by Jade West
I guess my tone was genuine when it sounded out next, because I saw his eyes lighten just a touch.
“Is that something you’ve had your whole life? Did they try to fix you? They tried to fix you, right?”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t want to be fixed.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because pain is a weakness, Elaine. I’m free of it. I’m stronger for it.”
I didn’t believe him. Pain wasn’t a weakness. Pain was a truth and a connection to yourself. Pain was something that made us stronger, not weaker.
“Is it something you’ve had your whole life?” I asked again.
“Yes,” he said. “From when I was young enough to scrape my knees and not cry along with it.”
I could only begin to imagine the little toddler Lucian with bleeding legs, not needing to cry for his mom.
“Who else knows?” I pushed. “People must know, right?”
“None of your business,” he told me, but I shook my head.
“Seriously, Lucian. You can’t tell me it’s none of my business. I just stabbed you through the hand, and you’re telling me you didn’t feel it, and now you’re trying to take my interest away from that crazy-as-fuck fact with a none of your business?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Your interest?”
I nodded. “Yeah, interest. You are an interesting piece of shit, Lucian Morelli, even if I can’t stand you.”
I knew he was trying to hide a laugh at my bold words. Sometimes I definitely made him laugh inside, no matter how much he wanted to hate me 24/7.
“Forget about it,” he said with a fresh scowl. “Believe me, you’ll be paying for your actions badly enough already.”
I didn’t give a shit about that. I was more interested in the weird creature in front of me than I was in what he was going to do with me.
Congenital insensitivity to pain . . . I wondered if the rest of his family had it too. The question was out of my mouth before I’d even realized I was saying it.
“Who else around you has it? Nobody talks about you guys having it. I’d have heard.”
He walked away far enough to flick the coffee machine on, the intensity of the mood broken.
“I said, none of your fucking business, Elaine. Shut your interfering little mouth.”
I didn’t want to shut my mouth, I wanted to know every little bit of his secrets. I was like the sneaky little girl tiptoeing through everyone else’s mysteries all over again, curious.
“I can hear your brain ticking,” he told me. “Forget it. It’s my business, not fit for a Morelli, let alone a Constantine.”
My brain sure was ticking.
“The other Morellis don’t know, then? You didn’t tell anyone?”
He poured a coffee, and he was bristling, frustrated, but he wasn’t all set to kill me, not like he had been when he came through the door.
I waited quietly as he took a sip of his drink, wondering just what other secrets his body was holding tight.
Maybe we were both creatures of secrets. Maybe there was more in common between us than I’d have ever believed.
I watched him, trying to understand. I tried to imagine what it must be like in a body like his, so perfect but so oblivious to pain. What must it be like to watch everyone around you crying out when things hurt them, but not having a clue how on earth that could feel?
I got a shiver as I began to realize just what that might mean for a man like Lucian . . . just what that could lead to . . . such natural sadism . . . such natural need to hurt people . . .
“So that’s why, isn’t it? That’s why you’re such a fucking psycho?”
That riled him. He jabbed a finger of his bloodied hand at me.
“I told you to mind your own fucking business,” he snarled.
But I couldn’t. My heart was racing too fast, because I was right and I knew it. I was right. He was fixated on causing people pain . . . and he would be . . . of course, he would be . . . he’d be fixated on causing people pain because he had none of his own . . .
“It makes you a sadist, doesn’t it?” I pushed. “Really, Lucian, it makes you a damn sadist.”
“Jesus Christ, shut your mouth!” he snarled under his breath. “I’ve got no time for your bullshit questions. I should have finished you off the very second I walked in tonight. You’re nothing but an annoying little bitch.”
He was trying to convince himself as much as me. I could see it all over him. I was like a bitch with a bone as I edged up closer to the monster.
“It makes you a sadist,” I said aloud. “You’re fascinated by how it might feel, and I get it. I really get it.”
His stare made me shudder when it landed on me again – a whole load of layers glistening through the surface, like a moth in the darkness with the faintest of color in his pitch black wings.
“You’ll be getting into trouble for asking me these dumbass fucking questions,” he told me. “Believe me, sweetheart, every single hint of a secret you hear from my mouth is one hell of a step away from you ever making it out of here alive. Think wisely.”
My heart leapt at the potential . . . the potential I might ever make it out of here alive. I should’ve shut my mouth with every resilient little scrap of my soul, regardless of whether or not I really did want to survive this place, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.
I was too interested in Lucian Morelli’s dirty deep secrets to back away.
16
Lucian
I was the most private person in all creation and always had been. I loved the power that keeping yourself dark and deep and separate from everyone else around you brought. The inequality in knowledge. The tip of the scales between their weaknesses and yours.
I didn’t have weaknesses. I’d never had weaknesses.
Even if I had weaknesses as a boy, they were fast chased out of me by my father. The Morelli heir had to be a monster of utter perfection.
Still, despite my lifetime of privacy, part of me wanted to tell Elaine my history. I wanted to see the shock in her pretty eyes as I told her the true Lucian Morelli story.
