Tudor bowed his head and said, “You are the master of the house now.”
Not giving Monster time to respond, he turned on his heel and walked from the room.
He left the door wide open.
Monster’s heart beat hard, high in his chest, so it seemed to crawl up his throat. What did this mean? If he left the room without permission, what would the repercussion be? His father was no longer here to beat him. Would Tudor complete the task now his father was unable to?
But Monster was a big man now. His father had provided work out equipment, and he could easily spend several hours a day on the treadmill or lifting weights. This had bulked out his muscle and trained his body to a peak of physical fitness. He wouldn’t allow Tudor to lift a hand to him.
But you’ve let your father hit you for more than twenty years.
He pushed the thought away. That was different.
With his mouth drying, and adrenaline powering through his veins, he took a couple of slow, tentative steps toward the open doorway. He had no chaperone, no threat of his father emerging from the shadows and demanding to know what he was doing out of his room.
A figure moved ahead, and Monster froze, his heart thumping, his palms slicked with sweat. His mind morphed the person into that of his father, smaller now, since the cancer had riddled his body, emerging back from death to punish the disobedience of his only son.
But then he blinked and the reality of the true identity of the person before him emerged. It was the elderly woman who had been bringing his meals to him recently.
She caught sight of him and ducked her head. “Good morning, sir.”
Wasn’t she going to question him? Demand to know what he was doing out of his room unsupervised?
Instead, she said, “Would you like your breakfast in the kitchen this morning, sir?”
Still the woman’s eyes didn’t make contact with his face. He knew he was a fearsome looking creature, one the staff couldn’t even bring themselves to look at.
“Umm, yes. That would be fine, thank you.”
He’d found himself in a parallel world, and he no longer recognized the house he’d lived in his entire life.
With no other option, he headed toward the kitchen. Tudor stood at the kitchen counter. “Your coffee and newspaper, sir,” the man said, motioning toward the two items sitting on the counter. “We have a busy day today. We have the unfortunate arrangement of your father’s funeral to attend to, and then you need to be briefed about your father’s business.”
“I know my father’s business,” he snapped.
Tudor ducked his head. “Of course, my apologies.”
His father had been teaching him about all of the contracts they held for years now. He knew each of their opposition’s identities and weaknesses. He knew which of the contracts were of most importance to them, and which ones could be dropped or used as bargaining chips. He knew exactly how much money each contract was worth, together with their outlay.
He also knew the dangers of the business—how, when millions of dollars could change hands in one deal, other people always wanted a piece of the action, and were willing to do anything to get it.
A number of loud bangs came from the direction of the front door.
Tudor pressed his lips together, his nostrils flaring. “I’ll get rid of them, sir.”
The other man turned in the direction of the front door and walked, hurriedly, but straight-backed.
Monster remained focused on the front door. Voices low and urgent drifted down to him, and then came a louder shout, and the sound of a door slamming. He tensed, his hand resting on the kitchen counter as though to steady himself.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” A man with coffee colored skin and jet black hair came barging into the kitchen. He spoke to Tudor as he stormed in, his neck twisted to watch to Tudor over his shoulder as he walked. “If the son of a bitch is dead, his business needs to go to me. No one will uphold any of the contracts if there’s no one to run the business.”
“There is someone.” Monster spoke, his voice rich and commanding, and the man turned in surprise. “There is me.”
The new arrival’s eyes widened, instantly focusing on the huge birthmark down one side of Monster’s face.
“What the fuck? Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?”
Slowly, Monster shook his head. “No joke. I will be taking over my father’s business.”
“Like hell you will, you fucking freak. Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“I’m his son. He left his business to me.”
His mouth dropped open. “You’re his son?”
“Yes, I am.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me? That handsome son of a bitch sired a freak?” Laughter burst from his lips and Monster’s rage boiled deep within him.
“I am what I am,” he said. “But my father raised me to take over his business when this day came, and that’s exactly what I intend on doing.”
“But no one else knows about you? He kept you hidden all this time?” His hand reached into the back of his pants.
“Monster …” Tudor warned.
The man twisted to look at Tudor, a baffled, disbelieving expression on his face. “What did you just call him?”
Quickly, Monster reached out and slid the biggest knife out of the block which stood on the counter next to him.
Sensing movement, the man spun back around, pulling the gun from the waistband of his pants. “Don’t fucking try anything,” he warned. “I’ll shoot you here and now, motherfucker. No one else even knows you exist. This business was supposed to be mine now. He owed me this!”
“No,” said Monster. “He owed me this.”
Lunging forward, he dived down, going for the other man’s legs. The man let off a shot, but it went way over Monster’s head.
Monster hit the man’s legs, throwing him backward. The gun flew out of his hand, and Monster raised the knife and plunged it deep into the man’s throat. His eyes rolled, and a strange gurgling sound emitted from his mouth. His hands clutched feebly at the knife, but he either didn’t have the strength to pull it out, or he knew it would do no good.
