XV: (Fifteen) (War of Roses Book 1)

by Lana Sky

  The mattress trembles as he rears back and slips from my grasping channel. Before I can even catch my breath, he slides back in.

  And then he fucks me.

  I forget everything but how to breathe. I forget my own fucking name. The fact that he has no soul. His cruelty.

  Each drive of his hips pushes a tiny bit of my soul out. Through my pores. My throat.

  Robert made a boast once. I’ll fuck your brains out.

  He never came close.

  Mischa drives my entire being out of my body, forcing himself into the empty spaces left behind. He’s primal, inching our bodies closer to the headboard with every thrust. Closer. Close. My fingers are braced against the wood before I know it, and his hands tighten over my hips, pulling me into him with every brutal claiming.

  I’m painfully aware of the fact that he is the one inside me. The one demolishing me. No one else. For once, my thoughts only contain a single name and it spills from my lips like a prayer. “Mischa—”

  Blood rushes to my head as his fingers find my neck and squeeze. He shoves me down, pinning my face to the mattress. “Again,” he grates out between pants. “Say…again.”

  I do and the final thrust undoes him. He comes with an intensity that catches me off guard. Molten energy spills into me without a valve to slow the overwhelming pace. The last spurt has barely entered me before he draws back, letting me collapse breathless against the twisted sheets.

  I hear the hiss of a zipper being redone. Then footsteps retreat from the room. A door opens.

  Slams.

  And I’m alone.

  I don’t wait for shame to descend this time. In the aftermath of the chaos, I manage to scrape together what’s left of my pride and gingerly stagger to my feet. The room is not only spacious, but grander than I first realized. The furniture is old but well maintained: polished oak. Just where are we?

  The light fixtures are silver, made of delicate designs that resemble vines twisting from the paneled walls. It’s a style that reminds me of Winthorp Manor’s—at least before Briar convinced her father to “update” some of the interior rooms.

  The smell here is the same. Old. Prestigious. Unwelcoming.

  For all its grandeur, this room could be no less personal than the one in the hotel, but subtle clues lurk in plain sight. The black sheets are of the highest quality. A polished dresser contains a neat array of men’s clothing. Not gray fatigues, but shirts and slacks. There’s an en suite bathroom grander than the one attached to my room in Robert’s suite. The floors are gleaming obsidian marble. There’re a sunken tub and a separate enclosed shower. Granite countertops support a double sink, while the polished mirror above them displays a reflection that appears hideously out of place among the finery.

  The shadow of Robert’s wife stares back at me with hollow eyes. She seems so lost. So broken. Her healing wounds look even worse in the soft glow cast by the ornate light fixtures that illuminate the room.

  Mischa’s brand screams against my pale skin. My right eye is purple, partially shut beneath swelling. My neck is reddened, my body a collage of scars and bruises both new and old. It should be hard to discern what marks were left by Robert and those inflicted by Mischa. Hard, but not impossible. Robert is methodical in his madness. He placed his wounds strategically, with thought and care put into every scrape, scratch, and cut.

  Mischa is reckless. My body isn’t his canvas. It’s his plaything.

  Which is worse? To be used slowly and sparingly? Or to be chewed and swallowed alive?

  My eyes water in my reflection and I turn away, unwilling to learn the answer.

  Were I to play by Robert’s rules, my next action would be to huddle on the middle of the bed and wait for his return. Only then could I bathe, and change the sheets, and finally rebuild my armor piece by piece. He’d break me down all over again, but that was the point. He liked me cleanly refreshed like a reset game board.

  Now…

  I run the bath, turning the water to scalding. Lying in the center of the tub, I wait until the water reaches my chin, bathing sore, battered limbs. I let time wash the pain away while my heartbeat settles into a gentle rhythm. In this sliver of peace, I try to forget both the man I was taken from and the man still inside me.

  One dies quietly, his memories easily silenced.

