by Esme Devlin
Chapter 37
Grace
I told Malachy I would go home and see if Scott was there, and he refused to let me go alone.
I was about to argue with him but then I kinda understood his point. Scott’s never been someone who I thought would hurt me, but then Scott’s never been someone to leave me to die either, so… there’s that.
And I can’t say for certain how he will react to being buried alive in the woods by my fucking boyfriend.
Can I call him that? It seems like too strong a word and yet somehow not strong enough. I don’t even know what we are. Perhaps there isn’t a word for us.
Scott’s car is sitting exactly where he left it last night when he ran out of the house.
I go to open the door and it’s locked, but Malachy pulls a key out before I can remember what the fuck I did with my own one.
I raise my eyebrows at him and he just shrugs.
Don’t even know why I expected any differently to be honest.
But the house is empty. No sign of Scott or my mum.
We search every room and I shout a few times. My mum’s car isn’t here, so there’s every chance she’s at the shop or at the hospital. I’d sent her a text this morning, letting her know I’d stayed at Kate’s house, but I doubt Scott would have.
Unless he’s already been home?
“Might as well grab your stuff while we’re here?”
“I’ll pack a bag,” I tell him.
I have no intentions of staying here without Malachy. It’s not that I need saving, but fuck I feel safer when I’m with him. And those are words right there that I never thought I would say.
“Pack everything,” he says. “Your home is with me now.”
I turn around and raise an eyebrow at him.
“I’m fucking serious,” he says. “You and me.”
This is crazy. The furthest thing from sensible that I could think of and yet at the same time, it feels right.
I give him a couple of nods and go up the stairs, standing in the middle of my room and wondering where to start. Most of it is junk I didn’t even need. I mean there are some things here I would want to keep… photos. Trinkets. Memories.
But every memory feels tainted now. The memories are all lies. Every last one of them.
Why would I want to remember being that scared little girl?
That’s not me. Not anymore.
I grab a bag and throw some clothes in there, and pull a single photo of me and Kate together on my sixteenth birthday.
Then I close the door on the place where the monster haunted me, and I run into his arms.
We’re driving back to his house when his phone rings. He checks the screen and picks it up. “Fuck do you want?”
He seriously answers the phone that way?
Then he puts it on speaker and hands it over to me, and the moment the person speaks I realize exactly why he answered that way.
“I want to speak to my sister.”
“Then speak.”
“Oh, you’re alive are you? That’s good. I was worried he might try to kill you — like he did me and Jamie.”
He says it like it’s a big revelation and I must admit, as much as I don’t want him dead, I can’t say I’m not about to enjoy bursting his bubble. “I already know, so you can save the drama. How did you get out?”
He laughs down the phone at me. “That doesn’t surprise me as much as I thought it would. He’s clearly got his hooks in deep. Let’s just say friends in high places and leave it at that, will we?”
I look over at Malachy but he has his eyes fixed on the road straight ahead.
“Where are you?”
“Somewhere safe,” he says.
I look out of the window. A part of me wishes I could have this conversation alone, without Malachy sitting right here. But I told him no secrets, and he spilled all of his to me.
“You can’t come back. Promise me, Scott. You and Jamie never come back here and no one gets hurt.” I swallow down the lump in my throat and rub the palm of my hands against my jeans.
He laughs. He just fucking laughs. I’m trying to help him. He probably doesn’t even deserve that, but still I’m here, trying not to burn the bridge.
“Promise me.”
“No.” There’s a long pause while I look over at Malachy again. But other than the clench of a jaw muscle his face is blank.
“I’m not going to come back anytime soon, though. You don’t need to lose any sleep over me, like you did all those nights over him. I’ll come back when I decide. And it’ll be when you least expect it.”
Malachy moves now, he takes the phone out of my hands and he ends the call, sliding it into the console beside him.
“What are we going to do?”
He looks me in the eye so long I almost grab the steering wheel — I’m shitting myself that much. “We’re going to live, princess. You and me, in our black castle, with our black haired babies.”
“And what about Scott? Jamie?”
“Fuck Scott and Jamie. Abercrombie wankers. Fuck are they going to do, personal train me into an early grave?”
I can’t fight the smile that’s playing on my lips.
“I’m not sitting at home in your castle all day tending your psychotic little bastards.”
His turn to laugh. “Never expected anything less from you, to be fair. You can make me black suits, too. Oh, and I’ll stick a ring on it as well if that stops your bickering.” He winks at me.
“Wanker,” I tell him.
I check my phone and see that I have two missed calls from Kate.
“I need to go and see her,” I say, locking my phone. “Explain everything.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? They could be with her.”
I furrow my brow. “Why would they be with her?”
He shrugs. “Fuck knows. How well do you even know her?”
How well do I know Kate? Only better than the back of my hand. We’ve been best friends since the first day of primary school. “Better than anyone.”
He looks at me for a minute and then nods his head. “Suit yourself.” The car jerks as he does a U-turn in the road, heading back towards my end of the town. I direct him to her house and ten minutes later we’re parked across the street.