Monster knelt up, and sat and watched the light go out of the man’s eyes. A cold numbness settled into his heart, into his soul. The tortured concerns of a bullied child no longer bothered him. He was a strong and powerful man, with money and power at his feet. He understood now why his father did what he did. He also understood why he could not allow his father’s enemies to see his face. Would it frighten them? Perhaps. But most likely they would laugh at him, pity him, and no longer respect him. He couldn’t risk that.
He looked up to find Tudor holding a gun, though it wasn’t pointed at him.
“You had a weapon,” Monster said. “Yet you didn’t shoot him.”
“You needed to understand exactly what you’re getting into. I wanted to make sure you had the ability to taste blood if it was needed.”
“I think I’ve proved I have that ability.”
Tudor nodded. “Yes, you do.”
“This will be the last stranger to see me,” he told Tudor. “I want a wall built right around the property. Make it ten feet high, and topped with barbed wire. I want armed men positioned around the wall twenty-four seven. Not a single other person is going to get into this property without my knowledge and permission. If someone so much as glances in this direction, I want to know about it.”
Tudor bowed his head. “Yes, sir. When would you like construction to start?”
“Right away. And arrange for this mess to be cleared up.”
“What about the funeral.”
“He doesn’t deserve a funeral.”
As Monster walked away, toward the room that would now be his office, he realized he hadn’t shed a single tear for his father.
Twenty
The days turned into weeks. Though the tension remained high in the house, Monster made no attempt to touch her again. He remained cool and p
rofessional, and only when she applied cream to his skin, and checked over his healing, did they even touch. Otherwise, they’d slipped into a strangely professional relationship, which drove Lily even crazier than when he was pushing her against a wall and forcing his fingers inside her. Every time she felt like she might have broken down some of his walls, he seemed to build them even higher and deeper.
At least, since she’d massacred his books, Monster had stopped locking her in her room day after day. Instead, he gave her almost free rein of the property, and she fell into an easy, peaceful routine. She started cooking with Marianna in the kitchen, pummeling dough to make fresh bread—a chore she found to be strangely cathartic—and learning how to make the rich tomato-based sauces the meats were cooked in, to be served with rice and beans.
She talked to Marianna while they worked, trying to get the other woman to tell her where in the world she’d been brought. She asked sneaky questions about the style of cooking, or which spices were popular in which countries, but Marianna only ever looked at her with her eyebrows raised and her lips pressed firmly together. She wasn’t going to get one past the other woman.
“What about you, Marianna?” she asked one day, as they stood together chopping fragrant cloves of garlic and onions. “How did you end up working here?”
“It is a long story,” the older woman said, shaking her head.
“So? I’m happy to listen. It’s not as though I have to be anywhere else tonight.”
Marianna gave a small chuckle. “This is true,” she said in her heavily accented voice.
“So tell me. What brought you here?”
“Men brought me here” she said. “Enemies of our master, but men I worked for back then.” She gave a cold laugh. “Worked for is perhaps not right. They took me from my village because my father owed them a debt. They decided I was enough to make up his payment, and so I was forced to serve them however they wanted.” She stared back down at the vegetables and continued to chop furiously. Lily noticed tears glistening in her dark eyes, but she wasn’t sure if the tears were due to emotion from recalling her story, or from the onions they were cutting. “I was probably your age when they took me,” she continued. “I should have been married, but no one wanted to marry into my father’s family. He was a terrible gambler, and a violent man. I was frightened of him—too frightened to run away—and I had nowhere to go.”
“And he gave you to criminals to pay off his debts?”
She nodded. “The men used me for household duties at first, but it soon became more. They put their hands on me, making suggestions, and the suggestions quickly became promises.” Her lips tightened, the lines threading the corners becoming more defined. “They raped me, several of them, many times. When they were done, they would beat me as well. I struggled to do the household chores because of my injuries, and so they would beat me some more.” She stopped and placed her knife down on the chopping board. “These were not good men, Miss. I knew that. I overheard them talking about another man, a man who kept himself hidden away, and who had great power and money. I understood from their conversations that they considered this man to be their rival, and as far as I was concerned, any man who was their rival was my friend, even if they did not know it yet.
“So one day I managed to escape, and I came here. I was beaten and bloodied. Tudor found me in a heap outside of the gates. I begged him to let me in. I told him where I’d come from and that I’d tell him every word I’d overheard. At first our master thought I’d been left at his gate to spy on him, but I slowly earned his trust. It took almost a year before he allowed me to see his face. I wasn’t surprised; I’d already worked out something like that was wrong. I’d seen similar things with babies in my village and surrounding ones, though many of them didn’t make it past childhood.”
Lily frowned. “How did they not make it past childhood? Birthmarks aren’t life-threatening.”
