Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

Elaine

Idon’t know how I made it through the night, shaking and crying, knowing my heart was lost to the monster.

I don’t know how the fuck I got ready for family time on Sunday. I don’t know how I managed to style my hair with trembling fingers and get myself prepared for the facade.

I was trying to avoid my mother on the front lawn, but I knew it would be pointless. There was no way she’d leave me alone through the afternoon.

I weaved my way through my cousins, making nothing but small talk, battling the chaos of fears in my head. It didn’t work. I was shaking like a leaf in the bathroom as I splashed cold water on my face, determined for once in my life to avoid the drinks on the lawn. No champagne for me.

No champagne. No champagne. No champagne.

I couldn’t risk it, not even a glass. I couldn’t risk the loosening of my tongue to anyone in the world. I couldn’t risk the loss of control, ever since that night with Stephen.

Harriet was trying to take hold of me and guide me to the edges of the garden party whenever she got the chance, but I didn’t let her. I couldn’t stand a string of her questions, not today, not with blood still fresh in my mind and on my hands to match.

Not with my ass still burning sore from Lucian Morelli’s cock.

I felt an instinctive shudder as I reached for a cupcake from the buffet. I knew it. I felt it. I sensed in one single flutter that it was Uncle Lionel stepping up behind me and pressing tight.

I hated his body. I’d always hated his body.

I hated him with every part of my soul.

“Your mother is pissed,” he whispered, and his voice had that sheen of venom and filth I’d come to know so well.

I couldn’t hold back my tongue. “Yeah, well maybe I’m mad at her, too.”

His fingers jabbed my ribs before clasping my arm. “If you have any sense in that empty skull of yours, you’ll go and speak with your mother. She’s losing her patience with you.”

I turned to face him, hating his breath in my face. My eyes must have been bristling with hate, and my heart was overflowing to match. It would have been my greatest pleasure to take a knife from the buffet table and stab him deep in his stomach, just like I’d seen Lucian do to Stephen. It would have sent my soul soaring to the sky to watch his pain.

He wasted no time before speaking again.

“She knows you’ve been socializing with druggie downtown losers again, Elaine. She knows you’re fresh from another round of bailouts.” He tutted. “Debts you can’t afford to pay. Such a silly little girl. If you have any sense, you’ll take her offer when you hear it.”

“Offer?” I asked, with no idea what he was talking about.

“Yes,” he said. “An offer. She has an offer for you. One I’ve created. You can thank me later.”

“An offer to bail me out of bailing out people downtown? I’m such a criminal, aren’t I?”

I found I was smiling, laughing to myself at the crazy disparity between my real crimes and their imagined ones. If only they knew the truth.

It seemed they’d heard nothing about me fraternizing with the Morelli bloodline. Not yet.

“You’re right, you know,” I told him. “Yes, I have been saving people again. I enjoy the company of druggie downtown losers a lot more than the hypocrites like you.”

“Watch your mouth,” he muttered under his breath, and even though my gut was twisting scared, I didn’t let myself back away from him. Not today. Not anymore.

“You know something, Uncle,” I whispered. “Can you imagine what would happen if I shouted out your sins right here and now for all the idiots to hear?”

His breath caught, but he didn’t move, just stayed pressed tight to me. “I can imagine,” he told me. “I can imagine just how everyone would condemn you as mad. They’d laugh in your face. They’re your vile fantasies.”

He ran his fingers down my spine, and I tensed as they reached my ass crack through the fabric of my dress. If only he knew who’d been inside me.

“I can teach you some more lessons about behavior whenever I choose,” he said. “Be very aware who you are speaking with. I still have a whole host of teachers ready to instruct you.”

“I’m long done with your lessons. You disgust me.”

“You are always so ready to lie,” he replied. “You were never long done with your lessons, darling. If that were so, you wouldn’t have kept being such a naughty girl for more. I still remember just how pleased you were when your teachers came calling.”

I should’ve rushed away from him, but I didn’t. My whole body was rooted to the spot.

His mouth leaned right into my ear, and I shuddered but didn’t flinch.

“Can you remember how wet you were, Elaine?” he asked me. “I’ve told you before, good girls don’t get wet when they are trying to learn their lessons. I had plenty of men to teach you yours, but still you didn’t listen.”

“Stop,” I said, but he didn’t stop. He never did.

He tipped his head at the garden party around us, and I felt everything spinning, the world unsteady under my feet.

