I wear a grey dress to my wedding, a silent symbol that the evil is still in me it is just quiet for now. The grey only washes through me on rare occasions now, when it does Callum knows how to fix it. There is no shortage of people who need to disappear in his world. When his demons are too close to ignore I let him hurt me. Not like before, it is controlled and safe and the pleasure, we both derive from his new kink, is out of this world. We are a single entity now, a different sort of evil. I am not a ghost or a princess. I am his queen, and he worships me, all of me the grey included. He is my king, and we rule our little empire with a darkness that cannot be rivalled. We have become a single monochrome monarchy of crime that no one dares to challenge. Most are blissfully unaware of what goes on beneath our picture-perfect surface.
We are a beautiful couple, the media focus on how we run several successful businesses and that the richest mob heir returned to Ireland a clean, good citizen. He has changed what the mob is. He has made it a classy institution that no one sees the seedy side of. No one sees the filthy vile underside of O’Reilly Holdings. Callum was a one man revolution that changed organised crime internationally.
Callum is a fucking genius he has the whole world fooled. We have everything because we have each other.
I stand here in this impersonal little ‘chapel’ next to me is the only man who could make me love him. Dressed in his black suit, his long hair is hanging just to his chin making him look more dangerous than he ever has before. I say, “I do” without hesitation. The blood diamonds wrapped around my finger no longer feel like lead, they feel like home. I push the guilt away and try for just moment to enjoy my wedding day. Is this what happy feels like?
He has opened up to me over the time since we left the hospital behind us, told me about Rowan, Lauri and his sister. About his home, a home we will be returning to very soon. I am afraid to meet them all. He has a new plan, he wants to raise the only other Spillane left to be our heir. He wishes to steal his best friend's child, not take her away, just be close enough to slowly make her his. The one thing I cannot give him he will steal from the only other person he loves. We were never going to be good, just good together.
Callum misses home, he misses them, and this city has too many memories, too much pain and blood for him to ever stay. I always knew he would leave. I have never left here and the thought of leaving it all behind is liberating and frightening all at once. You have no one here except him you are leaving nothing behind.
I swallow the lump of the lies that I keep inside and leave with my husband. I am an O’Reilly now, nothing could be better – or worse. I feel as if this cannot be real, and part of me wants to ignore the love and run away. But love, this strange and dangerous thing that has enveloped me, changed me and murdered me is not something you can walk away from. Love is like the death shadow that follows me, it won’t let go, it will always be there. Callum will always be there and that makes me deliriously happy and fearful at the same time. The shattered splinters of the life, I had before he walked into the cemetery, have fallen away and we slowly rebuild each other into a new entity. Neither of us can survive without the other we have come to depend on the darkness that is us to get through each day. If I leave him I, will fall apart, I will not survive without Callum but I may not survive Callum at all. One touch and he melts my defences, one smile and I crumble and his voice is all I need to bring reason to my crazy mind.
“Let’s go on our honeymoon Mrs O’Reilly. Then we can go home.” He says as we descend the stairs back to the street below us. As we drive to a private airfield that Callum uses for work I can feel the last chains of the past falling away and I hold a small hope that we could live just a shadow of a normal life away from this place. Callum holds onto my hand as we drive, I see the tension of the city that gave birth to this man leaving him as we get further and further away. His shoulders relax just a little and his death grip on my hand becomes tender, the stern frown lines leave his face and he is as free as I am. Hope is always false the whisper of reality says to me.
I am too in love to let him go, even though I still believe I should. Even if it is only to save myself from the agony of his death. He can't be saved from what you have done.
There is a jet waiting for us on the small runway, branded O’Reilly International Holdings Inc. in gold writing. Part of the clean dirty business Callum runs, no one gives any of it a second glance anymore. He publicly denounced his family’s criminal past and declared a new beginning. Labelled the prodigal son, he changed things. No one knew just how much worse he was, those that went before him were a known darkness, Callum is a dangerous light on the streets. He can flaunt his money because it is earned not stolen, but the way it is made screams of the under-world of criminal lawlessness. Callum leaves his keys in the ignition and comes to open my door. He walks away from his car leaving it behind like everything else. I feel the heat of his hand as it rests on the small of my back, it is as if he feels my hesitation at leaving it all behind and gives me a push forward. I don’t know who I am without this place and I am afraid. He has escaped the death grip of this all before and I know he cannot wait to leave again.
My brain cannot function with any reason when Callum touches me. When his hands are on me, I want dangerous things that should make me run. I actively seek out his madness and bend to his will allowing him to control my body to satisfy both our depravities. I let him hurt me, worse than that I want him too, need him too. Not the way he did at the beginning that was different because it wasn’t what either of us wanted. Now when I feel his belt around my neck or his hand come down across my backside it makes me need him. It makes my body want him more, and it makes my high that much more than it ever could be without Callum.
