Chapter 28
KATE
Flushed from a steaming hot shower and wrapped in the most luxurious towel I’ve ever seen in my life, I’m squeezing water from the tips of my hair as I return to the bedroom. I yelp to find a man in the corner, positioning a silver cart beside a pair of armchairs.
“Madam,” says Nilsson, because of course it’s Nilsson.
He straightens like a soldier and stares at a point two inches above my left shoulder.
He seems completely unaware of the jagged, angry letters scrawled across my chest: Fuck you.
“I heard the shower running,” he says. “And I took the liberty of delivering your breakfast.”
“Thank you,” I say, trying to sound as if I’m accustomed to servants wheeling in my food, oblivious to my privacy.
There’s a lot to get used to in this house, beyond the feckin’ dungeon.
There are four wings, two on the ground floor and two up here.
I lost count of the rooms after we climbed the stairs from the basement last night.
My head seemed disconnected from my body, like I was floating or I’d just stepped off a ship.
Maybe like I’d landed back on earth after a long trip to Mars.
Wolf cut short whatever tour he’d planned and brought me straight to this bedroom. There’s a painting on the wall above the bed, a gorgeous red poppy with a secret black center. I blushed when I saw it. Or maybe I blushed because I tripped over the doorsill.
Wolf smirked as he turned me around to face the bed. He worked two of the tiny buttons on my dress before grabbing the fabric in both hands. I shouted as he ripped it open, but he said, “Nilsson will get it repaired.”
Now, Nilsson raises the window shade, revealing a garden that looks like it stretches forever. Studying the lawn, he says, “I’ve taken the liberty of leaving my card on your tray, madam. Please text me if there is anything you require, at any time of the day or night.”
Annoyed by his efficiency, I say, “I don’t have my mobile.”
Nilsson’s head inclines a millimeter, toward the breakfast spread. “Your phone is on the tray, madam. Mr. Wolf arranged for your belongings to be collected from St. Brigid’s earlier this morning.”
Sure enough, my mobile sits beside the cutlery. Mam returned it yesterday, when she finally released me from the cellar. The case is cracked from O’Brian’s heel, but the phone charged properly before I took it to church.
“Earlier?” I squint at the window. “What time is it?”
“Half past ten.”
Half past feckin’ ten. I’ve been having a lie-in while Wolf manages my belongings and Nilsson prepares a breakfast spread fit for a queen.
I’m embarrassed, like I’ve been caught doing something nasty. My shame boils over to the far more comfortable emotion of anger. “Here’s something I require,” I snarl at Nilsson. “I require visiting my grandmother. Did Mr. Wolf arrange for her to be collected too?”
“Yes, madam,” Nilsson says, as if I’ve asked whether ice is cold or the sun is hot.
“Where is she then?”
“Across the road, madam.”
“In your house?” I demand, because I remember that’s where Nilsson and Anna live.
“Mr. Wolf thought Mrs. Lynch would prefer the privacy of the guest house, madam. The converted carriage house across the road.”
“She’s over there alone?” My voice breaks on the last word, and I start to break for the closet. Fuck breakfast. I need to get to Granny.
Nilsson sounds utterly unconcerned, like he’s reading the score from yesterday’s football match. “Mrs. Lynch is currently accompanied by Maya Sutton, a registered nurse on Mr. Wolf’s roster of preferred medical staff. Of course, you may replace her with your own choice.”
My own choice, my arse. Da has a sawbones on call, like any self-respecting mob boss. But he’s never kept a roster of preferred medical staff.
And even if he had, I wouldn’t trust them with Granny’s health.
“Fine,” I say grudgingly.
Nilsson remains standing at attention like a military doll. As if someone has pulled a string at the back of his neck, he says, “Is there anything else I can get for you now? Doctor Patel will be here at two.”
“Doctor—” For just a moment, I think Patel must be checking in on Granny. But then I remember Wolf’s orders from last night. He wants me verified clean and on feckin’ birth control.
I flush so hard my head hurts. “No,” I say to Nilsson. “There’s nothing else.”
“Madam,” he replies, nodding once before he leaves the room.
Only after the door latches do I ask myself what Breagha would have said if she were in my situation.
Of course, Breagha would never be in my situation—married to a man she hates, waking in a stone-cold mansion instead of some exotic honeymoon hotel, towel-clad and talking to a robotic butler instead of her adoring groom.
But Breagha would have said thank you. And I should have done too.
Guilt feels like anger, just like shame. Or maybe I’m angry because—try as I might—I can’t forget everything I let Wolf do to me last night. He tied me to the cross. He beat me with that whip. He used that vibrator—on my tits, on my clit.
On my arsehole.
I shudder so hard I nearly boke. I should have used my safeword. I should have made him stop.
But I let him use my body however he wanted. I came three times.
And the most disgusting thing is I’d do it all again. Let him make all the decisions. For once in my feckin’ life, surrender without a fight.
