Chapter 23 #2
My other Fawns would never shut the fuck up. I’d learned to tune them out, but it was still annoying. Blair knew how to keep secrets well, which was something I admired.
“Tell me everything I need to know, Blair,” I said.
“Fine,” she said shakily. “But I want the same from you.”
I couldn’t hold back my scoff. It was another first for me with a Fawn.
My first Fawn had just wanted to fuck, which was fine with me, and she liked it when I bought her designer bags. Well, stole her designer bags because I’d just go to the mansion and steal them from Seraphina’s closet.
Seraphina had pissed me off that month, and the way to get my sister back for anything was to fuck with her bags and shoes. It used to be her Barbies, which I’d behead, but she’d grown out of that.
My parents had made me pay her back for that stunt.
For each handbag I gave that Fawn, she sucked my cock and told me her father’s secrets. You see, my Fawn Selection wasn’t always just purely about my cock or money.
My first Fawn, Ashley, had a father who owned a casino that rivaled my brother-in-law’s. My family wanted information about him, so I got it while I was balls deep in pussy and giving her brand-name shit she could’ve easily bought herself.
Clarissa was really just because I wanted the cash from her father and was bored. She was hot, liked to fuck, and didn’t talk as much as Ashley. During that time, that was all I wanted from a Fawn. Though she was rather boring.
The most exciting thing she’d done the entire time I knew her was jump from a damn window.
Her family tried blaming me for it, but my psychological damage toward her hadn’t been nearly as rough as from her family.
Shaking my head, I returned my thoughts back to now.
To more important things.
Like the Fawn beside me.
The one breaking my rules.
The one sending me into a spiral because I was constantly caught in the web of thinking about her.
Other than the scoff, I didn’t reply to her little I want the same from you response.
She cleared her throat. “Ask your questions then.”
I slammed the revolver on the table, causing her to jump. “Who’s your stepfather?” I knew I’d already asked that question in the car, but I wanted to see if she’d give me the same name. Give me the same lie.
“His name is Bill.”
“And what is Bill’s last name?”
“Smith.”
I snatched the gun and held it against her temple. “Don’t fuck with me, Blair.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “That’s the name my mother told me! I’ve only met him a handful of times.”
“What’s he do for a living?”
“I told you, finance.” A gulp left her.
“What finance company?”
“I literally have no idea.”
“Does your mother tell you nothing?”
“I hardly talk to my mother.”
“Bullshit,” I hissed, reminding myself to check her phone logs.
“My mother hates me, Enzo,” she cried, panicked, and I saw the truth on her face.
Heard the raw pain in her voice. “Maybe yours doesn’t, so you wouldn’t understand.
In the past year, I’ve talked to her maybe three times.
I don’t spend holidays with her, and my birthdays are celebrated alone.
When I tell you I know very little about him, I’m being honest. He’s just as much of a secret to me as he is to you. ”
“Do you have a picture of him?”
She shook her head.
I wasn’t sure whether I believed her.
Whether she had something fishy going on in that head of hers.
“Why did you get expelled from your last university?” I already knew that answer, but I wanted to see if she’d lie to me.
“My roommate was sleeping with one of my professors.”
“And? People fuck. What’s the problem?”
“He also tried to fuck me. When I reported him to the dean, she didn’t believe me. So I had them call in my roommate, but my roommate lied. She claimed I was jealous that she was prettier than me.”
I bit down on my tongue to stop myself from telling her no one was prettier than her. But my Fawn couldn’t know how obsessed with her I was. That was for my knowledge only.
“After that, my roommate made my life hell in our dorm,” Blair went on, shutting her eyes as if in pain again.
Or maybe it was regret. “I shouldn’t have said anything, but then I couldn’t help it.
A few weeks later, my roommate and professor went to the dean and said I was trying to seduce him.
They’d even written fake love letters and everything. They expelled me.”
Within the next few days, that professor would be dead. Possibly the roommate … or I’d figure out a way to ruin her life. While I usually only killed men, her treating Blair like that made me grind my teeth.
I’d thought I’d be more pissed off when I heard the story come from Blair’s mouth. From the beginning, I’d chosen her because word was, she was a snitch at her last university.
