Chapter Twenty-One
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Henri
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I WOKE FOR THE THOUSANDTH time, but this time...coherency woke with me.
I didn’t hover in an in-between world.
I didn’t fall back into convoluted dreams of star homes, hell realms, or champagne breakfasts in the sun.
I wished I did.
I longed to return to my fantasies because at least I got to see her again. Be with her. Love her.
My chest compressed with agony.
My heart fissured, and I couldn’t breathe.
My soul tore itself into shreds, searching for that missing piece that’d existed in Ily.
Now, it would always be missing because...
She’s dead.
Choking on terminal sorrow, I trembled in a large, comfy bed. Tucked up beneath warm blankets and surrounded by luxury I didn’t recognise, I hated every fucking thing.
What right did I have to be lying here?
What right did I have to be free from that island, that pain, those collars and cuffs and nightmares?
Ily wasn’t free.
She’s gone.
Peter was gone.
Far too many jewels had died on that godforsaken shit-fuck island, and...I couldn’t fucking survive it.
“It’s been six days, esclave. The doctor says if he doesn’t make the choice to wake and stay awake, we might as well plan his funeral.”
I froze.
Icy tears rolled down my temples and soaked into my pillow as Q sucked in a breath and whispered, “Merde, I failed him so badly. I left him to be tortured. He was barely recognisable. He wanted to fucking die. W-What if I hit him too hard? What if I permanently damaged him?”
Twisting my head a little, I spied Q standing in the doorframe. A woman stood in front of him, leaning against the other side.
The room I lay in remained shrouded in darkness. Black drapes drawn across a huge bank of windows. A fireplace crackled with warm flames, and emerald damask wallpaper gleamed subtly in the glow.
“You told me he tried to make you kill him when he noticed that girl on the ground,” she said softly. “You didn’t have a choice but to punch him. You said he was millimetres away from shooting himself. If you hadn’t acted as quickly as you did, he would’ve died—”
“It was the fact that he wanted to die that’s haunting me.
He wasn’t joking around. You didn’t see his eyes.
He’s not waking up because he still wants to die.
Perhaps I should have let him do it.” Q curled over her, his tall height slouching with weariness.
“The things he’s endured, Tess. The bruises covering him.
The marks on his back.” He swallowed hard.
“Some of the lacerations cut right down to his bones. His fucking shoulder blades were visible, for fuck’s sake.
No wonder he’s got a full-blown infection.
No wonder he lies there mumbling in his sleep about stars and hell and twin flames.
What the hell is a twin flame? Did they burn him too?
Did they make him hurt the other slaves like those sick bastards did to you? ”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he groaned. “His body is destroyed, but his mind...that’s in ruins. This is all my fault. I should never have sent him there. I should’ve known he wouldn’t be a match for Grand. I—”
“Ah, Q.” The woman stepped into him and cupped his cheek. “You can’t beat yourself up. You found him eventually. He’s here now. All those poor slaves are either recuperating or have already been sent back to their families...because of you.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Because of him.” He pointed at me.
“I’ve liberated thousands of slaves over the years.
I’ve seen the sickest shit and slaughtered the vilest people, but what Franco keeps reporting on that island?
” He shuddered. “The fire couldn’t erase the truth.
It didn’t destroy the dungeons, the caves, or the walk-in freezer full of body parts.
Body parts, Tess. He was fucking harvesting them!
There are hundreds of skulls below that despicable place.
The things the other prisoners have told me.
The ones missing pieces and yet are strong enough to actually recount what they’ve endured... merde.”
“You can’t torture yourself like this,” Tess murmured, tucking a blonde curl behind her ear.
“You need to get some sleep.” The petite slenderness of my sister-in-law.
The softness of her Australian accent couldn’t hide the obvious authority she had over my brother.
“You help for a reason. You carry those horrors for those who didn’t survive.
You can’t let this get to you. You’ll be no use to all the others in the future if—”
“The ones in the future?” Q spat. “What about the ones in the past? The ones we were too late for?”
“Don’t go down that path, ma?tre. You refused to let me when I struggled to forget, and I won’t let you get lost too. He’s here. He’s going to be okay. You didn’t fail him—”
“Didn’t fail him, huh?” Q chuckled coldly.
“You love me for reasons I will never quite understand but allow me to tell you the sort of man you married, esclave.” His voice shook with self-hatred.
