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.”