Chapter 22 #2
I dragged my knuckles along the two words scrawled at the top, watching her closely. A simple message: ‘call me’. And she had. Within seconds. The photo itself was the ultimate message. A closeup of her failure to comply with the rules.
Jenny lay on the basement floor, bloody and beaten almost beyond recognition. Almost.
“You really did think you were more clever than me, didn’t you?
That you had some power by aligning yourself with the enemy.
I will say, I’m glad you did the right thing.
Not that I would have actually hurt our son.
The threat, though, was enough. You fell for it.
Never underestimate a mother’s need to protect her young. Am I right?”
“Cameron, please, you don’t have to do this,” she begged.
“Oh, but I do. You’ve lost, Victoria.” I shoved the picture in her face. “Look at what you’ve done. Poor, poor Jenny. She was just doing her job. Not her fault you turned into a psychopath.”
My gaze stayed fixed, and the silence stretched between us. Her breathing faltered under the weight of her newfound reality. Let her sit with the knowledge that all of this was her fault. Hers and hers alone.
When she couldn’t bear it anymore, she tore her gaze from the photo. Her shattered eyes met mine. Staring back at me was a woman who now understood she’d lost. The moment truly was bittersweet.
The tires crunched over the gravel driveway as the car slowed to a stop in front of the house.
Our house. The place she thought she could escape.
I glanced at her as Nigel stepped out to open the door.
Tension hummed beneath the surface. Her body tensed, and her breathing grew shallower. She didn’t want to go inside.
“Time to face the music.”
The door swung open, and I stepped out. I offered her my hand. She hesitated, but a loud sigh followed as she resigned herself to her fate. She stepped out and turned toward the house. Before she could take a single step, my hand curled around her wrist. Her body stiffened, but she didn’t resist.
“Good girl,” I mocked before leaning in close, just enough for her to feel my breath against her ear. “Welcome home.”
Her loud sob was the only reaction I needed. With a firm tug, I guided her forward and led her up the steps and through the front door. The moment it shut behind us, the weight of it all hit. The proverbial noose tightened around her throat.
She had the nerve to dig her heels in as we headed toward the front room, and her resistance finally broke through the eerie compliance from the car.
But it didn’t matter. I dragged her the rest of the way.
The heels of her new trainers scuffed against the polished floor as I pulled her.
She stumbled slightly, but I tightened my hold, forcing her inside the room.
I shoved her toward the couch that sat before the mirror. The two-way mirror—the one I had constructed as a reminder. God, I wished I could tell the two geniuses from her past how much I appreciated their house of horrors. Her trembling became more pronounced.
“Now,” I murmured, tilting my head as I inhaled the scent of her fear. “Why don’t we get started?”
As much as I longed to hurt her, truly hurt her, beat her beyond recognition for what she’d done, I couldn’t.
In order for my plan to work, she would have to be mark free.
In fact, the only marks Victoria would likely sustain would be the ones Jenny would inflict.
That was if the poor nanny was strong enough in the end to fight back.
“I can’t wait to show you what you’ve done up close,” I taunted.
Excitement coursed through me, and my cock actually stirred. Part of the problem was that it took increasingly dark things for my body to respond sexually anymore. I was tired of Victoria at this point in our marriage.
Over the last year, she had developed some sort of coping mechanism, and since I’d tortured her extensively with her greatest fears, nothing got a rise out of her .
But maybe this would, and if the opportunity presented itself, I wouldn’t hesitate to take full advantage of that. I grew harder just thinking about it.
“Well, let the show begin. The sooner the better. Declan and I have a life to get on with, after all. It’s too bad Andrew has knowledge of what he looks like or I would have the new nanny I hire take him in for counseling.
Oh well, you can’t have everything in life, now can you?
But at least you can die knowing that I’ll get him some care. ”
“Cameron, I can tell you’re committed to this. Please don’t subject him to whatever it is. He shouldn’t have to pay for my mistakes.”
“You should have thought of that.” I shrugged.
Nigel would bring Declan down to the room and tell him I wanted him to wait for me. Knowing my son, he’d ask why. That was planned out too. Say what you want about me, but I never did things half-assed.
After being told I needed to have a serious conversation with him about his mummy, he would settle down right in front of the mirror. His curiosity would get the best of him the minute I hit the switch, changing the mirror into a window. He’d draw closer.
Victoria would be in place, and when the first gasp of horror left his lips, it would be sweet justice for me.
By the end, he would give a first-hand account of his mother drowning Jenny and then hanging herself.
At that point, Nigel and I would switch places.
Him to record the last of her twitching, and me to save our son and make the call.
I checked my watch. We were doing excellently on time. I walked toward the side table. Everything was folded and waiting. I reached for the gloves first. Then the coveralls. Victoria sat silent, confusion tightening her posture, her hands clasped in front of her. I didn’t bother explaining.
Stepping inside the coveralls, I hummed a familiar tune. One she frequently wrote about in her journals. Something about the Carnival of the Animals. What was it again? The Swan. That’s right. The question in her eyes grew louder with every note. The zipper cut through the quiet.