Aaron: Book Three (Scars 3)

by West, Sinden

  Luca wanted me at his house. It was his wife who let me in. Normally, I just saw her at parties where she was vivacious and full of life, but now, with just the two of us, she was silent with just the merest hint of smile. Who could blame her? After all, who would want a killer at their door while their children slept on the floor above? Maybe she was like me, acting.

  Either way, she was the one that married Luca, had bred with Luca, and she was the one who had to deal with the consequences of that.

  “He’s in his study,” she said as she closed the door behind me. “You know where it is.” And then she walked away, her heels echoing around the massive entrance way. The space had a cathedral style ceiling and it was empty of everything else as not to interfere with the majesty of the stained glass panels above.

  Empty.

  I cast my eyes around me. Beautiful but empty. Rachel would probably make something of that in her dramatic way. How could she make such judgements when she was as fucked up as anyone? Besides, I’d only asked her a simple question and she’d reacted crazily. I lifted my hand to my throat and wondered if bruises would appear in the morning.

  Sighing, I went to see Luca. Predictably, he sat behind his desk with a drink in hand.

  “I hope I didn’t pull you away from anything important.”

  I settled myself by the fire. “Not at all.”

  “I’ve got a job that needs doing and I want to keep it between you and me.”

  “I’m always discrete.”

  He smiled but his eyes were still dead. “I know. I need you to find someone for me.” He opened his desk drawer and plucked an item from it, staring at it for a moment before holding it up to show me.

  Shit.

  “Do you know this woman?” She was younger but it was definitely her.

  “No. Should I?” A thrill went through me and my heart began to beat faster as adrenalin pulsed in me. The risk of lying to this man…that was an adrenalin sport in itself and for a moment I felt like laughing as my endorphins kicked in. The rush was fucking awesome.

  My face was still though and revealed nothing. He was staring at me though; inspecting me in that way of his.

  “She’s an old acquaintance of mine and I need her found.” He passed an envelope across to me. “Here are her details. I don’t want you to use any of your people. You need to do the work alone.”

  I opened the envelope with steady hands and pulled out the slip of paper. “She’s been off the radar for eighteen years? Why is it so important to find her now?”

  He tilted his head to study me. “You don’t normally need to ask questions, Aaron. Are you losing your touch?”

  I put the paper back in the envelope. “No.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Good. I hate to be disappointed.”

  “Are we done here?”

  He gave a nod and I got to my feet, my leg aching.

  “Got your piece of ass waiting for you at home?”

  I let my lips slip into a tight smile. “Yeah. I guess she’ll be there.” I shrugged.

  “She’s been with you for a while now.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s convenient. I can’t stand clingy women.”

  He tapped his fingers on the desk. “So she’s just a ‘convenience’?”

  “Yup.” I turned to go.

  “Then you won’t mind sharing her.” I heard him say from behind.

  I felt something like ice shoot up my spine and I froze. Slowly, I turned to face him. “When I’m done with her, anyone can have her, but I’m not done just yet.”

  He was smiling. I wasn’t fooling him.

  “Well, you don’t want to keep her waiting now, do you?” His eyes glittered in the firelight.

  “Goodnight, Luca.” I gave him a smooth smile in return and walked out, disguising my limp the best that I could. I calmly left the house, closing the front door gently behind me. One of his men stood guard and gave me a nod of recognition, I nodded back before getting into my car and driving off.

  All my motions were fluid and graceful. There was no jerking on the brakes or taking of corners too sharply. I drove along following the ocean until I came to a scenic lookout and then I pulled the car to a stop.

  I sat there for a moment, as still as stone, then I let it loose.

  “Fuck!” I slammed my hands against the steering wheel. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I ran my hand through my hair as I struggled to get myself under control.

  He knew. He fucking knew what Antony had asked me to do, otherwise it would be one major fucking coincidence. I was being tested. My loyalty was on the table and I’d just defied him over Rachel.