What I hadn’t known was that it was toward a predatory professor. Nico was inching himself higher up my shit list with every day that passed. He’d failed to provide that little piece of information.
“And the universities before that?” I asked.
“The first one was because I couldn’t sleep at night, so I’d fall asleep in class. I’d have nightmares and freak out. I’d also have panic attacks. That dean said I was too much of a disruption and expelled me.”
“And the one before that?”
She looked away. “I kinda, sorta told a professor to go fuck himself.” Her eyes dropped to her lap. “I also kneed him between the legs.”
I’d never had a bigger smirk on my face.
“Why’d you do that?” My voice hardened. “And look at me when you tell me. When we talk, you meet my eyes.”
I whistled, taking two fingers and pointing at my eyes, and doing the same when she glanced back at me.
“He tried to take my notebook and read it out loud to the class. He said I was paying too much attention to that rather than listening to his lecture.”
“Your I will atone for my sins sentences?” I asked.
She flinched when I repeated the words, then nodded.
That professor had done the same thing as I did that day in class. Though I never threatened to read them to our fellow students.
That blackmail was for me and me alone.
I’d be the only one using those words against her.
She went on, as if needing to speak about something else. “Thankfully, my stepfather—”
“What was his name again?” I asked, still trying to trip her up.
“Bill.”
I frowned that I hadn’t.
“He told his assistant to pay the professor off so he wouldn’t press charges.”
“What was this professor’s name? What were all those professors' names?”
She narrowed her eyes, as if knowing I wasn’t asking to simply know. She’d seen me cause too much violence to think it was an innocent question.
“Blair,” I said in amusement, flicking the revolver handle on the table.
Her eyes fluttered as she rattled off the names of the next men on my death list.
Look at that. All it took was a gun to get her to spill her secrets.
Now, it’s time to get more.
“Speaking of those sentences,” I said, “why do you write them?”
She winced at my change of subject.
“I told you, that was my father’s punishment,” she whispered.
“And I’ll ask again, what sins were you atoning for?”
Her fear snapped into hatred quick, as if she suddenly remembered her Initiation. “You should know. You’re the one who played that fucking lullaby.”
I didn’t know much about the lullaby.
Someone left a note in our folders that if we played it, it’d put her through hell. So, obviously, since that was our goal, we had.
“How did you know about it?” she pushed.
“Someone left a note for me about it.”
“Someone left a note?” she asked, repeating my words slowly, as if sounding each one out and not believing me. “No one knows my past here.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
She cowered against the wall again.
Our conversation kept jumping, but that was what happened when you had enough secrets to weigh down the fucking planet like Blair did.
I thought I had secrets delved deep inside me, but Blair might’ve had me beat. They might not be as violent as mine, but I had a feeling they were just as dark.
Every answer she gave me led to more questions I wanted to ask.
“Tell me why that lullaby haunts you, Blair,” I said.
She shook her head, her eyes turning away, and she tried to back up again, as if forgetting the wall was behind her.
Something stuttered from her mouth, but they weren’t words that made sense. Her eyes darted around the room before she stared at the door distantly.
I grabbed the gun, and she froze. Her eyes grew glossy before tears poured down her cheeks as I spun the cylinder. I used the muzzle of the gun to brush one tear away before moving it to the side of her head.
Her body shook, and more tears fell.
I didn’t sweep those ones away.
There were so many tears that I couldn’t make out her pupils.
“Six chambers, one bullet,” I warned. “Answer the question, or we’ll see if the bullet is in this first chamber.”
She shook her head violently, as if the words couldn’t leave her mouth.
“Why, Blair?” I seethed. “Tell me so I don’t have to pull this fucking trigger.”
My heart rate sped as sweat built along my forehead. Tension grew in my neck, my shoulders, my hand holding the gun, my throat, everywhere in my body. I’d never had this feeling while holding a gun to someone’s head.
Normally, it was satisfaction.
Not fear that I might regret this move.
She stilled, as if suddenly paralyzed, and focused somewhere on my shoulder. She didn’t beg for mercy, didn’t plead with me, only slammed her eyes shut, as if preparing for her death.
My finger slowly brushed the trigger.
She knew the rules of the game.