BE MY HERO (Forbidden Men #3)

Prologue

Prologue

Meet Eva Mercer

Five Years After Pick’s PrologueI snuck in the back door half an hour after curfew. Someone had turned off the lights in the kitchen, so I hoped everyone had already gone to bed.

To be on the safe side, I slipped off my sandals with the extra-hard heels that were über noisy and padded barefoot across the cool tile. But when I reached the entrance to the back hall, I noticed the light in Daddy’s office was on.

He’d left the door cracked open too, which he never did, so I guessed he was waiting up for me, trying to catch me coming in late. Again. A shiver of dread curled up my spine as my limbs went cold.

Even though fear made my breathing quicken, I wasn’t about to give up on my attempt to sneak in. Tiptoeing with each step, I held my breath and tried to become one with the floor. I’d just reached the large Oriental rug when the first creak under my toes gave me away. I halted in my tracks, closing my eyes and cursing in my head.

Please don’t let him have heard that. Please, please, plea—

“Eva.” The baritone I hated most in the world boomed from Daddy’s office, making me jump. “Get in here. Now.”

For the briefest moment, I considered running. Maybe I could outrun him this time. Maybe—

I bit my lip and shook my head. Running was bad. He’d only come after me; the fucker loved a chase. And he’d catch me, he always caught me, and it always ended worse when that happened.

But lately, I’d been able to talk my way out of it. Maybe I could reason with him tonight.

Swallowing the dread rising up my throat, I pulled back my shoulders and lifted my chin with all the false confidence I could muster. I hadn’t been confident about anything—especially myself—since I was twelve, not since the first night he’d snuck into my bedroom. But I’d been bluffing my courage for two years now. All I had left was one big fake bluster. So I bluffed my confidence all the way to his office.

Setting my fingers on the cool surface of his door, I opened it just enough to peek inside.

When I saw the whiskey decanter on his desk sitting beside the crystal tumbler full of ice and that dreaded amber liquid, my hopes crashed. I inched a step in reverse.

Yeah, no way was I talking him out of anything tonight, not when he’d been imbibing that. My breathing increased its pace. It’d been four months since he’d last touched me. They’d been a good four months. I wanted to make it to five months.

He sliced me with a lethal glare when I crept backward another step. “Sit down.”

My hands balled into fists at my sides. Oh, how I wanted to defy him. How I wanted to spit in his direction and tell him to go f**k himself. But with a single arch of his brows, he held me captive. I was powerless but to obey his command.

An urge rose for me to wrap my arms around myself and hide away every bit of flesh I exposed. I hadn’t meant for him to see me dressed like this; I’d worn the short, tight skirt and halter-top for all the boys who’d been at the party I’d attended. I’d wanted them to watch me and want me. I’d needed one of them to take me to some private corner and erase haunting memories of other, awful hands.

I’d gotten my wish too, but now it seemed to be coming back to bite me.

It didn’t matter to me that all my friends called me a slut behind my back, or that I was only fourteen, a month shy of entering high school, but had a more active s*x life than most twenty-year-olds. It wasn’t like I was pure by any means and needed to preserve the sanctity that was my untouched body. Dear old Dad had made sure I was no longer a virgin.

I just craved the blissful void that came over me whenever a boy got me alone. I could escape into the safe place in my head where nothing touched me while fumbling hands did whatever they wanted. For a short time, I felt free in that place. Free from everything. Especially him.

“I said sit down,” Daddy snarled.

My nerves rattled under his harsh tone, but I made damn sure that outwardly I appeared unruffled. He could physically hurt me all he wanted, but I still had something he couldn’t touch. Attitude.

Tossing my blonde hair over my shoulder, I sauntered to the couch against the far wall and settled onto the soft cushion. When his gaze skimmed over my legs as I crossed them, I wanted to vomit all the beer I’d chugged earlier before I’d let Jimmy Santos explore under my skirt.

I sneered and picked at my cuticles. “Whenever you’re done ogling your own daughter, I’m ready for the lecture I know you’re just dying to give.”

Even as I smarted off those words, my heart leapt into my throat. I’d never been quite so smarmy and bold with him. With everyone else, yes. With him, no. But I don’t think I’d ever been quite so intoxicated when he’d caught me alone before either.

His jaw went hard. After picking up his drink and tossing back the rest of the contents, he slammed the tumbler down on his desktop. “I thought we’d already been over this. You’re not really mine, remember?”

Ah, yes. He’d made that quite clear the first night he’d stumbled into my room, right after having an argument with Mom and learning one of her faithless encounters had brought me into the world. The whole thing had been to exact revenge against her. And it had pissed her off. I’d heard them arguing about it many a night, but it never prompted her into leaving him, or getting me out of his clutches and saving me.

A marriage in our respected, affluent neighborhood wasn’t supposed to end in divorce. Husbands and wives simply had bigger closets built so they could hide away more of their skeletons and dirty little secrets.

And so Mother kept sleeping around, Father kept drinking and visiting my room because I guess once he got a taste of little girl he just couldn’t stop. And I turned into someone I didn’t recognize or like.

I sent him a little smirk. “Yeah, because calling it molestation and p********a sounds so much better when you don’t tack on the incest.”

The rest of the world thought of him as my biological father, and he was the only father figure I’d ever known, so to me, it was just as bad. Just as disgusting. Just as traumatic.

Eyes narrowing, he drummed his fingers against his empty glass. “Be careful, Eva. Or I’ll put that smart mouth of yours to better use.”

I gagged a little on my own puke. Despite wanting to back off and curl into a ball until he finally left me alone, I kept my back ramrod straight as I glared back.

