Chapter 13 Twelve
The shower ran cold before I realized I'd been standing under it for twenty minutes.
I turned off the water and reached for a towel, moving through the motions the way I'd moved through every motion for the past eighteen months, one task then the next. That was how I survived.
Reid needed the tactical briefing by midnight. Algerone had given me an order, and I would follow it, because following orders was what I did and what I'd always done.
I dressed in fresh clothes: charcoal pants and a white shirt, no tie. The fabric covered the marks on my thighs, the welts from the riding crop that still throbbed when I moved. By morning they'd be fading, like everything else.
My tablet waited on the desk in the study, the briefing document half-finished from this afternoon. I sat down and pulled up the file. Vancouver, Shaw's location, tactical approach vectors. The words blurred on the screen.
Reid's team would need satellite imagery of the warehouse district. I had the files from Archer's analysis. I just needed to compile them, add the personnel assessments, cross-reference with Shaw's known security protocols. It was two hours of work, maybe less if I could focus.
My hands were shaking.
I set the tablet down and pressed my palms flat against the desk, waiting for the tremor to pass.
It didn't. My fingers trembled against the polished wood like I was back in those first hours after the explosion, running on caffeine and terror while Algerone lay in a medically induced coma and the doctors wouldn't tell me if he'd ever wake up.
Thank you, sir.
I’d accepted his dismissal like a dog accepting a kick.
He'd taken me apart with that riding crop, watched me shatter into subspace, stroked me to orgasm while tears ran down my face.
And when I'd surfaced, raw and desperate and needing something I couldn't name, I'd thanked him for the privilege of being used.
Then he'd gotten dressed and walked out, just like the plane.
I picked up the tablet again and told myself to focus on the briefing.
The cursor blinked on the screen. I'd written the same sentence three times.
You're just convenient.
He'd said that on the plane. After he'd fucked me for the first time in thirty-two years, after I'd given him everything I had, he'd pulled out and told me I was convenient. That it changed nothing. That we'd pretend it never happened.
And I'd accepted it. Cleaned myself up, prepared his briefing, sat across from him in silence while his cum dried on the sheets twelve feet away. Because that's what I did. That's what I'd always done.
The tablet screen had gone dark. I didn't remember setting it down.
I was moving before I made the conscious decision, going out of the study, down the hallway, toward the door of his private office. My bare feet made no sound on the hardwood.
I should go back and finish the briefing and be useful. That was the only value I had left.
But my hand was already on the door handle, and my body wouldn't obey the commands my brain was sending.
I pushed the door open without knocking.
Algerone looked up from his desk, surprise flickering across his face before he controlled it. He'd poured himself a whiskey. The glass sat half-empty beside Xavier's security report, amber liquid catching the lamplight.
"The briefing isn't finished," he said.
"No."
I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
His eyes narrowed. "Then why are you here?"
"Because I need to say something." I took a deep breath. "And if I don't say it now, I never will."
He leaned back in his chair, watching me, waiting.
"I killed Imogen."
The words dropped into the silence like stones into water.
"Not directly. I didn't push her into that bathtub or put the razor in her hand.
But I killed her all the same." I forced myself to hold his gaze.
"She came to me six weeks after the boys were born.
She was falling apart. I could see it. The paranoia, the delusions, the way her hands shook.
She begged me to help her tell you about your sons. "
Algerone's expression didn't change, but his knuckles whitened around his whiskey glass.
"And I looked at her, this broken woman holding photographs of your children, and I thought: she's an obstacle. Not a person. Not a mother. Not someone who needed help. An obstacle to your empire. To your focus. To everything I'd spent a decade helping you build."
I took a breath and kept going.
"So I threatened her. Told her what would happen if she ever contacted you. Made her believe I'd destroy her, take her children, leave her with nothing. I watched her crumble in front of me, and I felt nothing but satisfaction because I'd eliminated a problem."
My voice cracked, but I didn't stop.
"She killed herself three weeks later. And I buried it.
For twenty years, I buried it. I told myself it was for your own good, that you didn't need the distraction, that the empire was more important.
But that was a lie. The truth is I wanted her gone because I was jealous.
Because she'd given you something I never could.
Because a part of me was glad when she died. "
The confession hung in the air between us, ugly and raw and true.
"I did that," I said. "Not for you. Not for the empire.
For me. Because I'm selfish and ruthless and I wanted you all to myself.
And your sons paid the price. You paid the price.
And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, and I know that doesn't fix anything; I know it doesn't bring back twenty years, but I need you to know that I see it now. I see what I did. I see what I am."
Algerone hadn't moved. His face was still as stone.
"So I'm not here to ask for forgiveness," I continued.
"I know I don't deserve that. I'm here to ask what you want from me.
Whatever it is, I'll do it. If you want me to spend the rest of my life making amends, I will.
If you want me on my knees serving you until I die, I'll do it.
If you want me to resign and disappear, I'll do that too.
I owe you a debt I can never repay, and I'll spend the rest of my life trying.
Just tell me what you need, and I'll become it. "
I stopped, chest heaving, waiting for the blow to fall.
Algerone rose from his chair.
He crossed the room slowly, his cane tapping against the hardwood. I held my ground, though every nerve in my body screamed to kneel, to bow my head, to assume the posture of submission I'd offered him so many times before.
He stopped in front of me, close enough that I could smell the whiskey on his breath.
"A debt," he said quietly.
"Yes."
"You'll serve me because you owe me."
"Yes. Whatever you need. However long it takes."
"You'll kneel because you're paying penance."
"Yes."
"You'll let me use you because you deserve to be punished."
"Yes." The word came out ragged. "I deserve all of it."
He studied my face for a long moment. Then he shook his head. "No."
I blinked. "What?"
