His office is dark apart from the monitors, and it’s been cleaned since I was last here. I set the notebook with the sketches on his desk and sit in his chair. If I concentrate, when I inhale, I swear I can smell his aftershave.
I take a deep breath in and tell myself I have no choice but to do what I’m about to do. Even though just a few nights ago the thought of looking through his things felt so wrong, tonight feels different. But a part of me wishes he’d tell me, too. Wishes he’d just be honest with me.
I pull open the top drawer at the center of the desk, but this one has some pens in it and a few sheets of heavy paper embossed with his crest at the top center with envelopes to match. I close it and try the next one. It slides out easily, but it, too, like the first one, is neat and almost empty. Not even a paperclip out of place. I lean down to peer at the far back, but there’s nothing there.
The third drawer is locked as are all three on the other side. If there’s anything here, I won’t find it unless I break into them.
Standing, I go to the antique armoire against the far wall and open it. I don’t expect to find files, and I don’t. Instead, I see two unopened bottles of the scotch he likes to drink, some crystal tumblers, and, on the shelf beside those, a glass box that looks a lot like the one he keeps that mask in in my room. The one he hasn’t made me wear since the night I passed out.
My heart races, and my brain tries to tell me that what I’m seeing can’t be. Because it would be too humiliating. Too horrible.
I open the lid. It’s not locked. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I swear I smell the coppery scent of blood as I take out the neatly folded, unwashed sheets. The bloody sheets from our wedding night.
I try to make sense of this. Why would he have this? Why would he keep it? But then I remember. After he’d taken me and I’d had that awful mask on my head, I remember what he’d muttered that my mind hadn’t quite processed, not then.
“I wonder if Eli will be pleased to see how I bled his daughter.”
Is he planning on giving this to my father if or when he wakes? Still? After everything?
I drop the sheet and push my hands into my hair. God. I am a fool! I wonder if he’s laughing at me now wherever he is. This fool that is his wife.
“Fuck you, Santiago!” I pull the sheet out of the glass box so violently that the box drops to the floor when a corner of the cloth catches. I’m glad for the carpet, or it would have shattered, I’m sure, but as I bend to pull the sheet free, I see a single long crack across the bottom of the box.
I don’t care. I’m not hiding from him. I’ll tell him I burned the damned thing. Because that is exactly what I plan to do with it.
So, I leave the glass box where it is and make my way back through the dark house. I’m fully aware as I head to the back door that he has cameras everywhere and will see what I’ve done, but again, I remind myself that I don’t care because he obviously doesn’t. Colette was wrong. What she thinks she saw in the way he looks at me isn’t anything but ownership. Possession. Hate.
I slip on the pair of shoes I’d left at the door earlier when I’d gone for a walk, unlock and open the back door, pausing when I do, wincing as I wait for an alarm. But nothing comes. I’m not actually sure if the house has an alarm, but if so, it’s not on.
The night is black, moonless, and cloudless, and it’s cold. My sweater will have to be enough, though, and before I know it, I find myself at the doors of the small chapel. When I push one open, I see the red of the Tabernacle lamp and step inside.
The door closes behind me, and I’m alone inside the old stone church. The place has an eerie feel to it now, and it’s no less cold than it was outside.
I walk to the front of the church and drop the sheet on the stone altar. I pick up the box of matches to light more of the altar candles feeling less sure of what I’m about to do now than I had just a few minutes ago.
Once more candles are lit, I see the photographs on the altar, and although Leandro is an adult in the framed photo, I can still see the child he was in that photo in Santiago’s book. I shift my gaze to his father and meet his cold eyes. They stare at me from inside the frame, accusing me from beyond the grave.
It’s his fault Santiago is the way he is.
And I wonder if we do have a baby together, what kind of father will Santiago be if the only role model he had was this cold, brutal man?
What kind of father could he be if he can do to the mother of his child what he plans to do with this soiled sheet?
“You are a fool,” I tell myself and light one more match. I set it to the bloody sheet and watch the flame take and spread.
