood and beneath the pain, as rage coils straight through my bones.

“Oh, baby.”

I don’t move as he rushes over and falls to his knees beside me, breath ragged with false remorse.

“I didn’t want to—fuck.” His hand trembles as it reaches out. “You just… you push, Ani. You always push.” Like it’s my fault he keeps hitting me.

Warm fingers graze my shoulder and I flinch, the reaction automatic. He pauses. Not in guilt—he doesn’t have the wiring for that—but like a man recalibrating a role he’s played.

One hand smooths down my spine, slow and deliberate. The other hovers near my waist, suspended like he can’t decide whether to touch me again… or snap me in half.

“You know how I get when you lie to me baby doll,” he says softly. Like he’s soothing a child. “It’s your fault I have to be this way.”

God. The audacity of this man could power a small country.

Then—like we’re in a fucking rom-com—he helps me up gently. One arm braced beneath mine, the other cradling the back of my head. He wipes the blood from my lip with his thumb, so sweet it curdles.

His fingers rest on my jaw and when his mouth brushes my cheek, my stomach rolls. I almost throw up right on him. Wouldn’t that be the icing on the cake.

“Get dressed,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to my forehead like a fucking brand. “We’re leaving in an hour.”

I straighten my spine and whatever warmth was left in me dies right there on the floor, bleeding out beside my pride as I go still.

“Leaving?”

He hums—casually like we’re playing house and I didn’t just hit the floor. “I’ve packed for you. You don’t need any more of that black shit you wear.”

I blink. “You packed… my things.”

“Of course I did.”

He smiles like this is a honeymoon and not a hostage situation. “I take care of what’s mine.”

My stomach turns, but I keep my face still. That’s the game now. Just the dead calm that lives in the space between survival and something worse.

His fingers drag one last path down my cheek, slow and possessive, like he’s branding me with touch. Then he steps back, grabbing his keys from his pocket.

“Oh, and Doll?”

I lift my chin, because even now—even cornered, and bloodied—I will never be small again.

He grins. That same terrifying, perfect politician grin. The one he wore when I thought he was just charming. Not a monster wrapped in silk and way too much cologne.

“Don’t try to leave,” he says, keeping his voice light. “You wouldn’t want to ruin the progress we’ve made, now would you.”

The door clicks shut behind him, and I hear the lock slide into place and I’m left standing in the wreckage of his psychotic episode, wondering how the hell I’m going to survive the next hour.

I wait until his footsteps fade, then I move straight to the corner. To the duffle bag he so generously “packed” for me.

The zipper groans, and when I pull it open—I wish I could say I was shocked. But instead, I just stand there, staring at a pile of delicate, barely-there lace that looks like it belongs in a bougie bachelor party gift basket, not my emergency escape plan.

Oh good. Lingerie. Nothing says you're being held hostage by a narcissist with a god complex like six thousand dollars of see-through silk.

I want to cry.

Instead, I pull out the top piece—a blood-red slip that screams power and fuck-you elegance. I’d wear this for Steven, easy. But for Frank? The thought makes me want to claw my own skin off and be done with it.

“Ah yes,” I mutter. “The ‘I may have bruises, but at least my nipples are festive’ collection.”

I dig deeper. Shocking, more lace. There’s some strappy, bondage-adjacent thing I couldn’t figure out how to wear sober—let alone while being emotionally waterboarded. I don’t see any jeans, or shirts. There’s no real clothes, and certainly nothing I actually own.

Just panties that could double as dental floss and a robe. He didn’t grab my clothes, he replaced them. This is a fucking fantasy, and it’s one I will not be participating in. I slam the bag shut and the zipper catches my finger and I hiss, pressing it to my lips.

Perfect. Love that. What’s next—a papercut on a Bible? Razor burn in the shape of his initials? Maybe a corset that tightens every time I disobey. Okay, maybe I'm taking it a little too far.

I head for the bathroom desperate for space, for something that isn’t him, but I stop cold in the doorway.

My reflection stares back—red cheek, makeup smudged like regret, lip split and eyes hollow. But none of that registers as I inch closer to get a better look. As if that would help.

Every strand on my head is darker than they’ve ever been.

No fucking way.

I lift a shaking hand to my head, threading my fingers through the pieces like maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this is just the lighting blurring my vision and my white side isn’t just erased like it was never there.

He dyed my hair.

He touched me.

That mother fucker touched me while I was out.

My scalp starts to itch like his fingers are still there. Like, what the fuck? What was he doing? Parting strands and smearing color all over them while I laid there like a corpse in a salon chair?

I gag. My hand flies to my mouth, but it’s too late. I’m already dry-heaving into the sink.

He’s trying to erase me, one personality trait at a time.

Oh my God.

I clutch the edge of the counter, knuckles going white. The rage is back—sharp and volcanic.

