She spun around, the fire in her eyes making mine widen on her. “You seriously think I can’t look after myself? A lot has changed in the fourteen years I was gone, Rik.” Fury surrounded her and I stepped back at her rage. “One of those is that I kill people. And I’m damn good at it.”
My eyes widened further.
“Yeah,” she sneered. “This is what he wanted me to become. And this is what I am. A fucking assassin for The Dean family. I kill people for money, because I’m ordered to. And for fun. Because it makes me feel good!”
Her finger stabbed at my chest, her rage pouring out in floods of hateful tears.
“Your Esther died the day she was taken away from you. She was forced into a hell that would change her very genetics. William Dean fathered a little girl who loved life, and he created a monster who thrived from death.”
The faint gasp that left her tickled my tongue when I slammed my mouth over hers, catching her lips in a bruising kiss that sent jolts of bliss through me. She tasted so good, like I’d known she always would. Her soft plump lips felt so good, like they had been moulded to fit against mine. The subtle sound of her soft moan made my cock strain with need for her.
Her hair felt soft in my hand, her body pressing into me as she melted against me without argument. Her hands slipped around my neck, pulling at me and refusing to let me go. But I wouldn’t go. I never wanted to. For so many years I’d dreamed of kissing her, of holding her with the touch of a lover and not a friend. I wanted to fuck her until she forgot everything, to make her come and scream my name over and over.
Abruptly she pulled back. The sheen of tears in her eyes as she looked up at me ruptured my gut. The sadness that wept from her was so potent that for a long moment I couldn’t move, daren’t move.
“Why did you have to do that?” she whispered, a faint hiccup breaking her voice. “You shouldn’t have done that, Rik.”
My eyes narrowed instinctively. “Why? Don’t ever tell me I can’t kiss what is mine, what has always been mine.”
Her teeth sank into her bottom lip when I slammed her back against the wall, trapping her beneath me before she could run.
“You haven’t ever wondered what our first kiss would be like, Esther? How perfect it would be? Because it was perfect, fucking perfect. You were made for me, little legs. All of you.”
She shook her head, the tears that had pooled in her eyes now falling free over the ridge of her high cheekbones. “No.” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “I couldn’t ever allow myself to think that. I couldn’t let you into my heart without been fucking terrified of it breaking inside me.”
Her words hurt, but not because she refused to think of me as more than a friend, but because I knew she was so very scared of being hurt. Again. “Then let me prove to you that you have nothing to be scared of!”
The scoff that left her made me wince. “There’s always something to be scared of, Rik. Always.”
Dipping under my arm, she started to walk away but I grabbed her wrist, stopping her. “I’m not scared of you, Esther.”
Her laugh filled the hallway as she looked over her shoulder to me. “Then you should be. Because I can promise that everything you thought of me is wrong. So very wrong. I kill people, Rik. And you know what?” Fire stormed her eyes as a cold smile curved the edges of her plump red lips. “It makes me come!”
I couldn’t stop my eyes from widening with her sinister revelation.
“Oh, yeah.” She smirked at my shock. “Sinking a knife into someone’s chest and hacking at their heart turns me the fuck on. Watching the life drain from their eyes makes me wet and horny.” She leaned close to me, the shock of her words rendering me still as her breath breezed across my ear. “And then I fuck. Hard, fast and covered in the blood of whoever gave me their last breath.”
She winked, and then walked up the stairs, the sound of the guest bedroom door closing only faintly registering in my ears.
“It’s true.”
I blinked, the sound of John’s quiet voice dampening the horror surrounding me.
“What?”
“What Esther just told you. She always had a thing for blood.”
Rage boiled in my veins and I narrowed my eyes on him. “And the fucking? Was that with you?”
He lowered his eyes, but nodded. “Yeah. She was always hot after a kill. But that was eight years ago. She’s different now.”
