Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
I take Rowland down to the kitchen and guide him to a chair. It’s messy from the recent visitors, scattered with crumbs, shattered glass, and half-eaten pastries, but I clear space on the table, place my hands on his shoulders and order him to sit.
My mind still churns from recent revelations. Three dead bodies in a single day. All women. All connected to this house. And soon, Edward Rochester will return home to tie up loose ends.
“You need to explain your plan to protect me from your psycho brother.”
Rowland rubs the back of his head and stares at his lap. Sunlight streams through the windows, illuminating his scraggly beard and eyes that dart around like he’s expecting punishment.
“Talk to me,” I say.
“I’ll overpower him before he gets the chance to hurt you.”
“Just like that?” I ask.
He sits straighter. “What does that mean?”
Lips tightening, I switch on the kettle and reach for the tea bags, pull cups from the cupboard and set them on the counter. What I say next has to be worded carefully, since I need Rowland’s courage.
I grew up with younger brothers, along with boys who were technically my stepsons.
One thing men have in common is bravado.
They talk tough, overestimate their abilities, and never grow out of that bullshit.
Men always make promises they never keep, but I’ll hold that observation to myself.
Right now, I can’t afford to discourage Rowland.
The kettle rumbles, building toward a boil. I lean against the counter, studying his scarred chest through the torn shirt. Some of the marks are so precise, they could only have come from being tied down and tortured.
“Annalisa?” he asks, his thick brows knitting together. “Please tell me what’s on your mind.”
Those scars mark decades of torture. Decades of subjugation. No one suffers that long and comes out able to protect others from their abuser. I hesitate. Gather my thoughts. Search for the most tactful way to voice it.
“If you can defeat Edward, why were you his prisoner for so long?” I ask.
“My mind was imprisoned,” he replies, his voice pained. “Father and Edward treated me like an animal. They made me believe I was too dangerous to exist and had to be controlled with punishment.”
I swallow hard, my chest aching. Family has a way of brainwashing a person until they can’t tell wrong from right. The only reason I didn’t end up like Rowland was because I took such drastic steps to leave.
The kettle erupts in a sharp whistle that makes me flinch. I pour hot water over the tea bags, add milk, and set a cup in front of Rowland.
“You’re telling me your mind is free now?” I ask.
He gives me an eager nod.
“What’s made the difference?” I take the seat opposite and blow on my hot drink.
“I finally have something to fight for.” He gazes up at me, his eyes softening.
“What does that mean?”
He reaches across the table, places his hand over mine, and brushes his thumb over my knuckles. The touch is gentle, reverent, like I’m something precious instead of a fugitive hiding from the law.
“The night you waved back made me so happy,” he replies, the words choked with emotion. “No woman ever invited me in before. No woman ever begged for me.”
My throat closes, and I lower my lashes, unable to withstand his hopeful smile.
He thinks I chose him over his brother, when I didn’t even realize there were two of them.
The truth sits heavy in my chest like a stone, but I can’t shatter whatever hope is keeping him functional when I need him to survive.
I bring the cup to my lips. “How exactly will you protect me?”
“I can take Edward’s place. Become him.”
My stomach dips. “Switch identities?”
“Why not? Everyone thinks I died the same year as Adele. Edward is a recluse. We’re the same height, same build, same features.”
“What will you do about your brother?” But even as I ask, I already know the answer. Can see it in the way his jaw sets, the hardening of his black eyes.
“He joins our sister.”
The words settle in my gut like stones. This is the line I swore I wouldn’t cross again. Except now it doesn’t feel like a choice. I fall still, letting the silence stretch until all I hear are my heartbeat and the soft hiss of the cooling kettle.
Rowland breathes hard, his dark eyes penetrating my soul. What is he looking for—my permission or my approval?
“You want to kill him,” I say.
“Yes,” he growls, his eyes flashing, his chest heaving with excitement.
My heart shrivels. I picture Callahan, lying on the floor, held down by mobsters. And the syringe they forced into my hand. Even though Rowland seems excited at the thought of us killing Edward together, I shake my head, unable to get involved in another murder.
Rowland sets down his cup and stands. “Edward is too dangerous to let live. He’ll kill you just like he killed the others. Come with me. I’ll show you something that’ll change your mind.”
He strides out of the kitchen, leaving me so spooked I have no choice but to follow. We continue through the hallways, passing locked doors, until we reach Edward’s study. Rowland slides his fingers behind a wooden panel and opens another doorway.
Inside, he walks toward the mahogany desk and opens its bottom drawer. I enter, swallowing hard as he pulls out a leather notebook.
“Look at this.” He sets it on the desk.
“What is it?” I hover by the door, wringing my hands, my feet ready to bolt.
Rowland doesn’t reply. Something in his dark eyes tells me I need to see for myself.
Throat tightening, I edge forward until I reach the other side of the desk and pick up the notebook. It’s heavier than expected, with expensive, cream-colored paper. I open it to the first page, finding elegant handwriting flowing across it in dark ink. The first entry reads:
Grace Poole. Age 36. Dark brown hair, stout build, escaping drunk-driving conviction. Arrived via evening ferry. Performed well during the transport interview. Eager to please. Shows promise for extended service.
I flip the page, finding more details about Sarah. How she cleaned. How she cooked. How she cried when she realized there was no child to care for. Then a jagged tear where a page was ripped out.
The final entry in the same writing says:
Subject strangled with stockings after six months of service. Disposed of in cottage basement. Next candidate scheduled for following month.
Bile rises in my throat. I flip to the next entry, then the next. Each woman gets the same treatment. Detailed observations of their performance as servants, followed by a ripped-out page. Then a cold, clinical accounting of their death.
