Soulless: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Starcrossed Lovers Trilogy Book 2)

by Jade West

  Kidnapped. Somehow the whole damn world knew she’d been kidnapped.

  I arrived on floor nine, and I almost regretted taking her from her sorry apartment in the first place. I almost wished I’d have left the stupid bitch to the Power Brothers and her own pitiful family to fuck up, that or kill herself and save everyone else the bother.

  Almost. Jesus Christ, I only registered my thoughts as I stepped into the meeting room. Almost wished I’d left her? What the fuck was happening to me?

  One thing was for sure, Father would be damned certain he was going to find out.

  13

  Elaine

  Turning on the TV in the morning and seeing your face staring out at you from every channel is a weird experience – weird enough to make you jump from your seat. There I was, staring out at me from the screen in Lucian Morelli’s countryside shack, featuring on every news broadcast.

  Elaine Constantine kidnapped!

  How the hell did the news stations know I’d been kidnapped? Family business rarely reached the general populous. Someone had snitched or chosen to speak about it.

  Wow, I was getting good coverage. It was official to the masses, I’d been kidnapped. Hello there, media shitstorm. If only they knew I was kidnapped by Lucian Morelli, news would reach a whole new stratosphere.

  People were speculating on every station, talking about sicko freaks in the world who may have beaten security to grab me. That’s when it was getting crazy. There were random people talking about how they’d seen me places – dingy nightclubs alongside Tristan. Fuck. Maybe they might start talking about Lucian being in those places too . . . or Terence Kingsley. If only they began to focus on Terence Kingsley . . .

  It seemed the Power Brothers were the last thing on people’s minds. Not a surprise. People rarely mentioned the Power Brothers, they just weren’t of the same social presence as us Constantines or the Morelli assholes on the other side of the Bishop’s Landing brigade. People had even less of an idea just what corruption was going on with all of us behind the scenes, by a long, long way.

  I almost enjoyed sitting on the couch in Lucian’s shirt watching my drama unfold on the screen. It was bizarrely exciting somehow, feeling so important to the world outside.

  Tinsley was on there, crying appeals for anyone to give information. No doubt Mom had drafted her in to play social goodness after such a terrible crime.

  It was all a load of fake bullshit for the press, pretending the criminal was unknown. In the Constantine universe it was undoubtedly the Power Brothers who’d taken me. They’d have figured that regardless, but not to the same extent as they would have done once they’d barged into my room that night and looked for the answers. More fool me for cementing the fact that the Power Brothers had taken me. I’d been a stupid little bitch to even think it. I was embarrassed to hell at the thought Lucian would find out about that . . . about the note . . . the note I’d . . . I’d scribbled . . .

  Fuck.

  I stepped away from the TV as I made myself a coffee and soup, feeling more at home in that cruddy space than I ever felt in my own apartment. I wished in some ways that Lucian would just bail out on me for good and leave me to enjoy my life here without everyone around me. Hell, I was almost wishing I could stay alive, despite the constant regular shit of wanting my days to end I’d been carrying around with me for years.

  But no.

  NO.

  Lucian Morelli wasn’t going to keep me alive. Any silly notions I had of that needed trashing before I started taking a liking to them. I wasn’t going to take a liking to them.

  I wanted to die, just like always.

  I wanted to breathe my last breath and leave the whole world of Elaine Constantine behind.

  I was shaking from lack of both coke and alcohol enough to search through every square inch of the place that morning, but there was nothing. Of course there wouldn’t be – not with Lucian damn Morelli being the biggest substance prude on the planet. The fridge was mineral water city and nothing else.

  It was a clue as to just how fucked up my head was when I started looking at the clock, wondering when Lucian would be back, if at all. That little freak of a girl in me was almost hoping he would come back soon and shove more than his fingers down her throat. That little freak of a girl needed to hurt. Needed her damn punishment. That little freak of a girl was too messed up for reason. Urgh, I hoped he’d never come back. Of course I did, he was a Morelli. A fucking Morelli monster.

