Chapter 24 #3
Katherine’s critical glare scorches me from head to foot. “You are a disappointment, Alice, in every way.”
I don’t know how I keep my voice level, how I don’t clutch my chest at the agony squeezing my heart.
Nor do I know how I even manage to speak past the pain, but somehow, I do, barely recognizing my hoarse voice.
“I can’t do this with you anymore. I’m leaving.
Tonight. Because after this shit? Mocking me like that? ” I gesture between us. “I’m done.”
This vicious cycle finally has to end. It’s toxic—has always been toxic—and honestly, I deserve better than to be treated like shit by a mother whose love I spent my life trying to earn.
And the proof that I’d been fighting a losing battle is there in her eyes.
There isn’t a drop of regret—not a hint of warmth in those indifferent brown eyes.
She lifts her chin, scorn oozing from her like poison. “You say that like it’s a threat.”
Screw it, let the tears flow. I’m laid bare anyway, my dignity splintered into shards of glass at my feet. “Why did you even have me?”
But I instantly regret the question the second it falls from my lips.
The moonlight gleams off her gigantic diamond engagement ring when she presses a hand to her surgically tucked tummy. “It was a simple exchange, Alice. A business transaction, if you will. Your father wanted a child, and I needed to keep your father.”
Needed.
Not wanted.
“Why? Make it make sense, because you never loved him, and you made it crystal clear you don’t love me.”
She lifts one impeccably arched brow. “Luther and I had an agreement. He gave me wealth and status, asking for only one thing in return. You. A child.” Do I imagine the shudder that runs through her?
“All that man ever wanted was to be a father. So, I gave him that, and he”—she waves her hand, those blood-red nails slicing the humid air—“gave me this.”
“I hate you,” I whisper brokenly.
“I. Don’t. Care,” Katherine counters calmly, each word painfully enunciated.
“And to think, I used to idolize you.” I bite out a gruff laugh. “You’re a monster.”
“No, dear,” Katherine counters. “That…creature…you claim to love so much, he’s a monster.”
Shaking my head, I rake a glare over her.
“Okay, sure, he may well be a monster. I won’t deny it.
His morality might be a bit off? Whatever.
But at least Maddox has integrity. That man you hate?
He has more loyalty and decency in one little finger than you do in your whole body.
” I spit at her feet and back away. “Goodbye, Katherine. I wish you well.”
My stomach twists in an agonizing knot as I stride away from her, with each step bringing me farther away from a battle I never wanted to fight and a woman who can never learn to love.
And yet everything inside me hurts, as if all the cells in my body were shredded and reassembled wrong.
The orchestra’s music is a distant, haunting melody that follows me as I stumble across the garden because I need to put more distance between me and Katherine Wentworth. Need more air, more moonlight, more…
…I don’t know.
Just more of something.
I wish Maddox were with me, but I don’t want to go back inside to get him.
Not yet. Not with these damn tears streaming down my face.
So, I kick off my stilettos, walking barefoot in the soft dirt.
The world around me is a wet blur, and I suppose that’s why I don’t see him until it’s too late.
Until I’m pulled against a wide and unyielding body.
I careen, but strong hands clamp around my biceps to steady me. “Oh, thank God,” I breathe, assuming it’s Maddox. “Please take me ho—”
No, no…
No.
Even with the upper half of his face hidden behind a solid black mask, I recognize the dark, manic eyes glaring down at me. I’d know them anywhere…
“Rook.”
“Found you.”
Rook’s masked face fills my vision, and all I can muster is a strangled, “No.”
No, a million times over, as he drags me toward the maze.
My feet skid across the dirt as I claw at the fingers wrapped around my arm.
The punch to the face cuts my scream for help short.
Stars explode behind my eyes, momentarily blinding me.
I gasp, blood filling my mouth, making me choke.
I’ve never been struck, and the hit dazes me.
Hurts me. I run my tongue across my front teeth, relieved they’re intact because, holy God, it sure feels like he knocked them out.
“Shut the fuck up,” Rook growls, pulling me into the maze.
Insulated within the high hedge walls, I give it one more shot, screaming at the top of my lungs.
He stops and shakes me hard enough to jolt my neck.
“I said shut up.” Another rough rattle vibrates my bones.
He rips off his mask, snarling, “Don’t make me hurt you again, Alice, because I will. I’ll fucking do it. Try me. Go ahead.”
He’s already hurting me, but I don’t dare point this out. Instead, I shake my head, promising through cut and swollen lips, “I won’t scream again.”
But silence doesn’t mean compliance, and when he drags me again, I kick, slap, and do everything within my power to break free of his hold.
His grip, though, is a vise, squeezing tighter the more I struggle.
His crazed ramblings make zero sense as I stagger along beside him.
I catch a few words here and there, my mind focused on working out an escape plan rather than what this lunatic is babbling about.
He mentions the painting—that awful painting of my severed head—calling it a masterpiece.
Fucking sicko.
But when Rook bemoans how he wishes he’d painted it, not Scarlett, my limbs go numb. Suddenly, I’m lightheaded, with the stars above us glaring beams of light piercing my eyeballs. “That’s right,” he snaps with a diabolical laugh. “Didn’t see that one coming, did you?”
No, I surely did not.
He hauls me through the maze, weaving us around the turns, and the only thing I know with clarity is that if he gets me in the center, I’m dead.
“…paid me,” he continues, and now he has my attention because I can’t believe what he’s saying.
“She wanted me to scare you, but when I saw you…” He stops again and slams my back against the hedge wall, my gown snagging on the branches.
Pressing his body to mine, he puts his lips to my ear.
His hot breath stinks of booze. “I had to have you.”
I shove him, but Rook is an immovable force, pinning me against the hedge. He kicks my legs apart at the ankles and fits himself between them. “But you didn’t want me.” The grind of his erection against my stomach makes me gag. “Now, I’m going to hurt you until you love it. Until you love me.”
Oh, God… Maddox. Help me.
Icy fingers of dread creep up my spine when I rasp, “Rook, this isn’t love.”
Whip-fast, his hand comes up to circle my throat, cutting off my air.
“No, it’s not,” he’s quick to agree. Gasping, fighting to breathe, I grab his wrists and try to pry off his hold, but the more I fight, the harder he squeezes.
“This is hatred. You made me despise you almost as much as Scarlett does.” Finally, he releases me, and I gulp down air to fill my starved lungs.
“Oh, Alice, you and I are going to have so much fun together.” He pulls me away from the hedge, and we’re moving again, reaching the heart of the maze. “You and your fucking boyfriend.”
My feet slide over the chessboard, past the wisteria tree, to the back of the large square center. “You’ll never get the chance,” I spit. “You’re dead already. Maddox just hasn’t killed you yet, you fucking animal.”
“Maybe.” Rook spins me until I’m facing him. Until I can see the mania in his evil eyes. “But not before I take you with me.”
Then he shoves me backward. The soles of my feet teeter on the edge of a hole.
And then I tumble.
Tumble for what feels like forever, but in reality, is only a few feet…
…right into an open grave.