by Jade West
He wasted no time before speaking again.
“She knows you’ve been socialising with druggie downtown losers again, Elaine. She knows you’re fresh from another round of bail outs.” He tutted. “Cheapening the family name. Silly little girl you are. Such a silly little girl. If you have any sense, you’ll take her offer when you hear it.”
“Offer?” I asked, with no idea what he was talking about.
“Yes,” he said. “An offer. She has an offer for you. One I’ve created. You can thank me later.”
“An offer to bail me out of bailing out people downtown? I’m such a criminal, aren’t I?”
I found I was smiling, laughing to myself at the crazy disparity between my real crimes and their imagined ones. If only they knew the truth.
It seemed they’d heard fuck all about me fraternizing with the Morelli bloodline. Not yet.
“You’re right, you know,” I told him. “Yes, I have been saving people again. I enjoy the company of druggie downtown losers a lot more than the idiots at these kinds of shit shows. So many sick, selfish pricks.”
“Watch your fucking mouth,” he hissed under his breath, and even though my gut was twisting scared, I didn’t let myself back away from him. Not that day. Not anymore.
“You know something, Uncle,” I whispered. “Can you imagine what would happen if I shouted out your sins right here and now for all the idiots to hear?”
His breath caught, but he didn’t move, just stayed pressed tight to me.
“I can imagine,” he told me. “I can imagine just how everyone would condemn you as mad and laugh in your face for your vile fantasies, little girl.”
He ran his fingers down my spine, and I tensed as they reached my ass crack through the fabric of my dress. If only he knew who’d been inside me.
“I can teach you some more lessons about behavior whenever I choose, little girl,” he said. “Be very aware who you are speaking with. I still have a whole host of teachers ready to instruct you.”
“There is nothing you can teach me,” I hissed at him. “I’m long done with your lessons and your filth. You disgust me.”
“You are always so keen to lie,” he replied. “You were never long done with your lessons, darling. If that were so, you wouldn’t have kept being such a naughty girl for more. I still remember just how keen you were when your teachers came calling.”
I should’ve rushed away from him, but I didn’t. My whole body was rooted to the spot.
His mouth leaned right into my ear, and I shuddered but didn’t flinch.
“Can you remember how wet you were as a naughty little girl, Elaine?” he asked me. “I’ve told you before, good girls don’t get wet when they are trying to learn their lessons. I had plenty of men to teach you yours, but still you didn’t listen.”
“Stop,” I said, but he didn’t stop. He never did.
He tipped his head at the garden party around us, and I felt everything spinning, the world unsteady under my feet.
“Colonel Hardwick is joining us shortly,” he said. “So is Baron Rawlings. Shall I tell them how naughty you’ve been, cheapening our family, downtown with the fools who don’t know what prestige means in this world? Or maybe we could call up Reverend Lynch. I’m sure he has a whole load of new lessons for you. So many lessons.”
“Don’t,” I spat. “I hate them. I’d slit their throats one by one if I could.”
“There she is,” he tutted. “Lying again. Such a liar, Elaine. Always such a liar. You’ve always liked your lessons, even when you were a sweet little girl who should’ve known better.”
“No,” I said, but I could hear it in my voice. That confusion. Always such confusion, even down in the depths of pain and hurt and hate.
“As I told you, your mother wants to speak with you,” he said again, and his voice was nothing but flatline, bored. “If you have any sense in you, you’ll speak to her before you leave. The offer won’t be on the table forever.”
He walked away from me without a backwards glance, and I hated myself inside all over again. I hated everything about myself. I hated everything about them. I hated the stupid garden party I was a part of, and I hated everything in my life that was so fake and so filthy both at once.
I couldn’t catch my breath properly. I didn’t want to eat, and I didn’t want to drink, and I didn’t want to speak to anyone, let alone my bitch of a mother, so I did what I’d always done.
I retreated as gently as I could, brushing past the bathrooms in the hallway and slipping my way upstairs to my suite on the top floor of the compound.
Hide. Hide. Hide.
Hide and hurt.
It was my hiding room at the far corner of the landing that I retreated to. I opened the door to the storage room as softly as I could, then slipped inside. I dropped down and pulled my legs to my chest against the old armoire, rocking and crying and trying to hold my breath until I stopped swimming in the hurt.
I needed this.
I needed the remedy I’d used since I was too small to know better.
I lifted the edge of the carpet in the corner and pulled up the loose piece of floorboard I’d been using since I’d very first discovered it was there. Sure enough, it was waiting for me – my stash of wipes, tissues, bandages, band-aids, and a little roll of scalpel blades. I unrolled the felt bundle, already feeling the first hints of calm as I saw the blades there.
I tugged my dress up around my thighs and stared at my scarred skin through glassy eyes, letting out a gasp as I made the first slit in my flesh.
Oh yes.
Oh how I needed that.
How I needed the slice of pain and the tingling release of blood.
I thought of Stephen from London, gurgling on the floor, and I thought of Lucian Morelli’s tongue dancing around mine, and I did it again, another nick of the blade.
God yes.
I thought of how much I’d wanted the monster inside me and how much I’d loved it when he hurt me, and I did it again. Another nick of the blade.