I wanted to tear his face off with my bare hands but I couldn’t seem to move my feet from where they stood rooted to the floor. This changed everything. It changed so fucking much. It was all going fucking tits up, and finally noticing Knox stood to one side, I gulped. “Shit, did you hear?”
He sighed, wincing. “Yeah.”
John turned and made his way back to the sofa, his arm pressed against his wound when exhaustion took him.
“You know we can’t let this slide, Bane.” Knox sighed, coming over to me. “We can’t…”
“Shut up!”
“No,” he hissed. “What Esther just told you. That changes everything. Fuck, it blows the last two years into smithereens.”
Closing my eyes, I ran my hands through my hair. “Fuck!”
“You wanna do it or shall I?” he asked, his voice quiet with regret.
“I will.”
He nodded, tapping me on the shoulder. “Good luck.” A small chuckle left him. “Although, I think she may have been right.”
“About?” I snapped, the amusement on his face annoying the fuck out of me.
“That you should be scared of her. I know I am.”
Eleven
Esther
The soft ground stifled the sound of my feet landing and I quickly took a look at my surroundings. The fencing was high, the walls higher. However, a tall tree gave me a smile and I skirted the large lawn towards it, making sure I dodged each hotspot for the floodlights.
The bark scraped at my feet, cutting into the already sore skin as I climbed. The wall was just a short distance and it didn’t take much effort to leap across. Although, I was surprised by Rik’s lack of security. Many times he had climbed the tree that would look over onto my family’s estate when it was late and the house was all locked up.
I couldn’t help but smile at the memories of him hoisting his lithe body up and onto my bedroom veranda, his grin peering over the top as I scrambled to open the doors for him. My heart panged with an ache at what we had both lost.
Heat ruptured my veins as my father’s cruel laugh pierced my mind. Such a selfish man that hadn’t deserved a family. My mother had done the right thing, and fucked off when she’d had the chance. I didn’t blame her for leaving me, not at all. If I’d had the opportunity, I would have left her behind too.
Pain shot through my ankle when I landed on the other side of the wall and I quietened the scream of agony that wanted to burst from my lungs. “Fuck!” My teeth shook with the agony and I scrambled to right myself, holding onto the wall while I fought past the pain.
‘Succumbing to agony will be the death of me.’
I blew out a breath and winced through the torture that shot up my leg with each step I took. I had no money for a taxi, no shoes, no belongings at all and I was trying to figure out where the hell I was when headlights lit up the area around me and tyres screeched to a halt beside me.
“Get on!”
My heart dropped and I stood staring through the visor of his helmet. I didn’t need to see his face to know who it was. I was going to kill John, once again his betrayal hurting me.
“Well it didn’t take John long to grass… again!”
“Esther! Don’t act like a child. Get on,” he bit out, pulling a spare helmet out and thrusting it towards me. “Or do you want to wait for your fucking boyfriend to haul you in?”
I blinked, frowning with confusion as I tried to figure out Dad’s words. “What?”
He hadn’t changed a bit, and seeing his dark grey eyes, once again glaring at me when he snapped up his viso
r, I stepped back.
“Esther!”
His anger brought back so many memories and I shook my head, my body frozen in both fear and shock.
Lights lit up the grounds behind the wall I had just scaled and my stomach dropped with indecision. Both evils were as bad as each other, but both in many different ways.
Sounds and car engines firing up from behind me had me looking to my father and debating whether he would break my heart more than Rik. Knowing deep down that there was only Rik capable of shattering everything I had built up inside me, I gulped.
“Esther!” my father growled. “Quickly. We haven’t got time for your stubbornness! Bane is Memphis!”
The beat of my heart stopped and ice spread through my veins when his revelation sank in.
Such a fool. Such a fucking fool. The kiss I had longed for, had dreamed about so many times, was just a trap, a tool used to lure me in. He’d used my feelings to pull me in so he could gain points.
Bastard!
