No surprise this time. I sat in his office. Or rather giant shipping container he jokingly called an office, and waited for him to show up to work. He usually arrived around ten am. And I’d timed it earlier, since his scout on the corner likely saw when I entered the building and alerted him.
His desk and papers all appeared neat and tidy. A small black safe sat on the bottom shelf. It didn’t look very secure. I could pick it up and walk out of here with it. Did he keep more paperwork in there, or jewels, guns?
The door clamored shut and I looked up to see Danglars. He narrowed his eyes. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
I stooped to test the handle of the safe. Pretty solid. Then stood back up. “Making a decision.”
He sauntered closer and pressed around me to get to the other side of his desk. Effectively replacing me, putting himself between me and his valuables. “About what?”
I sat. “What I’m going to do with you?”
He paused in taking off his coat. “Excuse me?”
I didn’t have the time or energy to go through all this once again. “My name is Edmond Dantes. You wrongfully sent me to prison twenty years ago. Now I’m back and taking my revenge.” Delivered deadpan it sounded like the plot of a serial crime tv show.
He scanned me hard and the realization hit him. I was ready when he surged to his feet and meant to make for the exit. I collared him against the wall, my fingers pressed tight around his throat. “No. You don’t get to leave when I’m speaking. Especially when I’m about to let you go with your life.”
That broke through his thick skill. He stopped struggling.
“You took everything from me. And after getting my revenge on your two compatriots I find I’m tired of death. So. I’m going to take your money, your home, every single thing. And you get to walk away alive as long as I never have to look at your face again.”
The man actually considered it. Like his possessions were worth more than his worthless life.
After a quick nod, I released him. He slumped and slid down the slatted wall in a heap. I stepped over him to the desk and eyed the safe. Something nagged at me. “Open it.”
To his credit, he didn’t argue about it. Simply got up, opened it, and waited. I pulled out a large green ledger and scanned the pages. It was coded, but with the key on the front I’d have no problem deciphering it.
“How long does this go back?
He cleared his throat and stretched his neck like I actually hurt him. Playing it up. I rolled my eyes and shook the book at him.
“30 years of transitions.”
An interesting find. I wonder who I’d uncover in Danglars’ little black book. I moved around him toward the door.
He stood there looking around. “Leave. Now. I will know if you didn’t and will come back for you.”
Danglars looked up at me and I caught a glimpse of the shrewd smart man behind the Neanderthal act he clung to for others. “Do you still keep Mondego as a pet?”
“Fernand? He shot himself.”
He braced his hands on his desk. “No. The other one. The bitch who never learned her place.”
I surged toward him and he scrambled back. “Leave,” I repeated and walked out.
He called after me. “She’s not what you think.”
In the car, despite the fact Danglars would go off somewhere and do other awful things, I didn’t feel the same guilt as I did for Fernand and Villefort. I’d made the right choice, and for some reason all I wanted to do was go home and tell Mercy.
Would she be proud of me? Did I want her to be?
The car couldn’t drive fast enough. When we made it back I rushed inside the elevator and up to my room. She still lay snuggled in my bed. The remnants of her breakfast sat on her bedside table. Two empty coffee mugs on the floor. I supposed I should be thankful there wasn’t a coffee bean trail to the kitchen.
I left Chef in charge of making sure she didn’t try to get up and do too much today. I covered her up and took the ledger into my office. It looked ancient against the granite. All the edge buckled inward and stained brown.
The scent of something made me curl my nose. I glanced down at my shirt. I must have gotten something on me in Danglar’s office. I stripped quickly, showered, and came out to watch her sleep. She opened her eyes and smiled up at me. “How’d it go?”
I dried off in deference to her injury, not her sensibilities, and climbed over her to snuggle behind. She let me pull her close. “Need anything?” I asked.
She wiggled her ass against my already growing dick.
“No.” I dropped a kiss on her shoulder. “Nope, you need a couple more days of rest and then I’ll take care of that for you.”
“Who knew you were such a nurse? I should have met you before I needed to get my gallbladder out. Things would have been so much more comfortable.”
I slid my hand over her belly and lifted her shirt.
She flinched and started to pull it back down.
I let it go. “Are you ok? I’m sorry. I just wanted to see if you had scars from it?”
“What?” Panic edged in her voice.
I propped up on my elbow and looked down at her. “Hey. Its ok. What’s wrong?”
She glanced away and forced a smile. “Nothing. I think the pain medications are getting to me.”
And with that lie, something broke between us. I stared down at her and eased away. She rolled over drawing into herself. Why did I catch fear in her eyes when she looked at me? Despite her words, did she blame me for getting hurt? After I said I’d protect her. I’d been very keen to point out every time she didn’t keep to our bargain. And yet, on something so important, I failed her.
I didn’t argue with her, or ask any more questions. I scooted off the edge of the bed and went into my office. The ledger called to me. I could easily crack it. But that might throw me back into this world I seemed to just wrench myself free from.
I glanced back at my bedroom door. What changed? Why would she lie? It hit me. Could she be worried about what it meant for her now that my mission had been completed? But after everything we went through and accomplished together, how could she think I’d hurt her?