“I’m waiting,” he says, before I can even ask.
“I won’t be long,” I tell him, unclipping my seatbelt.
“Oh, I know that.”
I jump out the car and cross the street. We don’t normally bother with doorbells but for some reason I ring it this time. Her mum comes to the door a few minutes later.
“Kate in?”
She smiles and swings the door open. “In her room, pet.”
I jog up the stairs and knock a few times, shouting her name outside the door.
The thing swings open a moment later, and instantly I can tell there’s something wrong.
“Kate?”
She turns away and sits back down on her bed.
“I need to tell you something and you need to promise me you’ll take this secret to your grave.”
“Of course, what is it?”
“He wanted to kill them, Grace.”
Her eyes are red and puffy, like she’s been crying. Crying over the secret she knew she had to tell but didn’t want to?
“Hey,” I get down on the bed beside her and wrap my arms around her. “It’s okay. I already knew.”
She turns over on the bed, her eyes wide and rubs the sleeve of her chunky knit cardi along her nose. “What?”
“He told me this morning.”
“Craig said he’d kill me if you ever found out. Strangle me in my sleep.” She sniffs and tries to brush the loose strands of hair that are sticking to her wet cheeks off her face. I take pity and help her as I reply.
“He won’t do that. I already know everything. I told Malachy this morning that I didn’t want any secrets between us. He told me what he’d done. We went out there to dig them up,
hoping they were still alive, but someone had got to them first.”
“What?”
I nod my head at her. “They were gone. And they’re alive, Scott called me this morning.”
“What did he want?”
I shrug. “Revenge? To scare me? I don’t know. Malachy didn’t seem too bothered and I’ve spent enough nights losing sleep over shit that’s not worth it.”
She smiles at me then. “That’s not like you.”
I shrug. “I feel better now. As fucked up as that sounds. Like I know the truth. After all these years, there never was a monster. They made it up.”
She sits up. “And now what? Are you going to college tomorrow? What’s your mum saying — is she up to high doe?”
“I’ve not seen her. I’m kinda… staying with Malachy now.”
Her eyebrows shoot so high in that moment my eyes are rolling to keep up with them. “What did we say about pricks? You can’t fix that shit, Grace.”
There’s my girl. Grudgey Kate.
I smile at her. “I don’t think I want to fix him. I think I trust him.”
“He’s messed up. Even if he didn’t do what we all thought he did.”
I know he is. But I don’t think it’s his fault. There is good inside him. He didn’t have to tell me what he’d done with them, he could have left me in the dark, in my bubble, believing in half-truths and trusting the wrong people.
But he didn’t.
And as long as that remains the moral code that he lives by, then all the other shit doesn’t bother me so much.
“You’ll get to know him and you’ll see why. Anyway, he’s waiting outside for me. I need to go, but I’ll catch you at college tomorrow?”
She smiles and pulls me in for a hug. “Come here.”
I hug her back. “It’s going to be alright. Shit will blow over and we’ll get back to normal. And I know, so you don’t need that hanging over your head anymore.”
Seriously, what the fuck was Craig thinking? She would never have kept it from me. It pointless to even make her try.
Nodding her head reassuringly, she releases me and we say our goodbyes.
He pulls the car up outside of the house and I’ve been sitting on the words the whole journey. I follow him with my bags up to his bedroom and he puts them in the middle of the floor while I sit down on the bed.
“We need to talk,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. “We need to fuck, then we can talk. We’ve done a shit-tonne of talking today already, don’t you think?”
I’m not going to say the word no, so instead I shoot for, “It won’t take long.”
He stands in the middle of the room watching me and nods once. “Shoot.”
“Kate was a mess. In tears. Said Craig threatened to kill her if she told me you didn’t let Scott and Jamie walk away. Let’s get one thing straight Malachy, you can fuck with me all you want. I’m a willing player in your little game. Kate isn’t. You don’t fuck with her.”
He regards me for a moment and then he whistles. Like a fucking wolf whistle. And I think I want to slap him for being so condescending.
“Since you asked me so nice, done. I don’t fuck with Kate. I don’t threaten Kate. I don’t hurt Kate. Now are you gonna let me teach you those manners you’ve clearly forgotten?”
I lift an eyebrow, and now I’m the one regarding him. “No.”
He shakes his head. “Say that again and I’m going to sit you on top of my cock and keep you there til you’re sorry.”
“No.”
He undoes his three buttons on the top of his polo and my skin is already burning up. Which makes no fucking sense because his room is ice cold — like usual.
“Strip for me,” he says as he rips the top over his head and discards it carelessly.
He’s asked me that a few times now and each time no matter what I did, I ended up fucking ravaged anyway. But this time I do. This time I feel like he wants whatever is under my clothes like a drowning man wants air in his lungs.
So I slide my jacket off while he grabs a chair from the far corner and slides it across the room.
“Do it slow.”
He sits there, like a king on his throne, thighs spread wide and eyes dancing in the light of the fire while he drinks in the sight of me.
And I think it’s possibly the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.