“No, but people wouldn’t accept the babies—considering them to be bad luck for the village. Most of the time they’d be abandoned and left to die, or put in one of the children’s homes where they’d stand no chance of ever being adopted.”
“That’s awful.” Lily was stunned. She hadn’t thought for a moment that the other woman had a story like that behind her. “So you’ve lived here ever since?”
She nodded. “Yes. Sir has been very good to me. He even pays money into a bank account for me each month as wages, though I tell him not to.” She laughed. “I don’t know where he thinks I will ever spend the money.”
“How long have you been here, Marianna?”
She frowned, her eyes lifting skyward as she calculated. “About nine years now, I believe.”
“And you were my age when you were brought here?” She worked out that only made Marianna in her late thirties. She’d have placed her at least ten years older.
Marianna must have understood her line of thought. “I’ve had a hard life, Miss,” she said, “and it shows on my face.”
Lily’s cheeks flushed with heat. “Oh, I didn’t mean—”
She laughed and placed a warm hand over the top of Lily’s. For once, Lily didn’t flinch away. “Oh, it’s all right. Beauty isn’t always a blessing—I learned that at the hands of our master’s enemies. I’m content as I am now. Life has been easy for me since I came here.”
Lily smiled. “I’m glad for you.”
“What about you, Miss? How is your life here?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. It’s started to feel like home now, though I’m not going to pretend that a part of me doesn’t miss my old life. It’s the work more than anything. The rest of my life was pretty empty.”
Marianna gave a secret smile. “But you have the master now.”
“Have him? Do I? He has me, more like.”
“I see how he looks at you. You mean a lot to him, more than he’s capable of admitting, perhaps even to himself.”
***
Eventually, Lily agreed that Monster’s skin had healed enough for her to conduct a third session with the laser.
He reclined on the medical bed and she prepared his skin for the treatment.
“I’m amazed at the difference you’ve made,” he told her, looking up at her. “I dreamed of such a change, but I don’t think I ever truly believed it would happen.”
He was right. Large parts of the birthmark, especially on the smoother parts of his face such as his forehead, had already lightened to pink. Other areas—in the creases of his nose and his jaw—were still dark, but the overall impact of his birthmark had been greatly diminished.
Lily wasn’t sure how she felt about the change. She was pleased Monster felt better about himself, but part of her missed the almost unworldly beauty he’d held with one part of his face in permanent darkness, while the other side had appeared perfect enough to belong to an angel. The other thing she worried about was Monster stepping out into the world to come face to face with the men who threatened his business. After hearing Marianna’s story, it brought home to her that Monster was a criminal who would be dealing with other criminals—men capable of rape and murder. At least in this house he was safe.
“I’m glad you’re happy with the results,” she said. “Remember the birthmark won’t completely disappear, though, even after we’ve completed the treatments.”
“I know. You told me when you first came here.”
It felt strange to be this close to him again when they’d been so intimate. Did he regret what had happened between them? He made no mention of it, and she was too embarrassed and self-conscious to do so. She felt as though they’d been dancing around each other since, the knowledge of how intimately he’d touched her like an invisible silk thread that joined them together, but which they could never speak of.
She thought back to those early days, how terrified she’d been, how she’d almost lost her mind.
“You know,” she said. “You could have just asked me to come here.”
He shook his
head. “You would never have come on your own.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I know you care about your patients. You would never have left them to come here to me.”
She thought back to all the people she’d been working on at home, and a pang of sorrow filled her. Her patients relied on her. She hated to think that she’d let them down, or that they’d have been worried about their future treatments with a new therapist. She was most concerned about the children. Many, if not all of them, suffered some kind of bullying because of their birthmarks, which left them hurt and fragile. Kids could be some of the cruelest tormentors, giving no thought to repercussions or how they made the other child feel. Her disappearance would have hit those patients the hardest.
“No, you’re right,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t have come.”
She hesitated, and then asked the question that had been burning on her lips. “What happens to me when your treatments are complete? Will you keep me here?”
His eyes locked with hers. “Would you want to go back?”
He’d given her no reason to think he felt anything for her. She knew his past, and how he treated women, and she would be kidding herself to think that he saw her as anything more than a woman to give him what he needed.
“I guess so, if I was given that choice.”
A shadow that had nothing to do with his birthmark passed over his face, and he glanced away, breaking eye contact. “Don’t get your hopes up, Flower,” he warned. “I may have found a new job for you by then.”
A shiver ran down her spine. She shook it off and tried to concentrate on the job she already had.
Twenty-one
The following morning she woke as usual, and dressed. She headed toward the kitchen to help Marianna with breakfast, but as she approached the entrance hall, she drew to a halt. The normally shut and bolted front door stood wide open. A couple of large boxes sat just inside the door, but otherwise no one was around.
Defaced: A Dark Romance Novel Page 16
