Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
Rochester fills the doorway like a thunderstorm in a three-piece suit, his black eyes flashing with rage. “Answer me. What the hell did you say to Blanche?”
I stagger back, my ass hitting the window frame. There’s no escape. Just a long drop onto stone.
Blanche shoves past him, already a wreck. Mascara streaked down her cheeks in black rivers, her perfect chignon falling apart like her whole world just collapsed. I shake my head. What the hell happened to the ice princess?
“Tell him about the pills!” She jabs a manicured finger toward my face.
My throat seizes. Words stick like glue. I can’t force them out.
“She said you were going to murder me for my money!” Blanche’s voice splinters on the last word. “That you come to her room every night moaning her name like a dog!”
Rochester’s dark gaze fixes on me with surgical precision. I’ve had men want to hurt me before, but this is different. This is the look of someone calculating exactly how to make me disappear.
“Why would you fabricate such an obvious lie?” His voice carries the kind of quiet that comes before violence.
I work my jaw, but nothing comes out but a dry rasp. When I lick my lips, all I taste is copper. “I... I was just—”
“The poor wretch has thrown herself at me since day one. Haven’t you, Miss Burlington?” His voice is smooth, reasonable. The kind of tone that makes lies sound like gospel.
I shake my head, wanting to deny it all, but terror closes my throat.
More footsteps thunder up the stairs. Blanche’s friends pour into my room like vultures circling roadkill. Pink hair. Leather coat. All of them staring at me like I’m the evening’s entertainment.
“What’s happening?” Pink hair demands, reaching for her phone.
Rochester slides his arm around Blanche’s waist, pulling her close. “Our little servant’s been spreading stories. Some people can’t handle being told no.”
“Now she’s threatening me with tampered pills,” Blanche shrieks.
Betrayal curdles in my gut, hitting so hard that my spine bows. I wanted to help the stupid bitch. Do something right for once in my life, and it’s backfired. Suddenly I’m back in Gil’s penthouse. His hands on my shoulders, steering me toward the door with his boss’s gaze like a knife to my throat.
One of the women gasps. “When will these low-level sluts ever learn their place?”
The other friends crowd closer.
My gaze turns back to Rochester, who presses a kiss against Blanche’s temple. “I would never hurt you, my love. You mean everything to me.”
I want to scream at Blanche to open her eyes. To see through his manipulations. But she’s too desperate to believe in her fantasy to consider the truth.
She gazes up into his dark eyes, melting against him like he’s the sun. “You mean that?”
He gives her a wintry smile that looks more like a grimace. “You own my heart. My very soul. If there was any doubt of my devotion, I’d want you to tear it out.”
“Edward...” she whispers, swallowing his lies.
He drops to one knee right there on my bedroom floor and grabs her hands. “Marry me tonight. Let’s wake up Father Henry. I can’t wait another day.”
My stomach lurches. The room spins like a carnival ride. This is happening too fast. Surely she can’t believe this bullshit?
“Yes! Yes, yes, yes!” Blanche bounces on her toes.
In my head, I’m back in that dingy room staring down at Callahan, my fingers trembling around the syringe. Gil’s hot breath fans against my neck as he whispers assurances. It’s me or the cop. If I refuse, I’ll be the one to die. With a sob, I slide the needle into a vein bulging between his toes.
A slap comes out of nowhere, snapping my head to the side and my mind back to the present. I gape up at Blanche, her features twisted with contempt.
“How dare you poison my pills,” she hisses. “How dare you try to kill me so you could have him. This is attempted murder. I’m calling the police.”
Alarm kicks me in the chest. She can’t. I step back, glancing at Rochester. The mask slips, his eyes flickering with panic. One blink later, he smooths it away and rises back to his feet.
His hand finds her shoulder. His lips brush against her ear. “Forget about her, darling. Tonight should be about us.”
She turns to him, her eyes pleading. “She can’t get away with threatening my life.”
Rochester cups her cheek. “It was probably just a figure of speech.”
“If you don’t deal with her, I’ll drown myself in the pond!” She stamps her foot.
My jaw drops, and I exhale an incredulous breath. The others nod and grumble, seeming to agree with their delusional friend. Every eye turns to me as if I’m the one who threatened to stick Blanche’s head underwater.
“Let me deal with this after our wedding.” He releases her shoulder and strides toward me with the grace of a predator.
“Wait!” I hold out my palms to protect myself, but he snatches my bicep with a grip like a shackle and squeezes until I gasp.
“Come on. We need to talk.”
He drags me to the door like I’m a sack of garbage. The vultures step aside like they’re watching trash taken to the curb.
