25. Elyse
CHAPTER 25
ELYSE
“ D o you know what it’s like to feel worthless?” Sebastian’s tone is cold, flat, and dark in a way I’ve never heard before. The calm before the storm.
Tanya either had no self preservation instincts or she is dumber than I gave her credit before. She scoffs. Scoffs!
“You’ve never felt worthless in your whole pampered life, Sebastian. Not once since your grandfather stuck that silver spoon between your baby teeth and took you as his heir.” She shifts over onto her knees and braces her hands to stand on her sky high designer heels.
Something is different. Sebastian’s face reads lethal. Tanya’s face reads lustful. It’s almost enough to make me throw up in my mouth. She looks at him like she owns him and that sure as hell sets me off.
“Stop looking at him like that!” I snap.
Tanya doesn’t even spare me a glance but Sebastian tilts his head to look at me, and when he stares into my eyes the coldness is gone. It’s all heat.
Tanya senses she’s losing, and she gets to her feet and straightens her dress. Sebastian stands with her, turns to the fireplace mantle, and snatches up a knife. One particular knife I know intimately.
“Not that one.” I say.
He looks at me again, then approaches and hands me the blade, hilt first, the razor sharp edge between his index and middle finger like a cigarette.
“Take it, Ely. It’s yours.”
I take the knife and settle it in my lap, keeping my eyes on him as he produces a smaller knife from his pocket. “This one is a little smaller, a little duller, but it’ll do the job.”
Tanya pastes on a smile, but it doesn’t reach her dead eyes. “Now, Sebby, come on. We can figure this out without all that.” She waves at the blade in his hand.
Sebastian steps up to her in a lightning fast move, grabbing her by the front of her dress and throwing her back to her knees again. “Answer the question, Tanya. Have you ever felt worthless?”
She gulps, shifting side to side on knees that no doubt hurt from his brutal handling. “I left all that behind me. I don’t feel it anymore.”
Sebastian studies her, and I see the warmth in his eyes drifting away. I wish I could save him from this, but I know it’ll help him in the end. All I can do is be here for him while he faces it, faces her. “What do you mean you left that all behind?”
She straightens her shoulders, trying desperately to hold onto some semblance of dignity. I don’t feel sorry for her, not for a second.
“If I tell you, will you stop with the violence, let me go?”
Sebastian laughs, and it’s a cold thing that slithers through my insides like an ice cube on a hot stone. “No. You’re going to die today, one way or another. I just want to know if the trauma you inflicted was worth it to you? If raping a teenage boy, if breaking him, was worth it?”
Her perfectly botoxed forehead barely wrinkles but I see the question in her eyes. “We’ve been over this, Sebby. It wasn’t rape; it was love.”
I surge to my feet the word love echoing in my mind. “How dare you!! Equating rape to love. You don’t know the meaning of love!” I snap.
Again, she ignores me like I don’t exist, and I have half a mind to bring the knife Sebastian just gave me over and show her that I’m here and not going anywhere.
Except, this isn’t about me. I don’t need to protect Sebastian. This is his trauma to accept and face. But it doesn’t make any of this easier. The thought of seeing yet another death blankets my gut with a deep and bone dense dread.
Like a shark scenting blood in the water, Sebastian circles Tanya, and when he’s behind her, he swipes out with the knife at the back of her neck. A thin red line blooms and a few crimson drops of blood seep out.
Tanya throws herself forward, clutching at the small wound like he’s gutted her. She sobs out one long wail and plants herself on her stomach for a moment.
“I said I’d kill you. I didn’t say it would be an easy death.”
I watch the man I love turn into this creature of ice cold stillness, and God, it hurts. “Sebastian…”
Some part of me needs to know he’s still in there. My Sebastian is still behind that cold, indifferent mask.
He focuses on me again, and it takes a minute for his gaze to resettle. I give him a pleading look. “Come here, please.”
With no argument, he sits beside me on the couch and tugs my hips until they touch him. “Can you handle this, Ely? Or do you want to go somewhere else? In the other room with Drew and them?”
I shake my head and tug his hands up to kiss his knuckles. “No, I need to be here for you. I’m stronger than I look.”
“Strong enough to sit here and watch me cut her until she admits every vile filthy thing she’s done to me?” His voice drops, with a slight tremble that gives way to vulnerability. “I’m strong, too, but I’m not sure I could watch you do something like that.”
“We do this together. Fight the demons of our past. No more secrets. I can carry this, too, until you’re able, just like you did for me. I’m not judging you. I’m judging her.”
There’s a scuffle by the door, and we look away from each other in time to see Tanya trying to stumble her way out.
Seb surges to his feet, grabs her by the back of her dress and throws her down to the floor hard enough my knees ache in sympathy with the impact. It’s nothing she doesn’t deserve. He crouches down to her level again, his eyes on her widespread fingers.
The knife descends, and I squeeze my eyes closed. I can be here, but I’m not sure if I can watch him dissect her.
Tanya wails again, and I have to look. I have to know. This cut, on the back of her hand, is a two-inch wide gash, blood pouring between her fingers like a lover’s hand entwining with hers.
