by Fawn Bailey
"It seems that you gave her something too," the shrink went on disapprovingly. "I noticed she was loopy... What did you give her?"
I explained about the drug I'd soaked the rag with, tying to eliminate her pain for the branding and heighten her pleasure.
"It obviously malfunctioned," the doc said. "With the way she was shaking... how she flinched every time I so much looked at her, she felt every bit of that pain."
"She couldn't have," I argued. "I've used that drug before."
"It did," he told me plainly. "You don't have to believe me. Just go in there and look at her. You'll notice how afraid she is. You don't have to trust me, either, but it's better to listen to me now than to go through this again with another psychiatrist. It will just make the recovery process even longer."
"So, what the fuck am I supposed to do?" I asked brokenly, and he looked down, as if he didn't even have an answer for me.
"You want my honest opinion?" he asked, looking into my eyes. "I've known since you were practically a kid, Kain. This time, you've really fucked up. If you want any hope of her coming back at all, you need to send her away, and you need to do it now."
"Send her away?" I repeated incredulously. "But she belongs here, with me."
"Not right now she doesn't," he corrected me. "Right now, she needs you as far away as possible so she can heal."
I stood up, banged my fist on the table, but while the doctor looked intimidated, he didn't move an inch.
"Get the fuck out of here," I told him.
He stood up, looking like he was going to say something else, but then changing his mind and shaking his head.
"I'm sorry, Kain," he said gently before leaving my study.
I ran my fingers through my hair and paced the room before slamming my fist into the wall. What the fuck had I done?
The first night was the worst, and I forced myself to stay away from my girl, but I couldn't sleep at all. Thoughts of her suffering kept me up at night, but when I sneaked around in the hallway, I noticed she was sleeping soundly in her bed, as far away from me as possible.
Hatred for myself burned in my stomach, and I forced myself away from her. I hired a caretaker for her, a sweet young girl called Ginger who was barely legal and very innocent. I figured Ophelia didn't talk to her either, or Ginger would have been terrified of me. She had no clue what I'd done to the beautiful, naked girl who never spoke a word. But she took good care of her.
Days passed and before I knew it, it was a week after the incident. I decided I needed to try to speak to Ophelia again, to make sure she knew how sorry I was for what I'd done and that I meant to make it up to her in any way I possibly could.
I sent everyone away that day, with Ginger waiting on the property in case she was needed. I put on my best suit, my father's suit - the one she first saw me in on the night of her eighteenth birthday, the one I now filled out so well.
I polished my shoes and put on aftershave and wrapped up a present for him, then knocked on the door of her bedroom, feeling like an intruder.
There was no answer, so I just slowly opened the door.
I found her in the position I'd become so accustomed to. Sitting at the vanity table, her hairbrush firmly in her hand, brushing that long black hair. Except now, when her eyes darted to mine in the mirror, the brush clattered from her hands and hit the floor.
She started to move, and I rushed to get my words out.
"It's okay, I'm not here to hurt you," I said desperately. "I just... I just wanted to bring you something, dolly... I thought you might like it."
I brought the parcel forward and placed it on the vanity table, keeping a safe distance from my woman.
"Open it," I urged her, and when she reached for the obscene pink bow, her fingers trembled.
I felt like a fool for pushing her, but what the fuck else was I supposed to do? I needed to make her see through my flaws, see me for the man I was - the man who loved her.
She unwrapped the gift slowly, opening the box as I stared on with a stupid smile plastered on my face.
"Do you like it, Ophelia?" I asked her softly. "It's a handmade grapefruit perfume... I had it flown in from Grasse in France. I wanted you to always smell like it, my favorite. Remember that, dolly?"
She opened the bottle, smelled the perfume and gasped. Suddenly the bottle fell from her grasp and shattered on the ground. The scent of vanilla and grapefruit filled the ear and Ophelia began to cry.