  Lunchtime came and went slowly, and even the TV stations stopped holding my interest. Hearing about what a lovely girl I was on screen was a joke when I’d been hearing what a bad one I was for decades. Fuck you all. I switched it off with a curse, and then I sat there, bored.

  I showered, but still I was bored. I ate another crappy can of soup, and still I was bored.

  I tried again and watched another load of random speakers speculating where I was on the TV, and still I was bored.

  That’s when the boredom turned, just like it always did. Boredom turned into mind-wandering memories, and they turned dark quickly without alcohol or coke for the pain. Memories that chewed me up inside.

  I could feel them brewing, just like always. Feel them reaching out at me from the pits of my own fucked-up soul, just like always.

  I heard them, felt them, feared them.

  No, please. I’ll be a good girl. I promise I’ll be a good girl!

  Don’t touch me again. Please, don’t touch me like that. Don’t make it hurt!

  It hurts, Uncle Lionel, please don’t let them in tonight. Please!

  My desperate sense of desire drove me back to the kitchen, fuck the TV. I opened the drawer with trembling fingers, knowing what was coming, knowing what I needed, knowing what I always needed.

  The knives were sharp. I picked the one Lucian had used so well for the salami the night before. I ran it over my thumb to check it, and it was good enough. Sharp enough. It would cut me just fine.

  Dear Lord, if only those memories would fuck off and die instead of me. I sat down with my back to the cupboard, taking deep breaths as I prepared myself. There was no point denying the obvious, those memories kept on coming. Eating me up.

  Please, don’t touch me like that!

  I nicked my thigh, just enough to feel the sting.

  Please, Uncle Lionel, please. Don’t let them!

  The next cut was longer, deeper.

  Ow, it hurts. Please, no. No. Not there!

  Yes. Blood. Just enough blood that I could feel the release.

  I’ll be a good girl, just don’t hurt me, please!

  My thighs were dripping just right. The rush of pain and relief was so soothing.

  I’ll be a good girl and put you in my mouth. I’ll be a good girl and put my hand between my legs.

  Thank fuck for self-harm and the relief it brings. I tipped my head back against the cupboard and enjoyed the sensation. Fresh cuts on scars. Lucian would punish me for them, for sure, but I didn’t care. I would welcome that punishment, remember my manners and thank the fucker for it.

  I may have been thinking a few hours earlier that I wanted to stay alive but I was kidding myself. I’d always be kidding myself. I was a silly bitch for thinking I’d ever want to stay alive in this hell hole of a world. The real hell would have nothing on some of the things I’d been through.

  If only I was brave enough to slit my wrists and set myself free, but I wasn’t. I’d never been brave enough to do that. If I’d have been brave enough to do that I’d have already been dead when Lucian Morelli came for me that night.

  If only I’d been sane enough to want to damn Lucian Morelli to a hell of his own, then I’d never have left the note about the Power Brothers on my kitchen counter.

  14

  Lucian

  Elaine was a butterfly with wings of so many wonderful fucked-up colors they could blind a man if he looked too deep. I didn’t understand her. I shouldn’t want to. She shouldn’t transfix me like some kin
d of fucked-up fool.

  I was back in the Merc like a man possessed before I could stop myself as the day reached its close, heading out alongside everyone with a regular day job, even though I’d already faced the wrath from my father.

  “What the fuck is happening to you, Lucian? Why are you abandoning Holdings?”

  Abandoning was a severe way of looking at a few shorter days at the office, but he was right. As pitiful as it was, he was right. My brain was not as committed to Morelli Holdings this morning as it had been every other day I’d been in power.

  I only wished I’d have had more acceptable truth to be able to share with my father. His promise to eradicate me as corporate leader if I didn’t sort out my actions was full of venom. So was his questioning about Elaine Constantine and just what the fuck I knew about her disappearance. Again, I had no acceptable truth I could share with him, so my answers were all vague nothings, at odds with every core aspect of my soul.