"I said no." His voice was flat. "I don't want that."
"I don't understand." My heart was hammering. "I'm offering you everything. Complete surrender. Whatever you want, I'll give it to you."
"I don't want a debt slave," he said firmly. "I don't want you kneeling because you think you owe me. That's not submission. That's martyrdom."
"Then what do you want?" I asked desperately. "Tell me and I'll do it. I swear I'll do it."
"I want the truth." His hand came up to grip my jaw, forcing me to meet his eyes. "Not this performance of guilt. Not this offering of penance. The real truth. Why do you actually want to kneel?"
My mouth opened, but nothing came out.
"You've been serving me for thirty-two years," he continued. "Long before you had anything to atone for. Long before Imogen. So tell me, Maxime. Why did you start? Why have you stayed? And don't tell me it's duty or loyalty or debt, because we both know that's a lie."
"I don't know what you mean."
"You do know." His grip tightened on his cane. "You've always known. You just don't want to admit it because it makes your devotion something less noble. Something selfish."
My whole body was shaking.
"Say it." His voice dropped lower. "Tell me why you really kneel."
The truth clawed its way up my throat, and I couldn't stop it.
"Because I want to." The words came out broken, shameful.
"Because I crave it. Because serving you is the only thing that makes me feel whole.
Because when I'm on my knees for you, when you're using me, when you're taking whatever you want from my body, I feel more like myself than I ever feel otherwise.
" My voice cracked. "It's not penance. It's not debt.
It's need. Pure, selfish need. And that's worse, isn't it?
That I'm not sacrificing anything. That I want this. That I've always wanted this."
His expression didn't change, but something in his eyes shifted. "Worse," he repeated.
"It's supposed to be about you." I was babbling now, the confession spilling out of me.
"My devotion, my service, it's supposed to be selfless.
But it isn't. It never was. I kneel because kneeling for you makes me feel complete.
I serve because serving you gives my life meaning.
I let you use me because being used by you is the only time I feel real.
That's not a sacrifice. That's just... wanting.
And I've spent thirty-two years pretending it was something more noble because admitting I want it makes me. .."
"Makes you what?"
"Pathetic. Desperate. Needy. Everything I've worked so hard not to be."
Algerone was silent for a long moment. Then his thumb traced along my cheekbone, almost gently. "That," he said quietly. "That's what I wanted to hear."
I stared at him, not understanding.
"I don't want your guilt," he said. "I don't want your penance. I don't want you kneeling because you think you owe me something. I want you kneeling because you want to be there. Because it fulfills you. Because the wanting is real."
"But what I did to Imogen..."
"Was unforgivable." He didn't soften it. "And I haven't forgiven you. I may never forgive you. But that's separate from this. You don't get to use your guilt as a reason to submit. That cheapens it for both of us."
His hand slid from my jaw to the back of my neck, gripping firmly.
"When you kneel for me, I want it to be because you need it. Not because you're paying off a debt. When I use you, I want to know you're not just enduring it out of obligation. I want to know you're craving it as much as I am."
My breath caught. "You crave it?"
"Did you think this was one-sided?" A ghost of a smile crossed his face.
"Did you think I didn't want you every time you knelt at my feet to help me dress?
Every time you put your hands on my body during those massages?
I've wanted you for thirty-two years, Maxime.
But I wanted you to want it back. Not as duty or service, but as desire. "
"I do," I whispered. "I always have."
"Then that's where we start." His grip on my neck tightened. "Not with forgiveness or absolution, but with the truth. You want to be mine, and I want you to be mine, and we stop pretending it's anything other than that."
"And Imogen? The boys?"
"We'll deal with that separately. The guilt is yours to carry, and you'll carry it.
But you don't get to hide behind it. You don't get to use it as an excuse to disappear into service.
You're going to stand beside me, not kneel behind me.
You're going to be my partner, my equal in everything except this.
" His eyes darkened. "And when you do kneel, it's going to be because you're desperate for it. Not because you're atoning."
I couldn't breathe. This wasn't what I'd expected. This wasn't anything I'd prepared for.
"Do you understand?" His voice hardened. "I need to know that you understand."
"Yes." The word came out barely audible.
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, I understand." I swallowed hard. "You want my submission. But not my guilt."
"Good." He released my neck and stepped back. "Now. On your knees."
I dropped without hesitation, my body responding before my mind caught up. The hardwood bit into my knees, but I didn't care. I looked up at him, waiting.
He studied me for a long moment.
"Why are you kneeling?"
"Because I want to." My voice was stronger now. "Because being here, at your feet, is where I belong. Not as penance, but as desire."
Satisfaction flickered across his face. He crossed to the leather armchair by the window and lowered himself into it, stretching his damaged leg. Then he reached for one of the decorative pillows on the nearby settee and set it on the floor beside his chair.
"Come here."
I rose and went to him, sinking back down onto the pillow. He guided my head to rest against his thigh, his fingers threading through my hair.
"This isn't forgiveness," he said quietly. "I want that to be clear. What you did to Imogen, to my sons, that debt is still outstanding. You'll carry that weight, and I won't pretend it doesn't exist."
"I know."
"But this." His hand tightened in my hair. "This is real. You wanting me. Me wanting you. We stop lying about that."
I turned my face into his thigh, breathing in the scent of him. "Yes."
"You're mine," he said, and the words settled into my bones. "Not because you owe me. Because you chose it. Because you want it. Say it."
"I'm yours," I said, throat tight. "Because I want to be. Because I've always wanted to be."
His fingers stroked through my hair, slow and steady.
We stayed like that for a long time, with no more words and no forgiveness and no absolution. Just his hand in my hair and my cheek against his thigh and the truth, finally spoken, lying bare between us.