Chapter 24
KENNA
L aney was sick.
The estate was on lockdown to prepare for Edward Ravencroft’s funeral. It was finally happening. Tomorrow morning. And she was ignoring me tucked in her bedroom, door locked. I tried.
Laney would be in attendance. As would her father.
Poised in the front row of the church, or inside the first car of the procession on some make believe throne that they deluded themselves into thinking they deserved, with authority they had no right to. But most of all, pretending that things weren’t falling apart behind the scenes. It was fake.
Discontent was brewing amongst the staff, rumours about Forrester’s disappearance were rife and with Novelli out the game, the Ravencroft Estate was poised for revolt. Sorren had given me a wink across the courtyard this morning, but I turned away.
I was the catalyst for revenge, but I’m only now realising that Sorren was the impetus for revolution.
After all this, I could only hope for resolution. The Karstein’s revenge plan has been in the works ever since we burned, but it was at St. James's where the obsession began for me.
Tasked with surveilling the princess granddaughter of Edward Ravencroft, I first laid eyes on Laney, pulling down her sleeves and keeping her head down as she walked from class to class. I thought she was cute, but maladroit.
I took my time confirming her identity to my parents. The scars on my back are a result of my tardiness. Many thanks to my dad. I didn’t think I’d be here again. More obsessed with her than ever, it was the opposite of what I wanted. What I needed.
I came to her long after nightfall like a phantom in the shadows. It was the only way to be incognito in a house like this. To my surprise, I found her door unlocked.
When I cracked the door open, I was hit with the warmth of the residual fire along with the sweet scent of lavender and lemongrass that was uniquely hers. Sorren hadn’t said how long he’d been tampering with her prescription, but I only had a finite amount of time before she got too sick. In the darkness, I took this opportunity to look for her migraine pills that I had failed to find in our shared bathroom.
Laney let out a melodic groan as she turned in her sleep to face me, likely sensing my presence in her space. I admired her briefly, so calm and peaceful in her dreams, until I noticed a small cardboard box sticking out from under her pillow.
A-ha.
I needed to get those pills away from her, but her intoxicating smell lured me into her bed. Warmth radiated from her, and it took everything in me to not collapse in her bed to snuggle in her body. I didn’t want to disturb her as I slipped beneath her sheets. Maybe, if we cuddled, which I was dying to do anyway, I could reach the medication and dispose of it tomorrow morning.
But the moment she felt the shift of the sheets, she shot up in her bed. When she saw it was me, no fear appeared in her widening eyes, just a wariness. She let out a long exhale, face glistening with a clear sheen as if she’d been crying, before turning on me. She looked as exhausted as me.
“You can’t be here.” She yelled in a lower register.
“Hasn’t stopped me before.” I said, as I continued my descent into her warming bed and laid down beside her. So close, yet not close enough. It was cosy and reminded me of the recent past. Things seemed so easy then.
“Well, I don’t want you here.”
“We both know that’s a lie. I came t—”
“Things have changed since then, Kenna. The magnitude of your invasion…I didn’t even consider it, everything is not as it seems. You have to leave.”
“I can’t.” I grinded my teeth together and outstretched an arm to lower her back onto the mattress, eyes fixed on her. “See, Laney, your little ramblings and affections are cemented in my fucking head. And you won’t leave it! So, I’m not going to leave you either.”
“Oh, you unilaterally decided that.” She said, but my extended arm almost reached the box of pills. I could feel it, but not quite grip it. “You’re a fool if you think this is a choice. There are bigger things at play here.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I’m a ploy, Laney, in this big fucking charade. My whole life led me here–” I stumbled for words, as I withdrew my arm, box in hand. “Please just listen to me. Forget this, forget us. Listen.”
She pushed her shoulders back, watching me intently. That was my move.
“You knew about Dylan?”
“I knew,” I continued, her face morphed to tearful panic, “Laney, you have to live with that.”
She nodded, a dark expression appearing on her face and her eyelids shut. “You know.”
“Yes, I know, it’s okay.” I cupped my hand on her cheek. Shame was the last thing I associated with her, or us. “This. This life…we all make choices, it’s best not to hide from them, just face them. Especially now.” Tilting her face so that her eyes were on me, focused, I said, “Dylan has a brother. He is also here, his name is Sorren. I’ve tried to talk him out of it, but he wants revenge. Foremost on you.”
It was like she was a deer in headlights. I was almost certain this mafia lifestyle had never reared its ugly head to look her directly in the face. Until now. I tried my best to not envy that. It wasn’t her choice. But now I saw her loneliness mirrored back in my eyes. She has been deeply marked by it. I didn’t know.
Then, her eyes glanced down, and colour flooded her cheeks. “Why have you got that?”
From any other angle this looked suspicious. “These were tampered with.”
“Oh my god, you are the one who has been making me sick!”
“No, no. I didn’t do this.” I shot my arms out in a motion to get her to calm down, but it just made her explode.