  I sucked in deep breaths. Everything felt like it was unwinding at speed and every part of me was unraveling. When my Dad locked me in the basement, for some reason there was a spool of cotton down there and as I sat in the dark, I would wind it around my finger as tight as anything until the pain made me forget everything else. Once that finger became numb, I would release it and let the blood flow again, and then I would begin the process once more, over and over, until there was release.

  There was safety in pulling that cotton tight. I was in control.

  I wasn’t about to lose that.

  I checked my appearance in the rear view mirror. I looked perfect‒cold and under control.

  Letting out a breath, I started the car and drove off. But I kept looking in that mirror. It wouldn’t be long before they came and I needed to deal with that.

  I couldn’t sleep. She slept beside me, so silent that for an instant I thought that she was dead, but then her eyes flickered open and she caught my gaze before her eye lids closed again, like I was something inconsequential and not worth looking at. She looked angelic, her pale hair arranged over her pillow, her skin perfect, her lips with just a hint of red on them.

  I wanted to wake her up. I wanted to see her eyes widen in alarm that it was me that she awoke to and not whoever she dreamed about. I reached a hand out to touch her but at the last moment drew it back almost in fear that touching her would burn me like it did in my own dreams.

  Instead, I lay back down, facing her. Her eyes opened again, but there was no alarm. “What is it?”

  “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

  She let out a puff of breath and then turned so that her back was to me. It wasn’t long before her breathing became rhythmic again as she slept in an untroubled slumber. I turned onto my back and stared at the ceiling.

  It was time. I’d been stupid to think that we could keep living like this. This was a life for other people. This house and this money…there should be other people living here, not two seriously fucked up individuals.

  I looked at her once more.

  Nobody could say that I didn’t try.

  Chapter Ten

  Everything here was shit. It should have been burned to the ground long ago. I sat in the hall, outside of her door, resting against the fading floral wallpaper. My glass was on the ground next to me and the bottle next to that was half gone. I’d bolted the door. Why? I could ask myself all day. Habit, perhaps, or more likely the fact that she would go ape shit when the drugs wore off and she found herself here again…

  And I just didn’t want to fucking deal with that just yet.

  There was a creak, then a sleepy groan, then silence.

  She was awake.

  I imagined her sitting there, looking around her in disbelief.

  A thump, then footsteps coming closer to the door, and finally, “Aaron.”

  I stayed quiet. There was nothing to say to her right now.

  “Aaron.” Louder now.

  I tightened my grip on my glass.

  “Aaron!”

  There was a thunk against the door. She must have pounded it with her hands.

  “Aaron!” Rage. All control was gone. “Aaron! You fucking psychopath. You motherfucker!” That scream must have scraped at her throat. Her hands banged relentlessly and hopelessly at the wood of the door. “Let me out. Let me out n
ow! I’m going to kill you. You hear that? I’m going to cut you up, I’m going to cut your goddamned cock off and leave you out in the woods to die the slowest death. You evil piece of shit.” Her words were tighter now and more controlled. “I’m going to hurt you, Aaron. I’m going to hurt you beyond belief. You should never have been born. It should have been your father who killed you and not the other way around.” Her voice was a rasp and it didn’t sound like it belonged to her. It was demon like and menacing.

  I managed to get to my feet. The alcohol was just catching up with me and each movement felt thick and clumsy as if I were the one who had been drugged. Steadying myself on the wall, I made it to the bathroom just in time to vomit up everything that I had chugged down.

  “Fuck.” I rested there after I had finished and listened carefully. No sounds were coming from the bedroom. No crying and no screaming.

  I managed to stand again. My head was clearer now and I walked without needing the support of those decaying walls. I’d left food and water in her room, along with some spare clothes, and there was a bucket if she needed it. I was being an asshole, but I just didn’t need the complication of her being out of that room. I needed to get my head straight and that never happened with her around me.

