Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Violet
Methodically, we laid out our dead.
I ripped a massive red curtain down from the enormous windows and carried it over while Theo positioned Margaret, Amaryllis, and Connor in a row as well as he could.
Margaret was… hard, her dismembered parts scattered.
But we did our best. Dropping the curtain, I tried to keep my emotions at bay as I watched the scene before me.
I didn’t know exactly what Connor had confessed to, but it seemed wrong to rest him beside Amy, so he was on the end, the blood on his throat darker, dried out now that his heart had stopped spurting it out.
Theo seemed to understand better than me, because he kept looking at our uncle with deep anger, muttering under his breath as he prepared him, folding his arms over his chest. Respectful, but bitter.
With each step, emotions heated my eyes, threatening tears I didn’t want to shed yet. Real grief could come later. We didn’t have time to break now. Rafael was still out there somewhere, maybe with more guards, more weapons, a better understanding of the house.
Margaret rested in the middle with all of her we could gather, her torso and her head placed at the top, her hair tugged over the gap so it didn’t look as horrific.
My poor, poor sisters. Margaret, so brainwashed she agreed to be eaten, so desperate she laid there and let them destroy her in totality.
They weren’t cannibals or anything; I was sure of that.
They were probably going to do nothing with her limbs.
I think it was all a way to scare us more, to horrify us, to show us how little agency we had over ourselves.
All of this seemed like a game, an attempt to make us as scared as possible, to taunt us with their power.
To devastate. Rafael was sick in the head, but he’d never shown an inclination to eat human meat.
If he had, I was sure I wouldn’t have survived with all of my flesh intact. But the blood he’d drained from me the very first night, what had that been for? He always licked up blood spills, savoring the life he drew from me when he did it. Maybe this was just an extension of that.
I guess I’d never know, in fact, I hoped I never did. I thought I did; I thought I would want to learn everything there was to know about all this, but the more I found out, the more of a farce it seemed. I turned to Amy, fell to my knees beside her while Theo continued working on Uncle Connor.
Amy, so na?ve, her life cut short and brutal, the most innocent of all of us, the least deserving of all this.
I cupped her head, and ignoring the coagulated blood coating my fingers, I kissed her forehead, avoiding the bullet hole. Her eyes were closed; her expression peaceful. Good. I hoped that she was at peace, that death brought her the comfort I longed for.
“What a sick, twisted lot we are,” Theo muttered as he scooped up the curtain I’d dropped.
Not Amy, maybe not Margaret, not fully. But Connor could eat rocks.
My mother too, who we hadn’t moved from where she fell.
Damn her. Damn Gabe and the other random guards — lifeless and scattered.
Gabe was dead. He’d bled out at some point, either while I watched or later, when we were distracted.
He didn’t deserve my attention, my time.
I just let his life leak out and nodded in confirmation when Theo told me he was no longer with us.
Only my sisters deserved their dignity here.
I kissed both their heads again and stood, turning to Theo. “Let’s track my husband down.”
Theo was better at this than me. Moving through the shadowy halls with easy stealth, guiding my clumsy, noisy steps with patience.
His hand stayed on my hip as we drifted from room to room, stalking my husband through the house I’d learned so little of.
Til death we part indeed, because Rafael’s was coming.
One of us wasn’t walking out of here alive, and in my gut, I knew it would be him.
I had Theo at my back, bolstering me, making me strong. Together, there was nothing we couldn’t do. And here we were, doing something. It would be Rafael’s end or ours. Either as a unit or not at all. We would dance together until the end. And there was fortification in that.
Rafael could probably see us; he knew this house better than us, after all.
I bet he was tucked up in some panic room with CCTV monitors, waiting for us to get bored so he’d be able to escape or come when we let our guards down.
I struggled to believe he would hide like this, that the monster I had conjured in my head was cowering somewhere.
No. He had a plan. A something. He must. So our guards would never drop. It made the tension in my body so high I ached almost everywhere. But screw this. I was done being his pawn.
“Rafael!” I bellowed, making Theo jump and turn to me with an incredulous look.
“So much for stealth, Vi,” he chided, but his voice was light. We both knew this was the end, so there was no fear. He almost looked excited, his expression one of mild glee, of focus. He was in his element here.
“I want to get this over with,” I explained, letting him dip his forehead to mine for a brief moment of peace.
There didn’t seem to be anyone else around in the house, no other staff or guards to protect Rafe, no one with guns prowling the property or maids or whatever flitting about as usual.
It was strange and made the darkened rooms even spookier.
But Theo still insisted on maintaining his guard, his gaze sweeping and his muscles tense as we moved on.
When we reached the back of the mansion, through the kitchens and into what looked like utility rooms, my body wobbled, a wooziness rushing over me that I kept trying to fight.
I was running on fumes at this point, but when wasn’t I?
For that brief time Theo and I had in Christian’s cabin, but before and after, fumes alone.
“You good?” Theo asked, cupping my cheek, allowing us a quiet moment together.
I nodded. “I just want this over with,” I told him. “I’m sick of that man haunting me. I don’t want to wait anymore.” With a sigh, I leaned into Theo’s body, my heart swelling when he kissed my head. “I want this done now.”