The evidence was clear. But I wasn’t about to accept it. If she wanted to leave, she needed to ask me to take her home. Only then would I escort her out. Only then would I let her go.
I went back into the bedroom and knelt beside the bed so I could force her to meet my eyes. “Talk to me.”
She hugged her middle and smiled. “I’m fine. Really.”
I asked her outright. “Are you worried I’m going to hurt you now that I don’t need you anymore?”
She jerked backward. “What? No.”
She sat up and looked at me now. “But glad to know you have no more use for me. I guess a limping disguise isn’t a very good one, anyway.”
I sat beside her and tried to control my frustration. She’d been chipping away at it bit by bit since she came here. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
She slid of the edge of the bed to standing.
I swooped her in my arms and lifted her. “I just wanted to take a shower.”
“You can’t with that bandage on your leg.”
I walked her into another room off the other side of my closet. This room rarely got used since I never felt the need to take a bath.
She gasped when I flipped on the light. “You were holding out on me. Is that a Jacuzzi tub? She wriggled until I sat her down on the edge of the tile.
I ran the water and she adjusted in to a molten temperature before pouring in some shampoo to make bubbles.
Once she’d removed her clothes, I helped her in the tub and arranged a towel over her bandage so she didn’t get it wet. She sighed and sank lower in the suds.
When she yelled at me, I came over and washed her hair for her. A surprisingly arduous task. It required two washes and a lot of conditioner to clean the entire length to her satisfaction. She laughed at my facial
expression. “And then we have to brush and dry it all. You know I should probably cut i—”
“NO!”
She laughed at me and I splashed her face with some hot water. “Haha.” Despite her playful tone I still felt the undercurrent of her rejection earlier. And I couldn’t shake the fact that she wasn’t telling me something. I hadn’t figured out what quiet yet though.
I held her out of the bath again and into some clothes. My body burned with the need to take her, claim her, make sure she knew who she belonged to. But not while she was injured. Besides, consent on narcotics didn’t count.
Back in bed, I sat on the coverlet and made sure she didn’t need anything. A stack of books sat beside the bed and I noted she’d taken some of my personal shelf. Worn battered well-loved copies. It eased me somewhat.
“I’m going to get dressed and then go do some work.”
She nodded, sleepily and rolled over to watch me.
When I came back in the room I stood over the bed, shirt in hand. She continued her inspection, I shook my head, and walked away. Maybe I’d imagined the look she gave me. The tension of the morning finally seeped in.
I sat behind the desk and dragged the green book toward me. The code took minutes to sort out. I identified all the names on the list except the flower on the last line. There were no female hierarchy members in the gangs right now, unless you counted St. James’ new wife. But she’d be in another book, her own empire to manage.
I scanned the entries and found payments going back to the night I’d been arrested. Her flower sat right there with the other men who betrayed me. And then it came up regularly once a year to a last name. Then after 18 years the payments switched, went up, and started being sent to a college.
I scanned everything again and made sure I’d decoded it correctly. Did I miss something? ‘
The knowledge hit me like a sledgehammer to the nasal cavity. I bowed back with the weight of it.
No. No. No. She wouldn’t. No. She didn’t.
I stared at my bedroom door. Mercedes was the flower. If that were the case, after my incarceration, what were all these payments for?
I checked the entry. Another payment needed to go out today. Fate, you wily bitch. I checked the college event list and found a fundraising event listed.
Looked like my traitorous ex-fiancé needed a serious wake up call. She cared enough to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for twenty years now. And before I killed her myself, she’d see whatever that was ripped away.
My chest felt like someone scooped it out with a melon baller. Empty, misshapen, painful.
I stood, tucked the ledger under my arm, and stopped at my bedroom door. Would this ever be over? Could I ever be free?
EIGHTEEN
MERCY
I rolled over when the door opened again. “Back so soon? I thought you had work to do?”
But the man who entered wasn’t my Will. He still only wore his boxer briefs. It didn’t matter, his face is what caused me to scramble up to sitting and look at him. All traces of the soft, beautiful man, who’d just washed my hair were gone. In his place stood The Count. The fearsome man I’d met when he dragged me out of my office a month ago.
I waited for him to speak. He produced a green ledger I recognized as the one Danglars kept from everyone for the past thirty years. The only way he stayed safe and alive this long.
He flipped it open and turned it to face me. The date I knew instantly. It was the day I asked Villefort, Danglars, and Fernand to help me overthrow the family. The day which changed my life forever.
He poked the page with his finger forcefully. “This is your symbol. You made a payment this day. What was it for?”
I stared at him over the stained pages. “What does it matter? It’s the past.”
“NO!” He shouted and threw the book against the wall. “It’s not the past. It’s the reality I live with every single day. You were in on it. The woman I loved and promised to spend my life with you. It was your fault they took me away.”
He paced back and forth beside the bed and I tried to get up, to stop him, make him look at him. Because if he said what I thought he was screaming about that would mean.
