The Villain

by Shen, L. J.

  At that moment, I wished I were my sister, Emmabelle.

  She would tell him to stick his attitude where the sun don’t shine. Then drag him into one of the private gardens after the ceremony and ride his face.

  But I wasn’t Belle. I was Persephone.

  Timid, nice, Goody Two-shoes Persy.

  Missionary-sex-with-the-lights-off Pers.

  The awkward romantic.

  The people-pleaser.

  The boring one.

  There was a beat of silence before he took a step back into the room, closing the door after him.

  “Not much going on inside that pretty head, huh?”

  He sighed, discarding his blazer on the bed, then unbuttoning his cuff links. Hiking his dress shirt up his muscled forearms, he stared me down with dissatisfaction.

  My body had decided this was a great time as any to collapse on the floor, so it did just that. I crashed on the carpet, heaving as I tried to draw my next breath.

  So that’s how Auntie Tilda felt.

  Unaffected by my fall, Cillian flicked the faucet of the claw-foot bath in the middle of the room, turning the tap to the blue side, so the water would be ice-cold.

  Satisfied with the water temperature, he stepped toward me, rolled me over on my stomach with the tip of his loafers—like I was a sandbag—and leaned down, pressing his palm to the base of my spine.

  “What are you—” I gasped.

  “Don’t worry.” He tore the corseted dress from my body with one long movement. The violent sound of fabric ripping and buttons popping sliced through the air. “My tastes don’t run to little girls.”

  There was an age different between us. Twelve years weren’t something you could easily disregard. It never bothered me, though.

  What did bother me was my new state of nakedness. I shivered like a leaf beneath him.

  “What the hell did you do?” I shrieked.

  “You’re poisoned,” he announced matter-of-factly.

  That made me sober up.

  “I’m what?”

  He kicked the pink flowers next to me in answer. They careened to the other side of the room.

  My breath became shallower, more labored. The vitality seeped out of my body. The echo of gurgling water pouring into the tub was monotone and soothing, and suddenly, I was exhausted. I wanted to sleep.

  “I found them in the garden outside the suite,” I murmured, my lips heavy. My eyes widened as I realized something.

  “I tasted them, too.”

  “Of course you would.” His voice dripped sarcasm. He hoisted me over his shoulder and carried me to the restroom. Dumping my limp body by the toilet, he lifted my head by fisting my hair. My knees screamed in pain. He wasn’t gentle.

  “I’m going to make you throw up,” he announced, and without any further intro, he stuck two of his large fingers down my throat. Deep. I gagged, vomiting immediately while he held my head.

  In the words of Joe Exotic, I am never going to recover from this. Cillian holding my hair while he is making me puke.

  I emptied my stomach until Cillian was sure everything was gone. Only then did he wipe my face with his bare hand, undeterred by the puke residue.

  “What’re they, anywhmm?” I slurred, resting my head on the toilet seat. “The flowers.”

  He scooped me in his arms with frightening ease, walking across the room, and dumping me onto the bed. I was stark naked, save for a skin-colored thong.

  I heard him rummaging through the cabinets. My eyes fluttered open. Grabbing a first-aid kit, he produced a small bottle of medicine and a syringe, frowning at the tiny instructions on the vial as he spoke.

  “Bleeding Hearts. Known for being beautiful, rare, and toxic.”

  “Just like you,” I murmured. Was I seriously cracking jokes on my deathbed?

  He ignored my riveting observation.

  “You were about to poison an entire chapel, Emmalynne.”

  “I’m Persephone.” My eyebrows pinched.

  Funny how I could barely breathe, but I still managed to take offense at being confused with my sister. “And my sister’s name is Emmabelle, not Emmalynne.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked without looking up, sticking the syringe into the bottle and drawing the liquid into it. “I don’t remember the younger one being so mouthy.”

  I was filed under The Younger One in his memory. Great.

  “Am I sure I am who I am, or what my sister’s name is?” I resumed my scratching, about as demure as a wild ogre. “Either way, the answer is yes. I’m positive.”

