The Sordid Promise

by Courtney Lane

  “Liar,” he balked. “Be patient. It’ll all be worth it.” His phone chimed. As he lifted it from his pocket to check the text, a slow smile spread across his face.

  “Who was that?”

  He remained silent and moved to shift the gears. Before he could, I squeezed in front of the steering wheel to astride his lap. I cupped his face in my hands and gave him a hunger-tinged kiss that alerted him. He grabbed my head and moved me back. In the commotion, I was able to read the text when it was in his hand:

  Dr. B: She’s gone.

  “Who the fuck are you right now?”

  “What?” I asked shyly.

  He gripped my chin, titling my head down. “Calm down. We’ll get to that by the end of the night. But…don’t push it.”

  I slipped back into my seat. “You’re right we should wait. Can you take me home, so I can get pretty?”

  “You don’t need it. It’s going to be a very private dinner.”

  I pouted.

  He groaned and looked out the windshield “Don’t do that, Nik.”

  “You owe me, don’t you think?”

  He scrutinized me with a scowl on his face. “You saw it…didn’t you?”

  I stared at him at length. Though his expression never wavered—never showed any inkling to what was going on—everything he’d ever said to me that I didn’t understand before came rushing back to me. In complete clarity, I became conscious of everything. I sank in my seat, trying to behave normally, but I couldn’t.

  I scrambled out the door and ran.

  I didn’t make it past the hood of Eric’s car.

  He grabbed my waist and roughly thrust me on top of the hood.

  I struggled trying to hit him, trying to get away. “Let me go! Let me go. Why are you doing this to me again? Let me—“

  He collected my hands, shoving them behind my back and positioned himself between my legs. With his other hand he covered my screaming mouth. “Calm the hell down. I’m not doing anything other than what I promised to your mother I would do.”

  I deeply inhaled the cold air through my nostrils, trying to calm down. I pointedly eyed his hand and nodded.

  “I don’t know, Nikki,” he taunted. “You’ve lied to me once already. I don’t know if I should. Are you going to be a good girl if I do?”

  I nodded.

  He slowly removed his hand. “Promised my mother what?” I asked breathlessly.

  “That I would take care of you.”

  I rolled my eyes, tired of hearing the same line. “Be specific, Eric. I know it was more than that.”

  “Do you know what she did?” He leaned forward with his eyes narrowed. “She tried to drive you away from me. Had it not been for Gowan, she would’ve succeeded. That’s not all. While you were away, she tried to funnel the money your mother left you into her accounts. Don’t you get it? All this time she was waiting for you to break, waiting for her chance to get control of you and your money.

  “Don’t you think it was odd how quickly she took guardianship over you? She received conservatorship over your trust, because you were in a mental health facility. She needed proof that you were crazy, and she got it. Your mother knew she’d pull this. She knew all of it. That woman had an uncanny ability to see the future. I did what she wanted me to do. Angie is dead just as your mother wanted her to be. And now…we don’t have to worry about anyone else.”

  “I just want to go back to the house.”

  He slowly closed his eyes. “This is me, trusting you, and trusting that you believe in me, trusting that you learned your lesson and stopped doubting me. Every time you do, you fuck us over. Don’t let me down again. The answer is no.”

  “Eric—“

  Tightening his grip on my hands, he kissed me, hungrily, painfully, biting my lips and breaking skin. When I whimpered in his mouth, he reached down and tugged my jeans down. They slipped down my body and clung to my ankles. The breeze hit hardest at my exposed legs, causing my legs to shake in reaction to the frigid air.

  He yanked my legs open as he unzipped. He shoved the crotch of my panties to the side. Licking his fingers first, he rubbed my sex for too short of a moment and slipped inside. He stroked inside me without mercy. When I yelped, he covered my mouth with his hand and began to punish me with his hard, fast thrusts. I sank forward, sinking into him as he rocked me so hard, the car bounced with his movements.

  In forcing me to remember the sensation that pain erected, he obliterated three months of reconditioning in a matter of twenty minutes.

