Unwound

CHAPTER NINETEEN

AMERY adjusted the lighting on the objects scattered on the black velvet for the twentieth time. Over the past two weeks, since the demo in the club, she’d been inundated with new clients. Between that and the Okada project, she could work nonstop seven days a week, and she knew she had to settle on whom to hire. The dynamic between her and Molly was so good she didn’t want to upset the balance and make a bad decision, so she’d been lax on making her final choice.

She’d moved a few of her things to Ronin’s penthouse. Cooking utensils, clothes, a few quirky knickknacks that looked wildly out of place amid Ronin’s structured furniture and minimalist furnishings. Ronin hadn’t complained—just the opposite. He wanted the mix of their pieces to make it seem more theirs. She was the one who’d been dragging her feet.

Amery didn’t doubt her feelings for him. She spent her nights and weekends with him anyway, so it shouldn’t have been such a big deal. But anytime she brought up paying rent and splitting the grocery and utility bills, Ronin said he’d cover it. She’d been too independent for too long just to let him take care of her. Especially financially.

She refocused on the items on the table. It was harder than she’d imagined to make homemade sex toys appear sexy and not weird. The paddle with the tacks on it looked painful. What part of the body was that used on?

Ronin’s voice popped into her head. Any part I want to use it on, baby.

She bit back a grin and wondered what he’d think if she used the modified Wartenberg wheel on him. She crouched down and snapped off a couple of shots, using the edge of the velvet-covered table to steady the camera. She’d been jumpy all damn day. She couldn’t attribute her jitteriness to caffeine since she hadn’t had a single cup.

“Amery?”

“Hang on a second, Molly. I’m trying to get the angle on this right. Would it be too over the top for this catalogue if the edgier sex toys had a glint coming off the metal?”

“Uh . . .”

“Would that defeat the purpose of getting people to try something new and kinky?”

“Amery!”

“What?” she said testily and whirled around to find herself face-to-face with her parents.

Her parents?

What the hell?

“What are you doing here?” A sick feeling nearly knocked her to her knees. “What happened to Aiden?”

“Nothing, as far as we know. He’s still in Afghanistan.”

“Thank god. I mean, I wish he’d be done with this tour, but I’m glad he isn’t the reason you’re here.”

“No, something has been brought to our attention. Something we need to discuss with you in person. Alone.” They both turned and glared at Molly.

“I’ll see you’re not disturbed.” Molly left and shut the door.

Amery wasn’t surprised her parents hadn’t hugged her. They weren’t much on public displays of affection. But that’d also mean they’d have to feel some type of affection first in order to display it.

“Okay. Wow. This has caught me off guard.”

Her mother shot a disgusted look at the prop table. “We can see that. This is how you make money? Taking photos of perverted things?”

She blushed. Goddammit—she tried to stop it, but her body still reacted instinctively to her mother’s condescending tone, and that annoyed the piss out of her.

“Put them away,” her father demanded. “They’re upsetting your mother.”

“Then maybe you should both wait outside,” she snapped.

“In this case, out of sight does not equal out of mind. You can no longer hide the sick things you’re doing, Amery Lee Hardwick.” Her father marched up to her. “And we will stay right here. We will not be brushed aside so you can call this Ronin Black, the man who has exerted some kind of control over you.”

How had they found out about Ronin?

“Yes, we know about him. We know the type of sick, dangerous things he’s involved in, things he’s tricked you into getting involved with too, brainwashing you into thinking those types of activities are normal. We’re here to put a stop to it.”

“Whoa. I don’t know where you’ve gotten your misinformation, but Ronin Black is a respected businessman.”

“He’s a deviant, promoting deviant behavior. He’s violent and uses violence as a weapon to further his control over you.”

Amery had the overwhelming urge to laugh, and she couldn’t stop one quick giggle.

“This is not funny. And that you think it is shows us how far you’ve fallen into his web of deceit,” her father said hotly.

“Where did you get this information?” When they stared at her stoically, she said, “It’s all hearsay, isn’t it? You’re assuming a lot because Ronin runs a martial arts studio.”