“Don’t do this,” I say with a whimper. I stare at his handsome profile, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut.
Someone snorts as if they’ve already found me guilty and deserving of death.
Rochester hauls me down the hallway, down the stairs, past the oil paintings of dead aristocrats who probably also had servants disappear. The entourage follows. My legs buckle. I fall forward, needing this to stop, but his iron grip keeps me upright.
Numbness falls over my senses for the rest of the journey. It’s part disbelief, past trauma. I spent my first two decades being dragged out of buildings by violent men. I didn’t escape to suffer the same.
Outside, the cool air hits my fevered skin like a slap.
I blink, the back garden coming into focus.
Floodlights assault my eyes from all directions, bringing me back to the present.
I glance over my shoulder as he marches me across the patio.
The others haven’t caught up yet, so I take my opportunity to speak.
“I didn’t say any of that stuff,” I lie. “You’ve got to believe me. She made it all up.”
Silence. The only reaction is his grip tightening until my arm turns numb.
“Don’t you want us to be together?” I sob. “Please. I won’t say anything. I’ll keep my mouth shut. It can be just you and me.”
The door behind us opens, and the others step out.
His lip curls with disgust. “Do not think for a minute that I would choose you over my beloved Blanche.”
“That’s right,” she hisses from behind.
My shoulders sag with defeat. This is it. I’m about to die.
He drags me through the manicured gardens, through the orchard. The foliage closes around us like a green tomb. Through the trees, the cottage stands half-hidden by brambles and neglect. Its windows gape black and empty, and the smell of rot drifts from its warped doorframe.
Rochester produces an iron key and turns the lock with the sound of breaking bones.
“Get inside.”
I plant my feet, shaking my head like a madwoman. “No. Please. I’ll disappear tonight. You’ll never have to think about me again.”
He shoves me through the entrance. I stumble, catching myself against a wall that feels slimy under my palms. The door slams like a coffin lid, sealing me in silence and rot. The key turns, and his footsteps retreat.
I launch myself at the door and pound on it with my fist. “Let me out!”
Nobody replies. Not even Blanche and her friends to gloat. These bastards have left me here to rot.
I turn in a circle, every fine hair on my body standing to attention. What the hell do I do now?
Water drips somewhere in the shadows like a metronome counting down to my death. How many times in my miserable existence did Dad or Brother Matthew drag me to the barn to await my punishment? I’ve lost count. Last time, I swore to make sure it would never happen again.
In the dark, I fumble along the walls, my hands finding dust and cobwebs and things I don’t want to identify.
A fireplace covered in thick cobwebs. Old newspapers that disintegrate at my touch.
A wooden crate stuffed with oil-soaked rags.
A dented canister of something that reeks of industrial solvent.
I bump into a table, and my fingers close around a box that feels like matches.
Fire. That’s my way out.
I should burn this whole place to ashes. Light the shack like a funeral pyre. Won’t be the first time. Then I’ll take the limousine and drive it off the cliff. If I’m going down, so is this fucking estate.
But they left to get married. The only person I’d be hurting with the fire is myself.
I sink onto the damp floor, my back against the wall.
What’s next? Prison? I shake my head. Even if my fingerprints are all over Blanche’s bottle, so would Rochester’s. He wouldn’t dare risk his precious inheritance. Or the insurance payout he’s likely to put on his wife’s life.
What’s left? A shallow grave in these fucking woods?
I spend the night groping through the cottage, looking for weapons. Any means of self-defense. Because when they come for me, I’ll be ready.
Hours later, gray light filters through cracked windows when two sets of footsteps crunch across gravel. I scramble back to the fireplace, my heart convulsing.
This is it. Time to fight.
The key scrapes in the lock like fingernails on slate. I tighten my fingers around a lantern in time for the door to swing open.
Rochester strides inside in a fresh suit, his arm around Blanche’s waist. She wears a short white dress that barely covers her pussy, her hair pinned up with baby’s breath like some beach wedding fantasy. She clings to his arm, her new wedding ring catching the light like a tiny star.
Bitch looks like a bride in a shampoo commercial. All victory and fake purity. Like she’s won some game I didn’t even know we were playing.
My nostrils flare. They actually did it. Got married in the middle of the night while I rotted in this shit hole.
“Blanche and I will be away for a week,” he says, his voice cold. “You have exactly that time to clean up and vacate my home or I will call the police.”
My jaw drops. How on earth did he convince her to set me free?
They turn and walk away, leaving me standing in the mouth of my tomb, watching my death sentence disappear into the morning mist.
Seven days to figure out which direction to run next.
But I’m breathing. My heart still beats. Against every expectation, I’m still alive.
For now, that’s enough.