44. Remy
Chapter forty-four
Remy
I don’t know if it’s genius or madness that I brought Wes here with Violet, but I suppose it’s all the same in the end. There’s too much riding on tonight, too many threads that need tied together. The only way I can see for Claire to heal is to know what she needs to heal from… and maybe to take justice into her own hands.
I don’t know how to delicately tell someone that they have an identical twin that they’ve never known about, any more than I know how to tell a man that he doesn’t just have one daughter that was stolen from him. But maybe I should have tried to give them some kind of preparation—Victor looks like he may keel over when he turns to take in the new arrivals. I don’t care about him right now, though.
My focus is on Claire, who stands stock still, like she’s afraid to breathe.
Wrapping an arm around her, I guide her a step forward, to where Wes is standing with his wife. Oddly enough, he looks nervous. I’d laugh if I wasn’t so worried about Claire, whose lips move without forming words.
“This is her?” Violet asks, dubious. As if they aren’t the spitting fucking image of one another.
“Claire,” I tuck a stray lock of her hair behind her ear, keeping my voice soothing. “Meet your sister. Violet.”
A moment passes before anyone breaks the silence, which is thick and tense. “Sister?” The senator sputters, coming around to take them both in as they take in one another .
“Twins.” Wes confirms, though he doesn’t look to Victor until he asks, “Those run in your family, don’t they, senator?”
Claire and Violet appraise one another without speaking, and I don’t know if it’s shock or resentment or just fear that keeps them from reacting to one another.
“Yes.” Victor whispers slowly, trying to grapple with that information. “But not… identical …”
A sob rips through the musty air, and Claire’s eyes turn to the senator. But he’s already turning his back to her, striding toward his wife, who sits motionless in the chair he left her in, her useless attempts at escape having been quelled. Maybe seeing them together gives her a moment of remorse—ripping a baby from a woman’s womb and killing her is awful, but then to separate the babies on top of it? It’s unnecessarily cruel.
“You vicious bitch!”
For one second, I think Victor is going to strike his wife across the face. Instead, he stops just before her and spits in her face. “You fucking vile pig!”
Addison’s shoulders straighten as she struggles to keep her head up from where it’s falling forward. I can see her eyes rolling already. It’s too soon for that, so I turn to find the bottle of epinephrine, while Victor continues to scream at her, agonized cries tearing his words to shreds.
It’s been twenty-one years, and yet I’d wager that he never moved on from his first love. That, or he just never realized he was married to a monster.
Addison’s eyes are unfocused as I draw closer to her. No one seems to see me coming, and nobody cares enough to stop me when they do. I stab her none too delicately with the needle right over where her heart should be, despite not being convinced she has one, and ignore her gasping, shuddering breaths as the drug works its way through her system rapidly.
I drop before her just long enough to look into her cold eyes. “Tell them what you did, Addison. Tell them how you betrayed their mother… them.” I get a handful of her hair and yank her head back, giving her no choice but to look at Claire and Violet. Black streaks from her makeup run down her neck, but I know she’s not crying with regret. I see her throat working to swallow her anger and agony. She starts to shake her head, but her hair is still tangled in my fingers, so I give her a sharp tug to set her straight.
“Please!” She sobs. “You’re going to kill me!”
“Not me.” I tell her softly. “See, I’m a man of taste. Art, poetry, music. I appreciate symmetry… you understand, right? You’re a woman of taste, too, aren’t you, Addie? That’s why you aligned yourself with people who could get you the furthest from your past.”
Fresh tears roll down her face, but they do little to win her favor with any one of us. “Please…”
“Please what? Please don’t tell them that you grew up here? You’re so ashamed of your childhood, Addison, when it’s your adult life you should be ashamed of. What kind of woman has another sold off to a pack of wolves in Gucci? Or was it the Armani that you did it for?”
“No!” She pleads, snot dripping down her face.
I never particularly enjoyed ruining a woman’s makeup, but this is a definite improvement for her.