Her parents exchanged a look. Then her father said, “It’s not hearsay. Marion, show her.”

Show her. Amery watched as her mother removed a thick manila envelope from her purse. “What is that?”

“This is what was sent to us. It contains a letter telling us all about this Ronin Black”—she grimaced at his name—“who he is, what sick things he does, and pictures of the two of you together. As well as this.” Her mother pulled out a DVD and shook it at her. “Do you have any idea how disturbed we were to discover that you’re involved with the man in this piece of filth? After viewing it, we understood why you never mentioned him. Because you know what he does is wrong.”

“He does it to you, too, doesn’t he?” her father said angrily. “He has convinced you that it’s normal? That if you want him to love you, you need to be this type of woman for him?”

Amery asked, “What’s on the DVD?” even when she had a pretty good idea.

Her father got right in her face. “You’ll see. We want you to watch it. Every second of it.”

“Fine. Hand it over.”

He shook his head. “We will watch it together.”

Her stomach turned. “Why?”

“So we know you’ve suffered through it like we had to. So you’ll understand our concern.”

“Give it to me. I’ll watch it.”

“There’s more than just one DVD,” her mother added. “There are two and pictures.”

“Pictures?” she repeated. “Of what?”

“One thing at a time. Where’s your DVD player?”

They were serious. They were going to force her to watch whatever was on that DVD with them in the room.

“I’m sure she has one in her apartment.”

No way was she taking her sour-faced judgmental parents to her loft, the place that’d always been her sanctuary. Amery grabbed her laptop off the prop table. “I can watch it right here.”

“I want to warn you that it won’t matter if you try to destroy it. We’ve made copies of everything.” Her mother placed the plastic case in Amery’s hand.

“Of course you have.” She pointed to the folding chairs. “If you want to sit.” She pushed the rolling chair up to the table and popped open the DVD slot. When she felt her parents behind her, she wheeled around. “Do not stand over my shoulder, or I will take this in another room.”

Her mother harrumphed. “You do not get to decide—”

“Yes, I do. And besides, aren’t you supposed to be studying my face and body language to see how I react to what I see?”

“Now, sweetheart, we understand why you’d be defensive—”

“Don’t you ever call me sweetheart, Dad. Ever. You couldn’t show love and compassion when I was growing up, so you have no right to it now. I’d rather have your fucking contempt, which apparently I’ve got, so stick with that. Now, sit down.”

Her parents were shocked into complete silence for once.

Amery loaded the DVD. It was more than an hour long. “Do you expect me to watch the entire thing? Right now?”

“Yes. Why do you think we drove all the way from North Dakota?”

To shame me in person.

Before Amery hit PLAY, she wondered if someone had gotten a copy of the shibari demo they’d done at the club. At first she’d been annoyed Ronin had taped her without her knowledge. But after she’d seen it, she understood that Ronin needed her to see the demo from a different perspective. She’d actually cried during the part where he’d so lovingly removed the rope. Amery knew there was an amazing sexual chemistry between them; she felt it every time the man touched her. But to see it on-screen? To see the passion and tenderness in Ronin’s hands and on his face as he’d bound her and then untied her? That had unwound her completely. She had no defenses left where Ronin was concerned.

Somehow she didn’t think she’d see that on this DVD, and her pulse spiked when she clicked the start button.

The images were grainy, like a home movie with crappy video. But she knew the man she was seeing was Ronin. A younger Ronin.

There wasn’t any sound in the first segment as he bound an unknown naked woman. The focus was on the binding itself, not the sensuality of the act. The next two scenes were clearer, but the atmosphere had changed along with his rope partners to a harsher scene. The women were more intimately displayed. One even asked him to stop, at which Ronin crouched down and talked to her. Then he resumed his binding.

She might not have recognized Naomi after the first fifteen minutes of viewing if she hadn’t seen that annoying smirk up close and personal and heard that cooing baby talk voice.

