“Oh, really?” I jest.
“You’re not a very good liar,” he muses.
“Not yet,” I say. “But I’ll soon be. Just like all of them.”
“You don’t have to be.”
The change in his voice makes me stop and think. I glance over my shoulder at him. “Why’d you say that?”
“You can still choose not to marry him.”
I frown. “How? I don’t have a choice. They’ll kill my … me.”
He steps closer and grabs both my hands. “I know you don’t want this.”
The way he holds me, so carefully, gently, like he wants me to be safe … it instills some sort of need in me that overwhelms me. It makes me want to hug him and confide in him, even though I barely know him. Phillip used to tell me how his brother always wanted what he couldn’t have … but to me, he’s always so nice.
I can hardly believe they’re family.
I take a deep breath, which is hard in this tight dress. “What other choice do I have?”
“Your mother is the one who’s arranging all of this, right? And she’s the one threatening you.”
“Yes,” I say. I don’t understand where he’s going with this.
“If she’s out of the way … Your worries disappear.”
“What? What are you saying?” I gasp, making a face. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
“Shh …” He leans in to whisper in my ear. “Hear me out. She’s the one thing who keeps this commitment going. Your mother is the only one who has a hold on you. If you get rid of her, you’re no longer bound to this commitment. You don’t have to marry Phillip.”
I swallow when I hear what he’s saying. It’s like it doesn’t even register. Is he suggesting that I kill my own mother?
“You’d be free.”
These last few words repeat over and over in my head.
Freedom.
It’s all I ever wanted. All I could never have.
Not as long as I was going to marry Phillip.
Not as long as my mother was there to torture my soul.
If she were gone … nothing would keep me from Miles.
But how?
And then it appears, right in front of me. The answer to all my questions. A vial filled with a substance is held out to me. The same kind of vial his mother had used to poison the political opponents of my father.
Like a forbidden secret, he slides it onto my hand, as he whispers into my ear, “You control your own fate. Make your choice.”
***
During the wedding
The wedding ceremony is all a blur to me. Sweat drops trickle down my back as I’m continuously reminded of the lethal weapon sitting in my purse. Every passing second is another one wasted, but I don’t dare move. The consequences of this choice are too heavy. I can’t make such a life-changing decision so quickly.
When we exchange the rings, my eyes can only focus on Phillip for a second before being torn away toward the purse lying on a table in the corner. During the reception, all I can think of is that vial. The thought of using it consumes me. It’s like a devil is on my shoulder, telling me to use it.
However, every time I glance at my mother, my courage leaks out of me.
During dinner, I get up from my seat and walk toward the table with my purse clutched between my clammy fingers. I take out the vial, hide it in my hand, and walk to the table. There’s no one near me; the rest of the guests are all mingling, so now is the perfect time. The drinks are there, and all I need to do is pour it in.
My fingers tremble as I hold out the vial and push off the lid with my thumb. When I’ve made sure no one’s looking, I drip it into a glass and pick it up. I can’t believe what I’m doing as I walk toward the table where his parents and my parents are sitting. Am I really going to kill my own mother? Is it all worth it? I don’t know how or why, but somehow the thought of murdering her makes me sick to my stomach. I hate her … but do I honestly want her dead?
She’s my mother. Even after everything she’s done, I still want her to love me. I always did. After all, she will always be my mother, no matter if she’s alive or dead. Nothing will change that.
I try to prevent my hand from shaking as I bring the glass toward them. The smile on my face is as fake as can be. I wonder if they can see through it. My mother looks up at me, and for the first time in a long while, there’s a genuine smile on her face, almost as if she’s truly happy to see me. Like I’m finally being the daughter she always dreamed I’d be.
That look … it stops my heart.
My mother … She’ll always be my mother, even if we can’t stand each other.
I can’t kill my mother.
I just can’t.
But I won’t let them ruin my life, either.
Someone has to pay for what they did to me. And if I can’t punish my own mother … then it’ll be someone else’s mother instead.
Someone equally responsible for matching me with Phillip.
Someone with just as much influence and hold on our family.
So I hand the glass to Phillip’s mother with a courteous smile. “Bottoms up.”
She takes it from my hand, saying, “Thank you, darling. You’re so sweet.”
“No problem; I don’t like sitting around all night, so I thought I’d give a few people a drink.”
She smiles and brings the glass to her lips. Every movement she makes lets my heart beat faster again. Anxiously, I wait until she takes a sip. When she does, I feel like I’m about to burst out of my skin. I don’t know why I’m feeling so happy, but I do.
Maybe I’m just as evil as my mother is. I enjoy killing this woman a little too much. It doesn’t surprise me, though. After all, she is my mother … and they say apples don’t fall far from the tree. In this case, we’re already rotten to the core.
It takes a little longer for the poison to set in this time. I guess Arthur gave me a little less potent vial. Good, it makes it less easy for the family to realize who it was. After all this time has passed, I’m already dancing on the floor with Phillip, pretending to be a happy couple, as his mother falls to the ground. Unbeknownst to the rest of the guests, I was the one who caused her demise.