The thought of sex with Callum makes me smile, my heavy steps a little lighter as we get to the ladder of the jet and I know I am doing the right thing. I lean into his body, my home and my safe place. “Let’s join the mile high club while we at it.” A loud laugh bursts from his lips and I feel it ricocheted through his whole body. “Oh, I have been a member for many years, but I will gladly welcome you to the club.” A wounding jealously pierces right through me at the vision of him with another woman. I know there were a great many, but none that were ever close to what we have. It shouldn’t hurt me, I had others too. But it does, Callum has the ability to hurt me worse than any other person. He is all I have, I am no longer alone but I only have him and I know this will not last forever. Nothing ever does. I am holding in me a horrible truth that could end it all in a moment. Death still follows me, it always will. I am married to it now.
Callum leans down to kiss me while we stand on the steps of his jet ready to begin our lives at last. His mouth claims mine, I don’t think anymore I feel. Callum makes me feel and that’s the best thing that has happened to me since I was fourteen. I feel his tongue as it tangles with mine, it is always a tug of war between us, both taking everything there is to take without holding back. His teeth bite down on my bottom lip and he smacks my ass to make me move up the stairs and into the luxurious jet. My edgy nerves are mixed with lust and devilish thoughts of airplane sex.
As we take off I, watch my world disappear beneath us and as it does Callum becomes my whole universe. I know that I need to be his everything it is the only way I can atone for what will come. You poisonous curse will kill him Shannon, you cannot fix it. You should have run a mile. My doubt and guilt seep in. There is always a price for all of us; we pay for our sin. I will pay dearly for killing him, losing him will be my price.
FALLING SLOWLY OR FALLING FAST, falling in love hurts. Love will murder your heart, over and over again. I fucking love her so much that I know it isn’t good for either of us, but I will never let her go now. Now she is my queen and the only way she leaves my side is with her head severed off. I finally have everything I ever wanted, my business is just that a company, it is no longer a band of thugs. It is organized, efficient and rotten right to its beating heart.
/> I am finally going home, I am going home with my murderous wife and I cannot wait. As the jet took off and left that God forsaken city behind I could feel myself coming alive again. I could feel the darkness and grey haze of the monsters and ghosts of my past being left behind forever. I will never return to this place. As liberating as it is, a feeling in my heart is tugging me down from my high. I feel as if there is a darkness that will follow me as long as I have her with me. She is still hiding secrets, she is still a murderer underneath it all and that desire to kill will not leave her. Just like I know a time will come that my sanity will leave me and I will hurt her again.
Even now as I fuck her on the bed in the back of the jet, I know we are connected to each other forever but it is not a good thing. Loving her is the most dangerous thing I have ever done and it might still kill me. Her beautiful body was made for me to destroy. Her hands are bound with my tie and her back arches into every thrust as I fight to control myself, I don’t know why I try? I always lose the control, she had it all the time she just didn’t realise it. The pink flush that creeps over her skin as she gets close to her climax only makes me want to hurt her more. The way her red curls are wrapped around my fist as I pull her back to meet my need. Her pussy clamps around me as she shatters into her orgasm, and I continue my onslaught bending her body further to my needs. The way she moans making it hard to hang on, every little pant takes me closer to the edge I seek. My other hand reaches for her soft breast, and the feel of her hard nipple brushing against my palm and it is all I can bear not to pull it off. Fuck she will kill me with her beauty and her pure sex. This is just another high, like the drugs her danger is making you need her. I let go and force her face into the pillows and I find my release as she bucks against the suffocation that I force on her until I am done, emptied and filled all at once. I let her hair go and pull her into me as I collapse into the mattress to sleep with my murderer. I don’t crave the sweetness of sugar or the high of blow. I want danger and she gives it to me in buckets. What she cannot do is stop the madness, the need to inflict pain.
Sleep takes her away quickly and she leaves me alone with my thoughts and my guilt. I fucking feel it, I feel sorry for the things I have done and I don’t want to. I did what had to be done; I cleansed the world of the black stain that my father left on it. I am not sure I will ever be able to fix what they did to Shannon, I still don’t know the truth but I know in my heart that they made her. They made a monster from an angel. Made her world a living hell, and turned her into something poisonous.
I leave her to sleep I cannot find rest. I am too wound up over the thought of going home. I am sure they think I am dead and buried with the remainder of the family. I want to start over, I want to be fucking happy and in love. I want a family, the kind of family that I had with them all before I left. I want dinner over the vineyard with Rowan, I want it all and I think I have it at last.
First two weeks on an island in the Maldives for me and Shannon to truly be alone. Nothing to stop us from losing ourselves in the insanity that is us. Then a little surprise trip into the heart of Africa to show Shannon just why it has me captivated. Then we will go to Cape Town, my home.
I open a bottle of scotch, I really should stop. I have replaced sweets with whiskey and Shannon, I know that neither one can be a good thing. As I swallow the amber sanity down, I realize that I will always be addicted to something. There will always be that thing that I cannot survive without, but it isn’t the whiskey, the sweets or even the physical release I find in the gym. It is her, I am addicted to what Shannon makes me feel. I am addicted to her poison, addicted to her danger and drawn deep into her darkness. I will never escape her, or replace her.