  The other…lingers. I smell him, even here. His flavor develops on the tip of my tongue, making it impossible to forget that I don’t crave him how a woman should want a man. I don’t want softness. No, I’m addicted to the sting of his poison. I like the way it feels when it’s dribbled into my open wounds. The pain is different from what I’m used to. A distraction.

  A drug.

  My heartbeat flutters even before I sense that I’m no longer alone. I feel his breath first, ruffling my damp hair and basting my wet flesh. Alarmed, I fling my eyes open to his hardened expression. His narrow as they take in my half-submerged body. Is he surprised by my deviation from our usual script?

  If so, he hides his shock well. The muscles in his arms ripple as he crosses them over his chest and cocks his head in an animalistic manner, like a wolf sizing up half-eaten prey. Does it deserve a killing blow yet? Or should it suffer a little longer?

  “I want to know who you are,” he says without revealing his final decision. “Not that bullshit you spewed before. Who you are really.”

  What a question. I draw my knees beneath my chin, wrapping my arms around them. Hot water continues to flood in, causing steam to waft from the surface. “I…I don’t know what you mean—”

  “Start with your parents,” he suggests gruffly, “Who were they?”

  “I never knew my father,” I admit. “And my mother was a maid—”

  “Don’t.” Suddenly, he’s crouched beside the tub. The shadow he casts over the water reinforces his presence without him even having to touch me. “Don’t lie to me, Little One,” he warns. “You think I haven’t shown my mercy when you have before? You thought I didn’t notice?”

  A shudder runs down my spine, making the water slosh against the sides of the tub. It’s not fear of him that triggers the reaction, but of the words he wants to hear. The ones I’ve locked away for over twenty-three years.

  Slowly, I draw in a ragged breath and brace the whole side of my face against my knee, eyeing the wall opposite him.

  “My mother’s name was Marnie Winthorp,” I say haltingly. There’s no point in holding anything back, so I don’t. “Yes, that Marnie. Yes, Robert Sr.’s second wife. Yes, Briar’s mother.”

  Our mother.

  “But,” I add haltingly. “I am not Robert Sr.’s daughter.”

  CHAPTER 15

  “M arnie was your mother. How?”

  I stiffen at how he voices that question. Cautious, not shocked. Intrigued, not disbelieving. It’s almost as if he knew—or at least suspected the truth all along. Which is impossible. Unless Robert slipped in the handling of his most closely guarded secret.

  The burning desire to know for sure gives me the strength to glance over my shoulder to decipher Mischa’s expression for myself. He can’t even hide the curiosity glinting in his eyes.

  “I’m not sure,” I admit. “All anyone ever told me was that she left the manor shortly after Briar was born—”

  “Left?” He stresses the word, coating it in a warning.

  “Yes,” I say. “I don’t know why. A year later, she returned, pregnant with me. Robert, out of mercy, let her keep me, as long as she didn’t claim I was his and kept her indiscretion quiet.”

  Though, ironically, he was the one who never let anyone forget it.

  “And you know nothing about your father?” Mischa prods.

  “No. She never mentioned who he was.”

  “And you’re sure of that?”

  Again, he sounds too careful. As if he knows a secret puzzle piece missing from the narrative that I’ve yet to see for myself. Something to explain the sadness that coated my mother’s features like paint,
perhaps? It’s a dark thought I can’t escape. In a futile attempt to, I risk facing him directly—and instantly regret the action.

  He’s cold again, eyeing me as if I’m something best viewed from a distance. A threat. An enemy to be conquered.

  My body burns, remembering what it meant to be at his mercy, and I wrap my arms tighter around my knees—not that I can escape his scrutiny for very long.

  “So you lived there, in that fucking manor.”

  I nod, almost grateful for the change in subject. “Yes. I grew up alongside Briar, but she was more my mistress than my sister. I played with her. I cleaned up after her. I…” Loved her. “I didn’t know about the plan,” I say instead. “That I was a decoy. I didn’t… She asked me to join her at her wedding,” I admit, not recognizing the hard note in my own voice. The memories of that day hurt twice as much to relive with him watching. How happy I was. How naïve. How foolish. “She bought me new clothes. She did my hair… I didn’t know.”

