“You can address me as Dominus et Deuce.” I squeeze her ass hard as I push past the tight barrier. “Your lord and your god.”
She falls completely still, completely silent as I slowly bury my cock deep into her ass. Her knuckles are white, tears soaking through the pillowcase as she gulps in mouthfuls of air.
“Oh God.” She bucks against me as I pull back and start to thrust forward again. “That’s… too… I… Santiago.”
Her broken fragments turn to garbled incoherence as I close my eyes and settle into a steady rhythm, rocking back and pivoting forward, stretching her body around my dick to accommodate me. She’s clenching against me, desperate for stimulation where she needs it the most, all while she squeals and groans and mutters indecipherable curses.
“You don’t get to come,” I bite out through gritted teeth. “Don’t even try it.”
“I’m sorry about the pictures!” she shouts. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“Your words are meaningless.” I thrust hard, fingers digging into her. “They always have been.”
“You don’t mean that.”
I fuck her harder. Angrier. Pinching her skin as I use her like a fuck toy, thrusting, grunting, rolling my hips while she folds under the weight of my palms, sinking lower and lower, only for me to yank her back up.
“I can’t stay up anymore,” she cries out, choking on her tears.
“You will.” I punctuate my words with two quick, deep thrusts, hoisting her ass up into my hands and holding half her body in the air while I fuck her into my oblivion.
Shudders move through me, muscles tightening, ears ringing, and finally, I slam into her one last time, unraveling. Filling her with my come.
She trembles when I release her, dropping her back onto the mattress, half limp. Branded by my belt and my hands and my seed leaking from her body. For a long moment, I stand there, catching my breath as I watch her. This woman I can’t trust. The woman who has managed to get inside my head. The darkest spaces of my mind. The emptiest spaces of my chest cavity. The beating heart no other soul has ever dared to trespass. And at that moment, I realize two things.
I hate her.
Yet I feel something else for her too. Something inexplicable. Something dangerous.
Something I can never allow myself to feel.
With tremulous hands, I release her ties and the belt around her throat, leaving the pillowcase over her face. My tone is ice cold, almost demonic as I give her one final command.
“Get out of my sight.”
31
Santiago
Days pass, turning to nights, and then, inconceivably, to weeks. I spend them locked in my office, alternating between work and poring over every detail of the reports that come in on Abel. He’s a loose end. Something that needs to be dealt with. A fucking Moreno who doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as the rest of humanity. I know what needs to happen. I dream about it all night and all day. Bleeding him out slowly. Torturing him until he gives me the answers I want. The confirmation of everything I know to be true. Their blood is a stain on society, a systemic disease, and the only way to cure it is to cut it out.
Every day, reports arrive on Eli’s progress in the hospital. He is regaining his mobility, recovering slowly. I’m told he demands to see me. Demands answers on the whereabouts of his family. And one day, he will have them.
This has always been my plan. My intention. But even behind a locked door, stowed safely out of sight, my wife manages to poison my thoughts.
I have not seen her since the night of the incident in the chapel. I have not asked her about the broken case or her reason for burning the sheet because it doesn’t matter. She lit the fire on my altar and in my soul with one intention. To wound an already wounded animal. I am too proud to admit that on some level, she succeeded.
I’m drowning myself in scotch, trying to forget her. Trying to get back to a time and a place when I didn’t think about what her feelings might be when she learns the fates of her brother and father. The fates delivered by the same hands that touch her at night. The same man whose mark she will bear for eternity.
She will never want to look at me again. Slowly, I am coming to understand that. But there can be no alternative.
“You look like hell.”
My eyes snap up to find Judge standing in the doorway, his concern evident on his face.
“Nothing new,” I remark dryly.
He enters the room and examines the space. The scattered folders on my desk. The scotch from my breakfast and lunch. The monitors streaming a steady pattern of figures in front of me.
“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” he says solemnly.
When I don’t respond, he takes a seat across from me, studying me.
“Mercedes is fine,” he assures me. “She couldn’t be in better care.”
“I didn’t ask for a progress update.”
My fingers tap the glass of amber liquid. Judge watches me with the precision he is known for. He has always had an eerie ability to get under your skin, as if he can see into your soul and read your secrets like an open book. It’s what makes him so effective at his job.
“You may not have asked, but I believe it would do you well to know. She is healthy and safe. In time, I have no doubt she will blossom in my care.”
I nod tightly, unwilling to admit that he’s right. It does relieve me to hear it. But that relief is temporary at best because it changes nothing. Nothing will ever be the same again.
“Have you been to see Eli?” Judge asks.
“No.” I bring the glass tumbler to my lips, drinking the liquid in one long swallow.
“You always knew it was going to come down to this,” he says. “Why put it off any longer?”
When I look up at him, the torment must be evident on my face.
“Oh.” He frowns.
“Whatever you think you see, you don’t. Don’t make something out of nothing.”
“I didn’t say a word.” He scrubs his hand along his stubbled jaw.
“You never have to.”
He chuckles a little, but his mood sobers after a moment. When he rises to his feet again, he glances at the open sketchbook on my desk. The image of Ivy left half-finished.