  My older sister was the memorable one.

  She was louder, taller, more voluptuous; her hair was the dazzling shade of champagne. Normally, I didn’t mind being overshadowed. But I hated that Kill remembered Emmabelle and not me, even if he got her name wrong.

  It was the first time in my life I resented my sister.

  Kill lowered himself to the edge of the bed, slapping his knee.

  “On my lap, Flower Girl.”

  “No.”

  “The word shouldn’t even be in your vocabulary with me.”

  “Turns out I’m full of surprises.” My mouth moved over the linen. I knew I was drooling. Now that I was breathing better, I noticed the stench of puke from my breath.

  I turned my head in the other direction on the bed. Maybe dying wasn’t such a bad idea. The man I’d been obsessed with for years was a massive prick and didn’t even know my name.

  “I don’t care if I die,” I croaked.

  “Ditto, sweetheart. Unfortunately, you’ll have to do it on someone else’s watch.”

  His arms came around my body, and he draped me over his legs. My breasts spilled over his muscular thigh, my nipples brushing against his pants. My butt was aligned with his face, allowing him a perfect view. Luckily, I was too weak to feel embarrassed.

  “Stay still.”

  He eased the needle into my right buttock, slowly releasing the liquid into my bloodstream. The steroids hit my system immediately, and I sucked in a lungful of oxygen, my mouth opening against his thigh. I moaned in relief, my back arching. I felt a bulge nestling against my body. It was thick and long, splaying across most of my belly. That thing belonged in a rifle case, not a vagina.

  And the plot thickens.

  It wasn’t the only thing that did just that.

  We stayed like this for ten seconds, with me regaining my breath, gulping precious air, and him picking the flowers from my hair with surprising tenderness. He disposed of the flowers inside a napkin, then folded it a few times. He put one hand on my butt cheek and pulled the syringe out slowly, causing ripples of desire to run along my body.

  My head dropped to the bed.

  I was shamefully close to an orgasm.

  “Thank you,” I said quietly, pushing my palms up on the bed to rise. He plastered a hand over my back, lowering me down to lie across his lap.

  “Don’t move. Your bath should be ready any minute.”

  He had the eerie, irritating ability to treat me like dirt while saving me at the same time. Stuck in a state of drunkenness, gratefulness, and mortification, I followed his instructions.

  “So. Persephone.” He tasted my name on his tongue, rolling my panties down my legs with his strong, long fingers. “Did your parents know you were going to be insufferable and punished you in advance with a stripper’s name, or were they on a Greek mythology kick?”

  “My Auntie Tilda named me. She battled breast cancer, on and off. The week I was born, she got the all clear after her first round of chemo. My mother let her name me as a present.”

  In hindsight, they were too quick to celebrate. The cancer came back in full force a few years later, claiming my aunt’s life. At least I had a few good years with her.

  “They couldn’t say no.” Cillian tossed my panties on the floor.

  “I love my name.”

  “It’s tacky.”

  “It means something.”

  “Nothing means
anything.”

  I whipped my head to flash him an angry look, my cheeks hot with anger. “Whatever you say, Dr. Seuss.”

  Cillian took off my heels, leaving me completely naked. He discarded me on the bed to stand up and turn off the faucet, then he took a seat on the edge of the bathtub.

  “Lady-in-bath.” He swirled his finger in the water, checking the temperature.

  I cocked my head from my position on the bed.

  “That’s another name for the bleeding heart,” he explained aloofly. “Get in.”

  He turned his back to me, allowing me some privacy. I stepped into the bath, sucking in a breath. The water was ice-cold.

  Cillian texted on his phone while the arctic water soothed my skin. I was already feeling much better after the shot. Despite throwing up most of what I’d eaten and drank that morning, I was still lush. Silence stretched between us, punctuated by staff and event coordinators barking instructions beyond the suite’s walls. I knew that despite the awkward situation, I only had one chance to tell him how I felt. The odds were against me. Other than his erection at having me buck naked on his lap, he seemed turned off by my very existence.