Involuntarily touching my lips with the memory of his passion, as if it would stop my heart from breaking inside me, I snatched the helmet from my dad and shoved it over my head, and climbed on behind him. The subtle scent of cinnamon and wood made me shiver as my soul recoiled in horror with the memories his aftershave invoked. But I couldn’t afford not to use him. I couldn’t run, my ankle saw to that. And it was either allow my father to get me the hell out of there, and drag me into another kind of hell, or allow my best friend to betray me in ways no one ever had before. At least my father and John’s treachery hadn’t exactly come as a shock. But Rik’s did, and it hurt. It hurt more than anything ever had before.
Revving the engine, I clung to my dad when he roared away.
I refused to look back. But I could sense him, his soul as wounded as mine.
***
I couldn’t describe how I felt about being home again. Everything was still as I’d left it. My dresser was full of all my cosmetics, the mirror covered with old photographs and hung with cheap fairground jewellery Will had won me. My bathroom still held my favourite brand of toiletries, the towels still folded and hung perfectly over the rail.
The four poster bed I had scooped up from an antique fair was still adorned with the soft blue bedding, the iron headboard still decorated with the garland of hearts Will had made me.
Tears burnt my eyes as I sat and ran my fingers over the haphazardly sewn cotton hearts, the centre one trimmed with two knives, a ‘W’ and an ‘E’ painted into each blade.
“You daft bugger,” I whispered as I untucked a photograph of me and Will from the mirror. His smile was wide and his eyes were happy as he looked down at me, his towering six foot four frame looming over me protectively as a storm passed over us and threatened to drown us both. “Always sheltering me. But I craved the rain that day. I needed it to wash away my sins. But you couldn’t ever understand, could you?”
“You okay?”
I blinked, snapped from my thoughts when I looked up to see John staring at me from my bedroom doorway. He winced when I returned his soft smile with a fierce glare.
“I had to, Esther. I had no choice. You don’t know who Bane and Knox are.”
“Yes,” I sighed. “Yes, I do.”
“Then you’ll understand why I had to get you out of there. I knew you’d do a runner, so your father came to get you.”
“I would have been out of there before…”
“Really?” he scoffed, his eyes dropping to my bandaged ankle.
Slowly he walked across the room and dropped heavily onto the bed beside me. He smiled down at the cotton heart my fingertips were still fondling for comfort. “Look, Esther. Just give us a chance. Please. Things are different now.”
“Are they? Are they really, John? It doesn’t seem that way to me. I’ve been here three hours and still he hasn’t barely said one word to me. I’ve been shoved up here, like I’m a little fucking girl that can’t handle life.”
He shook his head. “Your father is sorting something out. Please, just trust him.”
“Trust him!” I raged, my anger finally biting. “How the fuck can I trust him? He forced me to watch as he ran a fucking knife into my best friend, John!”
Hot and silent tears slipped down my face as images of Will’s dying eyes locked onto me, shattering within me. The agony that burst through me had John’s arms embracing me and pulling me into his strong chest.
“Esther, please.”
“Why won’t it stop hurting?” I sobbed, his shirt soaking up my tears like I’d never been away. “Why won’t his ghost ever leave me alone?”
“Because you loved him, Es. Our hearts never mend when they’re broken.”
Pulling away when I read the underlying meaning to his words, I refused to look at him, and stood up. “I need to take a bath.”
He sighed loudly but nodded and pushed himself up. “Sure.”
I couldn’t help but watch his broad back as he left, his t-shirt sliding effortlessly over the swell of his muscles. John was my dad’s force, or rather his enforcer. Whereas I was skilled in assassination, John was more hands on. Torture, to both his victim and himself, was the thing that got his dick hard. Yet, he’d been the gentlest lover I’d ever had. He’d refused to allow me to see that side of him. Many times he’d come into my bed, bleeding, shredded with lash marks and welts, and I’d cared for him, my heart aching at the secrets he held within him
He’d always expected me to be open and honest with him but had never returned the same respect. And then his betrayal had cut me deeper than any weapon ever could.
“Jesus fucking Christ!”
