by Jade West
Please, Uncle Lionel. No. No. Don’t let them in. Don’t let them hurt me.
I kept my attention firmly on the other chattering tables and the man taking up his position onstage. I wanted to enjoy it. I wanted to love being there, and love being away from my addiction weaknesses, just for one night. I wanted to love the people around me and believe, for just a second, that they truly loved me back. Me and not the sheen of the me I presented to the outside.
Tonight’s list of auction items were the same usual dross. Gowns and designer sessions and diamonds and pearls. Vacations to some of the top venues in the world and a personalized song from one of the most bland A-list singers.
People lapped it up. My mother raised her hand to several of them, grinning away like a sugar plum fairy when she beat off the competition.
“For you,” she said to Lionel, once she’d won the trip to a London city boudoir hotel.
“What a darling sister-in-law I’m blessed with,” he said with a garish twinkle in his eye. “My brother was a lucky soul.”
That’s when my tongue burst free from my mouth.
“Your brother is a dead soul,” I spat, barely audible under my breath. “Your brother was a lucky soul enough to be murdered by someone who wanted what was his. If only we knew who that was. Hey, Uncle Lionel, do you know who that was?”
“Enough!” Mom hissed, then realized just how hard she’d snapped. She pasted on that grin of hers all the brighter, waiting a few long seconds before leaning into the table to give me more. “You’re not a child anymore, Elaine. Whatever it is you need to get over about your father’s death, it’s about time you did it. Grow up and stop being a nasty little bitch about your Uncle Lionel, too. I’ve told you enough. Plenty enough.”
I hated it when she spoke to me like that. I could feel our Constantine table all sinking inside, each one of us fully aware of the bristling tension between me and the head of the family.
Grace, Vivian, and Tinsley lined the table to my left, and Kingston and Harlow, on Lionel’s side, were on the right. Yeah. Everyone knew about the tension.
Everyone knew I was a failure. A compulsive, worthless failure. Why not just join in with the pitiful joke of the whole damn thing? So, I did. Just like usual, I did. I pasted on my own fake smile, and then I summoned up my finest bravado for the room.
I did it for me. I did it in the face of Uncle Lionel and all the shit he made me feel inside. I did it because I didn’t know what else to cling to, other than my own spectacle of glorifying myself somehow in this hell of a room.
I gave up on my mineral water and poured myself a glass of champagne, not giving a shit about waiting for the server. I glugged some back and put my hand in the air to bid on a penguin adoption at the local zoo, ignoring the pounding in my chest, knowing plenty fine that I was in too much debt already to give a shit about a few more thousand dollars. I could win this. I could win this and win the applause that went along with it. Just a pathetic little smattering of applause for the pathetic little soul who couldn’t do any better than adopt a fucking penguin.
But it wasn’t a few thousand dollars I was bidding, not after the first few seconds.
Five thousand . . . eight thousand . . . twelve . . .
Mom was scowling at me, but I was past it, downing more champagne and keeping my hand in the air.
I wasn’t going to lose this.
Harriet squeezed my knee under the table, but I took no notice.
Eighteen thousand dollars! Eighteen!
“Elaine,” Mom began, but I didn’t listen, just kept my hand up high.
Lionel attempted a laugh at me, trying to brush aside my efforts as nothing, and that made it burn all the harder in my chest, keeping my hand right on up there.
I didn’t have eighteen thousand dollars. I barely had anything left anymore. I’d used it on drugs, and partying, and running up debt in places I shouldn’t . . . in people I shouldn’t. Places and people I could never share with my family without them scoffing at me. The Power brothers were after me and my backlog, charging interest at an unbelievable rate and knowing full well I’d have to pay it without going begging to my mother since there were rumors everywhere she’d already written me off.
She had. Those rumors were true.
Twenty thousand dollars!
My mind was swimming in the fear and the shame and the insanity of not knowing my own heart anymore. It was swimming in the need to win, just to be someone, even if it was just for a few short moments of getting the cheers from the crowd.
“Elaine!” Mom tried again, but I didn’t listen.
Harriet squeezed my knee even tighter, but I didn’t listen.
Twenty-two thousand dollars!
The woman battling me was a celebrity wrestler’s daughter who was trying to make it as a model, and failing. I guess she was trying to prove herself to the room and the tabloids as much as I was.
Twenty-four thousand dollars!
Mom was scowling, even through her false whoops of cheer.
Twenty-seven thousand dollars!
Zelda Hart. The wrestler’s daughter was Zelda Hart. I’d heard of her attempting some celebrity singing contest and failing.
Twenty-eight thousand dollars!
“Seriously,” Harriet whispered. “Please, Elaine, what are you doing? I didn’t think you had the . . .”
Her voice trailed off. My hand stayed high in the air.
Twenty-nine thousand dollars!
I felt sick. Hungry for cocaine. Fit to throw myself from the chair and give up on everything. But it was about the applause. It was about drowning out my own inner demons, just for that one short minute. It was about drowning out the demons of Uncle Lionel and his shadowy friends with their shadowy secrets in the corners of mine.
And drowning out the demon that was Lucian Morelli.