  “I know you’re there.” Her voice was low.

  I paused, the floor creaking beneath me, and then I continued on my way.

  Downstairs, I had the fire roaring, but it didn’t seem to warm me up. Stopping in the doorway to the front room, I held onto the door frame to steady myself. The memory crashed to the front of my brain. Rachel, standing naked. “I’m not her.”

  She’d kept up that denial for a long time, even as I kept her vulnerable and humiliated, debasing her and abusing her. She was made of fucking steel. She was stronger than I could ever have of guessed.

  And I…

  My eyes squeezed closed as the memory of my Uncle dead on the floor by my own hand flooded across my vision.

  And I was the pathetic asshole who had fallen for her and let her manipulate me.

  My hands reached for the bottle‒they were endless in this house‒and shakily poured another drink. I didn’t need it, but oblivion was the preferable route than to think about her. When had my life become Rachel? At what moment exactly had she bewitched me?

  She was a warm body. That was it. At first. I was sure…or was I?

  When did it change from sex to…whatever the hell this was?

  No. It was best that she stayed in the room.

  Just like it was best that I sat down here‒drinking. It was already night. Today was a write off. Tomorrow I would think and plan, but right now…

  I settled myself in the armchair and proceeded to drink away all my worries and tried to ignore the ghosts.

  But the one that wouldn’t go away was the naked girl standing in front of the fire.

  “I’m not her…”

  I’d beaten her, just like my old man had beaten me, and when she tried to run, I hurt her again. Not her face though, that damage came when she hit the dirt. Her black eye and split lip were a familiar sight in this house. My mom, me…that’s what we saw when we looked in the mirror. That must have been when I began to soften.

  I wasn’t being smart.

  I was being brutal.

  And I enjoyed it, just like he had.

  Do you want me to act like some pathetic, weak, victim? You want me crying and begging you all the time? Justify it all you like, but you are the monster here. Everything you’ve done is unforgiveable, and you don’t even care. You’re a fucking sadist. You get off on hurting people…

  Every word she spoke was the truth. I’d held her down after that, tightly, on the bed. She must have thought that I would rape her, because she begged. Was I? The heat of rage had overcome me and I lost control for those few seconds.

  Control was everything. Without it, I was a dead man, and around her, I kept losing it.

  I tried to block out the vision of her bloodied and swelling face again but it kept haunting me.

  What would Luca do to her?

  He’d like her, because she would keep fighting. She wouldn’t be beaten into submission immediately. He’d see her as a challenge. Maybe he’d even keep her for months, until he became bored with her.

  Then it would be likely that he’d kill her. Her usefulness would be gone. I imagined her, nude, each inch of skin covered in gem colored bruises‒blues and purples flourishing, others yellowing until replaced with fresh abuse in an endless cycle of torment.

  Would she beg to die? Would she beg for the end to come swiftly, or would she just be resigned to dying as a slave like she had lived so much of her life?

  I clenched my teeth at the thought. But I wouldn’t be there to see that. I’d be dead before I let that happen.

  I sat there until the fire died out. There was no banging or screaming from upstairs. She was just sitting there and biding her time. What was she thinking? What was she plotting? Placing my empty glass down, I got to my feet. It was time for sleep.

  The whole house swayed under my drunken unsteadiness and climbing the stairs was a mission in itself as I clutched onto the balustrade and my nails dug into the paint. Why the hell was everything green? Green meant spring; it meant life, but there was no life here. Even crops couldn’t grow on this fucked up piece of land anymore, and this house, it should burn to the ground. I’d thought it a thousand times but never had the guts to do it. Using the wall once more to hold me up, I started past the room in which I’d imprisoned her. I had to stop there, and placed the flat of my hand against the wood of the door.

  Her voice came suddenly. “I know you’re there, Aaron.” She must have been right on the other side of the door, listening and waiting.

  I stayed quiet.