I wanted to see her open mouth as I told her about the very early days when Father noticed my insensitivity to pain, and how he’d tested my limits with his gritted jaw.
“Can you feel this, boy? Tell me when it hurts . . .”
His hand, then his belt, then the nasty cuts. The way he twisted my flesh and held me down and thumped me hard enough that it sent me flying.
I didn’t feel a thing.
Part of me wanted to. I wanted to know what it felt like to have my body so abused and broken.
He took me to the doctor, and then a specialist after him, on pain of death if they so much as recorded my results. Their reply was quick and definite. Congenital insensitivity to pain. My body had no concept of what hurting meant.
Father told me that it would be a sin against the Morelli name to tell a soul about my condition, even my mother. He told me that he’d be ashamed of me forever if I breathed a word of it to anyone in this world.
I didn’t tell them. I didn’t tell my mother, or my brothers and sisters, or any of my friends at school. I didn’t tell my teachers, didn’t explain a word to them why I didn’t ever cry out in sports matches when somebody crashed right into me. It was none of their business. Nothing about me was anyone’s business.
I don’t remember how old I was when other people’s pain began to fascinate me, but it did. Everyone’s pain began to fascinate me. The first time I ever acted on it was when I saw my classmate Anthony crying in the bushes after school one day, hurting after someone scraped his arm so hard he was bleeding. I recall how I stepped up to the sad little pussy once I’d made sure nobody was looking, fascinated enough to kick him over onto the grass and press my foot down onto his bleeding skin. I put my weight on him, hurting him even more, and he cried for me, squirming and squealing and begging me to stop. Even then, people knew better than to fight a Morelli.
I loved the flood of power I felt as he begged me with pleading, crying eyes. I felt like a god standing there, like a lord. It fascinated me. I had no idea what sensation would lead you to squirm and cry like that, so broken.
I don’t remember how old I was when that fascination took on a particularly strong taste for pretty girls with big, crying eyes. Maybe I was twelve or thirteen. I’d long grown to rule the schoolyard by slamming my punishment out on anyone I chose, but that was mainly on other boys – rivals and losers alike. Big for my age, I enjoyed going after older boys and making them suffer.
The first girl I hurt was Bethany Fryers. She was walking through the park after art class one day with a spring in her step, blonde hair swinging as she walked. I’d noticed her before, her gaze on me. Curious. Wanting.
My mouth watered at the sight of her, and my dick hardened like I’d known it to do at night for years. I had such a strong need to see her beg me to stop that it took my breath.
She recognized me the moment I pressed up behind her; she didn’t even need to see my face. She let out a gasp as I dragged her from the path and down the bank, well out of view of any passers-by. But she didn’t fight. Didn’t scream. If anything, she seemed to melt against me, her body willing even if her mind was shocked.
Her eyes were big and scared when she turned and saw me, and that made my dick even harder. But then she licked her lips, her tongue darting out as she reached for me with a shaking hand.
I slapped it away. This wasn’t about me. It was about what I could do to her. What I’d wanted to do for quite some time.
I hurt her where nobody else would see it. I unbuttoned her blouse and saw her pretty nipples there, and something made me want to hurt them worse than anything else. I did hurt them. I twisted them so hard in my fingers that she whimpered, and her whimper thrilled me even more than a shout from one of the boys. It felt private somehow. Her shallow little breaths made me feel like more of a god than I’d ever known.
Instinct takes over, even at that age. Biting her felt like the most natural thing in the world. I loved the marks I left on her, so pink against her skin. I knew they would bruise and hurt her later as well as in the moment. I wanted to hurt her over and over again just to keep those marks alive on her skin.
She was older than me, probably sixteen. Her tits were a lovely shape that jiggled just right when I slapped them.
“Ahhh, owww. Owww. Lucian, please . . .”
Only it wasn’t just a cry of pain as I squeezed her and pulled her nipples. There was more in her eyes as she arched her back for me, even as she was whimpering . . . and then that whimpering changed to a different type of whimper.
She came from nothing more than my violence on her meek skin, her mouth open as she moaned for me. That was power.
“You tell anyone about this and you’re dead,” I growled at her as I let her go, and she nodded. She knew the score.
She also knew that every single week from then on, after art class, I’d be waiting for her, in exactly the same spot at exactly the same time. She didn’t fight me, because she knew there would be no point. What’s more, she wanted what I dished out, wanted it so badly she never strayed from that exact path. She was a meek little bitch as she followed me down the bank to our usual spot, spreading herself wide open so I could hurt her however I wanted.
Bethany Fryers was the first girl I fucked.
She was the first girl I fucked so hard it hurt her, and that thrilled me more than ever.
I was like a demon possessed as I hunted down other pretty girls I wanted to be inside of, and I found them. Found the ones who craved the sort of pain I dished out, needed it so much they’d beg me for it. I found so many of them I lost count through the years.
Father knew about it. I think eventually one of the girls’ daddies found out about what I was doing and confronted him at Morelli Holdings.
I was scared shitless as he walked into my room one evening with that dangerous look in his eyes. I knew he knew. I could see it before he said a word.