Holy fuck, Lucian Morelli was a demon. A demon I wanted to possess me and my worthless soul.
THIRTY! Thirty thousand dollars!
I had to stop thinking about Lucian Morelli. Somehow, I had to stop thinking about Lucian Morelli.
It knocked me back when Zelda’s hand dropped at the other table. She clapped her hands and let out a cheer for me across the room, and it was on me. Every iota of attention in that whole ballroom was all on me.
I’d done it. I’d won some shitty penguin when I didn’t have enough cash to buy my soul an escape from hell.
My eyes felt glassy and dead in my skull, and the applause meant nothing when it came. Mom’s disgust still rang loud through my veins, even though she was grinning along with the rest of the crowd.
But then a voice sounded out. A voice that made no sense to me. A British accent so clear and true, it took my breath.
“Fifty-thousand dollars,” the man said.
No.
It couldn’t be.
I saw his darkness. I saw the solidity of his stance. I saw the frame of his glasses as he held his hand up to the auctioneer like he was the calmest guy on the planet.
I saw the clothes he was wearing that looked nothing like Morelli attire, and the voice recorder and camera he had positioned so visibly on the table next to him.
Surely not. Surely people knew this was him. Surely, they could see it.
But no.
It seems they didn’t.
I expected Mom and Lionel to be beside themselves, and the rest of our table along with them, but they didn’t move, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the evil god Morelli heir was standing up in our event, plain as day.
I couldn’t stop staring.
My hand was trembling as I dropped it back to the table top, because I had to be wrong. I had to be losing my mind.
“And the penguin goes to the amazing gentleman on table five!” the guy on stage called out, and the applause struck up even louder, all for the monster in our midst.
“What is your name, sir?” the guy asked as soon as the noise calmed enough to get his words across.
I guess i
t’s the thing with such boldness. People wouldn’t ever suspect anyone could be so brave, or so crazy. Nobody would believe Lucian Morelli would walk into one of the Constantine social events, like he was any other guy on the street seeking a show. I mean we did it sometimes, crossed Morelli paths when we really had to, at the social functions our prides couldn’t escape from. But not often. Not at events like this one.
Nobody knew it was him. Truly, nobody knew it was him.
Nobody but me.
“Your name?” the guy on stage prompted again, and the monster shot me a shiver of a glance before he answered, his British accent still faultless as he uttered his words.
“Terence Kingsley,” he said. “Journalist for the National Telegraph, London. I’m bidding on behalf of one of our senior shareholders. He wishes it to be an anonymous donation.”
It was Harriet who leaned in to my side when the applause started up again, her giggle a surprise enough to jar my senses.
“There you go,” she whispered, right into my ear. “You can stop thinking about Lucian Morelli now. You can lust after that guy instead, he looks just like him. Shame about the glasses.”
I should have told her that Terence Kingsley was a mask on a magician. A magician out to cast my heart under his spell and then destroy me.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t tell a soul.
Once again, I didn’t dare.
15
Lucian
So many fools in this place, cheering and clapping. So many fools believing I was some paltry journalist from across the Atlantic. I raised my glass to the stage and took a pitiful little bow.
Fuck knows how my insanity had sunk low enough that I’d paid fifty thousand dollars just to enjoy the look on that bitch’s face when she saw me stealing her applause. That’s what it was, of course. It was stealing her applause and seeing the shock and fear on her face when she realized it was me. It definitely wasn’t me saving her from her own goddamn craziness of bidding thousands for a penguin when she had the fucking Power brothers on her back for her debts.
The Constantine table was clearly oblivious to the fact that the real Terence Kingsley was buried deep in the depths of the London slums. To them, he was right there amongst them, with his pathetic camera on the table as a disguise.
The head of the family was modest in her applause, pasting on her regal smirk as she clapped for me. Her brother-in-law was already half drunk at her side, raising his hands in the air.
Elaine didn’t try to alert them. Her eyes were on me, and her breaths were ragged, but she didn’t say a fucking word.
More fool you, bitch. More fool you.
I sat myself back down and kicked back, sipping on yet another mineral water while the table of crappy reality TV stars around me did their best to be caught by the cameras. I hated charity events; they were the very epitome of tackiness and arrogance, everyone patting themselves on the back for being such selfless saints in their overblown lifestyles. That and saying their Hail Marys on the path to the eternal divine.
At least I knew I was an evil piece of shit. My path to hell was already paved in sin. Soon it would be paved in Elaine Constantine’s blood and pain, too.
There were another twenty lots auctioned off by the time the ass of a presenter on stage fucked off and left people in peace. The majority of people were straight up from their tables, doing their usual cheap socialising, and so was Terence Kingsley.
It was hilarious when I stepped up close enough to Caroline Constantine that she reached for my arm.
“Such a noble bid from your shareholder,” she said to me with a smile. “Would that be Winston Warwick by any chance?”
I tapped my nose. “I’m not allowed to say, of course, but you may well be right on that.”
She slapped her brother-in-law on the arm. “I knew it. I knew it would be Winston.” Her eyes were glinting when they met mine. “Don’t worry, Mr Kingsley. I won’t say a word to him. He’s such a generous soul.”