  But it was now or never, and never was too long a time to live without the man I loved.

  “I want you.” I propped my head against the cool surface of the bath. The words soaked the walls and ceiling, and the truth filled the air, charging it with electricity. Using the L-word was too intimate. Too scary. I knew what I felt for him was love—despite his rude behavior—but I also knew he would never believe me.

  His hands busied over his phone. Maybe he didn’t hear me.

  “I’ve always wanted you,” I said, louder.

  No response.

  A glutton for punishment, I continued, my pride and confidence collapsing brick by brick.

  “Sometimes I want you so much it hurts to breathe. Sometimes the pain from breathing is a nice distraction from wanting you.”

  A knock on the door made him dart up. Aisling was on the threshold, holding a replica of the bridesmaids dress we all wore.

  “You said you needed my extra gown? Why on earth…” She trailed off, taking me in behind her brother’s shoulder. Her eyes flared.

  “Holy Mother Mary. Did you two…?”

  “Not in a million years,” Cillian snapped, plucking the dress from his sister’s hand. “Stall the limo. She’ll be down in five minutes.”

  With that, he slammed the door in her face, then locked it for good measure.

  Not in a million years.

  White-hot panic mixed with good ole embarrassment coursed through my veins.

  Reality sank in.

  I’d poisoned myself.

  Rambled to Cillian drunkenly.

  Let him undress me, make me puke, give me a shot, hurl me into the bathtub.

  Then confessed my undying love for him with vomit pieces still decorating my mouth.

  Kill threw a bathrobe into my hands, all business.

  “Dry up.”

  I sprang up on my feet, doing as I was told.

  He rounded on me with Aisling’s spare dress, helping me into it.

  “I don’t want your help,” I bit out, feeling my cheeks flush.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  “I don’t care what you want.”

  Pursing my lips, I watched his dark figure in the mirror as he fastened my corset, working quicker and more efficiently than any seamstress I’d ever seen in action. It was jarring. His fingers moved like magic around the ribbon, looping it into the hoops expertly to tie me like a bowed present.

  It dawned on me he knew I was poisoned from the moment he stepped into the room and saw the flowers in my hair, but hadn’t offered to help me until I asked him to call an ambulance.

  I could have died.

  He wasn’t kidding when he said he only saved me because he didn’t want me to die on his watch—he honestly didn’t care.

  Cillian tugged at the satin strings of my dress, tightening it around me.

  “You’re hurting me,” I hissed, narrowing my eyes at the mirror in front of us.

  “That’s what you get for having a bleeding heart.”

  “The flower, or organ?”

  “Both. One is a fast poison. The other slow, but just as destructive.”

  My eyes clung to him in our reflection. Graceful and self-assured. He stood tall and proud, never used profanity, and was the most meticulous person I knew.

  It was what I admired about him the most. The thin film of properness engulfing the chaos teeming inside him. I knew that underneath the flawless exterior laid something untamed and dangerous.

  It felt like our secret. The perfect Cillian Fitzpatrick was, in fact, not so perfect. And all I wanted was to find out how.

  “You weren’t going to help me. You were going to leave me to die.” My tone was frighteningly mild. I became more sober with each passing second. “Why did you?”

  “A poisoned bridesmaid makes bad press.”

  “And they say chivalry is dead,” I said sarcastically.

  “Chivalry might be dead, but you’re not, so shut up and be grateful.” He gave the satin cords another yank. I winced.

  He did have a point. Cillian not only saved me this morning but he also didn’t try any funny business and was probably running just as late as I was now because my dumb ass had decided to pick poisonous flowers.

  Begrudgingly, I muttered, “Thanks.”

  He arched an eyebrow, as if to ask—for what?

  “For being a gentleman,” I clarified.

  Our eyes clashed in the mirror.

  “I’m no gentleman, Flower Girl.”

  He finished with a final pull, then stepped away and picked up his blazer from the mattress. I had to think on my feet, fast. My gaze drifted to the window. The lone cloud was still there.

  Watching me.

  Taunting me.

  Waiting to be used.