“If you don’t want to use your tongue, we can cut it out.” I let go of her all at once, her head falling forward before she catches herself. “You won’t be needing it anyway.”
I’m already lifting the serrated blade, admiring the wicked teeth, by the time she screams, “Okay! Okay! Stop! I’ll tell them!”
It takes another moment, and a flash of the blade, before she takes a shaky breath. “I helped Senator Massarini get rid of her!” Her desperate eyes shoot to me, seeking praise or maybe just confirmation that I haven’t moved any closer with the knife.
“My father ?” Victor’s voice is cold and shaky, his disbelief thinly veiled. “No, he… he wouldn’t. ”
“Your father was a fucking menace!” Addison spits, blood flying from her lips. “He didn’t want you saddled to that bitch for the rest of your life because of some stupid fucking mistake. You’d already gone back to wherever the fuck you were, and he found out she was pregnant. She was stupid enough to take the test at your house and one of the housemaids found it. They thought it was your sister’s, but your father knew better because he knew your sister was into girls. It was early, so he tried to pay her to terminate, but Lauren wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t, so we had to get rid of her. I helped him, and in exchange, he helped me win Victor’s favor.”
“You…” Victor’s laugh is unhinged. “You helped him?”
“It’s easy to erase people when you hold their records. The world forgot about Lauren, and we moved on.”
“You’re just going to gloss over the details?” I snort.
Maybe the details are too gritty for the delicate company I’ve gathered, but I’m not going to stand by and let her act as though she was little more than a spectator.
“Do they matter?” Addison growls, glancing up at me with violence in her eyes. She doesn’t have to tell me what she did to Claire’s mother, because that look tells me without words just what vicious things she is capable of.
“It’s your last chance to confess your sins.” I tell her calmly. “Maybe you don’t believe in a higher power, but you must know the devil is real. You’ve aligned yourself with him for years, but do you think he’ll have pity on your soul because you’re one of his?” I laugh as I watch the panic play on her face. She clearly believes something comes after this, and that’s enough to make her comply.
“My mother owned horses.” She says suddenly. “Before she withered away, she used to show them. Every time her daddy hurt her, he’d buy her a new pony. But she wasn’t capable of caring for anything, so they’d die out there and he’d hurt her again, and she’d get another just to watch it slowly die. You know how you break a wild horse? ”
“Snap its neck?” Wes suggests, crossing his arms. He looks bored, but I don’t miss the way he keeps glancing out of the corner of his eye at his wife, or the way his jaw is tight like he’s working hard to keep his anger in.
“You exhaust it.” Addison explains. “That’s what we did to Lauren. We had to take her down a peg, show her that it was useless to fight. So, we exhausted her… I mean, I was exhausted just watching. I thought for sure one of the men that night would fuck the little bastard out of her. As much as she bled, I thought they did.”
There’s a moment of awful silence that wants to smother every last one of us. A glance at Claire assures me she’s watching, listening to Addison’s every word, processing.
“You’re a monster.” Violet says quietly. “An absolutely despicable monster.”
“It was a shock to us all when months later she started to swell.” Addison shakes her head. “And an even bigger shock when we found out she wasn’t just carrying one little parasite, but two. Victor hadn’t come back from deployment yet, so when I got a call asking me to deal with it, I was happy to oblige. People are so very desperate for babies… so desperate that they’ll pay any price. And they did.” She laughs to herself, and then winces at the pain it must cause her. She’s given up on pleading for mercy, too fond of her vile memories to feign innocence anymore. “But twins attract attention. I couldn’t let anyone take them both, and then I had the realization that instead of making money off of them just once, why not do it over and over?”
I want so badly to pull Claire into my arms and hold her, to offer her warmth or comfort. But I don’t move, letting her take all of it in stride.
“What did you do?”