I panicked. I went to her, thinking it was me she wanted, my comforting that she needed. But the second I touched her, I knew I'd been wrong.
She was still naked, and when she twisted out of my arms I noticed the numerous scars covering her beautiful, pale skin.
She'd hurt herself, scratching line after line into her porcelain body, hurting and harming and breaking herself even after I'd already destroyed her completely.
"Ophelia," I whispered brokenly, and she stopped fighting for a second, her breathing ragged as I held onto her. "Have you been hurting yourself, dolly? What are these? Have you been scratching yourself?"
She twisted in my arms, but I wouldn't let her move. She kept pushing me away with one hand while the other wandered to her hip, scratching a well-known, familiar pattern into her skin.
I turned her over in my arms and what I saw shocked me to my core.
My K, the spot where I'd cut my name into her, was nothing but a sore, bleeding wound. She was bleeding already, her fingernails finding the torn skin she'd dragged them through time and time before. I pried her hands away and started screaming for Ginger.
She was in the room moments later, calm and collected as she helped Ophelia out of my arms. My dolly clung to her desperately, as if Ginger were the only person keeping her afloat.
"You better go, Sir," Ginger told me kindly. "It really upsets her to have you here."
I walked out of her bedroom a broken man.
That night, I was forced to move my dolly to a different room because the mere scent of grapefruit that now filled the guest bedroom upset her too much. At first, I was convinced she would ask to stay with me - that it was the most logical thing to do now that she'd recovered from her fear.
But when I suggested it, both the shrink and Ginger strongly suggested I don't do it - that it would only push Ophelia farther away from me instead of bringing us back together.
I lay back in my bed with my head swimming with thoughts of her skin. Ginger was not under firm instructions to keep Ophelia's scratches clean and sanitary, but I still hurt just thinking about the pain she'd inflicted upon herself. I wanted to help her, yet I was in no position to do a thing. The fact of the matter was - she was afraid of me and what I'd done with her.
And I knew being exposed to me would only make matters worse. I needed to find a solution, at least a temporary one until Ophelia healed. I needed to make she was safe, and not just from me, but from herself too.
There was a phone call I had to make, and I wasn't looking forward to it one bit, but I knew there was nowhere else to go.
Ryker Marino was coming back into our lives.
In fact, he might've been the solution Ophelia so desperately needed. If this meant I had to let her go, I would do it. But once my dolly came back, I would find everyone and anyone standing in my way to get her back.
Chapter Eight
Kain
Ryker Marino was my blood brother, and finally seeing him up close, I found myself looking for the family resemblance I almost desperately wanted to see.
Tension filled the room, and I knew we both felt it, staring at one another with our men behind us, every one of them with their fingers on the triggers of their guns, ready to shoot if Ryker or I told them to.
But I wasn't ready to take that step. For now, I was going to play my cards right.
"Is she okay?" Ryker barked, and I cocked my head to the side, grinning at him.
"She will be just fine," I replied firmly, convincing myself to believe my own words. "With a little bit of your
help, hopefully. How is your family coping?"
"How dare you ask," Ryker roared. "My brother is fucking dead because of you."
"He is dead," I roared. "Because neither of you did shit about your father and every cruel thing he's done to the people you both love."
"I couldn't do anything," Ryker said roughly. "Don't you understand? After what I found out, after I realized my father was responsible for the Sokolovs, for Max being left for dead... I told him I was coming out with it, that I was telling Max and Ophelia. Do you know what he told me?"
I stared at him blankly, knowing the answer was coming sooner or later.
"He said he would kill my mother first," Ryker said miserably. "Before moving on to my brother and then Ophelia. He said he would kill everyone I cared about even if he was behind bars, and he said he would put it all on me."
I stared at him incredulously. I'd known Michael was a fucked-up man, but this went beyond even my wildest imagination.
"So, you decided to keep mum?" I asked, my tone mocking. "You thought that was better?"