  My body betrayed my mind and gave him the power to make me feel the gratification. I began to shudder and clench around him, at the brink of my orgasm. I came, hard and fast. But the high didn’t last for very long.

  When he sputtered, reality set in. Panicked, I tried to talk through his hand as it firmed its hold on my mouth. When I felt him gush inside of me….it all fell a little too late.

  He removed his hand from my mouth and kissed me softly, before clasping his forehead to mine. “Nikki, I know you’re not on birth control.” He tilted up and kissed the bridge of my nose as the tears streamed down my cheeks. “I also know that you’re ovulating right now. Funny how your release was so perfectly timed, isn’t it? I told you a lesson would be learned. Now I know you’ll never disappoint me again. You’ll never doubt me again, will you?” He grabbed my neck and pushed my jawline up with his thumbs. “You should know,” he sneered, “the clinic visit in September wasn’t just about a clean bill of health. I needed a card to pull. Thank you for making it so easy.” He thumbed my lips with a smile. “Welcome home, baby.”

  Driving to nowhere took around thirty minutes. The house was on a private drive in a heavily wooded area. The closest neighbors were about five miles away.

  I second guessed saying yes. I second guessed all of it. It felt like a very bad dream. I never thought I’d want to be back at Parkland. Things were safer there. Things were a little less dramatic there. On average, only one person committed suicide a year. I’d take that over being on the outside where death seemed to surround me.

  After Eric pulled in to park, I headed towards the door of the stone cottage. I clutched the satchel tightly as I stepped inside. Kifo followed behind me.

  I sulked as I stared around the space. Everything seemed newly updated and definitely rang with Eric’s taste.

  My medication wouldn’t let me feel much of anything, and my brain wouldn’t make up its mind.

  “What do you think of our new place, Nik?” Eric asked through a grin.

  “It’s nice,” I said with a sullen smile. I vibrated, like I had ants crawling inside me. “Bathroom? I’d like to take a shower.”

  He contemplated me with impassivity. “You can’t flush out my cum. Besides, if it doesn’t happen tonight, I’ll never stop trying. You know that, right?”

  “Bathroom?” I asked stilly.

  Through a devious smile, he brought me close and kissed my forehead “Upstairs, third door on the right.”

  I practically ran upstairs as I searched for the bathroom. I quickly shut the door and clutched my erratically beating heart. I slid against the door and gently to the floor as the tears flowed. I swept them from my cheeks as I eyed the satchel.

  “Want some company in the shower, Nik?” Eric asked from the other side.

  “No.” I immediately stood, wincing at the painful throb between my legs as I walked over to the shower and turned it on. “I won’t take long, and I’m a little sore.”

  “You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay,” I shot back. I stripped down to my underwear and set the messenger bag on the bathroom counter. I unzipped and fingered what was inside. A manila envelope. The top half was thin, but there was something big and bulky at the bottom. There was a torn loose leaf note taped to the top. It was in Angie’s writing:

  When Gowan began to behave suspiciously, I researched the stranger I married. When I found out that Gowan was Eric’s cousin, I began to worry th
at our marriage wasn’t as real as I thought it was. Your mother said I was going to pay for what I did to her. After coming across some information I found with Gowan’s possessions, I now know that Gowan was her payback. I’m not sure if Gowan wanted me to find the information he carried or not. The way it was so easily found; it could’ve been a test. Either way, Eric nor Gowan can be trusted. Use what I’ve left for you, if Eric means you harm, which I know he does.

  “Eric,” I shouted through the door.

  “Yes, Nikki?”

  I tossed my eyes. I couldn’t believe he was going to stand outside the door and wait for me to take a shower. “I always thought Tamala or Estelle would steal our happy ending. Then, Tamala hung herself. What happened to Estelle?”

  “Didn’t you hear?” he asked nonchalantly.

  “No,” I shouted back. “No internet. No TV.”