I thought of how wet and needy I was when I thought of Lucian bringing me pain and making me want it, and I did it again. Another nick of the blade that made me hiss out a sigh.
I was bleeding. The blood was hot and dripping. And I wanted more.
Another nick of the blade that brought a rush through me that was better than any coke.
I thought of Baron Rawlings and his swollen red cheeks as he called me a naughty girl with his fat fingers groping at me. I thought of how he’d made me pay, hurting me so hard over his knees as I sobbed and told him I’d be better. I promised I’d be better.
Another nick of the blade.
I thought of Colonel Hardwick and how his naked body was so hard against mine. So big against my small one.
Another nick of the blade.
I thought about all the things my mother had said to me, so many times she’d called me a lying little girl when I’d tried to tell her the truth. All the nasty words she’d said that had shamed me into hiding away. Shamed me into hurting myself, punishing myself.
Another nick of the blade.
I thought about Lucian. Yet again, I thought about Lucian. I thought about the care in his eyes along with the hate and the rage when he killed another man for me.
And then I thought of him killing Colonel Hardwick and Baron Rawlings, too. I thought of him killing the men who’d hurt me when I was too small to know better.
I thought of him killing Reverend Lynch.
I thought about him killing Uncle Lionel for giving me away to the sinners.
I found myself wishing I could tell him the truth. Wishing I could tell Lucian Morelli the truth before I was gone.
Another nick of the damn blade.
The calmness found me, deep and dark. I loved the pain in my legs as they tingled from the cuts. I loved the way my blood trickled and dripped down my thighs.
Lucian Morelli wasn’t going to save me. He wasn’t going to hurt any of the men who’
d hurt me, because even if I could tell him, I wouldn’t. I’d never tell a soul as long as I lived.
I smiled to myself at that.
As long as I lived.
That wouldn’t be long.
Not anymore.
I’d seen the Power brothers that morning. I recognized the face of Elliot Ree outside the Central Apartment block as my chauffeur pulled away from the drive. They were coming for me.
I wiped the blood from my legs, pressed a wad of tissues to the cuts and relaxed back against the wall, sinking into the soothing calm, riding the ebb and flow of it as my body tried to make sense of my actions, until finally, the sobs and the trembling had stopped. I caught my breath, patched up my wounds and hid my stash away, then forced myself into some kind of walkable state, even without a few lines of cocaine to see me through it.
Mom wanted to speak with me. No shit. I knew she’d have plenty to say. Holy hell knew what her offer would be, but I was damn sure it wouldn’t be a good one.
I made sure my tears weren’t showing before I made my way back downstairs.
My heart stuttered as I realized my mother was already a floor down by the main staircase. Waiting.
As always, her face was one of utter disgust when she saw me there, her lip nothing but a snarl of disdain.
I tried to think of words, bullshit chatter, just like usual, but I didn’t have to worry about that.
Her welcome to me was a slap across the face, hard enough that I cried out in a gasp.
“If you ever so much as put a toe in a downtown hovel again, Elaine Beatrice, I swear to fucking God Almighty, it’ll be the very last thing you do. This time I’m serious. You’ll be dead to me.”
My heart was racing, but nothing more came, just a jab of a finger in my face as she reiterated her stance.
“You don’t belong in that seedy hovel of a place. You’ve never belonged in it. You belong here, with us, holding up your damn family name, not making a mockery of the rest of us.”
I didn’t belong there with the rest of them. I never had. Not once. Not since meeting Reverend Lynch when I was a tiny girl.
I would have usually dipped my head to my mother and scurried away, as scared of her disapproval as always, but I didn’t. Not that day.
“I’m not making a mockery of our family name,” I told her. “You do plenty of that on your own. At least the people downtown know they’re losers. At least they enjoy it.”
“Watch your mouth,” she hissed, but I didn’t. I didn’t watch anything other than her scowl.
“One day you’ll accept that our family is disgusting,” I said. “In the meantime, stop judging me for wanting to be out of it.”
“Maybe you don’t belong in it,” she told me. “Maybe you never have. You’ve always been a vile, cheating, lying little girl. Just as well I have a solution for us, isn’t it?”
Her tone was so cold.
“Uncle Lionel told me. An offer.”
“Yes,” she spat. “An offer.”
“Tell me, then,” I said, trying my best to sound strong. “What is this offer?”
I knew it was going to be a bad one before she started speaking. I could see it in her stare.
“Christopher Rawlings,” she announced. “He wants you as his bride. Baron Rawlings suggests you are to be the latest addition to the Rawlings name and the British aristocracy.”
No.
NO.
Not Baron Rawlings…
I was shaking my head before she was even done speaking.
She sighed, folding her arms across her chest. “Don’t try my patience any more than you already have, Elaine. This is a fantastic opportunity for you, and a fantastic opportunity for the Constantine name.”
Constantines and Rawlings . . . it made my skin crawl.
“The tabloids would love it,” she said. “It would be a delight of a marriage. A delight of a pairing.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to marry Christopher Rawlings.”
She scoffed at me. “I didn’t expect you would. He’s a sad little fool, nothing like his father. What I would expect is that you would see the mercy in my proposition. A fresh start, in England, with a brilliant family name on your ring finger.”