"I was working on my own resistance," Ryker argued. "Just like you were. And I was going to get Max in on it soon, but now..."
He stared at his hands brokenly and I wondered if there really was such a thing as a twin connection. I didn't feel the same way about Max, hell, I barely even gave a shit about Ryker despite the fact that we were half-brothers. But I'd spent a lifetime hating them, years and years of adolescence spent holding grudges against the two favorite children.
I hated their mother too, but I knew she had her own worries.
As far as I knew, she'd found out about Michael's activities years ago, and suffered a breakdown herself when it happened.
"Are you in touch with your father?" I asked Ryker, and he returned my glare.
"I haven't been in years," he admitted. "And I don't plan to be. Now that what he's done is out, I'm laying low. I'm just trying to get over the death of my brother."
It didn't look like it to me. If Ryker were anything like me, he'd be killing off his enemies just like I'd been doing. But obviously revenge didn't mean a thing to him.
"I need you to do me a favor," I finally admitted. "Come with me. I want you to see Ophelia."
He was on his feet in seconds, and I stopped his men who tried to walk after him.
"No," I said firmly. "It should just be the two of us. Please, tell them to stay. My men will stay too."
Ryker gave me a searching look, but, seemingly pleased with the look of pain on my face, he gave a curt nod to his men, who stood off to the side.
"Let's go," he said coldly.
I led him down the hallways until we reached Ophelia's room. Ginger was sitting in the armchair in the hallway that we'd temporarily set up for her, and Ryker's eyes drank her in as we arrived.
"This is Ginger," I said. "She's here for Ophelia... to help me take care of her."
"H-Hello," Ginger said nervously, obviously intimidated by the tall muscular man who just stared at her without saying a single word.
He moved past her and glared at me instead.
"Where is she?" he wanted to know, and I sighed before gently opening the door that led into Ophelia's room.
All her stuff had been moved into this one while the old room was being aired out. She couldn't stand the grapefruit scent, but the new room seemed to make her calmer. The farther away from her I was, the better she felt and the calmer she was. God, I fucking hated myself.
The door opened, and we were greeted with the view of Ophelia at the vanity table, brushing her hair.
"Ophelia," Ryker said gently, and she ignored him, smiling at her own reflection as she kept brushing.
Ryker stormed into the room before I could stop him, but I figured he needed to see what had happened for himself.
As he approached her, his steps slowed down, and he came to kneel in front of my woman.
"Ophelia," he said again, taking her hand in his. "What's happened? Will you look at me?"
I closed the door with my heart breaking and listening in to see whether she'd respond even in the slightest. Ryker was my last hope. She hadn't communicated with Ginger, but she liked to keep the girl close by her side, and now I was reaching father than I ever thought I would for somebody who could help my woman.
I waited several excruciatingly long minutes before Ryker exited the room.
"What's happened?" he asked as Ginger walked in behind him. "What have you done to her?"
"I broke her," I admitted. "I fucking broke her."
He looked like he was going to punch me, and if he had, I would've welcomed the painful reprieve. I would've deserved it too.
Instead of breaking my nose, Ryker ran his fingers through his hair before giving me an incredulous look.
"Why weren't you more careful?" he asked me desperately. "You should've been more. Fucking. Careful!"
He kicked the wall and I watched him with my heart beating wildly. He paced the hallway, as angry as I was the first time I found out her diagnosis. She'd retreated into her mind, and if she had any hope of coming back, drastic changes would have to be made to her lifestyle.
I'd talked to the shrink plenty of times by then, and he'd convinced me Ophelia needed a change of pace, and environment where she felt safe and not like my prey.
I thought about sending her to a Swiss hospital with Ginger in tow, but I knew it was potentially a bad idea - Michael had men everywhere, and I was too worried about someone finding out where Ophelia was. I was sure Michael was dead-set on revenge, it was just the kind of man he was. But the last thing I was about to let him do was hurt my dolly. I needed to keep her safe.