Theo kissed my head again, and the one hand he had around my back splayed out, rubbing down my spine. “It will be. It will be.”
“Why do you think it’s so quiet?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, but I don’t like it,” Theo said, turning our bodies, our feet shuffling, I think to better see the entrance to this small room. “Something feels wrong.”
“Something is very bloody wrong, Theo. Our whole family is dead.”
I listened to his racing heart, pressing my ear to his chest as he took in slow breaths. We were silent for a while, listening to the noises of the house, for the creak of a floorboard or the hinge of a door. Any indication that someone else was here.
But nothing.
Complete silence. Maybe Rafael had already left. Fled from us.
But somehow, that didn’t feel right.
“When we’re done here, can we go to the beach?” I asked with a soft whisper, that familiar dream wrapping itself around me. “Sit in the sand with ice creams and chips and fend off seagulls?”
Theo laughed and pulled away a little to see my face. “Sure, beautiful,” he said. “When we’re done here, I’ll buy you the biggest ice cream they have.”
I nodded. “I think I want to go home. To the UK.”
“Anything you want.” He kissed me firm on the mouth, soaked me in for a second, then walked back out of the utility room, his hand wrapped around my wrist. We needed to look upstairs now.
We continued through the hallway where Rafael had made me lie prone, but I felt nothing, only a tug in my belly from how Theo had wiped that bad memory away. His hackles ruffled too, and I remembered he’d told me he saw it. That he witnessed a lot of it.
“How well do you know the layout of this house?” I asked in a low whisper. “From the cameras?”
He turned to me for a split-second to answer, but that was all it took. As if from the shadows themselves, as Theo opened his mouth to reply, Rafe appeared, a knife wielded high above his head as he grabbed Theo and tried to plunge the blade into him.
“No!” I screamed, diving forward, uncaring of my safety. I had a weapon too, the knife I’d taken from Gabe, and it was going right into Rafael’s head. Where was his gun? He was rabid, frantic in a way that just made him seem broken.
Theo twisted at the last minute and managed to punch Rafael in the stomach, sending him back a step, but the man was manic. He came again, wide-eyed and foaming at the mouth.
“You’re all going to die!” he screamed. “I’m going to kill this fucker and take that baby!”
He was demented, insane. And both Theo and I grappled with his large frame. But the more I saw him like this, the smaller he seemed. A pathetic man through and through. It worked to wash away the last of the fear I felt toward him.
In the chaos, I lost track of myself, of Theo. It was dark, manic, and despite it being two on one, Rafe kept getting the upper hand on us. The only light came through the windows — flashes of moonlight, shadows cast by swaying trees outside.
“Violet!” Theo shouted when I tried to grapple Rafael on my own after he was thrown back.
Rafael’s knife sliced into my arm, gouging just under my inner elbow. I screamed and pushed, the sharp sting shocking me into distraction. Then Theo’s body was between us again, and he was raising a gun to fire, point-blank, into Rafael’s chest. A gun.
“Where did you get that?” I asked as I panted.
“Fucker had it shoved down the back of his pants,” Theo responded without looking at me. “Now, why would he do that? Maybe it isn’t loaded.” His tone was light, goading.
But another shove, another glint of a blade as Rafe waved it in front of himself. Somehow the man grappled the upper hand again, and lunged.
“Fuck you!” Theo shouted out in pain.
“Theo!” I screamed, trying to pull the men apart. This was supposed to be my fight, my devil to kill, my marriage to destroy.
Theo staggered back, taking a knife with him, the hilt sticking out right below his shoulder. Just a flesh wound, please, just a flesh wound. Our eyes locked, and he winked, yanking the blade free with a gush of blood. I grinned.
“Nothing to worry about,” he huffed to me before taking another step towards Rafael. But the man was defenseless now, and he was mine. No knife. No gun. What more did he have up his prissy white sleeves?
I stepped closer.
He waited until I was in his space to pull another gun from somewhere on his body and aim it at my head. I stammered to a stop, my heart halting. I could go, I could die, but if I did, so did Theo. So I would fight back for him, for his precious life.
“Don’t forget about the baby; it won’t survive if its incubator has no brain,” I lied. I lied my ass off, hoping that whatever triggered him before still worked. This man and his desperate need to spawn…
“Vi…” Theo croaked, scared to move. Still behind me.
Rafe’s eyes flickered from mine to my stomach and back before he scowled. “If it worked once, it can work again.” He adjusted the gun, pushed the barrel against my forehead, smirked, then turned it towards Theo.
“Which one first though? Who will suffer the most watching the other expire?” he mused.
He had to die; he had to. It was either me or him, but I didn’t know how to make it happen.
I was so weak, my legs wobbling, my mind on fire, every little thing this man had ever done to me rolled around in my head as I tried to get that damned gun pointing away from me, away from Theo.
Is that all he had? Two guns? No other plan?
I met Rafael’s eyes, heated and strong. No fear. No submission. He wasn’t better than me; he wasn’t scarier. He was stronger, but that was all. I could win. I had to.
But I didn’t. The gun turned back towards me, the barrel almost completely lined up with my face again.
I sucked in a deep breath.
But then. A crash in the distance. Creaking, crackling of gravel, metal crushing and engines blaring. Someone shouted before the front door kicked in and the world ticked over again.