Even though there’s crazy in his eyes. Even though there’s black in his soul. Even though this is probably wrong.
His face used to haunt me and now I think I’d go just as crazy as he is if I had to go a day without it.
“What the fuck have you done to me?” I ask him this as I’m pulling my top up over my head and undoing the belt on my jeans.
“It was there all along. I just brought it out to play.”
I hadn’t even expected an answer, but as I tug my jeans off and cross the room in my underwear, I can’t help asking.
He sits me down on his lap and spreads my legs wide either side of him. My pussy connects with his hard bulge through his jeans and he makes quick work of removing my bra, pulling me in close to him so my nipples brush against his hard chest.
“What do you mean?” My voice is barely a whisper. It’s like I’m holding my breath. Adrenaline courses through my body every time I get too close to him, and now I’m right in the palm of his hands.
“You probably don’t even remember, but I do. You were the girl who was scared of nothing and no one.”
My mum said the same. I don’t remember. “All I remember is fear. Anxiety. Nightmares.”
He leans in and takes my earlobe into his mouth, sucking it gently before releasing it with a pop.
“Exactly. And now I’ve taught you to dance in them. Take the fear and the pain and the anxiety and fucking thrive on it. Take the nightmares and live there with me.”
“You’re quite the fucking poet, aren’t you?” I catch his bottom lip in my teeth and bite down, and he lets out a laugh that turns into a growl.
“I’m whatever the fuck you want me to be. This is your nightmare, princess.”
Then he pushes me back, leaving only his arm to support my upper body. His mouth crashes down hard on my tit and all I can do is cling my arms around his neck and wish I had something hard to bite down on. He works my body until I’m so fucking hot and needy I think I might burn up.
We eventually crash down onto the floor and he slides his jeans off on top of me, before flipping me around and doing exactly what he threatened he’d do. He sits me up on top of him and tells me to ride it.
Now, I don’t have the first fucking clue what I’m doing here. I’ve watched the odd bit of porn, but who the fuck genuinely believes any of that is real?
So I just kind of sit there, looking at him under me. He grabs a hold of my hips and slides them forwards and back until he’s hitting something that knocks the air clean out of my body.
I collapse on top of him, too delirious to keep going and he does the rest. Grabbing my ass cheeks with both hands he slams me up and down on him until my fingers are twisting in his hair and I’m screaming into his ear.
“I’m putting a baby inside you tonight,” he whispers.
At this stage I’m well past fucking caring anymore.
Reckless? You bet ya.
Apparently I was always this way.
And I want him too. As crazy as that sounds his deep gruff whisper in my ear has me turned on like a broken tap.
“Do it," I tell him, helping him, clenching my muscles down below while he slows down and goes back to hitting me in that spot that feels like magic and heaven and hell all rolled into one. “Fucking do it.”
Sends him right over the edge.
His arms squeeze around me, practically crushing my bones while I feel his cock pulse inside of me. I’m so out of breath, so hot, so happy.
For the first time I’m fucking happy.
Here in the shadows with my monster.
Chapter 38
Mala
chy
3 Weeks Later
Everything — and I mean fucking everything — needs to be perfect. The boys have been warned. Lucia has been told to keep my dad talking instead of drinking. Kate is busy doing Grace’s hair and makeup and whatever the fuck else she doesn’t need, but makes her feel better anyway.
And her mum’s here.
Aye. Old Ma McCormack. I had a word with her. And when I say word, what I mean is — I had a deal with her. My dad’s deal expired on this day, which happens to be the same day my very own deal with her starts.
She’ll be making my suits from now on, because it won’t be long before I’ll need them. And in return she becomes the perfect, supportive mother to Grace, grandmother to my kids, and she doesn’t mention Scott’s name again.
She took a bit of convincing, but as soon as she realized she’d have to play by my rules if she wanted to be a part of shit, she quickly saw sense.
And now she’s knocking back Gin and Tonics at the bar like nobody’s business.
Craig’s standing behind the bar playing his role as usual, pouring her drinks and everyone else’s. I’ve told him if he starts making fishbowls and shit, I’ll go through him.
Maggies running up and down the stairs — god fucking love her — with trays of food that likely no cunt will eat. Frozen sausage rolls and cold pizza and shite like that. I sent Ross away to help her so I don’t feel as bad.
I sit at a table across from my old man and Lucia. And she plays her part perfectly, keeping him talking and his attention focused on her. For tonight, at least.
And then she walks in the room and I think my heart jumps right into my mouth. She’s got this black lace dress on that leaves every inch of her to the imagination. Hair all half up and half down and curly and wild. Her eyes are darkened and so are her lips.
I’m up and out my chair in a shot, stalking the room towards her and sweeping her up for a quick kiss.
Only for her to shove me away. “I didn’t go to all this trouble for you to ruin it, you big bastard,” she whispers in my ear.
“Ruining you is my favorite fucking sport.”
She giggles but I get off her. “Drink?” I take her hand and lead her over to the bar. Kate sits down beside her and Craig leans over it, taking her order.
