Disgusting.
Caroline is disgusting, and my entire soul recoils from her. It recoils from the barrage of memories. Every one is an old assault made into a new one. She seemed invincible when I was younger. Untouchable. So when she let me touch her, I thought it was worth something. I was so fucking stupid. I was so naive. And I was an easy target. She was willing to give the illusion of approval, and I wanted it so much I was willing to debase myself for it.
That’s no longer the case.
Caroline is drawn up to her full height on the other side of the desk, as if being on her feet gives her an advantage. I let the silence stretch out. She’s the one who taught me about silence. About its power. About the way it invites shame. Silence will spur people into action. They’ll do anything to avoid it.
A subtle shift in her expression. It’s not fear in her eyes. It’s uncertainty.
Good. I want her to sit with the sensation that she might have fucked up.
She has fucked up, obviously. Caroline could have killed me when I was fourteen, but she didn’t. She let me live to suffer until that pain wore away everything but the need for revenge. None of her tricks are going to work. I’m stronger now, in every way possible, and I don’t give a fuck about anything.
No.
I give a fuck about one thing.
One person.
Caroline stands in the same spot Haley did when she first came to bargain with me. For a few moments before she sat down, Haley stood on the other side of my desk and tried to disguise her shaking body with a desperate confidence that made me so hard I had to fuck my fist as soon as she went upstairs. She was innocent. She was everything.
The woman standing in her place defiles even the ghosts of her footprints. Caroline, after all, is just like me. The two of us are made of dirt and evil, and Haley is pure and clean and good.
She’s the only thing that’s good.
She is better off without me.
Grief is a blow to the stomach. I’ll never see her again, and she’ll be better off. I sent her away before Caroline could find her here. I kept her as safe as I could, which was not very. I kept her with me. I am not safe.
I let the silence go on for another few heartbeats. “I’ll dissolve the contract.”
“Good.” Caroline reaches for her purse. “I’m prepared to sign—”
“Under one condition.”
She meets my eyes. “What is it?”
The thing about evil is that it has to be baited. I’ve spent years circling the Constantines. Years following them and taunting them and prodding them until they finally took the meat in their claws. Caroline has tolerated me fucking with her sons in myriad ways, but I’ve worn her down. I’ve made it impossible to ignore this final threat. As wealthy as the Constantines are, they also know that diversification is essential for survival. Real estate can’t be the end goal. Time keeps passing, after all. Humans need new technologies. That’s where the real money is, not in buildings that will only ever rot.
She’s caught in my snare now.
I open the top drawer of my desk and take out the whip.
It’s been there for as long as I’ve owned this house. It’s been with me since before the house. I bought it a long time ago.
I bought it to use on Caroline.
They were empty threats, the things I said to Haley. I would never have used this on her. It’s not made for kink or safety or sanity. It’s meant to leave scars. It’s meant to leave wounds. It’s meant to make a person bleed.
This is the moment to stand, so I do it. Caroline’s eyes follow me up and up and up, and for the first time, they go wide and fearful. I’m taller than she realized. Stronger. Not a fucking teenager that she can groom and use and hurt. And she has made an error. She put herself alone in a room with me.
She tries to sneak a glance toward the door.
“No, Caroline.” I punctuate this with exactly the smile she deserves. “You’ll leave when I’m finished with you.”
I feel nothing but impatience. Nothing. No part of her attracts me. It all disgusts me, repels me. I didn’t feel that way with Haley. I felt like a different person. The pain was still there. It will always be there, as long as I live. But she felt it with me. She took it from me, and she cried and begged for more.
Caroline’s hand turns to a fist around her purse. “You’ve turned into a real monster. I should be proud, actually. You’re the creature I made.”
It’s as jarring as a slap, because in this, at least, Caroline is right. I’m the Beast of Bishop’s Landing. I’m a fucking animal. Nothing but rage and claws. She made me that way. It’s a permanent state.
“Undress.”
“Leo,” she scolds, as if I’ve gone distastefully far. I let one fist come down on the desk and lean over it. She backs up a half a step, face pale. “Fine. Okay.”
She drops her purse on the ground and starts with the coat. Underneath, she’s wearing a sheath dress with a collar made for a younger woman. Her face turns pink when she pulls it over her head. I test the whip against one hand. Caroline notices and moves faster.
Naked, she shivers in my office, and I see the deal she’s made with herself. Caroline Constantine is allowing herself to believe that she’s chosen this. She believes she’s buying her own life back by allowing this punishment.
She’s doing no such thing.
I have no interest in enlightening her. I have almost no interest in this woman at all, except in one way. She’s had power over me for too long. I want it back.
“There’s a coat hook on the back of the door.”
Caroline brings her head up and looks at me, questioning. I give her no answers. In the end she has to turn around and walk toward the open office door, then close it. It’s set into the center of the wall.
I have never used the coat hook. It was original to the house, and I’ve always hated it. After Caroline leaves I’m going to rip it out of the door myself.
“Hold on tight.”
She sees what I mean and shudders. I could not give less of a fuck. Caroline reaches up for the hook and wraps both hands around it. For all I’ve loathed it, it’s perfect for this one scenario. In order to hold on, Caroline has to be up on tiptoe. It will make the whipping harder to take.
“Let go, and I start over.”
Caroline throws a pleading look over her shoulder. “There are other ways to settle things.” Veiled panic flickers through her eyes. “Compensation. A—a joint contract involving—”
I interrupt her with the first stroke.
Her head goes back and she screams. The scream itself is slightly delayed while her nerves race to catch up. I draw the whip over the angry red line across her back. “I’m going to say this once.” Two taps with the whip. “Shut the fuck up, unless you’re going to scream some more.”
And Caroline does scream.
By five strokes, she’s sobbing. By ten, her screams have gone ragged at the edges. Fifteen and her voice is giving out.
I stop after twenty to give my arm a rest. Her knuckles are white on the coat hook. Her back is red from her neck to her ass. I’ve landed some blows on her thighs, too. “No more,” she whispers. “Please, no more.”
The pity I expected to feel doesn’t come. I am, after all, a fucking monster. So I don’t feel for her, even though I am intimately acquainted with her state of existence.