  “It was all over the news,” he stated coldly. “The daughter of an Ohio State Senator died from a toxic prescription overdose. Happened about a month after you went in. She left a suicide note professing her undying love for Preston; who’d left her to marry someone else. He was pissed over her false pregnancy. Also sure it didn’t help the situation when a video circulated online of her guzzling the cum of at least five men at the same time. Embarrassed her father right out of the candidacy for governor. Tragic…isn’t it?”

  Unable to hold my body up, I sat on the lid of the toilet seat. The manila envelope mocked me. “That’s too bad. Thought she’d stay clean.”

  “Can’t believe you have a heart for that bitch,” he muttered.

  I immediately opened the envelope.

  There were various printouts from newspaper articles inside. As I skimmed through everything, my heart dropped out of my chest. The clippings didn’t lie. My eyes and ears didn’t lie. Faced with what I tried to forget—what I tried to push down—as I tried to think the best of Eric. I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. Because what I held in my hands served as blaring proof.

  The news article print-outs were centered around the tragedy that befell the Brae family. Although charges were dropped against ‘Ethan Brae’, I knew in my heart what was true. And what I knew was more than just pure speculation. In the reports, it detailed the series of events that lead to the deaths of Eamon, Millicent, and Thaddeus Brae. It stated that Millicent went to the basement and killed her son, Thaddeus, first. She then killed her husband on the stairs, only to travel all the way to the second-floor bedroom to shoot herself in the mouth. Thaddeus’s death was sloppy, taking three shots. Eamon’s death took two.

  The time between the first and second deaths were estimated to have taken around an hour. The time between the second and third deaths took less than thirty minutes.

  It was stated that the lone survivor, Ethan Brae, wouldn’t speak to anyone about what happened. Howard Lemon Sr. recalled the story of what occurred.

  There was something else in the papers; an obituary for a Monica Shipley. Someone penciled in the title ‘mistress’ over Monica’s obituary. She was only twenty-seven when she died, and Eric was nine years old.

  The truth took a hold of my heart and squeezed the life out of it.

  Eric killed his father, stepmother, and stepbrother. Not only that, I knew he took part in the deaths of Tamala, Mrs. Hobbins, and Estelle. Indirectly, he was responsible for Angie’s death.

  I knew the reason for the others. But, his entire family? Why?

  “Nik, doesn’t exactly sound as if you’re really taking a shower. I’m coming in.”

  “No, I—” I stood up too quickly. All the clippings fell to the ground, calling his eye. I tried to try to pick them up, but he beat me to it. During the commotion, I tucked the manila envelope behind my back and slid the only present Angie had ever given me from it.

  He gathered the clippings neatly, calmly. “So…how did you like your final, and likely only, present from Angie? Enthralling? Did it answer all your questions? I’m guessing it did, and that’s why this envelope feels a little lighter than it once was.” His tone towards me was cold and calculating—his eyes were even more so. He laid the stack of papers neatly on the edge of the bathroom sink.

  I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t question how the hell he knew about what Angie had given me in the first place. If he knew, why didn’t he stop me from finding out about him? The answer hit me strongly; he wanted me to know.

  I couldn’t stop shaking as I held the switchblade behind my back.

  He took notice and it seemed to break his stoic demeanor. It seemed to anger him. “Do you want me to come clean?”

  “P-Please.”

  “Everything you’re probably thinking—” He turned and locked the bathroom door, leaning against it. “—you’re right. Well. I guess I should start with my mother. It always starts with the mother, doesn’t it?” He thumbed his lips as his shoulders remained broad. Although he was caught, he showed no inkling that my knowledge made him waver. “My mother…was the nearest to a saint living on earth as there could be. She was only eighteen when she began working for my father. She was still a freshman in college when she got pregnant with me. She found out the kind of man he really was and tried to keep me away from him, but he found me. When she refused to let him have me, he with all his power and money, had her taken care of. My mother never touched a drug in her life—was completely healthy—so how fucking odd is it that she went into cardiac arrest and died?

