I was in the shit. I could feel it all the way through my skin. My father would only have to sniff a hint of the truth in me chasing down Elaine, and the whole damn world would feel my damnation along with me. He would tear me apart alive with the whole family cheering.
“He’s been talking to the board while you’ve been gone. Whispering in their ears.”
I cursed. What a shitshow. With my father losing power and the board losing faith in me…
“I’ll try not to tell him,” he said. “But you know I won’t be able to hold off for long, Lucian.”
Even in my beast of a mood, I couldn’t blame him. They’d tear his spleen out inch by inch until he confessed whatever the fuck they wanted from him. They’d get one hell of a confession, too. Trenton Alto knew my business from the inside out. I should’ve seen it coming.
I hadn’t wanted to. Somewhere down deep he meant something to me.
Trust is always your greatest weakness. Never trust a soul but your own.
How the fuck had I managed to forget my own mantra?
“You’re a piece of shit for telling him anything,” I said to the man who’d been at my right hand for years. The man who was my link to the underworld and all its profits. The man who did the dirty while I did the deeds.
“I had to be a piece of shit this time,” he told me. “I’m not going down on that ship with you, Lucian. I’ll end up at the bottom of the ocean when your dad blows up the whole damn boat along with you.”
“Never had you down as a pussy,” I said, and he smiled at me.
“Never had you down as such a goddamn psychopath,” he replied.
I stepped up closer to him. “What exactly did you snitch to my father?”
He kept his eyes on mine as he answered. “I told him that you’ve seen her. Been stalking her around the place. I had to.” He paused. “Doesn’t know you’re digging her secrets out from the Power brothers. That’s a whole other league.”
“You’d better keep it that way if you want to keep your tongue in your mouth.”
“Whatever you say, boss. It’s not just my tongue you wanna be worried about, though. Whispers are whispering right through the back alleys.”
As much as I’d have enjoyed slitting Trenton Alto’s throat in that instant, I had too much I needed from him. “Let’s get back to my question,” I said. “What are the Power brothers planning to do with Elaine Constantine?”
He sighed. “They’ve already sent the orders down. She’s a walking target.”
“Fuckers.”
He sighed again. “They’d be fools if they didn’t. If they let that rich girl off with what’s due, then every fucker would think they could leverage their connections to write their debts off. The Powers can’t allow that. Pride if not the practicalities.” He paused as he stared at me. “Why? What the hell are you planning to do about it? Please say you aren’t going to reason with them to save her ass. Please do not fucking say that.”
He was right. I shouldn’t save her. She wasn’t the well-bred girl I could use to prove myself to the board. Even for a Constantine this was too far. It would mean losing the coup. It would mean giving up being CEO for now… and maybe forever.
“You ain’t gonna do it, right?” Trenton pushed, and it snapped me out of my headspin.
I glared at him, and he gulped down a breath. “Clean this up, like I pay you for, and stay the fuck away from me. You’d better stay the fuck away from my father too, or you’ll regret it.”
“Stuck between a rock and a hard place,” he groaned. “Fuck off, then. Leave me to it.”
The first thing I did was check the tracker on my phone, feeling a flood of relief to see my toy arriving back to her building. She was home.
Home with her asshole still bleeding from taking my cock, no doubt.
The thought had me hard all over again.
It’s a strange thing how walking alone can allow your thoughts to speak to each other so well. I found myself wondering just what the hell it was that made Elaine so irresistible to me. What the fuck was it that made that little princess so damn special?
I remembered her skin pressed close to mine. Remembered the look in her eyes whenever they caught sight of me. I remembered her needy flesh, trembling for more pain, even when she was begging me to stop.
Hurting her asshole was only a tiny taste of what was teasing me. I wanted the rest of her. Every filthy scrap of her.
I wanted her to be my toy.
Elaine Constantine was a dirty little flower in a filthy world. She was tainted innocence in the face of debauchery. She was an unopened book with deep dark secrets, handwritten pages of beautiful hurt and shame and darkness in the half light.
She was a good girl who thought she was bad. A sweet little angel, begging to be punished.
I’d punish her for her family’s sins as well as her own, and I’d love her for it. I’d love her to be a pretty little canvas in my basement, ready to be scarred with my evil.
There was a strange twinge of fear right down in my guts as I headed back to my apartment that night. I wasn’t the only evil man planning to hurt Elaine Constantine. The sweet little angel was running out of time for salvation…and I was running out of time to save her from her sins.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Elaine
The apartment block felt like a beacon of hope as the cab pulled into the parking lot.
I was still damp from Lucian’s cold dousing as I raced on up through the main reception, still hurting from his assault on my asshole, too.
The monster.
I loved Lucian Morelli. And I hated him.
The little girl in me was crying out. If only Lucian had been there to save me from all the other evil assholes I’d known in my lifetime…maybe then I wouldn’t be so scared and broken. But it was too late for that.
I’d never have believed it possible that one of the Morellis could have ever, ever saved me from my own sordid family, not in a million years, but there I was, considering it as a maybe as my heart thumped wild.
The Morellis were supposed to be demons clawing at the gates of Constantine heaven. That’s what we were taught. Indoctrinated with, really. It had been a lesson I’d learned since I was old enough to understand words. The Morellis were bad people. I’d never once held up their bloodstained souls and compared them to ours.
My phone rang, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
Tristan.
Thank fuck it was Tristan.
My fingers were shaking worse than ever as I answered him, and my voice was as shaky to match. “Hello? Tristan? Hello?”
His voice was as jagged as mine was, gasping breaths as he found the words. “Is he there? Lucian? Is he there? He’s coming after you, Lainey! He’s coming!”
Tristan’s call was way too late to warn me of the devil’s appearance, but I couldn’t tell him that. “Lucian isn’t here. I’m, um…I’m at home…”
“What? You’re home? Is Stephen there? Are you with Stephen?”
More than anything I wanted to tell Tristan the truth; that Stephen had tried to rape me, and Lucian had saved me from his grasp. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell him that Stephen was dead, and I’d been ass-fucked in his blood and loved every second of it.