The queasy sensation rolled over her as she watched Ronin binding Naomi. Not in the clinical manner as in the previous scenes, but with the loving touch she knew firsthand.

It shouldn’t have shocked her when Ronin stripped and started having sex with Naomi after finishing the binding. The shock, coupled with Naomi’s betrayal in taking something so intensely personal and almost . . . sacred to Ronin and using it to hurt him, sent her thoughts spiraling toward desolation.

To think her parents had watched this didn’t embarrass her; it infuriated her. This side of Ronin wasn’t Naomi’s to share. It never had been. Add in that she’d secretly taped them, and it spoke of her absolute evilness, vileness, and vindictiveness on a different plane.

By the third scene with Naomi, tears coursed down Amery’s face. She ached from the very bottom of her soul. Ached to see that the tenderness and care in Ronin’s beautiful eyes had been so wholly undeserved for this woman. Knowing when he saw this, he’d be mortified. Would he close himself off to her all over again?

To the untrained eye, or maybe to anyone who didn’t know Ronin on the level she did, the scenes that followed were harsher. The love and gratitude for the experience that shone in his eyes was gone. He tied Naomi in intricate configurations that took an incredible amount of time. The sex afterward was perfunctory at best, one-sided at worst. Ronin got off and didn’t seem to care if Naomi did. Their conversations were in Japanese, so Amery couldn’t decipher them, but she understood begging. Not the sexy kind of begging, but the desperate kind. Ronin’s reluctance was apparent when Naomi grabbed his hand and tried to make him spank her.

And he did—not with his hand. He used a paddle.

And then a belt.

In the next scene, Ronin splayed Naomi’s pussy wide open and flogged it. Her screams were audible even behind the ball gag. But they weren’t screams of pain. She recognized the difference; she doubted her parents did.

She wanted to stop the DVD—she’d seen enough—but she knew if her parents had driven all the way down here expecting her to watch it in its entirety, her telling them she’d seen enough would only drag this out longer, and she just wanted to be done with it. So she said nothing, just kept her eyes on the screen and let the tears fall.

The scenes became more violent. He slapped Naomi across the face.

That jarred her, seeing the man who needed kinbaku as beauty in his life to have to resort to ugliness.

She was still crying after the DVD went dark. Crying and heartsick and embarrassed.

Her father cleared his throat.

Please don’t say anything.

“You see why we’re concerned.”

“You don’t understand.” The instant she said it, she realized she should’ve kept her mouth shut.

Her mother stomped forward. “This man has you brainwashed. How can you watch something so filthy and not be absolutely disgusted?”

She was disgusted, but not for the reasons they were.

“Do you let him treat you like that?” her mother demanded. “String you up like you’re his piece of property and let him hurt you?”

Amery gazed up into her mother’s angry face. “It’s not like that.”

She grabbed hold of Amery and yanked her out of the chair, pinching the tender flesh of her upper arm hard as she dragged Amery forward. Spittle flew from her mouth. “You watched it. How can you defend him? Especially when you know what kind of a violent pervert he is. That woman in the video was crying and begging him to stop, and yet he still hit her. He is a horrible, awful man.”

“Let go of my arm.”

But her mother had gone into meltdown phase. “We know this Ronin Black has money. You let him tie you up like a dog and do unspeakable things to you while you cry? But then he buys you pretty, expensive things and you just forgive him? And you let him do it all over again? What is wrong with you?”

“Let go of my arm.”

“I tell you what, little girl. You always were a willful child who needed discipline. Maybe that’s why this unholy type of behavior appeals to you. You think you deserve to get abused—”

“Shut up.” Amery used a pressure point technique on her mother’s elbow to force her to release her arm.

Her mother whimpered and stepped back.

Her father was right by his wife’s side. “What did you do?”

“I told her to let go of me. She was hurting me.” She lifted her sleeve and looked at the angry red marks. Guaranteed she’d have bruises tomorrow.

“Isn’t that what you like? Or is it only when a man with a big bank account does it to you that it’s acceptable?”

Hearing the crack of her hand across her mother’s cheek would be momentarily satisfying, but not worth it in the long run.