  “I should probably mention that my father was a physical and mentally abusive bastard.” He put a finger to his lips and made a low hushing sound as I continued to cry. “He took me in, and introduced me to his family as his cousin’s bastard. I have to tell you, I tried with them…really, I did. But when the abuse transformed from mental and physical into the sexual, because my stepbrother wanted to play hide and go find it with his dick, and my father and stepmother did nothing about it when I told them—I became really good at being bad.

  “They were out at some charity function one night. Thaddeus wanted to play the usual game, but I made up a more intriguing one. Instead of, ‘How long can you hold my cock in your mouth’, we played ‘Who can find daddy’s gun the fastest’. Found one of my stepmother’s formal gloves and wore it over a latex glove. I also won the game. And then they came home.

  “My father came down the stairs and screamed when he saw his dead son,” he said incredulously through a twitching sneer. “He literally screamed like a goat at a slaughterhouse. The look on his face—he was afraid of me. Like the bitch that he was, he stood on the stairs, calling me all sorts of names. Telling me he was going to kill me all the while pissing his pants. The big, bad Eamon Brae was scared of his own son. Talk about vindication. I shot him. Better that time. Two to the chest. The second one pierced his heart.

  “Stepmother ran screaming up the stairs. She tried to lock herself in her bedroom, but at fifteen, I was taller and stronger than her…” He shook his head as he looked off into the distance. The corners of his mouth twitched as he stifled a smile. “She cowered on the bed, begging for her life. She did everything I asked her to do. The domineering corporate bitch became…my bitch. She didn’t want to die, but she was so compliant. She put the gloves on her hand and placed the gun in her mouth. All I had to say was ‘when’, and she pulled the trigger.

  “I put on an award winning performance and served as the traumatized mute. Howard, my mother’s brother, came to the rescue and told them a sob story about Milli finding out about Eamon killing my mother—his mistress. Adding in that she was distraught over the discovery of his illegitimate son living right under her nose.

  “I was taken into custody, because some members of the Brae family didn’t believe the story. Even when charges were dropped, they wanted nothing to do with me. Didn’t matter, I had a home with Howard.

  “It…became a desire instead of a survival tactic. I tried to pretend it wasn’t there and filled it with other things: women. But, it wasn’t enough. I figured if I killed those who wanted
—deserved it, it would solve everything. It feels nice to have the power. I didn’t get off on the faces of horror. No. When people expect it—want it, they’re different. I know what else you may be thinking. I’m not a sociopath or a psychopath. I really wish those terms would be done away with. They don’t ever make any true sense to me. They don’t apply to me. People hastily, and often falsely, apply them to people they don’t understand. I love. I hate. I feel….almost everything, genuinely. Because when I look at you—when I’m with you it’s so fucking consuming, Nikki. You made me feel fear for the first time in my life. You made me want to be the good guy for you.

  “I tried to go straight, even after I broke a personal promise when I helped you with your mother. I was good, until other people fucked with my nature. What can I say? I’m not great at pretending to be good.”

  My grip on the knife was so strong, my hand began to fall asleep from the loss of circulation. “W-what did you do to Mrs. Hobbins?”

  “Can you believe the old bitch actually tried to seduce me? She damn near begged me to fuck her. Claimed she was so lonely and hurt by her husband and her children. When she tried to bribe me, I fucked her…in another way. Sometimes you’re too smart for your own good, Nik. You had me so screwed up about it. I actually felt guilty when I saw your face in the morgue. I never feel guilty.

  "I thought that maybe I should back down. Didn't want to horrify you too soon. The universe had other ideas. Tamala came after you, because that bitch, Estelle, told her it was what I wanted. She needed a special kind of punishment. I planned it so the blood wouldn’t be on my hands. But I wanted you to see her die. When you stopped it, I felt like you were daring me to be a man about it. I still wonder, if I was the one with the belt around her neck, would you have stopped it? I convinced myself that you wouldn’t have.”

  “I would’ve stopped you,” I croaked.