My gaze shot towards the door with the sound of his voice. His grin was as happy as the glee in his eyes as he barged across my room and lifted me up into his arms, swinging me around as he buried his nose into my hair. “Fuck me. I didn’t believe it when Sherry said you were back!”
I laughed with him, the feel of Vince’s love for me finally giving me the smile I needed. “Vince,” I sighed into him as I hugged him back just as hard.
He held me back, his gaze scanning me. “Shit, girl. You look even hotter. How is that even possible?” His cheeky wink had me reaching out and slapping his arm playfully.
Then his words finally sank in and my eyes widened. “What? Sherry is here?”
He stilled, swallowing as he nodded slowly. “Yeah. She’s back. Around six months now.”
“Wow.” Hurt ricocheted through me and I gritted my teeth against the pain inside me. “And here’s John telling me so much has changed. She’s been back six months yet hasn’t once come to see me.”
Vince winced. “I thought you knew.”
Scoffing, I shook my head. “You forget I’m the only one in the family that doesn’t get to know shit.”
My truth made him lower his eyes, but taking a breath he looked back up and smiled. “But seriously, I’m glad you’re back. We all missed you.”
“I’m not back, Vinny. Here was just the least of two evils. I’ll be gone before dinner.”
Disappointment stole his smile, but he nodded. “Just… at least say hi to everyone first.”
“I will.”
He turned to leave but then stopped, his hand on the doorframe. “You should know…”
I braced myself, my teeth already sinking into my bottom lip.
“Christy is here.”
“What the fuck!” I shot off the bed but Vince had his arms around me before I could get through the door.
“She’s not worth it, Esther.”
“She is, she so is. You have no idea.”
“I do,” he growled in my ear. “You know I do!”
I froze, the sadness in his voice slapping me in the face. Looking up at him I was shocked to see the same pain in his eyes that had been there eight years ago. Relenting, I moved back and nodded. “Yeah. You do.”
“If I can rise above it then you can.”
Narrowing my eyes, I fixed him with a stare. �
��Are John and her…?”
He snorted. “Him and every other fucker here, Esther…. Aside from me,” he finished with a shudder.
Shaking my head, I duplicated his shiver with one of my own. “Yeah, I shouldn’t be surprised.” Except, I was surprised at the hurt I felt over her and John screwing. John and me had been over before we’d even had a chance to begin, but he knew how I felt about that treacherous bitch, and once again I was sat silently questioning John’s loyalty to me, to what we had once been.
I just wanted to get out of there. To run, and run faster than ever before. Yet, my mother was home, and I had also sworn to Will that I would one day look that skanky bitch, Christy, in the eye and tear her face from her head and lay at his grave.
“Stop it!” Vince chastised, reading my sour thoughts. “She’ll be expecting it.” He stepped through the door. “At least wait until she isn’t.”
I smirked. “I’ll make her say a prayer for you, Vinny.”
He laughed, the familiar twinkle in his eyes back again. “It’s good to have you back, tiger.”
Giving him a genuine smile, he winked and left.
So many damn emotions. Emotions I had managed to lock away and keep buried for so long. Geoffrey had taken my hand and led me through the darkness that had been my past. I flinched when I thought of what he would think of me now, sat in my father’s house, the lust for blood tearing at my soul like a hungry wolf once again, and feeding me with the adrenaline and excitement I hadn’t felt for oh so long.
Three hours in this house and Esther Dean was back. Milly Evans was already long gone. Except, I wasn’t so sure if I missed her or not. It had been so long since these feelings had raced through me, and closing my eyes, I drew in a long breath, allowing each sliver of hatred and rage to feed the part of my soul that had been suppressed for so long.
My stomach danced with excitement and a shiver of need snaked its way through my veins when I pressed my fingers against the back wall of my wardrobe. A soft beep told me to keep still and I smiled when the back slid slowly to the side.
Steps welcomed me to the only place in this house that I called home. My armoury.
Bane (Memphis #1) Page 7