Chapter 21 #2
“Good people or bad people?” I knew this question would come up. Answering it was not as simple as black and white.
“Depends which side you are looking at it from.” That is the only way I can explain it.
“All people are both good and bad in my experience.”
“Anyone?” She is asking this question in the hopes of somehow making what I do less morally wrong for her. But it won't help. Murder is murder.
“No women and children.” It is the only rule I have. The only time I had ever thought of breaking that rule was with Julia and Tortured Tits, Alessandro's cousin. The bitch who deigned to look my girl up and down at the fight club.
“The people that come to Sin , they are killers, too?”
“Yes.”
“You are a stalker?”
“I follow people for money. But with you, yes.”
“Why?”
“The first time I saw you, you validated my life. It made sense. You are the reason I was born. You are the reason I am alive. You would have been scared if I had walked up to you then. You would have doubted what I said. You would have said it was impossible.”
“So you followed me. Sent me stuff and directed me to Mike’s Gym.
Just so you could create a new first meeting.
So that I would accept you? Be less scared?
” Sienna shifts out of my arms and gets up, pushing her hair off her puffy face.
The tear streaks on her cheeks make her look even more vulnerable.
“You wrote our first meeting off as inconsequential to me. You stole that first meeting and replaced it. Do you know how that moment in the club impacted me? How it turned around in my mind over and over again. I obsessed over it, and when we met again, I thought it was you, but you never confessed. You had no right.”
I can’t even say I didn’t know how much our meeting at Nero’s impacted her. In the days after, I saw her crying in her kitchen and knew it had to do with it. That’s when I sent the Mike’s Gym pamphlet.
“You were vulnerable, and you felt guilty about cheating on your dead husband emotionally and physically. If I had told you those things then, we wouldn’t be here now.
You weren’t ready for me. It was only after that night that you started letting James go.
I would have been competing with a dead man rainbow, and he would have won. ”
She knows what I am saying is right. I can see it on her face.
“What about the video? You knew there was a video of us and didn’t tell me. How could you keep something like that from me?” Her voice cracks at the end, and she shakes her head as if trying to banish the emotion from it.
“It was right after The Reaping. You were too fragile for that information, and I handled it. The site was taken down.”
“The site? Are you saying this was on the internet?” She sounds mortified, and when I get out of bed and step towards her, she takes a couple of steps back.
“It was. It isn’t any longer, and anyone who saw it has already paid for that mistake.”
Her already pale face drains of the little blood that is left, making her as white as the wall behind her.
“You killed them,” she whispers, her hand covering her mouth in shock.
“Some. Those who deserved it. I applied the moral code most humans live by in that situation as I knew you would not have tolerated it otherwise. Pedos, rapists, and other bad people, I killed. The rest paid in other ways. Those with money I bankrupted and the funds I gathered were donated to The Victims of Rape Organisation. Those without money were punished in other ways.” I don’t elaborate, as that would mean explaining me chopping off some hands.
The hand that they used to pleasure themselves with when watching that video.
Her eyes go wide, and she takes another step back.
“I don’t know you.” Her voice is small and monotone.
“You know me better than anyone. You knew this about me. You knew I was a bad man the first time you met me. Consciously accepting that knowledge as fact now doesn’t change who I am. It also doesn’t change who you are.”
Her eyes widen, and then she shakes her head again.
“How can you say that? If I accepted it and accepted that that is who you are and what you do, it wholeheartedly changes who I am. I am someone who could live with you, killing another human. I am a monster.”
Her eyes go wide, and then she takes another step back.
“I am already a monster. You made me a monster when you killed people for watching the video.”
“Are you the murderer?”
“No,” she replies, shaking her head. “But I’m the reason behind them.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t be a martyr in this situation.
Taking on the responsibility of something that was out of your hands.
That’s like the mother of a murderer saying she is responsible for the deaths of the people her son or daughter kills just because she gave birth to the being that carried them out.
It's out of your hands, sunflower, and you cannot claim the responsibility just to appease your morality. That’s claiming an untruth which is fundamentally going against the very morality you are trying to save. ”
She is struggling with my words. It is even harder for her to accept because she has feelings for me.
“It may not be what you want to hear, but none of it is important. What I do is just a job. It must be hard to hear, but that is how it is. I will not lie to you by telling you that I lie awake at night and mull over what I have done. I don’t.
My heart is black with my deeds. But,” I say, taking a step towards her.
“You are the most important to me. The most valuable thing in my whole life. This is not a declaration of love because, make no mistake, I do love you, Sienna. It is a declaration of something far deeper than that. It is knowing that in this second and every second from now until my last breath, you will always be the person I want. Nothing, ever, that you could do would change that. I really want you to comprehend and understand every word I am saying. There is no me without you now. Even if you wanted it. Even if I wanted it.”
Sienna’s mouth has dropped open in shock, her eyes still wide as she looks at me in disbelief.
“You love me,” she finally says.
“More than that, Sienna. Mere mortals created language, trying to express emotions by wrapping them up in symbols. Vowels and consonants. What I feel for you is more than those three words alone can convey.”
“Close your eyes.” Sienna looks at me, hesitating to do as I ask before finally, her eyes flutter shut. I take another step towards her.
“Obsession. To think of you every second of the day. With every mental, emotional, and physical act of my day wrapped around you at its core. I would do anything for you. Anything. There is no limit to that with me. When I say anything, it means that definition exactly. It doesn’t have any exclusions or conditions. ” Step.
“Desire. To think that before you, I thought I knew what this was.
But that was child's play to the craving you have created within me. I want you so much, in every way, that when I think about that want, it manifests as a physical feeling in my body. A delicious tightness in my chest, as if my want is so strong it is stealing my breath. Smothering me. My heart skips a beat, that misstep making way for your light. That is the power of my desire for you.” Step.
“Curiosity. Something I have never experienced with another person until you. To want to know everything about you. Good and bad. Every secret. Every thought. Until you are bare to me, and I am bare to you. Because I want you, and only you, to know me similarly.” Step.
“Bewitching. You are the most beautiful human in existence. You may not see that, but if you saw yourself through my eyes, which were made to see and worship that beauty, you would see what I mean. When I saw you at Nero’s, it was like seeing color for the first time.
It was like being born and opening my eyes for the first time. ” Step.
I’ve closed the distance now, with only inches separating us. Up close, I notice the color has returned to her cheeks, and her breathing is rapid and shallow, causing her chest to rise and fall quickly. I have an impact on her. Good. Because she affects me.
Her lips part slightly as her tongue darts out to wet them.
When I look down, she is clenching her thighs and rubbing her hands against the fabric of her dress. I wanted to change her into something more comfortable when I carried her in earlier, but there wasn’t time.
I smirk and dip my head forward so my cheek grazes hers until my mouth is right by her ear.
“I love you, Sienna. But these other words help those three.”
She shivers and then moans when I pull away, her eyes flying open.
While I had planned on something else tonight, Sienna needed rest and time to process everything. If I gave into this moment and took her to bed and fucked her as her eyes and whole body were begging me to do, she would hate me and herself tomorrow.
“Have a bath and get some rest. I have some work to do.” Just before I leave the room, I slowly turn to face her.
“Think carefully about everything I have said. There is no escaping me, Sienna. It’s a matter of you coming to terms with that and seeing there is no other option.
I can see that’s what you want, you just need to take the step from lying to yourself to being true to yourself.
I suggest looking at what your heart says instead of your head. ”
And with those words and the confused expression on her face, I leave. But, as usual, I don’t go far.