“I’m sorry.”
“And who can take Helen from you,” she whispered.
I squeezed my eyes closed as she pulled down my trousers and pants, my throat closing in as her hands then drifted upwards….
I jolted forward, vomit curling up my throat as I made a dash for the bathroom, my stomach contents hurtling into the toilet.
Splashing my face with water I stormed from the room, refusing to look anymore.
Connie was taking her time. I thought she would have been finished with her father by now. We needed to hurry and find Annie and Helen.
I took one last look at my family as I descended the stairs, knowing it was time to say goodbye. It was finally time to let her go. She couldn’t hurt me any longer. She had degraded me, damaged me, and made me cry time after time when my childhood should have been something to look back on and smile at, but as she had once told me, it had been beautiful to watch the life drain from her eyes, her soul snuffed out so easily. And her death had been the start of many for me. She made me and she ended me.
Pushing the kitchen door open slowly so as not to disturb Connie in the final moments with her father, I walked in quietly.
Time seemed to stop as my heart beat sped up. Blood roared through my veins, its pounding in my ears deafening as the scene before me registered in my brain.
“Hello, Daniel,” my father said. His eyes were cold, so cold. His lip was curled in disgust, his chest heaving with hatred as he pushed the blade into Connie’s shoulder. She hissed at the pain when he screwed it further and further into her flesh. Her legs buckled but he yanked her back up, pushing the knife deeper into her with the movement.
“Father. Stop.”
He laughed. “It’s time to end the game, son.” I flinched when he threw a dice at me. It hit me and dropped to the floor, bouncing along the floor tiles and coming to rest against one of the kitchen cupboards. “Roll.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“Roll,” he repeated. “Odds, she dies. Evens...” He smirked, his eyes lighting with cruelty. “You die.”
“ROLL!” HE BARKED again, making me jump, making the knife sink deeper. “You like to play games, Daniel. So let’s play.”
I couldn’t see a way out of his hold without tearing a hole right through me.
“I’m not playing your stupid fucking games,” Daniel answered. “Let her go and we’ll talk.”
“Talk?” Robert laughed. I moaned as the knife jerked and closed my eyes as everything around me swayed. “What is there to talk about? You? Me? Our relationship? Oh come on, we’ve never really had one, Daniel.”
“What?” Daniel shook his head from side to side. “I did your bidding. I took your orders. I killed for you.”
“No, Daniel. You killed because you enjoyed the hunt, the death of those you held in your hands. Don’t seek redemption for being guilty, seek the truth of who you are.”
“The truth? You have no idea of the truth. You never did. You were a fool, a coward who never looked at what you saw.”
“No. Not this again. I never believed your lies because that’s exactly what they were, lies.”
I clenched my teeth when Daniel took a step towards us and Robert rammed a gun into my temple. “Keep going, son. I’d love to see if her blood is red or black.”
Daniel flicked his eyes to mine. His jaw was clenched so hard I worried for his teeth. He stepped back and lifted his hands. “Fine.” He took a deep breath and snatched up the dice. “And just for the record… Father. Our mother wasn’t only a child abuser, she was an adulterer, a liar and the biggest manipulator out there. She fooled you, she fooled Franco.” He turned to me, his painful expression finding mine before returning to Robert. “She fooled Graham. But she was definitely no fool herself. She played you all. The queen of games. And not one of you could see her jumping from one bed to the other… including mine.”
He turned and threw the dice. It skittered along the worktop, rebounding off the cupboard and came to rest beside him, spinning wildly before it dropped on one side. His eyes lowered before rising slowly. He glanced at me, his eyes flicking with an ache I had never seen before. My heart threatened to give me a coronary. My breathing became stunted and I swallowed back the taste of death.
He gave me a soft smile. “I loved her, swan. She was my salvation. Please be sure to tell her that when you join her.”