“I put the other girl into a system so broken no one would notice a whole child falling through the cracks.” Addison says, her voice and eyes distant for a moment before they lock onto Claire. “Except, instead of paying the families to care for her, I charged them. Adoption is expensive, you know, and I can’t help that it fails sometimes. It was nice, at first, making all that cash off of her. It was easy, too, until they would start asking questions and then I had to get involved, find another family who would play ball. It became exhausting, so I dropped her eventually with someone who wouldn’t ask questions…”
Addison doesn’t have to say the name. I know the sort of man who wouldn’t ask questions… the sort of man who would violate a child’s innocence. He’s dead, and soon, Addison will be too.
“You left my sister with someone you knew would hurt her.” Violet accuses, drawing the attention of everyone. “You left a child with a predator . I want to hear you say it. Quit skirting the truth and say that you murdered our mother and then stood by to watch one of her daughter’s suffer.” Violet says, stepping away from Wes’ side. He lets her go without a struggle, rolling his shoulders as he watches her slowly approach her mother’s murderer… or one of them, anyway.
“I didn’t watch.” Addison blinks, turning to look at her as though just realizing she’s there. “I looked the other way.” Her eyes flit over Violet’s shoulder, to where Claire stands stoically, watching what is transpiring without any recognizable emotion on her face. When she looks back to Violet, recognition seems to switch somewhere. “You’re the chosen one. The one that a wealthy family paid a small fortune for. But I’m guessing your life wasn’t rainbows and butterflies, was it, princess?”
Addison’s cold laugh turns into the sound of her choking on the blood in the back of her throat. I wonder idly how deeply the senator stabbed her, and if he knew where to place it to make this slow. When Violet doesn’t answer, Addison graces us with a bloody smile. “You were in the Doll House.”
It’s not a question, and Violet doesn’t acknowledge it, but I notice Addison’s eyes lingering on her scars. “Shame. You’d be so beautiful…” Her eyes flit to Claire. “So beautiful that everyone wants you. A docile child with big blue eyes and porcelain skin?” She sneers. “Every foster family’s dream, it seems. You know how much I regret keeping you alive? I helped you get away from the Giante’s and claim your freedom, but you couldn’t just fucking let it go, could you?”
Claire only stares mutely at her, bolstering Addison’s confidence. “I should have smothered you in your mother’s shredded womb, you wretched little bitch .”
I’m upon her before I even have a chance to think about it, but a tiny blonde wedges herself between Addison and I before I can dig the blade into her.
“Let me.” Violet says, craning her neck to appeal to me. “Please.”
I gathered the girls for vengeance and justice. Far be it from me to stop her now. I pass the hilt of the blade into her upturned palm, unnerved by the deep color of her irises… or maybe not the color. Maybe it’s how quickly she can go from dead eyes to ones full of feeling.
It slips away as she turns back to face Addison, running a finger over the edge of the knife… hard enough that she draws her own blood. Violet doesn’t even seem to notice, or maybe she just doesn’t care. “You’re right. My life wasn’t rainbows and unicorns. I mean, it was , actually… up until my parents died. And then it was more like monsoons and anacondas. You’ve been to the Doll House?”
Addison’s jaw is clamped too tight to make speaking possible as she stares hatefully at the child she sold off. “No.” Violet answers for her. “You wouldn’t have walked out if you went in… at least not looking like that.”
Quick as a whip, she drives the blade into Addison’s thigh, causing her to open her mouth to let out a guttural scream, which fractures into a sobbing plea.
“Stop!” Her eyes traipse over us all in turn, but slowly, she realizes she will get no mercy from any of us. “Please! I have children! My boys! Mas—”
“Don’t you fucking dare!” Victor’s scream cuts her off abruptly. “Don’t you fucking dare say their names.” His tone is more controlled when he speaks again, but the hiss is impossible to ignore when he says, “You won’t hurt my children anymore. Ever.”
The blood dripping onto the floor is thick, being pumped directly from her wicked heart into the gash in her leg. She’ll hemorrhage soon, but I’m not going to force Claire to take the bait. If she wants vengeance, she can have it, but she has to reach for it… anything to show me that she is in there.
“P-please.” Her fluttering eyes turn to Wes, thinking she may find some compassion in the only person who hasn’t taken her indiscretions personally. But if she thinks Wes will grant her mercy, she’s even dumber than I thought.