Stomping to the closet, I grab the first clothes of mine that I find—faded black sweatpants and a gray hoodie that’s been washed so many times the cuffs look like confetti.
I snag a bra, socks, and panties out of the dresser, trying not to think about Nilsson’s professional fingers folding them into perfect squares. I cram my feet into my Doc Martens.
I’m halfway out the bedroom door before I remember the tray sitting by the window. I snatch up my phone and Nilsson’s card, shoving both into my hoodie’s pouch. I pour a cup of tea as well and drink it down like medicine. It’s black as tar—just the way I like it. My throat itches from the tannins.
Like it or not, I made a promise to Wolf. I told him I’d eat.
Nilsson has delivered a full breakfast. There’s a boiled egg and scrambled, a plate filled with streaky bacon and another with sausages.
There are potatoes fried up with onions and peppers, and a bowl of tiny strawberries that look like they’re meant for a doll.
There’s a basket filled with muffins and two silver racks, one with white toast and the other with wheat.
Three pots of jam nestle beside a round of salted butter.
I take a triangle of dry toast and cram it in my mouth.
There.
Promise kept.
An electronic eye blinks when I open the front door downstairs, and I hear a discreet chime somewhere deep in the house behind me.
It’s cool outside on the brick steps. A breeze carries the scent of mulch and fresh-cut grass.
Soft pink cherry-blossom petals drift across the circular drive, settling into ranks of yellow, purple, and red tulips.
It’s gorgeous.
And I hate every inch of it, because I didn’t ask for any of this, because Da sent me here without the slightest clue about how Wolf lives, because Lone Wolf paid for every single thing I can see.
I tromp over to the iron gate. It’s even more imposing from the inside than it was from Wolf’s car. An electronic pad is built into one of the massive brick posts, resting beneath a glowing red eye.
I look for a button to press, something to trigger the gate. Nothing.
I feel the edges of the pad, checking for an emergency release. Nothing.
I check the post, kick at the rocks that line the driveway, push and pull against the three closest iron bars. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
I can stand out here all day, waiting for someone to take notice. Or I can take the proverbial bull by his feckin’ horns and get the answers I need.
Marching back inside the house, I remember that Wolf’s office is downstairs. I learned that much on last night’s abbreviated tour. It’s just before I get to the server room.
Sure enough, I hear him on the phone. “A monitoring program like that takes time to set up, Barry.”
Brilliant. He’s talking to Da. Just what I need—the two biggest gobshites in my life comparing notes with each other.
I storm into the office, fueled by little sleep and less love of my father. “Hey, shitehawk,” I say to Wolf. “I need a way past the feckin’ gate.”
“Kaitlín, love. We’re in a meeting right now.”
Da’s voice vibrates through the speakerphone, feeding me the same bollocks he always has. But Wolf is eyeing me with interest—or maybe that’s just gratitude that I’ve given him a way to end his convo with Da.
“Barry,” he says. “I’ll have to call you back.” His finger lands heavily on the screen of his phone. I figure that’s the first time anyone has cut Da off in years.
“Please,” Wolf says to me. “Make yourself at home.”
Arseholes like him always have to prove they’re in charge.
It would be easy to be intimidated by all the equipment in this room.
The wall across from Wolf’s desk is filled with monitors.
Each one shows something different—scrambled lines of code, a calendar filled with notations for every fifteen minutes, the feeds from multiple surveillance cameras.
To my right is a painting almost as tall as I am. The background is black and the surface is covered with drips of white paint. It looks like someone scrawled a secret message, burying magic words beneath a veil dribbled from a bucket.
To my left is another painting, even stranger. A mass of bluish green sets off an angry block of red lined with white. It looks like meat left to rot in the sun, bones poking through muscle. All the paint is smeared, like someone swiped through it with wet fingers.
It’s disgusting. It’s terrifying. Acid splashes across the back of my throat as I stare at it, and for just a moment I hear myself singing songs with Breagha—Itsy Bitsy Spider and Wheels on the Bus, as darkness presses around us like a smothering pillow. Sweat prickles in my armpits.
“Fine,” Wolf says, apparently unaware of my reaction. “Stand.”
His words bring me back to the present with a shudder. The Bad Men aren’t here.
“What the fuck is that?” I ask, jutting my chin toward the disgusting painting.
“Art.”
I can’t hide my revulsion. “You actually want to look at that all day?”
He twitches one shoulder. “It’s not what I want. It’s what I deserve.”
My feet carry me forward without my truly giving them permission. My fingers close around the haft of a dagger-shaped letter opener, and I cross the room before he can stop me. Setting my weapon against that monstrosity of a painting, I say, “I want past the gate. Now.”
I expect him to be furious. I brace for him to bark out an order. I wait for him to crush my wrist between his fingers.
Instead, he leans back in his chair and laughs—a soft, rolling chuckle that I know means trouble. “Careful, my dear,” he says. “Damage that Soutine, and it’ll be forty million dollars out of your allowance.”