I loved England. I’d have loved a fresh start away from my corrupt family . . . but not with an equally corrupt family with their arms open wide to pull me in.
Not with Baron Rawlings there with open arms to taint me forever.
Mom was still talking, rattling off the benefits.
“I’ll finish your debts with the Powers one last time. You’ll be out of the cycle. No drugs in your life, no losers to hole up in the pits of shit with. Baron Rawlings was very clear on that. Nobody would come within a mile of you. Nobody they didn’t approve of.”
I was still shaking my head.
“Baron Rawlings is a sick fuck.”
“Watch your mouth!” she hissed. “Baron Rawlings is a fine man, from a fine family lineage.”
I did watch my mouth. It shut tight. Just as I always had done.
I was already walking away from her as she cursed under her breath.
“I mean it, Elaine,” she said. “Accept Christopher’s proposal or you’re done for. I’m not digging you out of the shit ever again.”
I didn’t want her to. Not anymore.
The sails of hope in me died their death for the last time. Finally. I was lost to everything. Even myself.
I’d never marry Christopher Rawlings. Never.
Power brothers, or Lucian Morelli, or Reverend fucking Lynch, it didn’t matter anymore whose hands were the filth that finished me. I wanted out.
My legs were still tingling from the cuts, and my cheek was tingling from the cold hard slap of my mother. My ass was still hurting from Lucian’s dick, and my heart was shrinking from years of disgrace and fear and self-hate, and I was ready.
I could never be with Lucian. I should never want to be. I could never dig myself out of the life I’d created, amongst the people who’d created me.
I let out a sigh as I took the final staircase back down to the garden party, leaving my mother upstairs with folded arms, cursing my name.
I had the answer.
This time, for myself, I had the answer.
If the Power brothers, or Lucian Morelli, or Reverend Lynch weren’t coming for me pretty soon, I’d be taking myself and saving them the trouble.
With the first shred of self-respect I’d allowed myself in years, I smiled. Fuck the Power brothers, and fuck the Morellis, and fuck the whole host of people aching to be a part of my demise.
My final breath belonged to one person only.
Me.
My end would be on my own terms, and soon.
Really damn soon.
25
Lucian
It was an alien feeling to me. Failure.
I’d succeeded at every task and every mission that had been thrown at me in my life. But not this one. Not writing off Elaine Constantine as history.
I should’ve left her to the Power brothers and focused on Morelli Holdings and keeping my position in check as head of the Morelli empire. I should’ve heeded the oath carved into my palm and knuckled myself down to my roles, both criminal and corporate.
I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
I didn’t even bother heading back to city life, just headed over to the Constantine compound and stayed at the safest distance I could manage with a chauffeur.
Yet again, I was a fool risking it all for a bitch I should despise. I was a beast craving a filthy little goddess and her innocent soul.
Trenton tried to reach me on my cell, but I avoided the sonofabitch’s calls. I wanted nothing to do with him.
I tried to reason with myself. There should be nothing inside me that wouldn’t happily write her off as done. The Power brothers would take her, and that should fill me with joy. Conflict between the Powers and Constantines would only distract and weaken them both, leaving
my own family line free to prosper and build. It should bring a smile to my face, cunning and sadistic.
It didn’t.
Morelli Holdings and keeping my position intact should be the only thing that mattered to me.
It wasn’t.
Seamus and Duncan would be waiting on the sidelines, and I knew it. I knew they would be waiting for any excuse to step in and attempt to infringe on my power and dominance in the Morelli kingdom. Again, I should’ve been determined to cast them aside and slam their efforts down as nothing.
I wasn’t. I was far too determined in pursuing Elaine and her beauty and her fears.
Elaine’s chauffeur left the Constantine compound early on Sunday evening. Just the smallest glimpse of her bouncing blonde hair as she slipped into the limo made my dick hard. I followed her back into the city, bailing out of my limo a block away from her apartment to make my way closer on foot.
I stood next to the tower and stared up at her suite windows on the top floor, and I wondered what she was doing up there, and how chewed up inside she was over my butchering of the London prick.
I blamed her, of course. I blamed Elaine. I blamed her for every stupid step she’d taken into her own chaos, and for dragging me along with her. I pictured her wide eyes, and her nervous shivers, and the abject terror in her stare whenever I looked at her.
I wanted more.
My cell was pinging, but I didn’t care enough to look at the screen. My gaze was fixed up high, watching the lights turning on in the top floor windows as the evening turned to dusk. I didn’t move. I didn’t have anywhere I wanted to go.
I didn’t want Violent Delights and the club house full of games and filth. I didn’t want to summon any innocent little bitches and tear them apart for my whims.
I wanted Elaine Constantine. Even though my palm was still sliced ragged, begging me to hold true to my oath, I wanted Elaine Constantine.
It was the most insane move I’d ever made when I took the pair of glasses from my inside jacket pocket and took off my tie to loosen the top few of my shirt buttons. It was the most risky thing I’d ever contemplated to walk straight through Elaine’s tower foyer and up to the security reception with a cold hard smile on my face.