  If he believes me, he says nothing and lets the silence linger between us while my own thoughts fester and feed on what little sanity I have left.

  Finally, he asks, “And your husband?”

  “Robert?” I inhale and exhale slowly, steeling myself for the next phase in my sordid tale. “He wasn’t cruel to me, growing up,” I admit. “His mother died when he was young and he rarely spent time at the manor. Though, when he did come home from school, he was never malicious. Some could say he protected me.”

  Or saved me for himself.

  “When I turned nineteen, he expressed his interest. I accepted it, knowing full well what that would mean.”

  I suppose I learned that lesson as a child: he taught me who the real monster was all along.

  “He never raped me.” It feels important to say that. With rape, there was a victim. My body, however, had been sacrificed.

  But did that make it any easier to bear?

  My heart shies from the answer. No.

  “I knew that he had f-fetishes,” I add thickly. “I knew he could be violent. I knew that being with him would be an ordeal within itself. But he was better than—” A sudden tightness in my throat chokes off my voice. My wounded cheek burns as tiny ripples form in the water around my chin, created by falling tears. “I made my choice,” I force myself to say. Hearing it out loud stings like nothing else. Not a million jagged cuts or bruises.

  But Mischa isn’t swayed by my emotions. He phrases an even crueler question as my tears continue to fall. “And me? You really think you remember me?”

  “I remember a boy,” I counter. “Someone who looked at me and showed me…”

  What? An ounce of humanity?

  “M-mercy,” I decide, sucking in a breath. “He showed me mercy—”

  “Don’t pretend!”

  I jump as his fingers slam against the rim of the tub, curling around the polished edge.

  “You think I don’t fucking know what game you’re playing? That I can’t smell it on you?” His nostrils flare as if to steal my scent. “Cunning. You feign your innocent act pretty well, but I’ve had more skilled women try to seduce me. Do you really think sex and false memories will make me pity you?” When I don’t speak, he grabs my chin, grinding his fingers into my jawline. “Fucking say it. Admit why you let me…”

  Fuck you.

  Is there a reason? One springs to my lips of its own accord. “I-I deserve it.” I don’t know where the words came from. Why they hurt so much to say. Why a part of me feels like they were ripped from some vital part of my soul even Robert couldn’t reach.

  If being around him has taught me one thing, it’s that all sinners receive their punishment eventually.

  “Deserve?” Surprise flickers across Mischa’s gaze for a split second before he lets me go and rises to his feet. “Trust a Winthorp to use sex as a punishment,” he mutters, laughing coldly at the irony. Without warning, he whirls on his heel and slams his fist against the wall with a thud that resonates through my entire being.

  Tense with anticipation, I wait for him to leave. To storm off.

  Instead…

  “Turn off the water.”

  My pulse surges as I lunge for the faucet and switch it off.

  “We’re not done,” he says, turning the full brunt of his gaze on me once again. My mind plays a dangerous game of roulette as I try to guess where his next question might lead. “You said your husband made you keep numbers for him…”

  “Y-yes.”

  “And you remember them? Don’t waste your breath lying to me again.”

  I just nod, too exhausted to keep up the charade. Robert’s secrets are my last to tell. “Every amount,” I admit with a heavy sigh. “Every name.”

  It was the final act of our game in a poetic sense. Robert gave me enough to destroy him. Then he locked me up tight and dared me to leave him. Was it his father’s idea to use me in his safety net for Briar? Had he let his son in on such a plan?

  I’m not sure. The Winthorps have their own inner language of tricks and power grabs played between them, with a convoluted tally no outsider could fathom.

  “You want me to give his accounts to you.” It’s not a question, and he doesn’t bother denying it. “And if I do…will you still sell me?”

  There’s no playing coy with him. He frowns at my attempt, his eyes flashing midnight. “And why shouldn’t I? I’ve experienced what you have to offer,” he reminds me, making my cheeks flame. “Forget the five thousand Boris offered. I could easily charge double.”