“I saw him. All those years ago, when I was barely a teen and he was just a boy...I saw him being dragged into my father’s wing.
I heard him scream when he was forced to do whatever it was my father made him do.
The first time it happened, I intervened.
I claimed I’d seen some cops heading up our driveway and sent a guard in to fetch him.
I’d hoped that would be the end of it, but... it wasn’t.”
Tess glanced at me. Thanks to the gloom, she didn’t notice me eavesdropping. Her voice trembled. “How long...how long did it go on for?”
“Years. I tried to stop it. I took a few beatings trying to prevent my father going to the nursery where he was kept. But I was too young to make a difference. After a while, I got shuttled off to boarding school. I wasn’t here to see what happened.
I barely saw him when I came home for the holidays.
And if I did, he never once looked at me.
I remember him actually giving me the finger one afternoon.
That’s when I figured he’d become like my father, and I hated him instead of pitied him. ”
“So that’s why you shot him? Your father, I mean?”
“I shot him because he housed fourteen women and raped them all while my mother drank herself into her grave. I shot him because he groomed kids to become him. I shot him because it was the right thing to do. All while I never did the right thing by my brother.”
I flinched as Q marched toward me.
He moved too fast. I didn’t have enough time to fake sleep.
He sucked in a breath as he hovered over my bed. “You’re awake.”
Squeezing my eyes closed, I wanted so fucking much to hate him. I wanted to continue nursing my childhood blame, but after everything that’d happened...I couldn’t.
I couldn’t judge him after what I’d done.
I couldn’t condemn him for turning a blind eye when he was just a boy himself. It’d been a shitty situation for all involved. He hadn’t been the one to make me rape my half-siblings’ mothers. He wasn’t the one to hold a gun to my head to make me hurt them.
And he wasn’t the one who’d made me draw Ily’s blood or get hard as she screamed.
That was all on me.
On this sickness inside me.
This fucking beast I could never kill.
I’d been the one to kill Ily.
She was dead because of me.
She died because I saw her, fell in love with her, then sacrificed her to Victor.
Oh fuck.
Barbed wire wrapped around my lungs. My insides tangled. My heart wanted to stop.
She’s dead.
Because of me.
She’s gone.
Because I failed her.
She’s dead.
Peter’s dead.
So many jewels dead.
I fisted the blankets and tried not to drown in my grief.
I couldn’t.
Tears squeezed around my throat.
I stared at the ramifications of my past.
I’d been lucky enough to find her.
So fucking blessed to be loved by her.
And now...I’m alone again.
I was nothing without her. I could’ve become something with her. I could’ve become someone I was proud of. But without her...I didn’t even want to try.
The same calmness that’d fallen over me when I’d reached for Q’s gun settled once again.
I’d been a stain on this world for long enough.
It’s time.
My tears receded. I even managed a cleansing breath. I opened my eyes and looked at my older brother with no animosity or guilt or shame. “I’m so sorry for putting your family in danger.”
Q shot a look at Tess, who lingered in the doorway.
Without a word, she vanished down the corridor, giving us privacy.
Once she’d gone, he winced and swallowed hard. “And I’m sorry for sending you into danger.”
I flinched as fresh pain cut down my back. Shifting on the bed, the tightness of bandages around my chest and the thick padding across my shoulder blades and down my spine made me prickle with entrapment.
Q glanced at the new cast around my forearm. “We X-rayed every inch of you. The break in your forearm needed setting. Even though it shows evidence of prior healing, it’s unfortunately broken again.”
I chuckled with black humour. “Yeah, I felt it go when I used a gun as a baseball bat on Roland.”
Q arched an eyebrow but didn’t ask questions.
“The recent healing on your ankle seems stable enough. Your ribs show evidence of multiple fractures. The gunshot wound on your side turned out to be the least of your problems.” He rolled his eyes.
“The bullet just went straight through the skin. It didn’t damage anything.
However...your lack of body weight and the lacerations on your back.
” He wiped his mouth and shook his head.
“You might need a skin graft if the stitches don’t hold.
Even with stitches, the scar tissue will always—”
“I’m fine.” I swallowed hard, cursing the fact that the painkillers kept ebbing the longer I stayed awake. “I don’t need a grocery list of my injuries. I’m aware.”
Clenching his jaw, he nodded once.