“Colonel Hardwick is joining us shortly,” he said. “So is Baron Rawlings. Shall I tell them how naughty you’ve been, muddying our family name, hanging out with cokeheads? Or maybe we could call up Reverend Lynch. I’m sure he has a whole load of new lessons for you.”

“Don’t,” I spat. “I hate them. I’d slit their throats one by one if I could.”

“There she is,” he tutted. “Lying again. Such a liar, Elaine. Always such a liar. You’ve always liked your lessons, even when you were a sweet little girl who should’ve known better.”

“No,” I said, but I could hear it in my voice. That confusion. Always such confusion, even down in the depths of pain and hurt and hate.

“As I told you, your mother wants to speak with you,” he said again, and his voice was nothing but monotone, bored. “If you have any sense in you, you’ll speak to her before you leave. The offer won’t be on the table forever.”

He walked away from me without a backwards glance, and I hated myself inside all over again. I hated everything about myself. I hated everything about them. I hated the garden party I was a part of, and I hated everything in my life that was so fake and so filthy both at once.

I couldn’t catch my breath properly. I didn’t want to eat, and I didn’t want to drink, and I didn’t want to speak to anyone, let alone my mother, so I did what I’d always done.

I retreated as gently as I could, brushing past the bathrooms in the hallway and slipping my way upstairs to my suite on the top floor of the compound.

Hide. Hide. Hide.

Hide and hurt.

It was my hiding room at the far corner of the landing that I retreated to. I opened the door to the storage room as softly as I could, then slipped inside. I dropped down and pulled my legs to my chest against the old armoire, rocking and crying and trying to hold my breath until I stopped swimming in the hurt.

I needed this.

I needed the remedy I’d used since I was too small to know better.

I lifted the edge of the carpet in the corner and pulled up the loose piece of floorboard I’d been using since I’d first discovered it was there. Sure enough, it was waiting for me—my stash of wipes, tissues, bandages, Band-Aids, and a little roll of scalpel blades. I unrolled the felt bundle, already feeling the first hints of calm as I saw the blades there.

I tugged my dress up around my thighs and stared at my scarred skin through glassy eyes, letting out a gasp as I made the first slit in my flesh.

Oh yes.

Oh how I needed that.

How I needed the slice of pain and the tingling release of blood.

I thought of Stephen, dying on the floor, and I thought of Lucian Morelli’s tongue dancing around mine, and I did it again, another nick of the blade.

God yes.

I thought of how much I’d wanted the monster inside me and how much I’d loved it when he hurt me, and I did it again. Another nick of the blade.

I thought of how wet and needy I was when I thought of Lucian bringing me pain and making me want it, and I did it again. Another nick of the blade that made me hiss out a sigh.

I was bleeding. The blood was hot and dripping. And I wanted more.

Another nick of the blade that brought a rush through me that was better than any coke.

I thought of Baron Rawlings and his swollen red cheeks as he called me a naughty girl with his fat fingers groping at me. I thought of how he’d made me pay, hurting me so hard over his knees as I sobbed and told him I’d be better. I promised I’d be better.

Another nick of the blade.

I thought of Colonel Hardwick and how his naked body was so heavy over mine.

Another nick of the blade.

I thought about all the things my mother had said to me, so many times she’d called me a liar when I’d tried to tell her the truth. Another nick of the blade.

I thought about Lucian. I thought about the care in his eyes along with the hate and the rage when he killed another man for me.

And then I thought of him killing Colonel Hardwick and Baron Rawlings, too. I thought of him killing the men who’d hurt me when I was too small to know better.

I thought of him killing Reverend Lynch.

I thought about him killing Uncle Lionel for giving me away to the sinners.

I found myself wishing I could tell him the truth. Wishing I could tell Lucian Morelli the truth before I was gone.

Another nick of the damn blade.

The calmness found me, deep and dark. I loved the pain in my legs as they tingled from the cuts. I loved the way my blood trickled and dripped down my thighs.

Lucian Morelli wasn’t going to save me. He wasn’t going to hurt any of the men who’d hurt me, because even if I could tell him, I wouldn’t. I’d never tell a soul as long as I lived.

I smiled to myself at that.

As long as I lived. That wouldn’t be long.

The Power brothers were coming for me.

