She hasn’t exactly admitted that’s what happened, but it’s not a difficult situation to piece together. It helps that Luca’s been on board with my assistance, secretly passing me details while Caroline sits at home on bedrest, recuperating from her concussion. Glad to see he didn’t take that beating from a few weeks ago to heart.
A week’s passed since that night at the club, when I killed Todd Davis, and she puked in my room. We’ve avoided one another ever since.
Each night I come home, it takes everything in me not to slide into her bed and wrap her in my arms, the only place I feel I can adequately keep her safe, but I know she’s not ready for that.
She’s also a horrible patient; when I’m not hanging out in Crimson’s basement or tracking shipments so Marco can guard them better, I sit in my office and watch her on surveillance. She spends most of her time baking; her favorite thing to bake seems to be scones—blueberry and orange—and she always makes more than she can eat. Not that it stops her from trying. I’ve watched her eat a dozen pastries in the last two days.
Though she’s putting her culinary arts degree to use at the house, I can tell she’s antsy, occasionally watching the news and constantly making phone calls to Olivia and Juliet. Anything she can use to distract herself from the control that slips further from her grasp every single day.
Because I’ve taken over, aiming to eliminate these fuckers before she has a chance to get hurt. Hopefully, one day, she’ll thank me.
“McCarty, all you have to do is tell us how well you know Caroline,” I grunt, eyeing the slimy fucker.
“Why? So you two can get off to the image of me forcing my cock inside her?” Sheldon smirks at the same time that my eyes narrow, making my blood boil. I tuck my hands behind my back, exercising restraint. For now.
Kal doesn’t, though. His nostrils flare, pulling the pliers apart to wedge Sheldon’s lip between the instrument head. He pulls and twists the pink flesh, smiling as the congressman begins writhing, trying to break his restraints.
“Fuck, okay, okay. Jesus. I’m fucking talking, aren’t I?”
“Enough cutesy bullshit. You know what we’re asking for here,” Kal snaps.
I cross my arms over my chest. “Are you saying you had sex with her?”
“If that’s what you want to call it, man.”
I glance at Kal, who raises his eyebrows and yanks on Sheldon’s hair. He squeaks, but it doesn’t wipe the smug look off his dumb fucking face. “What would you call it?”
“Getting what I paid for. Dominic promised we could all take turns on the broad if we forgave his debts. I was first in line; she went with me, thinking I’d be gentle.”
“You weren’t?” My heart pounds in my ears.
He scoffs. “Gentle or not, it didn’t matter. She didn’t want me, didn’t want any of us. She was seventeen, and my particular brand of sexual fetishes is kind of deviant.”
“You had sex with a child,” Kal deadpans.
An eyebrow raises, surprise flooding his features. “Now wait a damn minute. She was above the age of—”
“If you say consent, I swear to God, I’ll blow your brains out right now.” I fold my arms over my chest, disgust crawling across my skin. “You, a man who at the time was at least forty, had sex with a minor. A child. Consent doesn’t fucking mean anything when someone can’t fully understand what—or who—they’re consenting to. She didn’t have a fucking choice.”
“She chose me—”
“The lesser of many evils.” The words explode on my tongue, outrage shooting through me like white-hot lightning. “You’re a pedophile. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
My heart beats rapidly, a pang ripping through the organ as I consider Caroline’s inherent need to fight—to deny her feelings, her sadness, and anger; how she clams up at the mention of her past, how she doesn’t seem to have spoken about it with anyone.
I fucking hate that I’m finding out about it all like this, but I can’t fault her for how she copes.
We all do what we can to survive. Who we are and how we get through this life are not one and the same.
Trying to reconcile the girl with so much hate and pain etched into her very being with the warm, feisty, caring woman I call my wife is difficult; I can’t imagine how long it took to get there. The need to somehow correct this nightmare for her resurges in me.
Clenching my jaw, I stare at the blood on the floor beneath my shoes, trying to find a focal point to center my rage on. Sinister darkness passes through me, lighting my nerve-endings on fire, and I exhale slowly, snapping my head back up.