30
Santiago
Exhaustion is settling heavily into my bones by the time I pull through the gates of The Manor. The fresh sting of my sister's betrayal has left me empty. Vacant. I need sleep and a moment of peace.
Ivy will be upstairs. Soft and warm and available as a balm to the chaos in my wretched soul. The thought of being inside her, close to her, is the only solace I can find in the current landscape of reality.
Those thoughts drive me forward, sustaining my last shred of sanity as I park the car and drag my rigid body from the metal frame. The scars on my torso are aching tonight. A pain that surges again during the most inconvenient times, threatening to incapacitate me. My limbs are weighted down like lead, causing my feet to drag as I turn toward the front steps. In my desperation to get inside my sanctuary and collapse, I almost miss the sight of Marco darting across the garden on the east side. He catches sight of me at the same time I notice him, and we both freeze.
"What’s going on?” I ask.
"Mrs. De La Rosa," he answers tightly. "She's in the chapel, sir, and the groundskeeper informed me—"
Without waiting to hear the rest of his explanation, I pivot and move in that direction. Adrenaline floods my veins in response to the urgency in Marco's tone. Whatever it is can't be good.
My natural inclination is to suspect the worst. Someone has come for her. Another threat. Another scheme. Another hidden enemy I have been unaware of. My fists clench at my sides as murderous thoughts plow through my mind at lightning speed.
I will kill anyone who even thinks of touching her.
The chapel door screeches open beneath the weight of my palm, my haste pushing me forward with only one thought in mind. I have to get to Ivy. But the moment I see the flickering flames up on the altar, I stop short, my breath seizing in my lungs.
It feels like a hallucination. Another vivid nightmare. Because this can't be real. That can't be my wife up on the altar, burning what I soon realize is a length of fabric. She turns to me, the shadows dancing over her features as an orange glow reflects in her eyes.
A sharp pain lances through my chest, and I stumble forward, grasping at the end of the pews to catch my balance. Smoke suffocates the oxygen, a putrid smell that never leaves my thoughts. My eyes shutter closed as I try to focus on the present, fighting the past that keeps trying to drag me back to hell. When I open them again, I can just make out the faces of my father and brother staring back at me.
"No!" I roar.
I’m back there again. In the midst of the flames, dragging my body through the rubble trying desperately to get to them. Sharp metal scrapes against my torso, forcing an animalistic sound from my throat as I try and fail to push it away. It cuts me deep, and flames lick along my clothing, singeing my skin. The smell of burned hair and flesh nauseate me, but I have to keep going, for them.
Footsteps move past me, echoing across the floor like heavy artillery.
"Get back!" someone yells.
I try to see through the smoke. The flames. The pieces of bodies around me. But I never can. A cough explodes through the air and sweat drips down my neck as a familiar voice calls out to me.
"Take her outside."
Heat seeps into the fibrous tissue of my scars, deepening the ache. The itch. My brother and father aren't here anymore. I can't see them. And wh
en reality yanks me back, it's Ivy standing in front of me, wide-eyed and horrified.
"Take her outside!" Marco yells, shoving her in my direction. "I'll put this out. Go!"
It takes me a moment to find my balance and re-orient. And slowly, the pieces start to fall into place as I dissect one nightmare from another. My fingers curl around Ivy's arm like an iron trap, and she cries out as I drag her from the chapel out into the fresh air.
She yanks away from me, coughing and trying to catch her breath as I blink at her, trying to understand. Chest heaving, venom filling my veins, souring any sweetness there may have been between us. My traitorous fucking wife.
"What did you do?" I growl.
She wipes her face and shakes her head, refusing to answer. Refusing to look at me. She may as well have poured accelerant on my already volatile mood.
"What. Did. You. Do?" I snarl, capturing her around the arms and shaking her.
Her mouth falls open, the picture of horror as she looks up at me like she doesn't recognize me. And I suppose she doesn't. She hasn't met this monster yet. She hasn't known a rage like she's just provoked.