Hours later I drag myself back to her sweet body in the bed, in the hope of getting some sleep on the flight. I slide into the bed next to her naked body and pull her against me and my cock instantly reacts to the warmth of her. I want her again. She wiggles against me in her sleep making it impossible not to touch her. I need her more than I need air. I allow my hands to trace the curves of her body, the rise of her hips and the dip of her waist, the round softness of her breasts. The perfection of her lips is too much temptation and I swipe my thumb across my sleeping lover’s mouth.
Without even giving me an indication that she is awake, she bites down on my finger, hard, and rolls over to straddle me. My defences against the madness melt and my hands find her neck and squeeze. I worship her body by making my marks on it. I steal the life from her by stopping her breath and then I give it back with my kiss. When we are done we are both in ruins, our bodies and minds will break every time we give into the passion. Then love that we allow to simmer to the surface after rebuilds us. We are not easy to love, monsters never are, but when we love we do it with the same insanity that controls us. “Shannon, I cannot stop myself with you,” I whisper to her.
“I don’t want you to stop yourself Callum. Don’t ever stop loving me.” Her words are tired and breathy. I fall asleep this time with her pulled close to me, naked and perfect.
TWO WEEKS ALONE ON AN island with a villain that would scare most women to death. Two weeks to learn how to not at kill each other. Two weeks to learn what it is to love unconditionally and without holding back. Two weeks to create the illusion of being perfect on the surface when the madness below the surface cannot be seen by others. Two weeks for him to break the last bits of me that I clung to through this terror attack on my body and mind. Two weeks to rebuild myself into the queen he needs at his side. Two weeks that feels like an eternity in my own heavenly hell. Two weeks, where there is not one funeral, not one body and the only torture, is that of the agonizing pleasure that he brings every time he touches me.
It takes two weeks for us to forget it all. The bodies, the blood and the murder it’s all left behind us. The missing months stolen from him by a friend are just a memory now. It was those months of watching him in limbo that changed me and melted my ice enough for me to allow the idea of love to even have a chance at all. I look over at him as he swims in the clear blue waters surrounding the villa, his body is not the machine it was before but he is still beautiful to look at. The faint scars of the past only making him even better to look at. The ripple of the muscles on his back as he swims up and down past me, not letting a day go past where he doesn’t push his body to get back to what it was. I think he forgets he is closer to fifty than forty; he truly is as young as he feels. I feel a little sad that we had to wait so long to find this, and that we will have it only for a few fleeting moments. Every second more precious than the last because there is an exact number.
I cannot give him all of me because I know that this is fleeting and that it won’t last forever. We are leaving this island paradise of blue waters, clear skies and peace today. We are going home, to Callum’s home and his happiness. I shake the guilt and sadness that is clouding over me and promise myself something while I watch him pass by me in the water again.
“You be happy now Shannon, while you can because the time is going to come again when you cannot. Until then you forget what you have done and enjoy this while it lasts.” I whisper it out loud to myself as if it will make it easier if I hear it too.
Wet, I am soaked as Callum splashes me from the waters below my little deck and he laughs as I gasp out loud. “Come swim Shannon, the sun is no good for that lily white skin of yours. Besides I want to enjoy you before we leave.” His smile is devious and playful. I know exactly what he means as I plunge into the refreshing water with him.
We make love in the cool water one last time before it all has to get real.
ON THE JET, CALLUM TELLS me we are making another stop on our honeymoon. He wants to show me the magic of Africa. I have never heard of magic, I have heard horror stories and tales of darkness.
We touch down in Nairobi; the heat is stifling as we are moved across the hot tarmac to a waiting light aircraft. The small plane with a propeller engine makes me nervous it looks as if it will fall
out of the sky.
We are given giant earphones with a little mic attached and the rickety door is closed. My heart is pounding, this is a stupid idea. I do not need to see Africa. We are forced to sit close together on the small bench seat as the engine roars to deafening life.
The bumpy takeoff has my lunch in my throat and I fight overwhelming air sickness almost right away. I try breathing through my nose, my palms are wet and I have that cold ‘I am about to puke’ sweat all over my body. I shiver with each wave of nausea.
Just when I think I am going to upchuck all over myself and Callum. I hear his voice boom through my earphones. “Look out the window Shannon.” I turn so I can look out the window that is tilted towards the ground as the plane turns. The sun casts cloud shadows over the golden coloured grasslands and the honeyed land stretches on for miles. The Massai Mara in all its wondrous glory rolls out under the small aircraft. My sickness is soon forgotten as we pass over herds of elephant, rivers and the masses of wildebeest and antelope on their migration. My breath is taken away by the splendour and magnitude of the African wild. I am so lost in the beauty surrounding me that I get a fright as the small plane bounces down on the dirt landing strip in the heart of this wilderness. I bounce right off the seat and Callum’s arm reaches out to hold me down. To keep me safe.
There is an open game viewing vehicle waiting at the edge of the dirt, nothing else at all would indicate that this is even an airstrip at all. A tall African man dressed in khaki leans against the vehicle. I look out the small window of the plane and I can understand how this place has such a pulling force that Callum couldn’t wait to return. It truly is magnificent.
Monochrome My Madness Page 23