Chapter 10 #4
“Fucking killer.” Patricia spits on me as Bohnes and Widow watch from the opposite side of the room, both of them aghast. Neither of them would’ve allowed this level of disrespect.
I move around the table and Patricia steps back, snatching a fork off her plate.
Someone must’ve also cooked her breakfast. I wonder who?
The eggs are overdone, practically burned.
I hit the ground on my knees in front of her, putting my palms on the floor and doing the same with my forehead.
“Gomenasai,” I whisper, voice cracking. I’m shaking, too. If Patricia looks at Scarlett like scum for continuing to love her sister’s murderer, I’ll become the romantic curse she’s so afraid of. “I would tell you that I became a monster for Scarlett, but it happened long before that.”
Patricia is quivering with contempt, staring down at me like she isn’t sure if she wants to kill me or not.
“Gram, I love you, but this is your final warning,” Scarlett asserts with a voice like cold iron, standing close behind me, ready to intervene if her grandmother tries to stab me with the fork. “And you, get up now. Gram is a big girl. She can handle the truth.”
“The truth is that this is the man who murdered your sister!” Patricia shouts, throwing the fork down on the floor. “And you’ve let yourself get dragged into a mess that you’re going to die trying to climb out of.”
I sit up, lifting my gaze to Patricia’s. She stares down at me, studying me with eyes as dark as Scarlett’s.
“If he hadn’t done what he did, I’d have done it myself.
” Scarlett is firm when she says that, immovable.
Honest. “Alexis sold me out. She was packing suitcases with my clothes, planning to run off into the sunset with the money she was about to get for shooting me. The cops are corrupt around here. I have a crew to take care of. What was I supposed to do?”
Patricia picks up the plate of eggs and upends them on her granddaughter’s chest, turning and taking off down the hallway. Nisha and Bastian are right there, just around the corner. As soon as Patricia approaches, they both escort her out of sight.
I have coffee dripping down my face. I can taste blood.
“She’ll come around,” Scarlett says, peeling the plate off her chest. It was stuck there with food.
She looks impossibly human right now. “I think. If not, I’ll…
give her money and…she can…” Scarlett shakes her head, looking down at me again.
“You shouldn’t have let her hit you in the face.
From now on, only I am allowed to determine when you’re hurt or punished.
Do you understand me?” She takes my chin in tight, commanding fingers. A goddess above me.
My chest constricts. I want to argue. I want to remain in control of my self-flagellation. Letting go of that feels too much like giving myself permission to be happy. If you do that, and it gets taken away, it hurts even worse. It hurts so bad.
Scarlett squeezes my chin, stabbing me with her nails while maintaining eye contact. It hurts and it feels good at the same time. I want to be enslaved. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Hai,” I whisper, giving in because it’s impossible not to. “Yakusoku.”
“Never again,” she repeats, squeezing harder, causing blood to ooze from my split lip.
The pain is exquisite when she’s the one that’s dealing it.
I’m entirely messed up, aren’t I? Turned topsy-turvy by my fucked-up family.
“Dodge next time. The only person who’s allowed to throw coffee on you is me. ”
She releases me and I surge to my feet, staring down at her, breathing too hard.
Scarlett presses the hilt of my sword into my hand.
Widow was the one who handed it to her. I swing it up to rest on my shoulder, tasting coffee and blood but feeling calm.
When Patricia looked at me, it was similar to the way Scarlett does, like she could see straight through me. Maybe she, too, can read my intent?
“Oh, look,” Bohnes drawls, sounding bored. “It’s our resident reporter, Miss Emma Jean.”
Alexei goes running, partly because he’s doused in unsanitary water and partly because he doesn’t like Emma Jean. She asks a lot of personal questions, I will say that.
“Journalist,” I murmur, before ever bothering to turn and see if she’s in the room with us. I don’t care. “I’ll go shower and then join you back here. I’ll make lunch.”
“You’re a good man, Ash,” Scarlett says, throwing my name out there in a way that makes my cock twitch. My own name is fucking erotic on her full lips. Her eyes are burning, and I just know she’s thinking about Emma Jean tied to my bed.
“Only for you,” I admit, wandering away to clean up and change my clothes. I’m only just climbing in the water when Scarlett opens the bathroom door. I pause with one foot inside the shower, the other on the rug just outside the glass door.
“Do not ever pretend to be Aspen again.” Scarlett shrugs out of her clothes, like she intends to join me.
I stab the sword into the wall and leave it there to hang my towel.
Within a few seconds, Scarlett Force is in the shower with me. While I’m fucking her, there’s no space to think about anything else.
What an unholy blessing that is.