“Marion, curb your tongue.”

Her mother glanced at her husband meekly, with tears in her eyes.

“We needed to shock you, Amery. We wanted you to see from an outsider’s perspective just how wrong all of this is.”

Amery folded her arms across her chest, unsure what to say or what to do.

Her father’s gaze landed on her wrist—specifically the rope burn on her wrist. His face paled. Then his mouth tightened. “This man has you so in his thrall that you won’t listen to reason.”

“I’ve listened to everything both of you have said. Everything. Now you need to listen to me. You need to meet Ronin and see for yourself—”

“Absolutely not. I’m a man of God, a man of faith, but I might just forget that if I’m in the same room with that heathen monster. Not only is he sick in the head, this Ronin Black isn’t even a Christian.”

Amery would ask how he knew that, but probably the package included that info, along with other choice bits such as Ronin’s financial status.

“And he’s part Japanese. That right there is an affront to everything in our family. Your grandpa Joe was a POW during World War Two. Did you forget he was tortured at the hands of the Japanese for more than a year?”

“It’s highly unlikely that Ronin’s grandfather was personally responsible for Grandpa Joe’s capture and his torture.”

“You watch your mouth,” her mother warned. “Your grandfather was a war hero. A hero.”

“Which has nothing to do with Ronin or his family. Ronin’s father was a hero too—in the United States Air Force. Ronin is a US citizen.”

“You are trying to distract us from the real issue at hand,” her father said. “Give me the package, Marion. Then you’ll see.”

Her mother retreated and fished out the envelope again. Then she passed it off to Amery like it was coated in poison.

Amery dumped the contents on the table. She moved the DVD aside to pick up the stack of photos. She leafed through them, not really seeing them other than noting they were bondage shots. But she spied a picture with a yellow sticky note on the top, and she pulled that one from the pile.

She froze. It was a picture of her and Ronin, taken the night she’d had the altercation with Naomi. In this shot, Ronin was pressing her body against the limo so completely, her upper back was bowed away from him. His face was hidden because he’d been whispering in her ear. But the red handprint on her face was still visible. It appeared to be an angry shot.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth. He’d been saying such deliciously naughty things, so sweet and hot, that she’d closed her eyes to savor every word.

“Can you explain that away?” her mother demanded, shoving another picture at her where it looked like she was crying as she climbed out of the limo alone. “Or were you so impressed by the limo you didn’t care what he did to you or how he hurt you?”

No. The only thing I cared about in that moment was twining myself around him, feeling his breath in my ear, his mouth on my skin as he showed me how precious I was to him. The tears hadn’t been because he hurt her but because he loved her.

When she looked from her father’s face to her mother’s, she had a sense of loss. They’d never understand. And part of her didn’t care if they did.

“Was that a supportive, Christian thing to say, Mom? Berating me? Making me feel like some kind of materialistic bitch?”

“Don’t you talk to me like that. We’re here to help you.”

Amery sighed. Counted to twenty. “Then please don’t judge me before you let me speak.” She waved the picture. “I don’t know who took this, or why, but that wasn’t Ronin’s limo—not that it matters. And the red mark on my face? Was from Ronin’s ex-girlfriend, the one I assume sent you this package of stuff.”

“So you’re saying it’s all lies? That she somehow digitally altered his face into the shots?” Her father pointed to the stack of photos. “There are well over a dozen different women in those pictures. Whoever did this couldn’t have faked that.”

“I didn’t say they were faked. Those are pictures from a long time ago.” Amery had seen some of those pictures—they were in Ronin’s photo albums, visual records of his previous bindings. So that snake Naomi had somehow copied the photos without Ronin knowing, which was just another breach of trust.

“What about this one?” he demanded, pulling out a shot of Amery leaving the dojo the day after the parking garage attack, her lip still swollen, her eye a hideous shade of black. With the hunched-over posture, she looked . . . beaten down. The next shot, a close-up of her face, showed every mark in detail, including the bruises on her neck.