“Yes, you did! You’ve been making me sick from the beginning, everything changed since you arrived, and I thought it was fragrance. ” She spat. “I’m so stupid to not see it before. Of course it was you, it’s drugs.”
My features hardened. I needed her to know the truth. “It was Sorren, not me, you have to believe me.”
“I don’t know what I believe anymore. All this, I thought you just liked me.” Her eyes closed. “There’s always a purpose.”
“Princess,” I dropped my hands, “I won’t let anyone hurt you, I promise. Cross my heart.”
“I don’t believe you.” She whimpered and it punctured my heart a little bit.
“You have to trust me. Keep one eye over your shoulder and your knives up your sleeves, please. ”
“I do, I do, I always do.” She repeated like a vow, getting louder each time, and getting up from the bed. “I should’ve used them. On you.”
“Shhh,” I whispered, while mentally, I had to tell myself she didn’t mean it or else I feared my heart would fall right out my chest. “Father said he’d killed you.”
“He tried.” I admitted, soothing her gasp immediately by threading my arm around her back, pulling her back onto the bed. I needed her close, and she needed me, despite her words. “He also failed.”
“Thank God.” The sentiment warmed my cheeks. I hoped to override her instinct to flee with touch and affection. But we both knew this was a temporary fix.
We laid together for a minute, backs flat on the bed, both just staring at the ceiling. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the painting above her fireplace. It still hung but it was at an angle as if knocked in haste or purposely placed lopsided.
A smile played on my lips at the thought of her being unable to tack down the portrait that reminds her of me. I meant something to her. I knew it. She didn’t want me gone, she couldn’t stand it. And neither could I. With that in mind, I turned to my side on the bed, committing every inch of her to memory.
“Is this real?” Laney whispered, eyes stuck on the ceiling still.
“Always.”
“Not the circumstances. They were manufactured.” Her head turned in my direction. She still didn’t believe me. “Were the feelings too?”
Reaching out an arm, I pushed a hair that had fallen behind her ear. “No, all my emotions were real.”
“Even at the beginning?”
“At the time, I wouldn’t have thought so, but yes. I couldn’t deny you.”
“Even back at St James’s?”
I could tell she was fighting the insecurity in her heart that told her I cared for her because I had to. It wasn’t true. “From the first moment I ever saw you, my eyes have found you first in every room that I’ve walked into, and my heart has skipped a beat each time you returned it.” A single tear slid down her cheek, and I pressed a kiss to it to stop its journey.
“You know,” I continued, “When my mother told me I’d be going to state school to spy on this teenage girl, I almost threw a tantrum. The only knowledge of schools was from TV, so I told her that I didn’t want to be around those bratty, soft, and entitled girls. And she just said, ‘well, that’s tough,’ but little did she know, bratty and soft were my favourite kind of girl.” I poked her side, and she squirmed into a light laugh.
“Father calls me sensitive.” She said after a few moments.
In response, I draped an arm over her waist and pulled her close. “Sensitive is how I like it.”
Her eyebrows furrowed furiously. “Why?”
“Because sensitive is you.”
“Ugh, corny much? And that’s not a good thing, you know?”
“And why is that?”
“I feel things, too many things, too much. It holds me back.”
“It doesn’t have to be. You're very emotionally intelligent, it’s a strength.”
“Don’t flatter me.” She pulled a decorative cushion from behind her and hit me with it.
“I’m not.” I said, sternly, but I was laughing too.
“Well, you’re obsessed with me anyway, so your opinion doesn’t count.” It was a joke, but she didn’t know how true it was. She consumed me.
Hugging the cushion to her chest, she looked at me. The stagnant air filled the room with the overwhelming dread that all this was temporary. Tomorrow was the funeral. The deadline.
“I don’t want this to end.” She whimpered. “Don’t leave me.”
But I would. We both knew it, her father even before we did. “He tried to have me killed.” My voice cracked. “If he saw me here, saw me now, he wouldn’t hesitate.”
It was a devastating blow to deliver, and it made me bereft. Not because of the fact that Richard had designated me enemy number one, but because of the clinging arms that snaked around my neck. And with it, her legs cinched my waist stemming the blood from reaching my head. I didn’t care. Over the last couple weeks, she had become as important as oxygen.
If I were to lose her, I would at least revel in the feeling of lethargy that came with a lack of circulation and dread the blood rush that would fill my head again in her absence.
“I’m sorry.” She whispered into my neck, pulling her arms extra tight before she let go.
One more minute. I pleaded to myself. One more hug.
But she had other ideas, and as the blood returned to flow in its regular rotation, I couldn’t process how to respond to her next words.
“Tell me about this older woman at the Novelli house.” Her eyes darkened as she commanded me to look at her. I couldn’t control the voracious beat of my heart. This wouldn’t end well.
“How do you know about that?” I stammered.
“Aldo Novelli told me.”
That woke me up. “About me?” My fingers twist into knots. They weren’t meant to be here. Their operation should be in shambles, I made sure of it. Flavia was the bedrock of their family, without a floor to stand on how did they manage to walk all the way here?