  It was his truth to share with me that had my senses reeling beyond all recognition.

  “Elaine Constantine told her family directly that it was the Power Brothers waiting for her outside. By letter. She told them by letter. A hand scrawled letter on her kitchen counter.

  Now we have to pick a side, boy. The Power Brothers or the Constantines. Only you’ve gone and fucked it for us. You’ve been digging into the Power Brothers about the silly bitch they’ve taken, and they don’t trust our loyalty. We could have paired up with them, Lucian. We could have paired up with them and used our combined strength to destroy those Constantine cunts for good.”

  Yes, we could have. Yes, we should have. Yet more fucking should’ves to consider.

  My course of action was clear and determined as I pulled up into my pathetic driveway at Kington Peak. I was going to get to the bottom of Elaine’s crazy letter game and what the fuck she was thinking, and then I was going to destroy her for good. I was going to take that sweet little virgin cunt of hers as mine while she spat out all her filthy secrets and then wipe her out. Enough thinking, and talking, and threatening. Action.

  I was expecting a presentation of her usual impudence as soon as I stepped over the threshold, but she wasn’t parading about the place waiting to give me shit. She wasn’t in the hallway and she wasn’t in the living room, even though the TV was still blaring out with her face on the screen. I had a flash of panic that she’d smashed a window and got the fuck out. But she was in the kitchen, and the sight of her caught my breath – sitting down on the floor with her knees up to her chest, lost to the world around her.

  That squicky bastard of a feeling got me again, in the gut this time. The one I hated, that made no sense to me, that was all about Elaine fucking Constantine.

  I forced myself through it and yanked her up to her feet, slamming her into the counter like a piece of meat ready for the slaughter. Only that’s when she caught my breath again, that’s when I finally saw the streaks of tears down her pretty cheeks and realized what they were for.

  The blood was crusty on her thighs, cuts still raw from where she’d butchered herself. I should’ve loved it, but I didn’t.

  Should’ve, should’ve, should’ve.

  The thought of anyone touching her flesh that wasn’t me, even herself, was enough to slam me with rage.

  “What the fuck is this?” I barked at her. “What the fuck do you think you were doing?”

  This time there wasn’t even a spark of spite in her as she stared up at me. She was a broken little girl, lost to every hurt and fear in the world.

  I bent down to retrieve the knife from the floor. She’d picked the best, clearly determined for the cleanest slices. She flinched as I slammed it down onto the counter.

  “Just give me some fucking alcohol and I won’t need to,” she told me.

  She was shaking, clearly wallowing in her own shit and unable to get a grip of it. There they were, peeping through the surface – those intoxicating little butterfly secrets.

  “Seemingly I’ll need to lock up the essential kitchen basics from you and leave you with baby cutlery, won’t I? Damaged little excuse for a bitch.”

  Her eyes got their venom back at that point. Her jaw tightened.

  “Fuck you, Morelli! You have no fucking idea how damaged I am. Go fuck yourself!”

  “No, I don’t,” I said. “But I’ll find out. Those filthy little secrets inside you will be mine for the taking, Elaine. I can’t wait to see just how damaged you really are.”

  “Don’t count on it,” she spat. “I hate you way too fucking much to tell you any fucking thing. You won’t know shit about me!”

  She tried to pull away, but I wouldn’t let her. I pressed up against her with my hands either side of the counter top. She was pinned. Contained. Mine.

  I laughed in her face. “Clearly, you don’t hate me nearly so much as you hate your own family, sweetheart. Them or the Power Brothers it seems. You must have a secret dirty liking for the Morellis, little girl, seeing how you set the Power Brothers up for my crime.”

  Her stare was piercing and up close.

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, asshole.”

  She was lying. We both knew it. As always, the little bitch was lying.

  “It seems you wrote a damning little letter, didn’t you?” I whispered with spite. “A scrawled little note to tell the world you’d been taken by Elliot Ree from the Power Brothers.”