"Answer me!" I roar, my breath whipping strands of hair across her face.
"Let me go!" She hurls her words back at me, shoving against me with all her might.
"Let you go?" I mock her pathetic words. "Let you go? Haven't you figured it out yet? I'm not letting you go until you're fucking dead."
"I hate you!" she screams. "I would rather die than stay here with you."
"That can be arranged," I answer darkly.
Her lip trembles as she looks up at me, eyes shining in the moonlight. "Then do it. Quit threatening me and just do it."
I grab her by the throat and drag her forward, forcing her onto her toes. "Don't tempt me."
Whatever vitriol she has left is choked down by my fingers as I tighten them around her neck. I'm a raging bull, and any softness I may have had for her has abandoned me in the face of this fresh betrayal. When I look at her right now, the only thing I can feel is disgust.
Disgust that I could ever care for a Moreno. That I would ever think she could be loyal. That she wouldn't have taken every opportunity to stab me in the back and exploit me like she's just proven she can.
"You don't deserve the De La Rosa name," I grit out as she fights for her balance, raking her nails over my hands. "You don't deserve my mark. I should cut it out of your skin."
She whimpers and tries again to speak, but her words are suffocated under the weight of my palm. When I finally release her, she's coughing again, but there isn't an ounce of sympathy left for her.
Marco opens the door to the chapel and nods at me. "The fire is out. I'll get someone in here to clean up the mess." He pauses momentarily, his eyes darting to Ivy and narrowing slightly. "But you should know the pictures of your father and brother are ruined."
Ivy sucks in a sharp breath and flinches when I grab her by the hair, hauling her body in front of mine.
"Thank you, Marco."
He turns away, and I force Ivy forward, her knees nearly buckling as she stumbles to put one foot in front of the other.
"What are you doing?" she croaks.
"You want to burn down the memory of my family?" I ask. “It isn’t enough that you’ve already destroyed them?”
“Me?” She tries to turn her head to look at me, and I tighten my grip on her, enforcing her stillness.
"You’re a Moreno, aren’t you?” I sneer. “You’ve just proven it. You may as well have spit on their graves.”
"That wasn't what I was doing," she whispers.
"Lies," I sneer. "That's all that ever pours from your lips. Fucking lies."
When she tries to protest, I squeeze my free hand over her jaw, pinching it shut. "As far as I'm concerned, you don't have a voice anymore."
She shudders against me, tears splashing against my fingers as I march her into the house. When the door slams behind us, I pause in the foyer, squeezing my fingers between the seams of her shirt and tearing them apart. She fights me at every turn as I repeat the process on her leggings, shredding them with my bare hands while she kicks and slaps at me, screaming out a rage she wishes was equal to mine. Her lace underwear and bra are the last to go, and I discard them in a pile onto the floor and force her onto her knees.
"Crawl,” I command, tangling my fist in her hair.
She grunts out in frustration as I move forward, leaving her no choice but to crawl along beside me, all the way up the stairs, bruising her knees as she howls like a wounded animal.
"I'm not doing this anymore!" she yells, coming to a dead stop at the top of the landing. "You can't make me do this."
"No?" I release her hair and cock my head to the side, studying her. "You think I can't make you do whatever I want?"
She tries to scramble to her feet, and I force her down against the marble, mounting her body and pressing her face against the cold floor. She arches up like a cat, only to grunt in pain when I exert all of my weight against her.
"Tell me again what you won't do," I whisper in her ear.
"I hate you!" she sobs.
"So you've told me about a dozen times." I glower at her. "Do you think I care? Do you think it makes one goddamned difference to me what a Moreno thinks? Your insults are pathetic and weak, just like your bloodline.”