I gasped, the blood draining from me. Not here, not like this. I wanted to tell Isaac so many things before I died. I wanted to hold him, and make him feel me, make him understand that my heart was his, all his. But as I looked at Daniel, our eyes meeting for the last time, I nodded. “Why the swan?” Strangely it was the only thing I wanted to know in the moments before my death.
His smile grew wider. “Because you’re the most stunning assassin of all living creatures. So beautiful, yet so dangerous beneath it all. You don’t deserve this life, just like Mae didn’t.”
He sighed, holding my eyes for a fraction longer before he slowly lifted his eyes to Robert. “Even,” he whispered.
What? No! My heart stopped when Robert removed the gun from my head and pointed it at Daniel. “Goodbye, son. Well played.”
Daniel stood still as two bullets hit his chest. His eyes widened as his mouth dropped open. Blood seeped from him, marring his clean white shirt, spreading over him so fast my brain couldn’t decipher what it was. His gaze moved to me as his legs stuttered and he dropped to his knees. “Tell her, Connie. Tell her.”
I nodded, my head shaking as a sob forced free from deep within me. “I promise.”
He smiled, falling to his side on the ground. “Let her go, Connie. It’s time to open your heart. To forgive yourself. Set her free, set yourself free… and let go.”
Robert dropped to the floor beside me, a bullet hole appearing in his forehead, weeping blood down over his face as Isaac appeared in the doorway, his gun trained on Robert, his eyes very much holding me.
I couldn’t move. I didn’t know whether to stare at Isaac, his beauty and his love the only thing my eyes wanted, or Daniel, the one my heart was telling me to go to.
My feet finally moved, taking me to Daniel. I dropped to the floor next to him and pulled him to me. “Daniel? Daniel? Hold on.”
He opened his eyes and I gasped at the complete peace behind them. He was staring beyond me, a tender smile lifting his lips, his eyes so full of love. “No,” he choked out. “She’s here. Take care of Annie. I never deserved her. She deserves you. Love her, swan. Love her so hard.” I nodded, drowning in my own tears, the salt stinging my lips, my choked sobs loud in the silence of the room. He lifted his hand, stroking his knuckles over my cheek as his eyes closed. “I was her decimation. She is my salvation.”
His hand fell to my lap, his fingers uncurling to reveal a small blue butterfly as a smile touched his lips and his soul joined its mate.
“Tell her I miss her,” I whispered as I leant down and placed my lips on his head. I curled his fingers back around the butterfly, holding his hand closed around it. “Tell her you love her, Daniel. And listen when she tells you. Because you do deserve her. You do deserve her love.”
Isaac lifted me and pulled me to him tightly, growling when he saw the knife still stuck in my shoulder. “Shit, my love.” I rested my head on his shoulder as he led me out of the room. “I was rather fond of that t-shirt.”
I smiled and looked down to the counter. Stopping Isaac, I stared at the dice. “Oh, Christ.” Stretching my hand out, I ran a finger over the three white dots, the odd number that had issued my death warrant.
Life truly was a cruel game. Death granted at the roll of a dice. But love; well that was what won the game… and sacrifice? That granted salvation.
I WATCHED ISAAC work on Franco, not really registering anything that was happening, not hearing Franco’s torturous screams, or even seeing the pools of blood gathered below where he hung from the chain. Isaac was hard, the brutal suffering he inflicted arousing him. He l
oved pain, he always had, and in one way, I understood why he had made sure I enjoyed it too. He’d moulded me into his ultimate plaything, a toy that could handle his wild side, and a wife that could give his heart and soul nourishment.
Daniel’s death hit me hard. I couldn’t stop the deep sorrow inside me. What the hell was this world, this life? The only thought granting me peace was that Mae finally had what she had always looked for. Daniel was now with her. I had to believe that, not just for my sanity, but for Annie’s future.
What was I going to tell her? I had broken the promise I’d given her when I had told her I would bring back her daddy. She’d lost both parents, her young innocence taken away so early. But then again, so had I, and I had survived, yet that thought didn’t help, it made my heart sink deeper.