Or maybe she’s just desperate.
“Well, if I pull the knife out now, you’re going to bleed to death so much faster.” Violet scoffs. “Can’t have that, can we?” She spins, her long hair whipping as she practically skips to the table. “It’s like a buffet!” She says, clapping her hands in excitement as her eyes traipse the weapons laid out before her. “I’d like to try a little of everything, but…”
Her fingers close around a scalpel, and she lets out a squeal as she hurries back to Addison. “Look what I found! Don’t worry—I’ll make your face pretty even though your soul is putrid.”
The sickly sweet voice drops at the end of her promise, and then she grips Addison’s hair in one fist, using the scalpel to draw a line across her cheek. Addison’s scream is weak, and the blood that wells on her pale skin doesn’t flow as fast as it should. “Be grateful for this, Addison. In the Doll House, it’s the sign of a fighter. The smile…” She rips the blade downward to the corner of Addison’s mouth, pulling with more force than she needs. “The smile is what they give you the first time they feel teeth… that’s if you get to keep your teeth. Not everyone does.”
My stomach twists at the thought of Violet enduring something so cruel, but then it doesn’t surprise me. What does surprise me is the way she is carving Addison’s face like a turkey without the slightest hint of remorse.
Honestly, Violet terrifies me. But then, so does Claire right now. “It’s called a Glasgow smile. It used to be a gang thing.” She shrugs, pausing to admire her handiwork as she tilts Addison’s chin side to side, inspecting her under the light.
I’ll never forget doing the same to her, in that horrific moment where I’d thought she was Claire. We all have scars, but not all of us wear them on our face… or even on the outside.
“But the X,” she continues, tracing the letter at the top of the cheekbone. “That’s a tally. One line for every month you’re there. When you wake up, you’ll want to know how long you were unconscious. They’re badges of honor, proving how resilient you are.”
I’m not convinced Addsion is even still alive to hear this story until I hear her gasp, struggling to get a breath. “But for you, I’ll give you three. You don’t deserve them, honestly, but you seem so proud. This one on the right side…” She runs her own finger along Addison’s paper-white cheek, the side with a single slash across her bone. Her own blood mingles with the little bit that drips from the open wound. “That’s for me. But this X?” She draws the X in question as she moves to the other side, using the scalpel with less force this time. “Two lines… one for my mother, and one for my sister.”
When she stands up to step back and admire her masterpiece, Addison’s head falls forward. For one moment, I think she’s gone.
And then out of the corner of my eye, I see Claire moving forward.
Watching the two of them side-by-side is weird, to say the least. Their backs are to Wes and I, and Victor has just pulled himself to his feet from where he was in the corner vomiting his stomach contents since Violet’s first stab. Claire doesn’t look at her sister as she holds her hand out for the scalpel, which is hanging loosely between Violet’s bloody fingers .
I move slowly, rotating myself to get a look at Claire’s face, to see if there’s any emotion there as she takes the medical blade. But she doesn’t so much as blink as she gets a grip on it, lifts Addison’s head by the hair, and draws the blade across her exposed throat.
It’s effortless, beautiful in a macabre way. Most of the blood has already drained from Addison’s head, but whatever was left falls to the ground at the girls’ feet, pulled down by gravity now that her heart has definitely stopped beating. The bit that splashes up onto my face is already cold… but maybe that’s just because she was a cold-blooded snake to begin with.
Claire hands the blade back to Violet without a single word, and when her eyes lock with mine, none are necessary.
“Let’s get you home.”
“Wait!” Victor moves so fast toward us, that finally I see the first signs of something from Claire as she cringes away from him. It emboldens me to wrap an arm around her, and she doesn’t fight it. “Claire…”
I’m not sure what Victor thinks he can possibly say that would have any meaning at all right now, and apparently, neither is he.
“Not now,” I tell him with a curt shake of my head.
I understand his desire to build a bridge… but right now, we’re not building them.
We’re burning them.