"Tell me what you did," Ryker finally said. "Tell me how you turned her into... this."
"I fucked her," I replied coldly, my eyes holding unspeakable pain as I turned to face him. "I hurt her. I tortured her. I gave her what she'd been begging for, for weeks. And I wasn't careful enough. I was fucking stupid... I didn't know I'd gone too far."
"Is she coming back?" Ryker demanded. "You can't leave her like this! She's like a fucking vegetable, Kain!"
"I'll fix it," I said through clenched teeth. "Why do you think you're here?"
I fought the urge to add an insult at the end of my sentence, and we glared at one another with more hatred than two brothers had ever felt for one another.
"So, what the hell do you expect me to do?" Ryker asked roughly. "You want me to watch her like this? You want to torture us both. Is this your sick idea of revenge? Fucking up an innocent girl just because you hate your father?"
I grabbed him by the collar, and even though I was a couple of inches shorter than him, I slammed him into the wall.
"You don't get to say that," I growled at him. "I'm ready to do any-fucking-thing to get her back, do you understand? Anything so that she's okay. That's why you're here."
"You want me to have her," he said in an exhale of shock, staring at me. "That's why you called me here."
I was quiet, and he laughed at my silent admission, shaking his head incredulously.
"So you fuck her up," he said cruelly. "And you leave me to pick up the pieces? I don't even want to fucking imagine all the sick, twisted things you did to her. I don't even want to know... What kind of man are you, Kain?"
"A sick one," I retorted. "And one that wants to help, even if it means giving her up... for now."
"You want me to fix her," Ryker went on incredulously. "And then you want her back."
"Precisely," I said calmly. "And I'm willing to offer payment for it, too."
"Payment?" He laughed in my face. "I'm not like a certain Mr. Thorn, Kain. You can't just pay me to stay away."
"I'm paying you to help her," I argued, and his eyes shot daggers at me. "I assume money's tight for you to, with Daddy dearest not paying the bills."
Oh, now he was pissed, but he didn't answer, because he knew I was fucking right. I watched his eyes zero in on mine, trying to calculate his way out of the situa
tion.
I needed his help, and he wanted Ophelia. This was the only way for him to be near her, and we both knew it.
"I'll take her back once she's better," I went on. "And I'll pay for everything. Ginger will come with her, and you'll keep me posted. If you don't, Ginger is instructed to come in contact and we'll kill you."
"I think there's been enough killing," Ryker said bitterly, and I silently agreed with him.
I didn't want more dead bodies, I just wanted Ophelia back.
"What about this Ginger girl?" he asked tersely. "Who the fuck is she?"
"No one you should be concerned about," I said. "Ophelia's gotten quite attached to her, so I want her to come with you."
"And serve as your little informant?" Ryker argued.
I didn't agree or deny it, I just stared at him, waiting for his answer. He seemed to be weighing his options, but I knew what he was going to say all along. He was still hung up on Ophelia, which could prove to be a bigger problem than anticipated in the future.
"So, what do you say?" I asked. "Are you going to do it?"
He seemed to think about it for a moment before speaking up.
"Under one condition," he finally said.
"Which condition?" I asked.
"Once she's all better," he went on. "She gets to decide who she wants to be with. And if she says me, you're not going to fight it. You're just going to let her be mine. Do you understand?"
"I understand," I muttered.
I mulled over his question, knowing full well that he wasn't asking for too much. He was genuinely interested in Ophelia's well-being, and so was I. She wouldn't choose him in the end, no fucking way. I'd make sure of it.
"Do we have a deal?" Ryker asked pointedly, and I raised my eyes to his, slowly nodding.
"We do," I said, and he offered me a smile and his hand.
When we shook hands, we stared at one another, and I wondered whether I'd just signed a deal with the devil. Either way, this meant I was going to have to fight for Ophelia, but I was more than ready to do that.
Soon enough, she would understand whom she belonged to.