  “You’re making bad choices. It’s a mistake to lock me away. I’ll get out eventually, and when I do…”

  “Go to bed, Rachel. It’s late.” I tried to twist my mouth up into a smirk as I said that, to let her know how little I thought of her words, but it didn’t quite work. Instead, it came out grave and serious. Not drunk though. That was a miracle.

  “Do you want me to tell you a bedtime story, Aaron?” she asked through the door. “Once upon a time there was a peasant girl who lived with her mother. Except these weren’t just ordinary peasants, you see, the girl’s mother was a witch. She could cast spells over men and have them do pretty much whatever she wanted.

  Luckily, or perhaps, unluckily, the girl inherited this…enchantment, I guess you could call it. The girl and her mother traveled the land, casting spells and ruining lives…although don’t feel too sorry for the men who fell for their wiles; most of those bastards deserved it anyway.”

  “What about the one who killed himself, Rachel, did he deserve it?” I sneered.

  She ignored me. “And then one day, the girl realized that she didn’t want to cast spells anymore. She didn’t want men to do things for her because at the end of the day, even if she were the one weaving magic, nothing was free, not really, and the rewards certainly weren’t worth the pain that these men caused her.

  More importantly, she realized that there was absolutely nothing that she needed men for. They were amusements, toys, who could give a bit of entertainment for a while but soon they became boring. They also had nothing that the girl really wanted, nothing that she needed, and one day she decided, that she didn’t need them at all and that she would be just fine all by herself. Did you hear that, Aaron? I don’t need you. I don’t need you at all.”

  I slammed my palm against the door. “Yeah? Well, you need me to help you get out of this room. That’s one thing you need me for little miss independent.”

  “You’re drunk.” I heard the scathing in her voice. “Poor, drunk, abused Aaron. Poor sadistic little Aaron. Do you drink to block out the memories of what he did to you?” She laughed. “You’ll let me out, Aaron, because you’re a man and you think with your cock just like they all do. Even when you were
supposed to be hating me and teaching me a lesson, you still gave into your lust for me and that made you do stupid things…” she trailed off. “Go to bed, Aaron. It’s late. Go to bed alone. You’re always alone. That’s what you deserve.”

  I heard her footsteps as she walked away from the door. I stayed put, even as every urge in me wanted to wrench open the bolt, yank the door open and push her down onto the bed and sink my cock into her wet pussy.

  I didn’t though. That would just prove her right.

  I left her in there all night, even as I lay in the cold bed, horny as fuck. I fantasized about her on me, her hair hanging down as she rode me. And then I imagined her as a demon, with eyes black and a mouth dripping with blood. That’s what I came to‒that image of Rachel, the demoness.

  I was one sick fuck, that’s what I kept thinking as my cum exploded over my hand. It wasn’t enough though, and I really wanted to yank her from that room, strip her naked then force her down on her knees to take me in her mouth.

  Hell, she’d probably bite off my cock. I laughed at the thought.

  Chapter Eleven

  In the morning, I brought her breakfast. “Get back from the door and get on the bed.” I called through the door. That last thing I needed was her coming at me with her nails out. Once I’d unlocked the door, it still took me by surprise to find that she had done as I’d asked. She sat on the bed, leaning against the wall, with one leg raised and the other dangling from the bed. There was no fear now, just a casual indifference.

  “Here.” I put the tray down on the bed. Steam rose from the coffee and I kept an eye on it in case she decided to throw it at my face, but she didn’t move; only her eyes followed me.

  “What are you doing?” she asked softly.

  “Protecting you.” I stepped back.

  “My hero,” she quietly mocked. “My knight in dark armor. How lucky am I? What’s really going on?”

  “You don’t need to know. You just need to stay put and behave.”

  “And if I don’t want to?” Her eyes were hard now, challenging.

  I met her gaze. “I can make you behave, Rachel. You should know that by now. Don’t piss me off, now’s not the time.”