I ran the blade down my palm, slicing deep and true. The blood dripped, running a vein of a river as I squeezed my fingers closed tight. I would do it to protect Elaine. My father was unpredictable. And violent. Would he hurt her? Would he hurt her in order to block the board from voting me in? Or would he simply hurt her because of spite, because he hated the Constantines? Because he wanted to hurt things that I cared about? “I swear to God above, on the Morelli name, I care more about Morelli Holdings than pussy.”
My father nodded at that and took the knife away. He cast a glance at my oath cut and tossed the knife on the table. “You cut too deeply with that,” he said, but I shrugged as I wrapped a napkin around the wound.
“I always cut too deeply. Greater blood makes a stronger promise.”
He stood up from his chair and went back to his side of the table. “You need to be more careful who you demonstrate that to,” he said. “If people for a second thought you were the man you are…”
I’d heard this before, so many times that I shrugged again. “I don’t make oaths very often. Not anymore. Nobody is going to see me for what I am. Not from one tiny slice on my palm.”
I was right on that. Nobody had ever seen my body for the beast it was, not even my mother. The secret was bound deep between me and the man who raised me to be his heir.
“Our empire was built on oaths,” he told me. “And so was the strength of our lives. Never forget that, and never stop investing in our family’s promises to the Lord.”
I looked at the painting of Jesus above his head at the rear of the dining hall, and I wondered just what it must be like to live in families built without the constant pursuit of godliness, tainted in a world based on lies and corruption.
Our past lineage was evil, and our present hierarchy never faltered from the same, so again, I didn’t understand why my father was so desperate to avoid conflict.
“I’ll be back at Morelli Holdings tomorrow,” I assured him and got to my feet.
I didn’t hang around to see my mother appear back in the room, just made my exit with the napkin still wrapped tight around my bleeding hand. I wished my palm was spitting in pain, just to keep my oath in my mind, but my promise was already lost to me as I left the mansion.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, and I knew it. I knew it right there and then.
There was only one thing on my mind.
Elaine Constantine.
Her tracker was useless to me now.
I had only one thing left to use. Her calendar.
I called it up on my phone before I’d even left the grounds.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Elaine
I don’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.