My head is foggy as I move, my brain on autopilot while my senses take over; red splashes across my vision, painting my insides with fury. Kal steps aside, holding the pliers in his palm, and I snatch them away, positioning myself in front of Sheldon, legs spread, feet planted on either side of his chair.
One hand seizes his throat, and I feel his windpipe shift under my hold, trying to adjust to the pressure. His breathing scatters, eyes bulging like Todd’s the other night, and excitement sings in my veins at the sight.
I smell the exact moment his smugness turns to unadulterated fear, glancing down as his cock leaks, piss dripping down the chair.
“You’d better be sure you don’t need anything else from him,” Kal says, voice unwavering as I work the head of the pliers between Sheldon’s top left canine.
“I don’t think I fucking care anymore.”
Kal shrugs, holding his hands up in surrender. He disappears behind me, and the smell of bleach hits my nostrils seconds later, indicating that he’s cleaning.
Sheldon sputters against me, jerking in the chair. “Hey, man, I didn’t mean anything by it—”
“I’m sick of people saying that where Caroline is concerned.” Closing the pliers around the bone, I ground my palm into the handle and begin pulling; canines and their bulbous roots make extraction tricky, but it also makes the agony in a victim’s eyes so much sweeter.
My only hope is that my mother isn’t looking down from wherever the hell the afterlife is—that she doesn’t visit me later when I’m asleep.
“I hope this hurts,” I spit into Sheldon’s face, my grip tightening and increasing in pressure. “I want you to know I’m putting that girl back together if it’s the last fucking thing I do. Her scars are not permanent; they’re erasable. Just. Like. You.”
Hiking my foot up, I suck in a deep breath and shove the sole of my loafer right into his dick. His stomach spasms, a gurgling sound ripping from the back of his throat. As I grind my shoe into him, feeling the muscles in his flaccid cock mush together, he throws his head back, assisting me in removing the tooth.
I feel the root pop out from his gum as he lets out an ear-piercing scream. Blood drips from the wound, his chest heaving, sweat pouring down his forehead.
But I don’t give him time to writhe or cry out again; tossing the pliers and tooth onto the floor, I pick up the discarded rag, ball it in my fist, and force it between his bloody lips until he gags.
Not bothering to stay and watch him seize up, I wipe my hands on my pants, turn on my heel, and leave.
Caroline
“Did you get it?”
Juliet shimmies her way into the stall, holding the grocery bag up in her hand. “Yeah, I got it, weirdo. I don’t know why this couldn’t wait ‘til we got back to your house, though.”
“This is the only place I can do it in private.”
She shrugs, untying the bag handles, and pulls out the rectangle box. “I don’t get why you’re hiding this from your husband, but whatever.”
“You should be grateful you’re even involved in this,” I snap, nerves getting the best of me. If I hadn’t already scheduled sister-bonding time with her this afternoon, she’d be out of the loop entirely.
But I can’t fucking stand the not knowing any longer. Bedrest left me with too much time to overthink and overeat. And each time E
lia comes home and tries to act like a normal husband, a fresh wave of anxiety further cripples my already-battered heart.
Given the stress of the last eight weeks, being late shouldn’t be all that surprising; still, I need to know for sure. It only takes one time, after all, and even though Elia didn’t finish weeks ago, he also didn’t use a condom.
This is the first time Leo’s taken me out of the house since my night at Crimson; we picked Juliet up on the way to the mall in Stonemore, far enough away from my husband’s overprotectiveness and the gossip rags that seem to camp out in my front yard.
Juliet rolls her eyes, turning away as I hike my skirt up and pull my panties down. “Jesus, you’re gonna be a fun pregnant lady.”
I inhale through my nose, peeling the little plastic stick from its box and positioning it between my legs, trying to concentrate. When I’m done, I stick the cap back on and set the test on the metal toilet paper dispenser, double-checking the directions and then my phone to make sure I get the results right. Because there is no room for a fuck-up here. Not one like this.