I wiped the blood from my legs, pressed a wad of tissues to the cuts and relaxed back against the wall, sinking into the soothing calm, riding the ebb and flow of it as my body tried to make sense of my actions, until finally, the sobs and the trembling had stopped. I caught my breath, patched up my wounds and hid my stash away, then forced myself into some kind of walkable state, even without a few lines of cocaine to see me through it.

Mom wanted to speak with me. No shit. I knew she’d have plenty to say. Who knew what her offer would be, but I was damn sure it wouldn’t be a good one.

I made sure my cheeks weren’t wet before I made my way back downstairs.

My heart stuttered as I realized my mother was already a floor down by the main staircase. Waiting. As always, her face was one of utter disgust when she saw me there, her lip nothing but a snarl of disdain.

I tried to think of words, but I didn’t have to worry about that.

Her welcome to me was a slap across the face, hard enough that I cried out in a gasp.

“If you ever so much as step foot downtown, Elaine Beatrice Constantine, I swear to God, it’ll be the very last thing you do. This time I’m serious.”

My heart was racing, but nothing more came, just a jab of a finger in my face as she reiterated her stance. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, because it was true. I was sorry that I couldn’t be who she wanted. It might seem weak, to people who’ve never been abused. But I was never able to grow up. That’s something the therapist had told me for the bargain price of $500 an hour. When you’re abused, you stop growing up. You stay that age forever.

My mother’s voice has turned pleading. “You don’t belong in that seedy hovel of a place. You’ve never belonged in it. You belong here, with us, with your family.”

I didn’t belong there with the rest of them. I never had. Not since meeting Reverend Lynch.

“Family?” I asked. “I thought you were disowning me.”

She sighed. “No gratitude. So it’s just as well that I have a solution for us.”

“Uncle Lionel told me. An offer.”

“Yes,” she spat. “An offer.”

“Tell me, then,” I said, trying my best to sound strong. “What is this offer?”

I knew it was going to be a bad one before she started speaking. I could see it in her stare.

“Christopher Rawlings,” she announced. “He wants you as his bride. Baron Rawlings suggests you are to be the latest addition to the Rawlings name and the British aristocracy.”

No.

Not Baron Rawlings…

I was shaking my head before she was even done speaking.

She sighed, folding her arms across her chest. “Don’t try my patience any more than you already have, Elaine. This is a good opportunity for you. And a good opportunity for the Constantine name. Do something for the family, for a change.”

Constantines and Rawlings…it made my skin crawl.

“The tabloids would love it,” she said. “It would be the wedding of the decade.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t want to marry Christopher Rawlings.”

She scoffed at me. “You don’t have to like him. That’s hardly the point of a good marriage. What I would expect is that you would see the value in my proposition. A fresh start, in England, with a good family name and a ring on your finger.”

Mom was still talking, rattling off the benefits.

“I’ll finish your debts with the Powers one last time. You’ll be out of the cycle. No drugs in your life, no losers to hole up in the pits of shit with. Baron Rawlings was very clear on that. Nobody would come within a mile of you. Nobody they didn’t approve of.”

I was still shaking my head. “Baron Rawlings is a sick fuck.”

“Watch your mouth!” she said. “Baron Rawlings is a fine man, from a fine family lineage.”

I did watch my mouth. It shut tight. Just as I always had done.

I was already walking away from her as she cursed under her breath.

“I mean it, Elaine,” she said. “Accept Christopher’s proposal or you’re on your own. I’m not digging you out ever again.”

I didn’t want her to. Not anymore. The sails of hope in me died their death for the last time. I was lost to everything. Even myself.

I’d never marry Christopher Rawlings. Never.

My legs were still tingling from the cuts, and my cheek was tingling from the cold hard slap of my mother. My ass was still hurting from Lucian’s cock, and my heart was shrinking from years of disgrace and fear and self-hate, and I was ready.

I could never be with Lucian. I should never want to be. I could never dig myself out of the life I’d created, amongst the people who’d created me.

I let out a sigh as I took the final staircase back down to the garden party, leaving my mother upstairs with folded arms, cursing my name.

I had the answer.

This time, for myself, I had the answer.

If the Power brothers, or Lucian Morelli, or Reverend Lynch weren’t coming for me pretty soon, I’d be taking myself and saving them the trouble.

With the first shred of self-respect I’d allowed myself in years, I smiled. Fuck the Power brothers, and fuck the Morellis, and fuck the whole host of people aching to be a part of my demise.

My final breath belonged to one person only.

Me.

My end would be on my own terms, and soon.

Really damn soon.