For a split second, she tries to look at me, and I refuse to let her. Dragging myself up, I seize her by the ankle and tug her along, her naked body sliding over the marble floor as she claws at it desperately, scrambling for purchase. That fight lasts all of a minute before she's twisting and flipping onto her back, her legs splaying apart in the chaos, baring her pussy as she tries to use her other heel as a brake. When my eyes move between her legs, she flails, trying to squeeze them together as if that act could save her from her indecency.
All of her fighting is for naught, and when we reach my room, she is breathless, too spent from the struggle over something so simplistic she has little energy left for what comes next. Her body bounces against the mattress when I yank her up and toss her onto it. Using the lengths of rope from when I tied her to my bedposts to tattoo her face, I push her face down and tie her hands behind her back and stretch her legs wide, securing the ropes to each ankle and forcing her onto her knees to keep her in that position.
"Santiago," she chokes out. "Just let me go. Just send me away. Please. I can't bear this hatred from you anymore."
"You will bear it." I lean down to look into her face, annoyed by her foolish request. "Because you earned it."
I unbuckle my belt, and she starts to cry in earnest as I slide it from the loops. She pauses her simpering to glance at me over her shoulder again, and I bark at her.
"Turn around."
"No."
"Very well." I offer her a cruel smile. "Have it your way."
I tug the pillowcase from the pillow and force it over her head, obscuring her face from my view. If I can't see her, I can't succumb to her tricks. Not anymore.
I retrieve the belt, gliding the leather edge along the curve of her hip before I fold it in my palms and crack the loop against her ass. She jolts forward, a scream piercing the silence as red blooms across her skin.
I crack the belt against her again, colliding with her thigh this time. Another scream erupts from her throat, and I savor that sound, creating a beautiful, haunting melody as a pattern emerges. The leather snaps against her skin, a trail of heat blazing over her swollen, red skin as I cover her ass, thighs, and calves with the evidence of my rage. Every time she tries to edge farther away, I yank her back, forcing her endurance.
She cries until her tears dry up and her throat is raw, and her ass is so sore she won't be able to sit for a week without being reminded of the consequences of her actions. But it isn't enough. It still isn't enough.
I can't look at her without a fresh wave of fury rolling through me. My breath is ragged as I loop the belt around the pillowcase covering her throat and latc
h it, leaving one end in my fist as I tug down my zipper with the other.
"You can’t even look at me," she clips out. “That’s why you’re doing this. You can hide my face, but it won’t change anything, Santiago. I can promise you that.”
"Stop. Fucking. Talking.”
I free my throbbing cock, jerking it in my fist as my eyes move over her pussy, and then up to her ass. I splay her apart with my palms, and she makes a strained sound in her throat as I slide my dick against her. Once. Twice. Three times before I circle her clit with the head, toying with her until she’s squirming against me unconsciously in half pleasure, half pain. Her ass is tender. I can tell when it brushes against the fabric of my trousers, and she whines. It’s a glowing red ember against my white knuckles when they graze her curves, and when I hoist her back up, her body begins to sag into the bed again. Exhaustion is wrapping its ugly claws around her, but I’m not even close to being done with her yet.
I slide my cock against her, smearing it with her traitorous arousal. Even when she hates me, she wants this. She’s as fucked up as I am.
I wrap my fingers around the leather belt end and tug, arching her head back as I slam inside her with one deep thrust. She screams, a shrill sound that vibrates my eardrums and rattles my cock. In and out, I slide against her, soaking my rigid dick with her arousal.
Her fingers curl behind her back, shoulders squeezing as she struggles to hold herself up without the use of her arms. I release the belt and she collapses again, panting against the pillowcase covering her face. When I slide my fingers against her, she arches into my touch, unaware she’s even doing it, but freezes when I circle the tight forbidden hole I have not yet sampled. I press against her with my finger, pushing past the barrier as she tries to jerk forward, out of my reach. My hand on her hip stills her, and I slide my finger in and out as she begins to breathe harder, faster.
“Santiago,” she gasps when I pull my finger away and replace it with the head of my cock, nudging against her.
Reparation of Sin: A Sovereign Sons Novel Page 16