“It seems you have a lot to consider, so I won’t waste any more of your time. But if I may…”
When I glance up at him, he offers me the closest thing to solace I have ever witnessed on his face.
“The choices are clear. But I think the question is, which can you live without? Your revenge… or your wife’s affection?”
He doesn’t wait for me to answer, and long after he’s gone, I’m still staring at the door, that question hanging over my head.
32
Ivy
It’s been two weeks since he locked me in here again. The light blocked again. I know because I’m counting meals. Three a day.
I’m angry. I’m tired. I’m tired of being so fucking angry. So confused. Heartsick.
I keep going back and forth with what I’ll do when he does finally come to see me. If he comes. This time is different than before. He’s different.
Maybe he’s heartsick too.
No. He’s not heartsick. You can’t be heartsick if you don’t have a heart. And I need to stop being an idiot when it comes to Santiago.
I get up off the bed. At least I’m not naked. Maybe he forgot to lock the closet. Or maybe he just doesn’t care as long as he doesn’t have to see me.
“Get out of my sight.”
I shake my head. I want to forget his words. The hate inside them. Forget his disgust of me.
What will I do when he finally comes? Will I explain what I was doing? Burning the sheet? I didn’t mean to destroy the pictures of his father or his brother. I didn’t care about those. Although it’s just as bad that I didn’t care about them, isn’t it? But I’ll explain how I felt when he left for days when I thought he’d be back that night.
I’ll t
ell him I’m sorry.
But then I get angry. Why should I apologize? What have I done to him? Nothing that validates what he did to me. Using his belt like that? Marking me for days. And then how he took me.
Shame, anger, and hurt war inside me. I tell myself that he’s the one who should get down on his knees and beg for my forgiveness, yet the longer he keeps me here, the more I think it’s my fault. The more I think I’m the one who should kneel to him.
I am so confused. So sick of this.
And I know one thing for sure. I can’t do this much longer.
I stand at the bathroom mirror. I look a mess, my hair unbrushed and a tangle of knots. I showered a few days ago, but I don’t even care. I’m going crazy in here. He won’t let Antonia bring my meals. It’s another girl who is too scared to even look at me when she delivers the new trays and takes away the old.
I’ve had exactly one communication from him during these weeks. A threat. If I don’t eat, he will have Marco force-feed me. The act itself is violent enough but what hurts the most is that he’d send Marco.
Why the fuck does that hurt me? God. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I hate this man who hates me? Because even when I tell him I do, even when I scream the words at him, I don’t. It’s like there’s this sick, masochistic side of me when it comes to my husband. I want him.
And I want him to want me.
“Fuck!”
I pull at my hair, trying to make sense of my thoughts, my feelings. It’s all this isolation. This darkness. Solitary confinement.
I pick up the empty dish I’d set on the counter after flushing the food and go back into the bedroom. Antonia may have figured out I’m not eating, but the girl hasn’t. I wonder if he’s pleased with himself when he hears the report that since his warning, I’ve licked my plate clean. Asshole.
I’m tempted to smash the dish against the wall, but last time I did that, I cut my feet on the shards I couldn’t see in the too dim bedroom. So, I set it down on the tray instead and go to the window using the dull knife to try to dislodge the board covering the glass. It’s pointless, I know, but it’s something.
A key slides into the lock on my door, and I turn, hating myself for that little swell of hope that maybe it’ll be him. After what he did to me, how do I still feel hope? I’m not even sure what was worse, the humiliation of it, of how he took me, or the pain of the whipping that lasted for days afterward.
But when I see the girl again, it’s like someone’s just pricked that bubble of hope with a pin. My shoulders slump, and I hug my arms around my middle, feeling cold and alone and unwanted.
“Is he coming?” I ask her.
She’s been instructed not to talk to me. Maybe not even to look at me.
A man I don’t know stands at the door as she sets the new tray down.
“Is he coming?” I push, more forceful this time. More angry.
Nothing. She picks up the old tray.
“Look at me! Fucking look at me!” I scream, lunging to grab her wrist, sending the tray toppling, empty dishes scattering. “I’m here! Look at me!”
The man is on me in an instant, backing me into the wall and keeping me there as the girl drops to her knees to clean up. I hear her sniffle. She’s crying.
“Just tell me if he’s coming. Please. Tell him I can’t stay here any longer. Tell him I’m dying. Tell him—” A choke cuts off my sentence. The girl scurries away, and the man releases me. “Please,” I try. I’m not sure they hear that. It’s a pathetically small sound, and even the door closing and the lock turning are louder.
I sit down where I am and lean my back against the wall, hugging my knees to my chest. The smell of the meat turns my stomach. I breathe through my mouth as the wave of nausea slowly subsides, and as soon as I can, I get to my feet and take the dish into the bathroom to flush it. The smell lingers, though.
Switching on the tap, I wash my hands and my face. My hands tremble as I pick up a towel. I open the medicine cabinet and take out the bottle of aspirin Mercedes had left the night of the gala. I twist off the lid, drop two into my palm and swallow them dry. I’m just closing the lid when I think of something and stop.