I climbed out of the bed, but my bad leg wouldn’t hold and I pitched forward. He caught me easily enough before I busted my head and sat me down. He pulled away the moment he could, but I held his arms and ran my hands over the top of his chest.
“Fucking stop it. This isn’t the time for that shit. I don’t want you.”
The words punctured me but I kept feeling around over his left pec until I felt it. A small circular raised scar imprinted in his flesh.
Suddenly, I was eighteen again screaming at him for looking at another girl. He defended himself but I hadn’t taken his word for it. I had my father’s gun pointed at his head. And he stood there talking to me calmly, explaining.
I wanted him to fight with me. We needed to fight or else I wasn’t going to be able to do what I needed to do when the time came. I raised the gun into the air and fired one shot. He flinched but didn’t leave. I pointed the muzzle at him again, and he pressed his chest into the hot steel.
He cried out and I dropped the blasted thing and rushed to him. A small burn mark appeared raised and ragged on his chest. Marking him mine forever.
With the evidence under my fingers and my entire world realigned around this new knowledge. I scrambled away from him. My leg screamed as my feet scraped on the floor, and the rug, and then finally the covers as I got myself over the bed.
“No.”
He held his arms open to me and tears started pouring down my face hot and heavy. “No,” I whispered.
He watched me crumple back down and did nothing to stop me, help me, or hurt me. I almost wished he did.
“You see, I understand you didn’t come to me in jail because you thought I was dead. But this, being the mastermind behind the operation. Your symbol was first. You paid first. You did this to me.” He stalked around the bed and I made no move to protect myself. “You betrayed me and I want to know why.”
I couldn’t speak around the tears gushing from my eyes, the snot pouring out my nose. I tried and ended up wiping my face on the t-shirt. His t-shirt. When I could speak again the words wouldn’t come out.
The pain and suffering had a purpose, and I promised, sworn an oath twenty years ago, that my secret would never come out. To anyone. And I couldn’t change it now. “I’m sorry,” I offered instead.
“NOT GOOD ENOUGH,” he roared, and railed backward to pace at the end of the bed.
It would be easier if he hit me, punished me, whatever he needed to do. And I wanted it too. The knowledge I’d done this to him ate at me. Him being dead had been devastating, but also a blessing. Knowing he only suffered a short time before it ended, had helped.
My stomach churned violently and I slid up the wall from the corner to standing. I used the bed to get around him and into the bathroom. My knees hit the tile with a sickening thud. My breakfast came up in waves. And when it ended I breathed through the following wave of nausea.
He stood at the door, hand on his hips, leveling me a look of disgust. “The idea of you costing me twenty years of my life makes you sick, does it? Me too.”
I pushed off the floor, and he made no move to help me up, or back to the bed. I deserved it. All of it.
If I could make it to my own bed, I’d have gone there. As it was I wasn’t sure I didn’t need to lay a pallet in the bathroom at this point.
He watched me limp and suffer and I hoped it helped him. I hoped it eased him.
The sheets smelled like him. Everything in me wanted to explain, tell him what he wanted to hear, but I knew where my allegiance lay. And I couldn’t just stop after all these years of heartbreak and sacrifice because it suddenly became more difficult.
“Don’t get comfortable. We are leaving soon. Take a nap, fix yourself up, but I’m going to give you a fucking reason to explain yourself. And you are g
oing to tell me the truth.”
He stormed out and I rolled over, hoping I didn’t throw up in his bed. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t keep anything down, and my period of captivity just took a devastating turn. How much worse could it get? He had nothing on me to compel any explanation. I owed him a life, but I didn’t owe him this.
The sunlight had dimmed while I slept. I woke to see him sitting on the end of the bed. Only hours ago, I would have reached for him, drew him to my lips, and kissed him. Now, the anger and hatred in his eyes, clawed me open.
He shoved some clothes at me. “Get dressed. We have somewhere to be.”
I pulled apart the mass. Not a dress, but definitely business casual. I put the black slacks and button down on quickly. Then limped into the bathroom slowly to fix my hair and face. I didn’t have time for makeup as he shouted from the sitting room.
It took me longer to get out there than to get dressed.
He stared away, not looking, helping, breathing too close to me when I shuffled into the elevator. “Where are we going?” I ventured.
He leaned away from me. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll see soon enough.”
I made it to the car so slowly. The driver moved to help me, but Will—Eddy—waved him off. Once I sat, I’d broken out in a fine sweat. I lay against the window and hoped the coolness kept me from throwing up all over his backseat.
I paid little attention to the surroundings, until a red brick started to appear more frequently. Then I realized where he’d taken me. How the fuck did he find out? The book, and that bastard Danglers, must have recorded what I explicitly told him not to.
We stopped at the curb and I got out on my own. Anger blazing brighter than the guild and shame and hurt right now. “What are you thinking bringing me here? You fucking bastard. You have no right to bring me here.”
He sauntered up, hands in his pockets, enjoying the torment on my face no doubt. “Oh, I have every right. You belong to me until I let you go.”
I grabbed his arm and whispered. “Then kill me. Be done with it. Shoot me and then move on with your life.”
The Count (Twisted Classics Book 3) Page 11
