CHAPTER 2 TRUE FACE

(Lara POV)

I waited until I hear Maxton's car disappear down the street. My hands won't stop shaking as I pull the duffel bag from our closet—no, his closet. Nothing here is mine.

"Just clothes," I whisper to myself, cramming everything I can fit. "Toiletries. Documents."

The cash I've been hiding feels pathetic in my hands. Three hundred dollars. That's what my freedom costs.

A sound from the bedroom makes me freeze. Just the building settling, but my heart hammers anyway. What if he comes back early? What if he catches me?

His phone sits on the nightstand, charging. I shouldn't look. I know I shouldn't, but something pulls me toward it.

The messages with Sarah, his mother, go back months. My stomach drops as I read.

Sarah: Keep her weak. She's useful for getting sympathy and making Kyle look bad for ignoring family.

Maxton: She believes everything I tell her. Perfect.

Sarah: Good. A grieving woman makes excellent ammunition.

Maxton: She actually thinks I love her.

The phone slips from my hands. I was never loved. I was strategic. A weapon in their war against Kyle.

"Stupid," I breathe, anger burning through my grief. "So fucking stupid."

But fear wins over rage. I shove the bag deep into the closet and race to the couch, grabbing a magazine just as tires crunch on gravel outside.

Maxton stumbles through the door at nine PM, reeking of whiskey. Something's wrong. His face is twisted with anger I've never seen before.

"Rough day?" I keep my voice neutral, careful.

He looks at me like I'm something disgusting stuck to his shoe. "You want to leave me, don't you?"

My blood turns to ice. "What? No, Maxton, I—"

"Don't fucking lie to me!" His voice explodes through the apartment. "I can see it in your eyes. You think you're better than me now."

"That's not true." My voice comes out small, terrified. "I love you."

"Bullshit." He's moving toward me now, unsteady but dangerous. "You've been different since the hospital. Planning something."

He grabs my arm hard enough that I know there'll be bruises tomorrow. "Please, Maxton, you're drunk. Let's just—"

His fist comes toward my face. Usually I freeze, let him hurt me until his anger burns out. But tonight something snaps inside me.

I block his punch.

"What the fuck—" His shock only lasts a second before fury takes over.

I claw at his face, kick at his legs. "Get off me!"

"You ungrateful bitch!" His next hit catches my ribs and I can't breathe. "I saved you! You were nothing before me!"

But I keep fighting, scratching, biting. The taste of blood fills my mouth—mine or his, I can't tell.

"I should have let you rot in that group home!" He hits my stomach and I double over, but I don't stop fighting.

I break free and run to the bathroom, slamming the door and turning the lock with shaking fingers.

"Open this door right fucking now!" He pounds against the wood. "You hear me, Lara? You're nothing without me! NOTHING!"

The threats continue for what feels like hours. Then silence.

I wait, pressed against the cold tile wall, listening to my ragged breathing. An hour passes before I crack the door open.

Maxton's passed out on the couch, empty bottle beside him.

It's two in the morning. My face throbs where he hit me, my ribs scream with every breath, but I'm thinking clearly for the first time in months.

I grab my hidden bag and climb out the bathroom window.

The motel room smells like stale cigarettes and broken dreams. Forty-seven missed calls light up my phone screen. Maxton's voicemails cycle between sobbing apologies and vicious threats.

"Baby, I'm sorry, please come home. I was drunk, I didn't mean it."

Then: "You ungrateful whore, you're nothing without me! Come back now or you'll regret it!"

I delete them without listening to them all. My reflection in the mirror shows purple bruises blooming across my cheek, swollen lips, fingerprint marks on my arms. But I'm out. The relief is almost worse than the fear—it makes me realize how trapped I'd been.

Monday means returning to work or losing the only income I have. Working as Kyle's assistant—Maxton's stepbrother, the man I've been taught to hate. Facing Kyle means explaining these bruises, maintaining professionalism while I'm falling apart.

But not going means being homeless.

My phone buzzes with a text from Maxton: I know where you are. We need to talk. I'm coming.

Terror freezes my blood. I don't know how he found me, but I believe him. He always finds ways to control me.

I grab my bag with shaking hands, pain shooting through my ribs. The parking lot is empty, dark. My car keys feel foreign in my trembling fingers.

"Where can I go?" I whisper to myself. "Where the hell can I go?"

But I'm already moving, because staying means going back to him. And I'd rather die than let him touch me again.