I knew I had told Daniel I would be the one granting him death, but I also knew that I could never do that to Annie. Yet, fate had decided that my choice wasn’t acceptable and had secured what was to be taken from the beginning. But where did the end take me now? Would there ever be an end?
I felt that roll of the dice as distinctly as Daniel. The odd number three should have been my end, but Daniel had chosen it to be my beginning.
“I want the white picket fence, Isaac.”
He turned to me, my sudden odd words creasing his brow. His head tilted to one side, his eyes regarding me, scrutinising me. Blood dripped from his fingers, the scalpel he held twisting between his fingers as he twirled it round. His bare torso was lined in blood, his contoured abs supplying valleys for the red fluid to ride along.
“I want a puppy,” I continued as I gazed at him, sadness overwhelming me. “I want to celebrate Christmas with Annie. I want to be able to answer a knock at the front door without having to shove a knife into the back of my jeans first.”
He continued to watch me, listening to every word as his expression softened and his breathing regulated.
“I want to take Annie around the world, show her things that only the most privileged witness. I want to play fight in the summer, with hose pipes and buckets. I want to sledge in the snow, laugh under the stars. I want to roll down grassy hills and hear Annie’s laugh every day. But more than that.”
He watched me walk towards him, my slow steps echoing loudly in the silent concrete room. “I want to be married, like a normal husband and wife. I want to wear your ring. I want to be… I want to be just a woman. I’m so tired, so tired of this fight. Tired of hurting, both others and myself. I’m tired of struggling to breathe under the suffocation of our lives.”
He cupped my face when I reached him. I didn’t care that he smeared me with blood. I didn’t care that Franco was witnessing what was happening between husband and wife. “I want to be happy, Isaac.”
He stared at me, his pure green eyes worshipping me. The hand holding my face slid upwards and sank into my hair, before he twisted it and pulled my face to his. He didn’t speak, he just crashed his mouth over mine. His soft lips were brutal, hard and punishing. His growl into my mouth was loud and demanding as he pulled me harder into him.
I pulled away and blinked at him. “Say something.”
“I want to watch the sun set with my wife, whilst Annie chases the puppy. I want to watch your face as you laugh. I want to see the light in your eyes when I finally make you mine and only mine. I want to give you all of me, Con. I want all of you. No more sharing, no more jobs, no more Phantoms. I want to close the white picket gate at night, and lay beside you until the sun comes up. I want it all, my love. But most of all, I just want you. I will follow you into hell, but until then, I will follow any direction your life goes because I’m right beside you, whatever you want.”
I couldn’t help but smile at him. “You mean that. You’d give it all up?”
He stared at me, his eyebrows lifting in astonishment. “Of course I would. I know you’re ready, Connie. You’ve been ready for a long time. But it was only ever you who could put Shadow in the shadows. Your heart is the only thing that can reinvent the Phantom inside you. All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy, I thought you knew that, understood me.”
“I do,” I whispered. “But the Phantoms are your life.”
“You. You, my love, are my life. You and now Annie. I won’t even blink at making you happy. All I ever want is to witness that beautiful fucking smile of yours every morning and every evening. That’s all. That’s it. That’s me.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “I’m quite simple really.”
I chuckled and nodded. “You are the simplicity in complexity, darling.”
He shrugged and nodded. “That too. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” He winked and blew me a kiss before I turned and ventured back over to the chair in the corner of the room.
“Now, Franco. I’m bored.” Isaac sighed. “Let’s liven this up.”
She actually opened the front door to us when Isaac and I pulled up the thin gravel driveway. Isaac quirked an eyebrow at me before pulling the car up to a stop in front of the door.
“Well, she looks full of the joys of spring,” he mocked when Helen stared at us with a bored expression.
“Mmm,” I agreed, sighing heavily.
“She looks delightful.” His lip curled when his gaze roved down over her body then back up to her stern face. “How would you like to do this, my love, quick or slow?”