“Hmmm.” She said, sinister. “I don’t think he knows it’s you in particular.”
I tried my hardest not to panic. “And he’s here? Right now? On the estate.”
“Yup.” She said with a pop of the ‘p’.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins, while I tried to keep my breathing even. “Don’t punish me, Laney. I’ll tell you anything, what do you want to know?”
“Did she fuck you or did you fuck her?”
I took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “It doesn’t matter. How many Novelli members are here?”
“Yes, it does matter. Was she better than me?”
“What? You jealous?” I challenged. She was finding reasons to hate me. Maybe this was for the best? “You want to know all the other girls I’ve touched before you.” My voice turned seductive. “Every pussy I licked. Every mouth that sucked mine. Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” she hissed. “Every goddamn detail.”
I knew it had to be a lie. Heavy hands trailed her body as I attempted to call her bluff. “The Novelli housekeeper left one button of her blouse undone every single day. It was easy access for when she pushed my back into the fridge, her hand under the short skirt they made me wear with stockings.”
“Was she good?” Laney asked, red in the face.
“So good,” I moaned, but I wanted to cry. “She kept me up every night in her office, fucking me repeatedly on every surface. Wall. Desk. Floor. Chair. ”
She gasped and her hand fisted in the fabric of my jacket. I slapped a hand over her mouth as I bent my head to get close to her ear. If this was what she wanted, I’d indulge.
“My pussy was always wet for her,” I said, but she was more important. “As you are for me.”
“No.” She sounded uncertain, and thrashed against my grip, but I already had my hand in her shorts, the heat from her core radiating. I didn’t touch her.
“Jealous yet?”
Defiant, she turned her head away. “Never.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t want this.” I gripped her upper thigh, hard. “That you don’t want me .”
“No.” With a groan, she reached for me, tugging on the lapels of my jacket to drag me closer.
“Nuh-uh.” I taunted her. “Ask nicely.”
She kept quiet but pulled harder.
“Laney…”
“Give it to me!”
In a swift motion, I gripped my hand on her throat. “I said nicely.”
“You don’t deserve nice.”
“You’ll get what I give. In or out?”
She looked anywhere but at me. “In.”
I had my fingers wedged in her in a second. She keened as I curled my finger, both rough and rhythmic as I built her up. “You’re soaked, princess. You sure you don’t like me.”
She ignored me to pry my hand from her throat and lean back on her elbows, with the change of angle, a desperate moan escaped her throat. “Please.”
“Not yet. Hold still.”
My fingers glided smoothly from her opening to her clit. Then I pulled my fingers away from her, inserting down to wet my clit. I moaned at the pressure.
She squirmed, fidgeting with the buttons on my jeans and yanking them down. Her movements were rough. We laughed between heavy pants. Finally, cool air touched my thighs.
I kissed her then. Pushing myself inside, desperate to get deeper, closer until I would be submerged in her heat. Her nails grazed my back, sure to leave marks tomorrow morning, but for this moment, I didn’t care.
Her hand skated up my body, under my bra, making my nipples harden before she could touch them. When she did, I moaned into her mouth, breaking our connection to gasp before descending back into her warmth.
My hand rubbed circles into my clit. I grabbed her hand to replace mine as I moved my mouth from hers to go down on her. Tit for tat. When she rubbed, I sucked. Our bodies in tune with each other, like an endless battle of give or take.
I brought her to the precipice just before I pulled away and placed a kiss on her clit. Moving my body away from hers, she dropped her hands too. Confusion marred her features.
“I want to look at you,” I explained and reached a hand down to my own clit, circling it as I watched her do the same. It took an effort to commit this image to memory. Her high, her fall and her comedown. I wanted that journey to keep repeating. Daily. It was only ever about sex.
Her eyes were shut when I hit my orgasm.
Afterward, we laid beside each other. She scratched my head with her nails, lightly, weaving intricate patterns in my hair. It was bittersweet. We could only get this kind of peace behind locked doors.
“So, you’re really a Karstein. You can’t pull a 180 on me, change identities again to someone who isn’t an enemy.”
“No can do.” I replied sadly.
“Why are you here?” She continued the massage on my scalp. “Like really? What is your plan?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Stop hiding from me, I won’t think you’re a monster. I already know your penchant for murder.”
“It wasn’t always by choice, believe me.”
“What is your real name, Kenna?”
“Kilina. Kilina Karstein.”
A slow nod confirmed she heard me. “I won’t tell anyone, Kilina.” She whispered. “If you don’t hurt the people I love. Leave us alone, but I can’t guarantee that Father won’t come for you again.” Little did she know there were other actors at play. The funeral was tomorrow, the big showdown. I prayed she wouldn’t get hurt in the crosshairs. She met my eye then. “Stay safe.”
My stomach dropped as I stood silent. This was goodbye. Though, I hoped that she knew that I would get to her father before he ever approached me.
“Please leave. We’re over.”
“Princess.” I pleaded.
She crawled back to bed. “Go.” And turned the light off.
Escaping through the window into the dark night, I swore I heard the crash of glass.