Winston Warwick was a cunt, and I knew it plenty well enough. He manipulated the UK tabloid media so ridiculously that I’m surprised the general populous didn’t scoff at his bullshit, but they didn’t. They lapped up the sensationalist trash and kept on begging for it.
Elaine was sitting at the table alongside the rest of her family, her big blue eyes honed right in on me. My smirk spoke volumes as I stepped away from her mother. I made sure to brush by her seat, close enough that she could feel me.
I wasn’t expecting her to up and follow me as I headed to the next round of morons to chat shit to.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” she hissed at me before I arrived at the next table.
My gaze must have been cold and vile when it pounded into hers. “Being a saint to the world, of course. Be thankful I saved you a fortune. Maybe it’ll save your ass a few extra days from the Power brothers.”
She visibly flinched. “What the fuck do you know about me and the Power brothers?”
I leaned into her so closely that I could almost taste her neck when I answered. “I know you are in danger at their hands, silly little girl.”
She shrugged. “I’m in danger from a lot of people. They can join the club, can’t they?”
I found myself gripping her arm before she could move away. “Who the fuck else is after you?”
She turned her face to me, and she was close, so fucking close that her lips were just an inch away from mine. She was wearing rich dark red, and it contrasted against her blonde so well that it was a haven of temptation. Her cleavage was rising and falling with her breaths, and I wanted crimson blood all over her tits to match her dress.
Her words were a whisper when she spoke. “Why the fuck do you care who is after me? Just get your act together and make sure you’re first in line if you want to kill me. Don’t want to miss your chance.”
My reply was a growl in a crowded room of giggles and gossip. “I said, who the fuck else is after you, Elaine?”
Her eyes were pools of pain, underneath her bravado. “And I said, why do you care?”
With that, some loudmouth prick slapped my back, and this one was from London, wanting to talk about the National Telegraph. Elaine wasted no time in slipping away.
I managed five seconds of conversation before I excused myself and tracked her down. She was weaving her way through standing guests, pitching her route to the rear double doors with her perfect blonde hair bouncing on her shoulders.
The corridor outside the hall wasn’t empty when I caught up with her, but I didn’t care. I took her elbow and steered her to the side, pushing us down into some staff catering alley.
“Stay away from me!” she snapped, and this time around she tried to pull away. She lashed out with her hands and knees, a look of rage on her face as she tried to fight me.
She barely even managed to touch me before I pinned her, wrists high. Her clutch tumbled to the floor and the contents fell out onto the carpet. Makeup and cell and purse. She was panting, scared, hating me with every breath, but still she couldn’t fight it. She couldn’t hide the truth under the lies and the lashing out.
She wanted me.
And I wanted her.
Right there and then, beyond all doubt, I knew it. We were both crazy fucking freaks in a crazy fucking world.
“I never had you down for a stalker,” she rasped as her breath calmed. “Your family would laugh at you if they could see you right now. That or break your kneecaps.”
“What makes you think my attendance is about you?” I snarled. “I could be tracking down any one of your repulsive family right now.”
She ground her stomach against my swollen dick in my pants, and she laughed at me. Somewhere, summoned from a deep little surge of spirit inside her, she laughed at me.
“It seems the Constantine family aren’t all so repulsive, are we?” she said. “Not since you’re hard for one of us.”
“This has nothing to do with my cock,” I told her. “Your f
amily are all due to perish, I’m just fulfilling my oath to live up to my family name.”
“Take me,” she whispered, and it surprised me so much I caught my breath. “I mean it,” she said. “Please, just fuck me before I die. At least give me that one little pleasure, tease me before you destroy me.”
Jesus Christ, she was already trashed on champagne. Her lips were so inviting. Her legs were a honey trap as she spread them for me. Her tits were aching to be mauled, and hurt, and teased.
I asked her the question again. “Who the fuck else is after you, Elaine?”
“I don’t care,” she said. “They can come after me. I don’t care anymore.”
It was beyond fucked up that I was seemingly more bothered about her survival than she was. Her legs were still spread and she was still grinding, her champagne breath hot on my lips.
“Please,” she repeated. “Please, Lucian, just fuck me. Make it hurt all you like, but please show me what it’s like to be taken.”
Sure, she was drunk, but not quite drunk enough to be rattling off shit she didn’t mean. Her pupils were wide, but they were focused, and I could tell from everything about her, plus from years of knowing what drugs do to the people caught up in them . . . Elaine Constantine wasn’t off her tits on cocaine. Not tonight.
“You must be craving the powder somewhat since you’re clearly going without it,” I said to her. “Are you in so much debt that nobody will give you just a few pathetic lines?”
She tipped her head at her bag on the floor. “I’ve got plenty in there, you can check if you want. I don’t need it. I’m not taking it anymore.”
I laughed in her face. “Like fuck you don’t need it. You’ve got addict written all over you. You fucking reek of it.”
“I don’t care what you think. Think what you like.”
That sentence maddened me much more than her laughter had. I pressed my knee against her pussy, so hard I damn well knew it would hurt.
“Everyone gives a fuck what I think,” I snarled. “I’m Lucian Morelli. My word is God.”