"Let's discuss specifics," he croons, and I feel another wave of icy indifference wash over me as I watch Sebastian. "Do you remember the time you brought over a few friends and had me satisfy all of them?"
Tanya settles back on her heels, rocking slightly, her makeup smudged all over her cheeks.
"I call that a fantasy. What man wouldn't want multiple women at once?"
Sebastian glares and swipes out. This cut goes across her forearm in one wide gash, blood flowing forth immediately and sliding down to the floor beside her.
Tanya stares at it open-mouthed like she can't believe he did it. Sebastian is gazing off over her shoulder now. "Man? I think you’re forgetting a very important detail…. That I wasn’t a man. That I was a boy, a boy that you forced to grow up too fast, a boy that you took something from when it wasn’t yours to take. Now I have to live with that, and before I end your pathetic life, you’ll get a small taste of what it’s like to live with that, too.”
Tears fall fast down Tanya's cheeks but it seems like she's given up the theatrics at least. "Tell me what you want me to say, Sebastian, and I'll say it. I'll go, and leave you to your...wife," she bites out.
Sebastian laughs that cold laugh again, and I wrap my arms around myself tight, holding myself there, to keep from going to him and soothing away all this pain, all this hate. Is this who I was before I killed Yanov? The thought makes me freeze. Shit. I remember who I was after Yanov, and now a slow slither of fear replaces everything else.
Sebastian is going to need me after this, more than ever, probably all of us.
We'll take care of him.
Another cut, another whimper from Tanya. "I want you to say you're sorry and mean it, but even an apology won't save you now."
"I'm sorry," Tanya whispers. "I'm sorry for hurting you, for whatever pain you feel from what happened between us."
I roll my eyes and shake my head but stay quiet. If she thinks saying the words is good enough, then she doesn't understand what she's done, just like Yanov didn't understand what he did either.
Sebastian presses the blade to Tanya's throat, right below the curve of her jaw. The second the blade touches her skin she leans back, toppling over onto her ass, her legs splayed sideways beside her. Sebastian follows until Tanya has scooted all the way to the wall near the door, her chin tilted up as she tries to get her vital arteries away from the razor sharp edge.
"This is your last chance, Tanya. You can give me closure."
"So you can just kill me after? Why should I?"
Sebastian smiles and sighs. "Some part of me was hoping you'd say that. Do you remember the time you gave me a hand job while we were at a business event and it was all I could do to sit there and not react while my insides boiled to cut your hand off at the wrist?'
Tanya blinks. "No. I don't remember that."
Seb shoots forward and nicks her pale neck. Blood pours out immediately.
Tanya reaches up to clamp a hand there. "Oh God, you...you really are going to kill me."
Sebastian nods. "Yes, I really am. No matter what you do or what you say, you will die. I'm just trying to give you a nobler death, maybe. Which is dumb, as you wouldn't know anything about mercy or being noble. You don't know anything but selfishness and greed."
Tanya blinks up at him then over at me. "Help me. We...stop him. He seems to listen to you."
I give her a droll look and glance over my shoulder, "Oh, are you talking to me? Well, let me just get right on that."
I glance up at Sebastian, who flashes me the briefest smirk. It's enough to soothe my raw insides, enough to let me know my Sebastian is still in this cold, unfeeling creature before me.
Tanya looks between us a few times, and her shoulders slump. "I'm done talking. Just kill me."
Sebastian stands and takes a spin around the room like he's trying to hype himself up to do this.
"You don't have to, you know?" I whisper.
He doesn't look at me. "I need to do this. She won't hurt anyone else ever again."
"I could..."I swallow hard, not even sure of what I'm saying. "I could do it for you. Or Aries. He seems like he'd love to rearrange her face with his gun."
Tanya lets out a little sob, dropping her chin to her chest, still holding one hand to her neck.
"No," Sebastian says, shaking his head, his eyes on his prey now, the ultimate predator. "No. It has to be me."
He steps forward again and crouches beside her once more. "You hurt me, and no matter how many times I told you, you didn't care. Even now, you don't see what you did as something awful, something disgusting. I guess you have to go to the grave with that knowledge, and I hope when I see you in hell you'll have a better grasp on the type of monster you’re."
Tanya blinks up at Sebastian as he pulls his gun off the desk nearby and presses it to her forehead until the back of her head is flat against the wall, trapped between the barrel and the wallpaper.
"You are evil, and I hate you," he whispers.
I turn my head as the loud crack of the gun firing cuts through the room.
I don't dare look. I can't.
Until I hear a soft sob. I look then, keeping my eyes trained on Sebastian and off the mess of Tanya in front of him.
He's on his knees, blood pooling around his pants in a slow leak.
I stand, tucking the knife in the sleeve along my forearm and approach him, keeping clear of the growing pool of blood. "It's done. She can’t hurt you anymore. No one can. We’re free Sebastian. Free and together."
He turns enough to press his head into my chest and the heavy sob he releases rattles me to the core.