  You only get one miracle.

  This one was worth it.

  I took a deep breath and said the words aloud, not wanting to half-ass it in case there was a fine print and I needed to do the whole Hocus Pocus thing.

  “I wish you’d fall in love with me.”

  The words surged out of my mouth like a blizzard, making him freeze midstride on his way to the door. He turned around, his face a perfect mask of harsh brutality.

  Drawing a breath, I continued.

  “I wish you’d fall in love with me so hard you won’t be able to think about anything else. To eat. To breathe. When my Aunt Tilda died, she granted me one miracle. This is the wish I choose. Your love. There’s a world beyond your ice walls, Cillian Fitzpatrick, and it is full of laughter and joy and warmth.” I took a step in his direction, my knees wobbling. “I’m going to pay back your favor. I’m going to save your life in my own way.”

  A curse.

  A spell.

  A hope.

  A dream.

  For the first time since he entered the room, I saw something resembling curiosity on his face. Even my naked body splayed on his lap didn’t make him as much as blink twice. But this? This pierced his exterior, even if it only made the tiniest of cracks. His brows pinched, and he advanced toward me, erasing the space between us in three confident strides. Outside, Belle and Aisling banged their fists on the door, yelling that we were late.

  My entire life spun out of focus at that moment. My carefully crafted fantasy unraveling into a nightmare.

  Cillian tipped my chin up with his finger, his eyes hard on mine.

  “Listen to me carefully, Persephone, because I will only say it once. You are going to walk out of this room and forget you know me, just as I’ve failed to notice your existence thus far. You will meet a nice, sane, boring guy. A perfect fit for your nice, sane, boring self. You’ll get married to him, have his babies, and thank your lucky stars I wasn’t horny enough to take you up on your less than subtle offer. I’m giving you the gift of turning you down. Take it and
run for the hills.”

  He smiled for the first time, and it was so unpleasant, so twisted that it knocked the breath out of my chest. His smile told me he wasn’t happy. Hadn’t been for years. Decades, even.

  “Why do you hate me?” I whispered.

  Tears blurred my vision, but I refused to let them fall.

  “Hate you?” He wiped the tears with the back of his hand. “I have no feelings, Persephone. Not for you. Not at all. I am incapable of hating you. But I will also never, ever love you.”

  Present.

  The cobblestone sidewalk dug into my feet through my cheap shoes as I secured my bicycle to the bike rack.

  Darkness washed the street in North End. Pub workers hurled fat, soggy trash bags into the jaws of industrial containers, chatting and laughing, ignoring the sheets of rain falling from the sky.

  I said a silent prayer they’d stay on the street until I made it safely to my building. I hated coming home late but couldn’t say no to the babysitting gig I’d been offered after school hours. Collecting the hem of my wet dress, I hurried to my door. I pushed it open, pressing my back to it with a relieved sigh.

  A hand shot to me in the dark, yanking my wrist and flinging me across the room. My back slammed against the stairway, and pain exploded from my tailbone to my neck.

  “Mrs. Veitch. Fancy seeing you here.”

  Even in the pitch black, I recognized Colin Byrne’s voice. It was smooth and low, a hint of mockery lilting his Southie accent.

  “It’s Miss Penrose.” I rushed up to my feet, swatting strands of wet hair off my face and dusting my knees. I flipped the switch on. Yellow light pooled inside the hallway. Tom Kaminski—simply Kaminski to anyone who knew him—Byrne’s errand boy and muscle man, stood behind the lean, wrinkled loan shark with his burly arms crossed at his chest.

  Byrne covered the distance between us, the strong scent of his cologne prickling my gag reflex.

  “Penrose? Nah, that’s not the name on your driver’s license, Persy baby.”

  “I asked for a divorce.” I took a step back from him, schooling my face.

  “Well, I asked for a threesome with Demi Lovato and Taylor Swift. Looks like we both ain’t getting our wish, doll. The fact of the matter is, you’re married to Paxton Veitch, and Paxton Veitch owes me money. A shit-ton of it.”