I wondered what he was going to do to punish me, seeing as his belt would make no difference whatsoever, not like it did with my brothers. As it turns out, he didn’t punish me. He sat down on the bed next to me with a strange smile on his face.
“I always knew you’d be a nasty boy,” he said to me. “Believe me, Lucian, it’s a good thing. You need to be a strong, nasty man to lead the Morelli Empire. One day, you’ll need it.”
I nodded, because I knew he was right, even at that age. I’d heard about it in whispers, all the bad things my family did to people, and how it made us so rich and strong.
Father put his hand on my back before he carried on speaking, and I felt so close to him that it gave me a weird pang in my gut.
“Hurt people, and enjoy it,” he told me. “Hurt women, and enjoy it. Just make sure you keep it a secret. You’re always much more powerful when you keep things a secret, no matter what you have to do to keep them that way.”
“I will,” I said. “I’ll always keep it a secret.”
“Good boy,” he said, and ruffled my hair. “You really will be a great Morelli leader, you know that? Don’t worry about Kelly Victon’s father, he won’t be causing you any trouble.”
With that he was gone, and he never mentioned it again.
It didn’t matter how many people I hurt, or how many girls I touched, or how many boys I beat up until I was their ruler – he never mentioned it again.
Neither had I. Other than forging the Violent Delights BDSM club with Clark Vendana and signing Rex Halloway up for my virgin purchases, and Trenton Alto knowing way more about me than he should, I hadn’t spilled myself to anyone.
So why the holy fuck was I tempted to spill myself to Elaine Constantine?
17
Elaine
My insides were going crazy with nerves and flutters. That curiosity I knew so well was going wild inside me, desperate to know just what Lucian Morelli was hiding from the world.
He was quiet and brooding as he made another coffee, his hand still bleeding into the towel. I wondered if he needed a doctor for stitches, but he didn’t seem bothered in the slightest, and his hand seemed to be working just fine.
I didn’t push him, didn’t speak, just let him churn in his darkness. The thrill and hope was already burning deep inside me that maybe, just maybe, he’d tell me something. Anything. Just something to give my curiosity one little tickle.
Curiosity killed the cat, of course. I knew that. Still, I didn’t care. This cat was probably dying anyway.
“If you stab anyone in the hand again, you want to make sure you do it more centrally. You barely cut more than skin.”
If. If I stab anyone in the hand. Like I was ever going to see anyone.
I nodded at him. “Sure thing. I guess I’m a crappy hand stabber, my bad.”
He smirked, unable to hide the amusement, even though I’d just sliced him open.
“You have such an impudent little tongue on you, Elaine,” he said. “Some people might even find it funny.”
Some people like him, even if he didn’t want to admit it.
Still I kept quiet, letting him churn, letting him think. I couldn’t even imagine what went on inside a mind like Lucian’s. He was such a different creature to me that the very idea of the life inside of him must be like an alien planet. Or maybe the depths of hell.
I pretended not to care so much about what he might tell me, but it was a pointless exercise, I’m sure it was blatantly obvious that I was desperate to know. My thighs were still sore from the places I’d sliced them, but I didn’t give a crap about that anymore. I didn’t feel the need for that anymore. All I had need for was the words of the monster in front of me as he sipped at his coffee.
“It’s a power,” he told me after another minute of pure silence. “I’m immune to every pain that people want to dish out to me. I don’t give a shit for anything they might dish out, or how hard some asshole is who pins me. The
y either kill me or mean nothing.”
“You must wonder what it feels like though.”
I thought he was going to tell me to mind my own fucking business again, but he didn’t. He fixed me with that piercing stare of his and put his mug on the counter.
“I wonder what it feels like. I always have. I enjoy the thrill of watching it take over other people and seeing just how much it tears them apart.”
“I guess I would too,” I said with a shrug, and he pulled a face at me.
“You think you’d be a sadist, do you, if you didn’t know pain?”
I pulled a face right back at him. “No, probably not. I’d probably not be a sick fuck like you, but I’m sure I would be curious. I’m curious about everything.”
Another smirk from him. “Clearly you’re curious. If you weren’t overly curious you’d have the sense to shut your mouth.”
I dared to push him, just a little.
“When did you find out? You must have been young.”
I wasn’t expecting it when he told me. I’m sure my mouth must have been open when he told me just how much of a little boy he was and how his father had pushed his body for the truth. No wonder Lucian Morelli was so twisted, he’d been fucked up from one hell of an early age.
He pulled another face when he registered how my mind was working.
“He didn’t fucking abuse me, Elaine. He was finding out who I was.”
I didn’t agree with him but didn’t voice it. He carried on talking with a scowl.
“You have no idea how much power it gave me, knowing just how immune I was to hurt.”
“I have an idea how much power it gave you,” I told him. “Considering just how much you’ve used it to get your own way and bully people into submission every moment of your life. It’s just a shame you’ve never actually done things with people because they want to, not because you bully them.”
He spat out a counter at that. “That’s not true in the slightest. I’ve done plenty of things with people because they want to.”