  She tried to lie some more. “I just wanted them to take some shit for all the hell they put me through. I just wanted them to suffer!”

  I gave her an evil smile. “Oh, dolly, really? You hate the Power Brothers more than the Morellis? What a pathetic little slut you are.”

  My dolly didn’t try to lie again. She just stared, hating me.

  I couldn’t hold back my own hate, leaning in even closer to taunt her with my spite.

  “I’d even dare to say you hate your own family more than the Morellis, little bitch, don’t you? Maybe you aren’t worthy of the Constantine name.”

  “I’m damn well worthy of the fucking Constantine name,” she snarled at me, and then the bitch found a flare of life in the depths of her.

  She twisted between my arms like a snake, scrabbling against the counter to reach for the blade, and then she grabbed it. The little bitch grabbed it and let out a screech as she plunged it straight through my hand.

  “FUCK YOU, MORELLI! FUCK YOU!”

  That’s when she should have run like a crazy thing and tried to get the fuck out of there. She tried to, really she did. She made to run, but I was still fixing her tight.

  I was smiling. Smirking. Loving just how horrified she was when she saw I didn’t flinch in the slightest. My hand was bound to the wood of the counter, and I didn’t even let out a curse.

  Elaine was so shocked that she drained white when I pulled the blade free of my hand and cast it straight back onto the counter.

  “What the fuck?!” she spat. “What the fuck is wrong with you? I just sliced right through your fucking hand, Lucian! Are you out of your head?”

  My smirk stayed strong. My laugh was every bit as evil as she’d ever known.

  As it turns out, Elaine Constantine wasn’t the only one holding on to deep secrets. I’d been holding on plenty tight to my own.

  15

  Elaine

  My whole body was rocked, but I couldn’t move, staring in shock and horror at the way Lucian pulled the knife out of his hand. He didn’t flinch, didn’t falter, didn’t express even a moment of pain. I didn’t get it, didn’t understand, just stayed numb on the spot as he wrapped his bleeding hand in a towel.

  “I mean it, Lucian,” I managed to whisper. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  He was still smirking. “What the fuck is right with me, more like it.”

  I still didn’t fathom it. I couldn’t. His hand was already bleeding through the towel but he didn’t give a fuck.

  “Are you on some kind of drugs or something?
What the hell?”

  His eyes were as dark as ever as he answered me.

  “I have congenital insensitivity to pain. Nothing you ever do will hurt me, little girl. If you have any sense in that pretty head of yours, you’ll abandon all hopes of it now and do whatever the fuck you’re told.”

  I tried to digest his words, but it was hard. I’d never heard of anyone having any kind of congenital insensitivity to whatever. I’d definitely never heard of anyone talking about it when they talked about Lucian Morelli, and they would have. They’d have talked about it plenty if they’d have known.

  So they didn’t know, did they?

  Lucian Morelli had secrets.

  My thoughts were spinning, and so were my words.

  “Nothing will hurt you? For real? Nothing?”

  “Nothing.”

  It was so weird. Nothing.

  The monster’s eyes were so cold, but there was a hint of something else in his gaze, some kind of weird vulnerability in his darkness. I was right . . . people would have talked about Lucian Morelli having congenital insensitivity to pain if they had known.

  Nobody knew he didn’t feel pain.

  “Is this why you hurt people so much?” I asked him. “Because you have no idea what it feels like? Maybe if you did, you wouldn’t be such an evil dick to people.”

  “That’s none of your fucking business,” he snarled. “I don’t need an excuse to be an evil dick to people, don’t try to make one for me.”

  I leaned back against the counter. “I wasn’t going to. You can’t excuse being that much of a sadistic asshole with a damn illness.”

  We stood staring, eye to eye, both of us hating each other, both of us curious, both of us in so much of a fucked-up state we must have been in some surreal dimension in Constantine-Morelli hell.