Stifling a yawn, I rolled my head round my shoulders. “Fast and easy. I just want a hot bubble bath, a foot rub and your tongue in my pussy.”
Isaac snatched up his gun and grabbed the door handle. I laughed, holding his arm and pushing the gun back on to his lap. “Whoa, Stud. Slow down, we have to think of Annie.”
“Well hurry. I need you. I’ve been on rations.”
I gawped at him, my mouth wide with shock. “What?”
He shrugged, almost embarrassed as his eyes lowered to his lap. “They’re not you, Connie. They never have been. And to be honest, they bore me. My wife, well, she excites me. She makes me laugh in the bedroom, she even breaks wind when I tickle her.” He nodded slowly as though proud of my ability to fart. “She makes my cock feel absolutely fucking fantastic but more than that, she loves me, she adores me. And I’ve realised after all this time, that’s what makes it what it is with you. Your love, and my love for you. And there is no greater climax than coming deep inside of you as your eyes give me all your thoughts, your soul and your heart. That’s what makes me yours, and that’s what makes us fucking awesome in bed.”
He ran his fingertip across my cheekbone, collecting the tears that fell. “Are you ready?”
“I need to do this on my own.”
He smiled, nodding. “I’ll come in and get the munchkin, then she’s all yours.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked as I looked in his eyes. He shook his head in confusion. “Annie. Bringing Annie into our family.”
“My love, Annie is already in our family. She has been ever since she was born. She’s part of you, and that makes her part of us. I want her to have that puppy, and days on the beach, and water fights. I want to make her laugh, I want to tickle her until she can’t breathe. And I want to watch her pick up her first ever baby and sing to her. I want to be the one who walks her down the aisle when she falls in love, I want to shoot at the prick that breaks her heart and I want her to grant me a grandbaby. Because she’s part of you, Connie.”
“You know,” I whispered, unable to lift my voice higher with the emotion coursing through me. “An hour ago, I was regretting what life had given me. But I’d do it all again, three thousand times over, because it gave me you. I look at Mae’s life, and yes, although it was my choices that gave her hers, she had to wait until death to find what I’ve had since I was thirteen. And that in itself, gives me cause to be grateful. I have never known a man love a woman as much as you love me. You went against the rules and took the most severe punishment for me. You killed your father for me. But above all that, you love me. Me, the ordinary girl who ha
d to make a choice on a dark winter’s night. A choice that would change everything. But take me back there right now and I will pick that same choice.”
“Will you stop,” he whined. “I’m seriously thinking about making love to you now.” His brows furrowed. “You know, like… slowly and softly.” He stared at me in shock with himself.
“We could try,” I whispered.
His pursed his lips in thought. “You mean, no spanking, no belt, no yanking your hair? Just….”
“Just us.”
He leaned into me, his warm breath whispering over me as he slid his fingers around the side of my neck. “I’d love to.”
I beamed at him before flicking my eyes to an even more bored Helen. Her arms were crossed across her chest whilst she waited for us. I blew out a breath and opened the door.
“Let’s do this. Let’s go fetch our little person and finish it.”
“I’m right behind you, my love. For the very last time, Shadow.” He nodded seriously, giving me the courage I needed to do this.
Closing my eyes briefly, I pulled in a fortifying breath. “Time to reach the end square.”
Eighteen years later
I GRIT MY teeth, pacing back and forth. I was going to kill him. Where the hell was he?
Bullet rolled her eyes at me. “Where is he? Annie’s up soon.”
Checking my watch again like that would stop time and put things on hold until Isaac arrived, I saw it was five minutes since I’d looked five minutes ago.
I raised my hands in the air and took a breath when I saw Isaac racing across the university car park towards us. “Where have you been?” I grumbled as I automatically went to fix his tie.
“Sorry,” he panted, trying to catch his breath. “Annie couldn’t find her speech.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Annie’s been here for over an hour.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, removing my hands from his tie and redoing it. “And she sent me back for her speech.”
The Salvation of Daniel (The Blue Butterfly Book 2) Page 17