Screams ensue.
Glances filled with horror and sorrow fill the room.
But all I care about is the look on both Phillip and my mother’s face the moment they realize she’s dead.
That look … I could do it all just for that.
Retribution.
And then I spot him rushing into the room. Arthur. The look on his face brings me chills. He’s looking at me. Not at his mother. Me. And I’m staring back at him, frozen in the middle of the dance floor, while everyone rushes to his mother’s body.
All we do is exchange looks, but I know what he’s thinking.
I made a different choice. One he didn’t see coming; one he didn’t prepare for.
But I know he won’t hold it against me. He hates his mother just as much as I do, even though he probably won’t see it that way right now. The look on his face says it all. Surprise overtakes him, but I’m unable to identify if it’s positive or negative.
Our glances tell a story.
I did it.
I did what no one thought I could.
I became a cold-blooded killer.
CHAPTER 20
VANESSA
Present, a few days later …
Phoenix sits in his chair, gazing at me while twirling a knife in his hand. I wonder what goes through his head when he’s looking at me like that. Like I’m the prey he’s caught and now has to decide what to do with me. I’m just sitting here silently in my cage, waiting until he makes his move. I won’t fight him. I won’t disobey him. I’ll give him anything he wants … so that eventually he’ll let me be free again.
I’m not so sure that he still plans to kill me. If he really wanted to, he’d have done it by now. I’m starting to think he’s having his doubts, so I’ll make sure to use them
against him. Maybe help him remember the time he used to love me.
After a while, he gets up and walks toward my cage. The smirk on his face is both irresistible and infuriating. I wrap my fingers around the bars and look up at him with my doe-like eyes, hoping it will give me an advantage.
“Stop fluttering those eyelashes, Vanessa. It won’t help you.”
I shrug as he goes on his knees and finally takes the duct tape off my face. I groan as he rips it away because it leaves a sizzling burn. “Thank you,” I say.
“Hmm …” He frowns, cocking his head. “You’ve never been very grateful. It sounds so strange coming from your mouth.”
I smile. “Well, there’s always a first for everything.”
He shakes his head, laughing. “You … you’re really a piece of work, you know that?”
“That’s what everyone says. I don’t see it.”
“Or you just don’t want to.” He clears his throat. “Turn around.”
I do what he says, and he grabs my arms and puts the cuffs on my wrists. Then he grabs a leather leash he bought and hooks it to the ring on my neck. With a key, he opens the chains around the cage and pulls it open. “Out.”
On hands and feet, I crawl out of the small prison he’s confined me to. It’s hard, considering my hands are chained together, but I manage. Phoenix pulls on the leash until my neck rises and I’m forced to sit on the back of my feet.
“Get up,” he says.
I get up slowly, keeping my eyes on him at all times. He tugs the leather fastened to the band around my neck, causing me to fall into his arms.
“Careful there, Princess.” He grins.
“You pulled,” I say, as I try to keep standing without having my hands available to hold onto something.
“I want you to feel what it’s like to be controlled by someone else,” he muses, hauling me closer with the leash. “And how does it feel?”
“It feels wrong.”
The left side of his lip curls up. “Wrong can be good sometimes.” He lifts the knife in his other hand and runs it along my cheek, making me shiver. “I like it better this way …” he murmurs. Then he cuts into my skin. I have trouble not making a sound as the blood drops roll down my face.
“So beautiful …” he whispers. “Such a shame I have to fuck it all up.”
“Why?” I ask. I don’t understand his obsession with my blood.
He leans in, his tongue dipping out to pick up a droplet of blood. “Because you won’t be able to lie anymore once you’re just as ugly as I am. Except where I’m only ugly on the inside, you’ll be ugly on both sides.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t think you’re ugly.”
He stops and looks at me for a moment, just breathing in silently.
“Liar,” he murmurs.
“No. It’s the truth,” I say. “Why else would I get so …” I smash my lips together.
“Excited?” A spark ignites in his eyes. “Hmm …”
The cut in my cheek isn’t deep, but it sizzles and burns like hell. Damn him. I can’t keep up with him; he keeps changing his behavior.
“You know. I could get used to this,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
He leans in to whisper in my ear, “You as my pet instead of an enemy.”
I suck in a breath when he places a kiss on my neck, the knife still inches away from puncturing my skin again. It’s such a double message; I don’t know what to think or feel which is exactly what he wants.
He whispers, “I think I’d rather keep you alive than let you die without having had any fun.” The blade slides down and underneath my chin. “Do you agree?”
I nod, careful not to cut my own skin with his knife.
“And I’m having so much fun right now,” he whispers, pulling the leash even tighter as if he wants to hear me gasp. “And I can tell you are, too.”
“What gives it away?” I jest as sarcastically as I can.
“Oh, don’t think you can hide your excitement from me, Vanessa. I know how much you’ve craved a strong hand like mine.” The knife drifts down my arm, almost as if he’s caressing me with it. “All those years in a dried-up marriage must have left you so hungry …” He growls in my ear, licking my earlobe. “Hungry for a real man.”