“So you’re not denying anything we’ve said about this man?”

“I’m telling you that you don’t know him. He would never hurt me. And you have no right to judge him.”

A long pause settled between them.

“Who are you?” her father said hoarsely. “This is not how we raised you. We provided you with a moral compass. How did you veer so far off the right path?”

“Here you are, living in the big city, living a life of sin and depravity.” Her mother picked up the argument. “This is why she doesn’t come home more often—she knew we’d see the ugly truth about her life. She’s so caught up in it that she can’t see she’s allowing herself to be fed a line of lies. Where will she be when she’s been used up and discarded? No one will want her then. No one will care to help a woman who refuses to help herself.”

Don’t cry. Goddammit, don’t cry. “Not even you?” she managed to choke out.

“We can only do so much,” her father added, slipping an arm around his wife’s shoulder. “We want to help you. Will you come with us to church service tonight and pray about it?”

Help her their way. Amery shook her head.

“Are you running straight to him?” her mother demanded.

She shook her head again.

Her father appeared relieved. “At least give this some thought, okay? We’re staying at the Holiday Inn Express out by the airport.”

“For how long?”

“That depends on you.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning we’ve been in contact with a Christian center here in Colorado that runs a retreat for abused women. We’ve secured a place for you for a few weeks. We’ll take you there and check you in.”

She clenched her jaw to keep it from dropping. They thought she was a victim? That Ronin was some kind of abuser?

Why would they think differently? Your assumption about what kind of man Ronin was the first time you were in his practice room was similar to theirs.

Amery refused to let that voice she’d worked so damn hard to exorcise from her mind and her life get a foothold again.

“Watch the other DVD. You need to see it.”

“What’s on it?”

“Just watch it,” her mother said shortly.

Fuck. Amery didn’t want to do this, but it appeared they wouldn’t leave until she met their demands. She switched out the discs, but didn’t sit down when she hit PLAY.

Two fighters circled each other on-screen. One was Ronin. Immediately he was the aggressor, cornering his opponent, getting him on the ground. Keeping the guy locked down. The round ended when Ronin got the guy to tap out after an arm bar.

Another fight started. This one was more physical on the boxing and kicking side. Ronin’s opponent refused to stay down. But Ronin adapted. He brought out his punching and kicking game. And he beat the guy bloody. The final move that ended the fight was when he performed a spinning back kick that connected with his opponent’s head.

Straight knockout.

After she watched the third fight, where once again Ronin was victorious, she didn’t see the point to watching this DVD. Was she supposed to believe that he’d take this behavior outside the cage? Direct it at her? Just as she opened her mouth to ask the purpose, another fight started.

But this wasn’t like the others. This fight found Ronin on the receiving end of rapid-fire fists. His opponent absolutely brutalized Ronin. The skin above his eye was sliced open and bleeding. His mouth was cut and swollen. The camera had zeroed in on him, and the look in his eye was complete blankness. Bleakness. And she knew, in that moment, this was the fight he’d been in the night he’d shown up at her loft beat to crap.

Where had Naomi gotten footage of this? Had she been there? Taking joy in watching Ronin getting pummeled?

Ronin had come to her to help him become whole again. He needed her. Amery bit her lip and tasted the salt from her tears in the back of her throat.

She opened the DVD drive and removed the disk.

“Well?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I told you this was a waste of time,” her mother snapped.

“Say that our concerns are justified.”

Amery shook her head. “You are off base on this. Ronin isn’t a monster. Not even close.”

“You will never convince us of that. And we won’t stand by and watch your life destroyed, young lady.”

“You’re telling me if I stay with Ronin, you’ll disown me?”

“We cannot support you in this life choice, Amery. We will not.”

“You’ve never supported me in any choices. From what dress I wore to prom, to what college I chose, to moving to Denver.”

“We’ll be waiting to hear from you. If we don’t, we’ll be on our way and you won’t hear from us again until you prove you’ve gotten your life straightened out.”

Amery clutched the manila envelope to her chest and didn’t even get up when they walked out the door.