My hands won’t stop shaking as I read their names, their ages, their desperate circumstances and their cause of death:
Bertha Mason. Age 32. Black hair, average build, fleeing abusive husband. Asphyxiated with bedsheets.
Helen Burns. Age 26. Light brown hair, petite, recently evicted. Garroted with piano wire.
Louisa Eshton. Age 20. Blonde hair, pregnant, abandoned by family. Choked with leather belt.
The list goes on and on. Each name is a person.
Each person had the same thing in common: they were either on the run or cast out, only to be murdered by Rochester.
Throttled by curtain cord. Ligatured with shoelaces.
Strangled with bicycle chain, clothesline, leather belt, rosary beads, silk scarf, telephone wire.
I blink away tears, imagining hordes of clueless women, lured here by desperate circumstances, only to be manipulated then murdered. Every one of them suffered and died for the amusement of that maniac.
Then I reach the last entry and the words close in like a trap.
Annalisa Burlington. Age 24. Blonde hair, large breasts, fleeing law enforcement. Highly motivated by fear. Performed adequately during transport interview. Shows promise for extended domestic service.
My heart slows. My body goes so cold I can barely feel my fingers. The wretched bastard cataloged me like livestock. Like I was a product on trial. A disposable appliance to be replaced when I broke.
I turn the page, finding another ripped-out section, followed by an insultingly detailed graphic description of how I looked cleaning the fireplaces on my hands and knees. Then there’s a blank page with a single word written at the top in the same elegant script: DEMISE.
“You see,” Rowland says from the other side of the desk. “He plans on killing you next.”
My hands shake so much that I drop the notebook onto the polished mahogany. I reach into my pocket and pull out the crumpled piece of paper containing the task list left for me in the kitchen that morning after our breakfast. The one that seemed outlandish, but not a red flag.
When I smooth it out against the desk and hold it up to the torn space in the notebook, it’s a perfect fit.
I breathe hard, my pulse pounding with painful realization. Every task he gave me. Every floor I scrubbed, every meal I cooked, every humiliation I endured. It was all planned. All part of his evaluation process to see how long I’d last before he added my death to the final page.
“You saw him do this over and over and didn’t lift a finger to stop him?” I ask, the words choked.
“Edward’s control over me was absolute until you,” he replies.
A shudder runs down my frame, igniting every nerve ending until I’m coming apart at the seams. All those nights I lay in bed wondering if I was losing my mind with Rochester blowing hot and cold.
All those times I questioned my own sanity for playing along with this charade while he studied me like a bug under glass.
“I don’t believe this,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Do you want to see the corpses he keeps in the cottage basement?” Rowland asks.
“No.” The word comes out strangled. I can’t handle returning to the place where he locked me up that night. Can’t handle seeing another body. Can’t handle knowing that I was trapped mere feet above a graveyard.
Rowland rounds the desk and pauses at a distance. “I meant it when I said I’d find a way for us to be together. Every word. But I have to know, do you still want to be with me?”
I stare up at this broken man who’s survived hell. Who still has enough humanity left to want to protect someone else instead of just saving himself. Who knows exactly what kind of monster his brother is because he’s lived it.
His black eyes burn with something fierce and desperate. Like the next word from me could condemn him to a lifetime of captivity or set him free.
“We’re not so different,” I murmur. “Just trying to survive in a world that wants us dead.”
His breath quickens. “Then you agree? That Edward must die?”
I glance down at the notebook. At my name written in the elegant handwriting marking me for death. At the page titled DEMISE waiting for him to fill it with details of how he killed me.
Rochester isn’t going to stop. Even if I run, even if I disappear, he’ll hunt me down. And when he catches me, I’ll end up in that cottage basement with all the others.
“Yeah.” The word tastes like blood. “Edward dies.”
Relief transforms Rowland’s features, smoothing away the lines etched with pain. Seconds pass, and he doesn’t move. Just gazes down at me with those fathomless black eyes like I’m the keys to his salvation. Then he takes a slow step toward me, his fingertips skimming the desk.
At the second step, I straighten, finding him more imposing than he was in the kitchen. Taller. Thicker in the shoulders. The quiet confidence in his next step makes him feel heavier somehow—more rugged, more masculine, more real. How on earth did I not notice this before?
Has he always been like this? Or did something inside him shift when I said the words?
Or maybe I’ve been so focused on survival that the only viable men to me have been those with resources.
High rollers, sugar daddies, gangsters like Gil.
For a moment of insanity, even Edward Rochester.
And the entire time, I’d been looking in the wrong places.
Rowland’s rawness and blunt edges are the polar opposite of Rochester’s refined manipulation. Nothing about him is calculated. Everything about him is unvarnished and direct.
He stops close enough that I can smell the attic on his skin.
Feel the heat radiating from his scarred chest. My pulse quickens, and shivers run down my spine as he lifts his fingers toward my face, hesitating just an inch from my skin.
His features flicker with uncertainty as if needing my permission.
I raise my chin, and he trails them along my jaw, making my skin tingle.
Breathing hard, I place a hand on my chest, only relaxing when he breaks eye contact to let his gaze roam across my face as if he’s memorizing every contour. No one's ever looked at me like this before. It’s like I’m the answer to every prayer he’s been afraid to ask.
Then he leans closer until our faces nearly touch. His breath warms my heated skin. The air thickens, the walls grow closer, the study ceases to exist. It’s just me and him and this unspoken need.
“Annalisa?” he asks, his voice wavering and unsure.
“Yes?” I whisper.
“Kiss me,” he says.