No. I wasn’t going to fold to him anymore. And the liquor flowing through my veins had already provided me with all the courage and bluster I needed. So I just kept digging my own grave with more attitude.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” I set my fingers over my chest with sarcastic regret. “Did my honesty offend you?” I dropped my hand as well as the fake cringe of apology and shrugged. “I guess you’ve exhausted all your intimidation tactics on me. I’m just not that scared of you anymore.”

“Is that so?”

When he rose slowly from his chair, air hissed from my lungs, replaced with a fear so thick I couldn’t breathe. f**k attitude. This wasn’t funny anymore. But I wasn’t sure what to do now, so I remained seated in my casual, who-gives-a-f**k pose, even though my head went dizzy from terror and my instincts told me to run.

“Well, let’s see.” I twirled my finger through my long hair and tilted my head in thought. “You can no longer tell me everyone will know what a naughty, naughty girl I am if I tattle on you. They already think I’m the slut of the century. And you can’t use Mom against me. She’s never really cared what you did to me.” As I rattled on, he crept out from behind his desk and inched unnervingly closer. “I guess you could stop putting money into my account, but then I’ll just go to the police. And even if they didn’t believe me, the mere hint of such a scandal would probably ruin your career. So you see, old man, I hold all the cards now.”

I was mostly bluffing. I would never go to the police. I didn’t want anyone to know what had happened to me, least of all a bunch of officials who’d make it public.

But my father didn’t know that. He leapt at me.

I squeaked out a scream I hadn’t meant to let loose and flew off the settee. My scramble toward the doorway was deterred when my bare feet slipped on the polished wooden floor. I went down and banged my knee against a solid plank. The pain made my stomach rebel, but I was so desperate to escape, I kept going anyway.

He beat me to the door.

Surging in front of me, he pressed it shut with his back, successfully trapping me inside the office with him. This was his way. He liked playing spider and letting me get caught in his web before he actually pounced.

I slammed to a halt, breathing hard as all my hair flew into my face. Shoving it out my eyes, I stared up at him while he sent me a triumphant sneer.

“Now, what were you saying again about not fearing me?” He stepped away from the door toward me, and I couldn’t help it, I shrank backward. “And what was that about not being intimidated?”

I clenched my teeth and lifted my chin as I backed up for every foot he came forward. “f**k you. You’re an evil, disgusting old lecher, and you make me sick.”

The insult only caused him to chuckle. I was down to my last bag of defiance, and he knew it. “Where were you tonight, Eva?”

“Out of this house,” I growled. “Away from you. That’s all that matters.”

Realizing he’d backed me into a corner of bookshelves, I let out a whimper that only made the foul glint in his eyes brighten. He was taking away my attitude, my bluff. The only things I could control were slipping through my fingers.

“You drank at this party,” he said, hovering inches away and making my breathing spike out of control. “I can smell it on you. Did you have s*x too?”

I wanted to keep being Brave, Defiant Eva and hiss something like, “What? Are you jealous?” but with him this close, my courage fled with my smart-mouth and my insolence. I was nothing but a pathetic quivering ball of distress. And I hated him for that.

His gaze dropped to my cleavage. Shuddering, I bowed my head and wrapped my arms over my chest. I also hated being an early developer. I hated my d-cup breasts. And I hated how he always looked at them.

“I know what you’re trying to do, baby doll.” The whiskey on his breath choked me and made my eyes water. “You think being with all those boys is going to wipe me off you, but it won’t. I’ll always be there. I’ll always be your first. My touch has forever stained you.”

When his fingers grazed over my shoulder and down my arm with a soft, slimy caress, I lost it.

“No!” With nowhere to run, I fought, swinging out and catching him across the face.

I’d forgotten I was still holding my sandals in a death grip. The hard, pointy heels caught him in the cheek, jerking his face to the side and slashing open a gash that had my eyes popping wide and my jaw dropping with shock.

Oh, s**t. I’d never struck him before. He was so going to kill me for this.

He roared out an enraged bellow and lifted his palm to his cheek. As his attention slowly rotated around to focus on me, I backed more snugly into the corner, cowering from him. He lowered his hand and looked at the blood on his fingers. When I saw his arm tremble, hope surged to life inside me. I’d scared him...or something, something shocking enough to give me a slice of hope. A slice of power.

Brandishing my sandal in a threatening manner, I lurched forward, making him stagger away.

“You will never ever touch me again, do you hear me?”

“You little bitch.” Seething, he brought his fingers to his face and applied pressure to the wound, making blood gush out the sides. “You’re just like your mother. I’m the head of his household and if you do anything to embarrass us, I’ll see that you regret it for the rest of your life. Do you...hear me?”

I didn’t answer. I was too busy circling around him until I was the one closest to the door. Then I turned tail and raced for the exit. Once I made it out of his office, I dropped my shoes and dashed up the stairs. I didn’t slow down until I reached my room and locked myself inside. Backing away from the closed door, I brought my hand to my mouth, waiting for and expecting him to come pounding and shouting. He had a key; he could get inside if he wanted to.

But he didn’t.

After nothing happened for a solid five minutes, I sank onto my mattress and hugged myself, shaking uncontrollably. Then I curled into a ball and nestled my head on my pillow, allowing myself to drift away and dream. I wouldn’t be here forever. Someday I’d leave this house. I’d leave Florida. And I’d be free. I’d be whatever the hell I wanted to be.

I just had to be patient and wait. But it would happen.

It had to, otherwise, what was the point of suffering through this day in and day out?