Still, something deep in my soul tells me I don’t even need confirmation.
Reaching out, I grip Juliet’s shoulder and turn her toward me. She swipes at smudged eyeliner beneath her lid, eyes watery. “I can’t imagine doing this without you, Juliet. As badly as I wish I just didn’t have to. I shouldn’t have said that.”
She sniffs, shrugging my hand away. “Gross. You just peed on that and then touched me.”
I laugh, pulling a handheld sanitizer from the front pocket of my purse on the floor. I squirt some into my palm and rub my hands together, both a hygiene ritual and silent prayer.
“You know what would make me feel more appre-ciated?”
“What?”
“If you just told me what the hell is going on here. You acted like you and Elia were so in love just before you got married, and then at dinner that one night it was pretty clear how he feels about you. And here we are, hiding some pretty life-changing shit. Why the secrecy?”
I chew on my bottom lip, glancing at the pink stick. “Not everything is as it seems, Jules.”
“Well, duh. But what, specifically, is going on here?”
Running a hand over the side of my face, I shake my head. “You don’t need to know. The less you know, the safer you are.”
“Safe from what? Daddy?” I don’t say anything, and she frowns. “What did he do to you?”
Swallowing, I level her with a stony look. “You already know the answer to that.”
She starts to say something else, to dispute my claims, I’m sure, but the clock on my phone changes. I twist around, checking the little result window as butterflies somersault in my stomach, bile churning close to the base of my throat.
My heart sinks to my feet, and without another word, I wrap the test in toilet paper and drop it into the hanging trash receptacle.
I grab Juliet’s hand and push the stall door open, resigning myself to a fate that, once again, I didn’t fucking ask for.
RESTING MY CHIN in my palm, I stare at the amber liquid in my martini glass, aware that the two don’t go together. Like Elia and me, two materials cut from a different cloth, brought together because I’m an idiot.
I raided his office liquor cabinet half an hour ago, trying to work out in my brain my next move. The glass sits on the edge of the pool, completely untouched, but I can’t stop glaring at it.
“I’m so stupid,” I say out loud, the sound echoing off the pool water around me, falling on closed ears.
Leo sits on a chaise lounge with his feet flat on the floor, posture rigid and alert. Ready for an attack that never comes. His head turns slightly, a silent acknowledgment, but that’s all I get. I’m sure he thinks I’m a crazy person.
Juliet pushes open the French doors at the back of the house, carrying a tray of store-bought chocolate chip cookies on her hip. “Here, I brought you this, courtesy of Liv. I don’t know why she couldn’t bring them herself, but whatever. When I pointed that out, she asked if I wanted to single-handedly run a social media font launch. I had no idea what that even meant, so I got the hell out of there.” Plucking two out of the container, she shrugs. “Anyway, she said Focaccia’s makes the best emergency dessert in Maine.”
I nod, catching the two she tosses me, working hard to maintain balance while stretched out on the float. “They add a pinch of salt to most of their dishes; the combination of the sweetness and saltiness adds a deliciousness that is unparalleled.”
She raises an eyebrow, glancing at Leo, and then drops to her butt, hooking her legs over the edge of the pool and letting them dangle in the water. Leo gets up and heads inside. “How’re you holding up?”
“Well,” I say, plopping a bite of cookie into my mouth and gesturing around us, “I’m sitting in the middle of an eight-foot-deep pool, and I don’t know how to swim. How do you think I’m holding up?”
“I’m pretty sure even newborn babies know how to swim, Care. You can’t even doggy paddle?”
“Nope. And can we ix-nay the baby talk?”
She kicks her feet, slicing against the water. “If you fell in, maybe the baby would send information to your brain for survival, and the ability to swim would just kind of kick in. Like a shot of adrenaline, from your peanut.”
I groan, throwing my free hand over my eyes and shielding myself from the sun. It’d be a great day for the star to implode. “Jules, shut up.”