“I will kill him,” I whisper.

The words sound shaky, at best. I grip the sink harder, trying to hold onto something—anything—but my mind is unraveling faster than I can stitch it back together.

What does he want from me? I can’t remember enough to piece it together. Just flashes. Smells. And that stupid, broken reel of memory keeps skipping.

And what about Steven?

Did he know? Was he part of it? Did he come to what, just finish the job?

I can’t even think about him without tripping over the mess of my own feelings. And if I start thinking about my feelings for him—nope.

It’s a straight shot to self-destruction. A full sprint toward heartbreak with a knife in my back and his name carved into the blade.

Oh God.

Sarah.

My heart lurches.

She’ll come looking. She has to. She’ll blow the whole fucking city up trying or at least raise enough hell to get someone’s attention.

Unless he already…No. No. Don’t go there.

Panic claws up my throat like it’s trying to choke me from the inside. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

I slap the water on my face, trying to snap myself out of it, but all it does is remind me I’m still here. Still trapped. I press both palms to the counter and inhale, slowly.

Get it the fuck together.

If I want to make it out of here alive, I don’t get the luxury of breaking down.

I lock eyes with my reflection again. “Well?” I whisper. “Got a plan, or just gonna keep bleeding until he fucks you into submission or kills you? Because that is not fucking happening.”

I rub my arms, scanning the room like it’s gonna cough up answers. Maybe somewhere between the overpriced decor and the scent of control, I’ll find something more helpful than whatever advice they give the FBI’s Most Gaslit Woman of the Year.

He’s packed me away like a porcelain doll that he wants wrapped in lace and silence, ready to ship off to god knows where.

I may look like a doll, but I’ve got teeth. And if he thinks I’m playing dress-up in his psychosexual fairytale, he’s about to learn what happens when you put a wolf in silk.

That’s the spirit.

If he wants to play dirty, two can play at that game. I turn on my heel and head to the dresser. If he packed me a bag full of lingerie, maybe he stocked the drawers with something useful.

The top one creaks open like a horror movie cue, and my stomach flips. It’s full of new clothes that all have the tags still on. It’s just more outfits that scream ‘trophy wife’ and ‘look how well-behaved she is now’.

Neutrals. Silk. Lace.

No black.

I try the second drawer and it’s worse. It’s all pajamas. Or at least his version of them—if you define sleepwear as slinky, see-through things a billionaire buys his mistress before flying home to his wife.

I hold one up and actually snort. It’s sleeveless, translucent, and stitched together with enough bad intentions to make even a mannequin blush.

The third drawer makes my blood pressure spike.

Accessories.

Pearl hairpins. Silk scrunchies. A velvet choker that practically vibrates with the word obedient. I shut it fast enough to rattle the handles.

“Jesus, Frank. All this effort and not one bulletproof escape rope?”

I don’t even realize I’m moving until I’m already storming into the bathroom. I start scanning the space like a crime scene investigator on caffeine.

If I find a perfume bottle labeled Stockholm Syndrome, I swear to God…instead, I find tampons. A toothbrush. And a brand-new razor.

As if a man who slaps me one minute and kisses my forehead the next gets to hand-select my shaving tools.

God forbid your hostage has stubble.

I hold it for a second—then toss it straight into the trash and it lands with a soft thunk. I stare at it like it might jump back out and crawl across the floor with a little bow on top. And then… I have an idea.

If he thinks he can just dye my hair—and erase everything that feels like me—then he doesn’t get to keep any part of it.

If he wants a version of me he can mold, he’s going to learn the hard way—I’ll carve myself into something else first.

If I sit around doing nothing I’ll have time to think, and then I’ll remember the way Stevens’s fingers brushed my jaw when he said I was his.

If I think, I’ll spiral.

And right now, I can’t afford to spiral. Not when I’m still a hostage, not when my memory is playing goddamn hopscotch.

God.

He was the only person who looked at me like I was a fucking storm and still chose to walk into it. He touched me like I was breakable and brutal at the same time and always kissed me like he was starving. Do you know what that does to a girl?

He took me apart like he already knew how to put me back together. And now, I don’t even know where he is, or if he’s alive.

My thoughts go straight to wondering if Frank was telling the truth? What if I was just leverage?

I want to laugh, but the sound gets lodged somewhere between my ribs and my rage. Because even if it’s true—even if every look, every touch, every whispered mine was a lie—Steven didn’t buy me.

Frank did.

And that alone tells me everything I need to know.

Whether Frank’s lying or not, whether Steven’s a monster or the only man who’s ever touched me like I was real—I’m still here, locked in a fucking dollhouse. If I don’t get out now…I might not get another shot.

I move fast. Checking under the bed, behind the dresser, in the closet, the windows, nothing.

I don’t have my phone, but I do have an uncanny ability to lie to men who underestimate me.