I take in a ragged breath feeling him smile against my skin. As much as I want to deny his claims, I have to admit that I’ve always wanted a strong, independent, dominant man, someone who was capable of claiming my heart without me handing it to him on a platter. Someone who loved me for who I was, no-holds-barred.
Except I don’t want him to be that man.
How could he be? After all the things we’ve done to each other?
“C’mon,” he says, and he pulls my leash, dragging me with him toward the kitchen.
I’m surprised to find a table for two already decked out. My surprise seems to catch his attention.
“Have I impressed you?” he asks, tying my leash to a wooden beam.
“Expecting company?”
He frowns, as if he doesn’t get my question. “No. Why would you think that?”
“Are you saying that you set the table for me, too?”
“Well, like I said, I thought you might be hungry.” His smirk is so incredibly annoying and sexy … god, I’m not sure if I want to scold him or smile back.
Especially when he starts biting his own lip ring … fuck, that’s hot.
Jesus, why am I thinking about this?
“Sit,” he commands, which gives me an excuse not to think about it. “On the back of your feet.”
I sit down on the floor, but he’s tied the leash so high that it forces me to keep my head up. “Don’t move,” he says. “You know what happens if you do.”
In this position, in the corner of the room, I look like a girl waiting for someone. Always waiting … waiting for him. Just like he’d probably want me to.
It’s all a game. All of this. Mind games—that’s what he’s playing. And it’s working.
With a self-indulgent smile, he walks back to the stove and starts cooking some delicious pancakes that make my mouth water when I smell them. Damn, I didn’t know he could cook this good. After thirty minutes, my stomach is killing me and so are my legs, but I can’t falter in my devotion to make him think he’s in charge. Sometimes, he briefly glances at me while flipping the pancakes, smoking at the same time. The smug look on his face makes me blush.
When he’s done, he places them on the table, puts out his smoke, and comes toward me. He unties the leash and gently holds it in his hand, not even tight, as if he expects me to heel. And he’s right, I won’t run because I know I won’t be able to escape his grasp. Not yet. I have to wait until the time is right, until he’s lifted all my restrictions, and his heart is wide open.
Just like it used to be, before I stomped on it.
I must say, I do regret my actions in the past, but I can’t change what I’ve done. I hate how I treated him, but I did it for the right reasons. What he did, however, was not for the right reasons.
Trying to frame me for the murder of my husband. Locking me up in a cage.
He’s turned into a monster.
And now I’m his. The monster’s pet. But he knows as well as I do that it’s not as black and white as it seems. We’re both monsters in our own story. I have spun his heart around my finger and crushed it with my bare hands. A long time ago, he was the pet … and then I became the monster. Now the roles have reversed. I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. I just didn’t think it’d be like this, with him literally tying me up, feeding me pancakes with a big grin on his face.
He seems to be enjoying this a little too much.
“Like the pancakes?” he asks, holding up the fork with another slice.
“They’re good,” I say, swallowing.
“Do you mean that, or are you just saying that to please me?” He swings the next bit in front of my face as if it’s a game and I’m supposed to reach out
and bite it off.
“I mean it,” I say.
“Hmm … or maybe it’s the hunger talking.”
“Could be. You didn’t actually feed me that often.”
“That’s because you didn’t deserve it,” he muses, pushing another piece into my mouth.
After I chew on it for a bit, I say, “And now I do?”
“Hmm …” He smiles, leaning on his hand as if he’s bored. “You’ve been a good girl these past few days.”
“Hmm … should I take that as a compliment?” I jest, opening my mouth to await the next piece.
He just gazes at me from under his eyelashes. “You know … I love it when you have that pretty mouth of yours open. Makes me want to put other things inside it.”
My cheeks flush, and then he shoves another piece of pancake inside my mouth, preventing me from reacting. When I’ve swallowed it, he pulls my leash toward him and says, “Show your appreciation, Princess. Pucker up.”
I close my eyes as he leans in to kiss me on my lips, his taste mingling with the sweetness of the pancakes. He’s not rough at all, just slow and sensual, which throws me off because I didn’t expect it. At least, not from him. He’s always so demanding and quick, as if he wants to make the most out of the seconds he has, but now he’s taking his sweet time. Licking my lips, groaning between every kiss. His sounds and kisses enthrall me. I’m a puppet to his desires, and I don’t even mind.
“You taste so good, Princess …” he murmurs into my mouth. “Like strawberries covered in honey.” He bites his lip and kisses me again, holding the leash tight as if he’s afraid I’ll move away if he doesn’t. I wouldn’t, not even if he let go of it completely.
“I wonder if you taste like that everywhere,” he says, getting up from the chair to get near to me. He pulls me up for another kiss, putting his grabby hands on my waist. They slowly inch down toward my ass, squeezing lightly as his kisses become deeper and more vigorous. He moans into my mouth, alerting all my senses as his grip on my leash and ass becomes tighter.
“C’mere,” he growls, as he suddenly lifts me off the ground and sets me down on the table.
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