Shrugging, she tilts her chin up toward the sky, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s uttering her own silent prayer, and what that might entail. The realization that I’ve spent my whole life just trying to protect my sister without actually getting to know her hits me hard, like a sucker punch to the gut, and tears prick behind my eyes.
“This is the twenty-first century, you know.”
“I’m aware. Your point?”
“I don’t know. You don’t have to keep it if you don’t want to. If it causes more problems than it solves.”
“It doesn’t really solve anything.”
“Well…” she draws the word out, trailing off. Sliding my hand from my eyes and settling the remaining cookie on my stomach, I cock my head at her, waiting for more. Her toes point forward as her head drops, chin grazing the locket around her neck. “Take care of it, then, before it gets you into trouble.”
Unease settles on the floor of my belly like a poison spreading through my body, rotting me from the inside. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Like what?”
“Like... how’s school?”
She makes a face, puckering her lips together. “It’s school, Caroline. Boring and uneventful.”
“There’s nothing wrong with boring. God, I’d welcome some of that at this point.”
“Of course, you would.”
My eyebrows raise, my cookie leaving chocolate residue on my skin. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“No offense, Caroline, but you’re not really looking for an adventure.”
There’s a pinch in my heart, and I let out a soft, surprised laugh. “Now, why would that offend me?”
“It shouldn’t. I don’t mean it to, anyway. I just…” She reaches up, sweeping blonde hair off her shoulders, and leans back on the concrete on her palms. “This is almost the exact life you had planned out for yourself, and you’re not even sure if you want to continue it, because it might not be easy.”
“That’s not—”
She holds her hands up, cutting me off. “I know, that’s not what you think the problem is. But you need to seriously take a step back and look at your life and see if it’s not fear holding you back. Clouding your decisions. Before you do something you can’t take back.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I focus my gaze on the highest point of the mansion, the white brick chimney that shines bright against the blue backdrop of the sky. “There’s so much more going on, Jules. Stuff you can�
��t understand.”
“That I can’t understand, or that you won’t explain to me?” She withdraws her legs from the water, hiking her jean shorts up, and shakes the water from each limb. Her blue gaze is steely, annoyance flickering there, and an ache flares up in my temple. “I get that I’ve not been the best sister, that I haven’t always believed you when I should have. And I get that there’s not a lot I can do to make up for it all. But I’m trying here, Caroline, and you’re not giving me anything. Who are you even trying to protect? Me, which has been your self-imposed calling card since I was born, or yourself?”
My mouth drops open, tongue poised on a retort, but nothing ever comes. The back door opens, my husband’s suited form appearing on the patio and effectively ending our heart-to-heart.
“Ah, the only in-law still speaking to me.” Elia smiles, clapping Juliet’s shoulder and shaking her with the impact.
She doesn’t move her gaze from mine, though. “I was just leaving. Think about what I said, okay? I’ll see you at the gala next week.”
Stealing a few cookies from the tray on the ground, she stuffs them into her pocket and leaves, letting herself out through the French doors. Elia watches the door drift closed, and then walks to the edge of the pool, hands in his pockets, Ray-Bans perched low on his nose.
Jesus, how does he get more attractive every time I see him?
He clears his throat, Adam’s apple working against his throat in a way that makes my pussy pulse. “I’ve never seen you in this pool.”
“You won’t be seeing me get out of it, either.”
An eyebrow perks up, intrigued, lighting my body like a three-wick candle. I shove my extra cookie into my mouth, buying time. The reaction my body has to him doesn’t have to mean anything, right?
It doesn’t matter that having him home makes me feel safe, that him standing near me makes me want to climb him like a fucking tree.
Some of that is just hormones... right?
“I don’t know how to swim,” I admit. Better than the alternative word vomit, which I’m not sure I should bring up. Sure, he has a right to know, but if I don’t want to keep it... does it even matter? You can’t mourn something you don’t know exists, right?
Sweet Surrender: A Dark Mafia Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (King's Trace Antiheroes Book 1) Page 18