I remember when Mercedes had left the whole bottle. I’d thought I was desperate then, but I wasn’t. Not like now. Because this isn’t going to change. He hates me. Even knowing I didn’t lie to him, knowing that whoever it is that tried to kill him was willing to let me die too, he still hates me.
Santiago will always hate me, and I don’t even know why.
I empty the contents of the bottle into my palm, watching as some spill over and drop onto the floor.
How many would I need for it to cause kidney failure? For it to kill me.
Do I want to die?
No, of course I don’t want to die. This is stupid.
I pour the pills back into the bottle, but I can’t get the lid back on with my hands trembling like they are. I carry the bottle back into the bedroom and sit on my unmade bed. The sheets haven’t been changed in two weeks. He’s really leaving me to rot. I wonder why he bothers to feed me. But I know that part. If I’m pregnant, he’ll want his heir. Not his baby, but his heir.
Would he cut the baby out of me and let me bleed to death once he has what he wants?
God. I’m truly losing my mind.
I lean my head back and look up at the camera pointed right at me. I stare at it, but he’s not watching. I know because the little blinking light went out a few days after he put me in here. He doesn’t care about me. Why do I need him to? Why do I care? I should be glad he’s abandoned me.
Using the back of my hand to wipe away my tears, I reach into the bottle to fish out two more pills. I swallow them. Then another two. And another two. I cough those up, though, and have to get up to drink the water the girl brought. And I keep swallowing, digging out two at a time until the bottle is empty.
My heart races, a sick feeling in my stomach at what I’ve done. But what else is there to do? Slowly rot? At least this way, he can’t control it. He can’t decide it.
I let the empty bottle drop to the carpet and walk backward to the bed to lie down. When I roll over, I see my sister’s letters scattered beside me through the haze of tears that are so much a part of my life now. Every day. Every day too many tears. I am so tired of it. I’ve read the letters a hundred times. I can’t think about how she’ll feel when she hears what I did. I can’t bear how confused she'll be. How hurt.
I think of Hazel when she left. How I felt. How there was a time I hated her. I felt betrayed and left behind. It’s what I’ll do to Eva, and I hate myself for it. I don’t want to die, do I?
So I get up and go to the door. I try it, but I know it’s locked. I call out, but no one answers, and I don’t know what I want. I go to the desk, opening the drawers until I find a pen and some of that De La Rosa letterhead. I tear off their family crest, crushing that part and dropping it at my feet, then return to the bed where I lie down again and set the paper beside me.
When I start to write, the pen punctures the paper at the Dear. The aspirin can’t be working that fast, though. This is probably exhaustion. Starvation. I feel dizzy, a different sort of dizzy than usual, so I close my eyes for a minute. But when I open them again, I know it’s been longer than a minute.
I feel sweaty, disoriented, and heavy. I sit up, squinting against the double vision. I swing my legs off the bed, and a wave of nausea hits me so hard, I drop to my hands and knees and vomit before I can even think about trying to make it to the bathroom. Another wave comes, and I throw up some more. After dry heaving, I sit back, one hand on my belly, the other on my forehead, my breathing shallow and labored.
My ears are ringing, and I swear I can hear my own heart beat too fast.
A noise at the door has me turn my head, but when it opens, the room spins, the girl freezing when she sees me, her mouth falling open.
I think I reach out for her and try to say something. The man is inside, the look on his f
ace panicked. The girl screams, and the man calls out for help, but that ringing is too loud. I can’t seem to keep my eyes open, and the last thing I see is the empty bottle of aspirin rolling under the desk.
33
Ivy
I’m not in my bedroom anymore. The smell is different. The sounds. The light. I lie still and listen and try to remember. Something tugs at my arm, but when I try to pull away, I can’t, and the first thing I think is I’m back in that cellar.
Panic grips me.
“It’s all right,” a woman says. “Shh. Nothing to worry about, love.” She has an English accent. “There you go. Just relax.”
I try to open my eyes, but the lids are too heavy, and a moment later, I’m gone again. The light is different when I next wake to the sound of men’s voices talking quietly.
“Dehydration in addition. She vomited most of it on her own from the sound of it.”
“Why is she restrained?” This voice I recognize.
Santiago. He’s here. He's come back to me.
I want to call out to him. Touch him.
“She tried to pull the IV out. We’ll remove those as soon as we can.”
IV?
“When will she wake up?”
“When she’s ready. Her body is exhausted. It’s working twice as hard now. Give her time, Santiago.” I hear affection in the voice of this man.
“You’re sure about that?” Santiago asks. He sounds worried.
“Blood tests don’t lie.”
I hear him exhale. “Thank you, Doctor.”
Doctor.
I realize what that smell is. Why the light is different. I’m surprised I didn’t recognize it before. I’m at the hospital.
A door opens and closes, and someone moves, footsteps coming closer. I smell his aftershave over the antiseptic, and despite all that’s happened and all that he’s done to me, it’s a comfort.
Reparation of Sin: A Sovereign Sons Novel Page 17
