24. Doll #2
That happens sometimes. Usually when one of the Heirs’ names pops up on his phone screen, he’ll make his excuse and head upstairs.
He hasn’t done that since we’ve started sleeping together—as far as I know—and it stings a little that he thought something else was so important that he waited until he thought I was asleep to sneak out of my bed.
It shouldn’t bother me. In the morning, I’ll regret letting it bother me. But now? Ten minutes after he left me alone in the basement, I find myself tiptoeing upstairs to see what’s taking him so long.
Five minutes after that, I’m close to fucking panicking.
Where is Connor? I didn’t see him in the kitchen.
Not the hallway, or the dining room we never use.
The living room or the den. I checked the second floor.
He’s not in the bedroom, the bathroom, his office, or the guest room he claims belongs to Sebastien.
I can’t find him, and that’s when I think to step onto the balcony and see if he went out back.
For a second, when I see him at the edge of the backyard, right in front of the woods, a sense of relief floods through me. But then… I notice the tarp. I notice the shovel. I notice the hole in front of him… and I look at the tarp again.
What the…
Completely unaware that I’m watching him, Connor lifts the tarp, tossing it away from him. There, lying on their side in the dirt, is a woman.
A naked woman.
Skin. So much skin. Even from this distance, I can make out tits and long, bare legs. It’s a naked woman with dark hair, and she’s not moving at all.
To my horror, Connor lifts her up in his arms. He presses a kiss to her forehead, then lowers her into the hole in front of him.
Into the grave.
As he reaches for the shovel to fill in the hole, I stumble back into the bedroom, fighting the urge to throw up all over the place.
Now, I know he’s killed before. Cam was one. One of the old guard for the Order who tried to blackmail him after he discovered that Connor was keeping me.
But a woman? Why would he have killed a woman?
That’s not even the worst part. My first thought wasn’t even for the poor woman. It was a sense of betrayal because she was naked and he kissed her, not that she was dead.
It scares me how jealous I am. Where did she come from?
I’ve only been outside of the basement a handful of times since he first put me in the basement.
What if I got it all wrong? What if he had another lover, someone who he kept around because I kept refusing him over and over again?
And now, six months into my captivity, when I’m finally putting out like he insisted I would, he… what? Killed her?
That doesn’t seem like the Connor I’ve come to know. Then again, Connor is a fucking chameleon. He can be anything and anyone, and maybe he’s a two-timer, too.
I haven’t wanted to escape in ages. I also haven’t wanted to turn on him, either. But the idea that he lied to me about loving me… lied to me about being virgin… lied to me about everything?
That guest room… was it hers? Is that where he kept her hidden? Connor told me that I could go anywhere in the house, but that there was nothing in the spare room to interest me. Is that why?
I don’t know, but since I can go anywhere in the house, I run right down to the fucking kitchen.
By the time Connor slips in through the back door, whistling a tune under his breath as he wipes his hands on the jeans he pulled on to go outside, I’m waiting for him.
He has his pocketknife on him, but there were plenty of big kitchen knives in the draw.
I’m holding a fucking cleaver out in front of me, and though Connor’s eyebrows raise to find me waiting for him in the kitchen, he shows no other reaction.
That makes me furious.
“I saw you,” I grate out, not even bothering to hide my jealousy. “I saw you with her.”
For a second, my husband just stares at me. My furious scowl deepens when his lips twitch, an honestly amused smile quirking them upward.
“No,” I snap. “Don’t laugh at me. You kissed her! Tell me who she was!”
Connor steps into me. As though he’s confident I won’t stab him… again… he closes the distance between us until he can pluck the knife from my shaky hand, tucking me against his chest. He holds me for a long while, and when he’s done, he chucks my chin and says, “Let me show you.”
I recoil. I don’t want him to dig up her grave so that I can come face to face with the other woman.
But Connor is suddenly determined, and next thing I know, I’m standing outside, hugging myself as he does just that.
It’s the middle of December. There’s no snow outside, but it’s cold and the ground is hard.
At first, I think that’s why he didn’t dig the grave all that deep.
Within minutes, he reveals a flash of perfect skin, and my stomach nearly rebels.
I clamp my jaw shut, forcing myself to see this through—and that’s when he uses his hands to free as much of the loose dirt as possible before gripping part of her body, yanking it out of the ground.
It’s easy because she probably weighs half as much as I do.
The reason for that is simple: she’s a doll.