Elaine acknowledged my thoughts, matching just right with hers. “Wow, it’s late. I’m so tired.”
I smirked as I opened the main door for her.
“Yes, baby. It’s very late and you must be very tired.”
She was grinning an innocent grin as we began to climb the stairs up to our wing.
“You going to snuggle me tight in bed, then?” she asked.
“Get your sweet ass up there and find out,” I pushed, and she did. She sashayed that sweet ass up there with a spring in her step despite her body undoubtedly aching from my blows.
We showered together, slowly. I soaped her nice and gently, but she was still flinching as she smiled. Her skin was a masterpiece, already darkening, brewing with bruises. She was delicious, but now wasn’t the time to feast on her.
We did snuggle up in bed together and she fell asleep within a few short minutes of me stroking her hair. It took me a lot longer to close my eyes, staring at the light of the morning glowing through the drapes.
My mind was full of the plans I’d made. The purchases I’d made. The declarations I was ready to make.
My father could lash out from overseas if he thought I was unprepared for that. Elaine’s family would be brewing on their own ideas to the same tune, but they could get fucked too. We had too much of a network of power over here already, and that was growing every minute.
The Quentins didn’t organize breakfast for us, undoubtedly well aware that we would have had an exceptionally late night. I rolled over after a fitful slumber and Elaine was still sleeping peacefully, oblivious to the world.
I watched her, replaying the vision of her in shackles over and over. We’d certainly be repeating that experience, but first I had more pressing engagements.
Devon was outside playing tennis on the manor court. I saw him through the window as I dressed myself quietly, leaving my princess sleeping as I headed out. He smiled when I came into view, waving his later wave to his assistant playing along with him. He dropped his racket against the fence as he joined me, still catching his breath.
“So how was Club Explicit?” he asked, and I smiled back.
“Just as I’d hoped. Excellent.”
He nodded. “Good. I’m glad London is living up to your expectations.”
Yes, it was. It was surpassing even the wildest hopes I’d been holding onto as Elaine and I had boarded that plane with fake IDs.
It was Devon who raised the subject I’d been planning to question. He leaned in closer, even though there was nobody even vaguely close enough to hear us.
“The timescale is on schedule,” he told me. “They will be here before nightfall. The outbuilding at the bottom of the far paddock.”
“Thank you,” I said and that villain in me was alive and burning through me.
“Dinner this evening?” he asked, and I nodded.
“It would be a pleasure.”
“A pleasure for us, too. Roast beef with all the trimmings.”
“Sounds delicious,” I acknowledged, and we made our way back to the house.
Francesca was waiting for him in the sitting room, clearly wanting his attention, so I made my exit, heading back upstairs to the wing that was beginning to feel like our own. Still, that would be coming to an end soon enough. We would soon have a manor all of our own.
Elaine was up and getting dressed as I walked in, still flinching as she pulled her jeans up over her bruised thighs.
“Ouch,” she said, with a smirk. “I’ll be feeling this for days.”
I loved that. My eyes must have said it all because her cheeks reddened, her smirk turning to an innocent smile, eating up my happiness. The thrum of the night before was still magic between us.
“Are we eating with the Quentins this evening?” she asked, and I nodded.
“Roast beef with all the trimmings, apparently.”
“Sounds nice.”
Conversation was brimming heavy with that need for each other, but today it wasn’t about sex, or pain, or consuming flesh. This was about the closeness. The need for connection.
We lay there together for a long afternoon, watching crappy TV and munching on snacks delivered from the kitchen as we carried on the random question chatter, only this time it was interspersed with snippets of memories and funny stories that had us both laughing.
We were still laughing as dinnertime reached us and we headed down to the dining room, taking our places opposite Devon and Francesca at the table.
Throughout the meal the women were talking nonstop about the West End and the red carpet and the musical, but there was a secret nod between Devon and me across the table as soon as his cell buzzed with a ping. He excused us for some business conversation after dessert, leaving the ladies chatting about the next series of musicals due for the West End.
I knew exactly where we were going. I walked alongside Devon Quentin without a word, following his march through the manor grounds to the paddock at the bottom of the pasture.
The outbuilding was there, standing tall.
“I’ll leave you here,” he said, and slapped a hand between my shoulders. “Everything you asked for has been delivered. Nobody is close enough to hear a thing.”
I tipped my head. “Much appreciated.”
“I’ll make sure the women enjoy their evening, I’m sure they will be very distracted,” he assured me.
I had no doubt about that.
Devon left me standing there in the twilight. I flexed my knuckles before I stepped up to the main barn entrance, swinging the big wooden door wide open to step inside.
There were two figures hanging from a whole set of shackles of their own, only this time there were no spotlights like in Club Explicit, just some orange glowing lanterns to allow me to see. There was no crowd cheering for the hurt, just two sick fucks begging that I didn’t kill them. Begging that there had been a misunderstanding and they had never crossed the Morellis.
It gave me a huge rush of pleasure to tell Baron Rawlings and Lord Eddington that it wasn’t the Morellis I was taking retribution for. It gave me an even larger rush of pleasure to tell them exactly who I was claiming retribution for and why.
Elaine Constantine, because I loved her. Because I adored her. Because she was the woman of my dreams and heart and whole fucking soul.
I showed them how much I loved her with every slash of the blade. I paid them back for every time they’d taken sick pleasure from the woman I loved by taking sick pleasure of my own from hurting them.
They’d been begging for their lives when I’d first stepped in to join them. They were begging for their deaths when I finally pulled my cell out of my pocket and told them to confess their sins on camera.
They confessed their sins. They gave me the details of the fellowship on-screen and how they’d been a part of it and just what the fuck they’d done. There was a truth in their eyes and voices that could never be disputed. Their memories matching and perfect. Memories of themselves, and Reverend Lynch, and the other fools still on my list to be wiped out for ever.
Plus memories of the sicko at the center of Elaine’s fate—Lionel Constantine and how he’d delivered her for her abuse when she was nothing more than a gentle little girl looking for acceptance and love.
It was well into the night when I finally stepped back out from the barn, my shirt red and slick, leaving two corpses behind me, still in chains. My hands were tainted scarlet, blood crusted under my fingernails.