  Somehow, I manage to ignore the ferocity of the threat—no, his promise. I run my tongue over my cracked lips, tasting dried blood. “Do you really think you can beat the numbers out of me?”

  It’s not a taunt as much as it is a genuine question. Can this man best Robert Winthorp at a game of his creation? Does he really have what it takes to rip the truth from my head?

  Of course he does.

  But does he have the time?

  Precious minutes pass at his discretion, but the truth is clear: He doesn’t.

  “I’ll give you all I know,” I propose. “All I ask is that you don’t sell me as a whore. I won’t try to run. I won’t resist. I won’t fight when you…”

  When you kill me.

  “I swear,” I continue. “All I ask is that you do with me what you want. I don’t care. But don’t barter my body.”

  It’s a pathetic, simple request. Or so I believe, until I make the mistake of looking into his eyes and witness the darkness brewing there. The open hatred, so raw and consuming that it steals my breath away.

  “You think that you can make demands of me?” His voice breaks into two bone-chilling notes. One low and hollow, the other guttural. Animalistic.

  “N-no,” I stammer before he can finish taking a step in my direction. “I only want…your mercy.”

  It’s a word that I suspect would mean nothing to another man. A better man.

  For him? It’s a trigger. Boom! I’ve blown the lid off his rage without even trying.

  “Mercy?” He’s on his knees before I can blink, reaching into the tub for my throat, clenching the already sore flesh. “You think that you can demand mercy from me? Do you even know what that word fucking means?”

  “N-not demand,” I clarify, wheezing in my effort to get the words past his tightening grip. “Asking…for it.”

  Begging.

  He tilts my head back while simultaneously leaning closer, heedless of the tremor that quakes through me in response. With that cold, piercing gaze as his weapon, he slices me open and searches beneath my skin, hunting down any hint of deceit. Finally, he draws back.

  “I don’t barter with dead women,” he spits. “Or whores. Or the wives of my fucking enemies—”

  “What about a human being?” I wonder softly, marveling at the fact that I’ve challenged him at all.

  His fingers tighten in a silent threat, but I can still breathe. For now.

  “Someone who has nothing left t
o lose?”

  He chuckles at that and cocks his head to view me from a different angle. “And let’s say I don’t sell you. Am I supposed to care for two fucking ‘human beings’ out of the kindness of my soul, Little One? At least until I slit your throat?”

  Two?

  He laughs again as my brow furrows. “How quickly you fucking forget,” he scolds. “The girl you protected. Nicolai’s. I can’t let her go. She already knows too much.”

  No. My veins run cold with ice. “You wouldn’t…”

  “I will. I can’t keep her here out of charity. So, if I don’t sell you, are you willing to have her be put in your place?”

  No. I shake my head, feeling the ridge of his knuckles with every frantic movement. When he lets me go, I stare down at the water and fight to keep the fire building behind my eyes at bay. There’s no use in admitting my defeat out loud.

  Regardless, rare anger bubbles beneath my skin. Only the most subhuman of men use child pawns in their wicked games.

  “There’s something you want to say, Little One.” Mischa runs his thumb along the bruised side of my face in a terrifying display of encouragement. “Go on. Say it.”

  My lips unlock painfully. “For someone who claims to hate Robert Sr. so much…you seem determined to emulate him.”

  I expect a blow as punishment. My shoulders tense in a futile effort to brace for its impact. Instead, Mischa laughs again. He growls. Aware of his shadow flickering over the floor, I infer that he moves to a corner of the bathroom and snatches something from the wall, which he then throws at me. It bounces off my head and lands partially in the water. A white towel.

  “Get out,” he tells me, his voice strained with that dangerous calm I’ve come to fear.

  After releasing the stopper to allow the water to drain, I climb from the tub, draping the towel around my shoulders. Left with no choice, I follow Mischa into the main bedroom. Without a glance spared in my direction, he enters the hallway. Still wet, with only the towel to cover myself with, I’m forced to weigh embarrassment with obedience.