Chapter 23
Cullan
I t doesn’t take me long to track Elena down, but I’m confused about why she’s come to this unassuming brick house on the far side of Blackport so late at night.
Rather than knocking on the front door, I carefully and quietly walk down the side of the house, peering in the windows as I go, looking for any sign of her.
There are lights on in the kitchen at the back of the house. I move closer to the back windows and peer between the lace curtains. My eyes move lower, and I see blood and bodies strewn across the tiled floor.
Fear seizes me. One of them is Elena. She’s sitting on the floor, pressed into a corner of the room. There’s blood spray all over her upper body and face. I can’t see any wounds, but her eyes are open, and she’s breathing.
There’s a pair of bloody scissors in her red right hand.
I have my backpack with me, and I quickly extract lockpicks and open the back door.
There are two bodies between me and Elena, and a whole lot of blood.
Two female bodies. I wonder if these women could be her aunts that I’ve heard a little about.
I step over them to get to Elena, and crouch down before her.
“Elena? Where are you hurt? Who attacked you?”
Elena doesn’t show any sign that she’s heard me.
She’s staring straight ahead, her eyes glassy.
There’s blood all over my woman, and with my heart in my throat, I search her chest and stomach for wounds.
Her flesh is unmarred. Her clothing isn’t even torn.
I pull her forward to check her back, but there’s no blood there.
I go on examining her arms and legs for wounds, and even her hands are unmarred.
It’s an effort to prize the scissors out of her grip. The scissors are sharp, pointed, and bloody.
I glance over my shoulder at the two dead women and frown.
Going over, I examine them more closely. The woman closest to Elena has been stabbed in the chest and throat multiple times through her dressing gown. There are cuts on her hands and forearms as though she tried to defend herself.
I move to the other woman. She lays on her back and stares at the ceiling, blood trickling over her temple from a split eyebrow, but most of the blood is from a wound on the back of her head. There’s blood and strands of hair caught on the corner of the kitchen table.
I place the scissors thoughtfully on the kitchen table.
Two murders. Or one murder, and one accidental death. And not a scratch on my Elena.
I go back and hunker down before Elena. She’s trembling now, shaking so hard that her throat is locked up and she can barely breathe. I take her hands, and they’re as cold as blocks of ice. “Elena? Can you hear me? What happened?”
Elena’s eyes are glassy, and she can only repeat the same words over and over again. “I’ve ruined everything. I’ve ruined everything. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
I smooth her hair back from her head and plant kisses on her bloody brow. “You’re safe with me. I’ve got you. I won’t let anything happen to you, darlin’.”
She shakes her head emphatically. “I’m disgusting. I’m terrible. I’m wrong.”
“No, you’re not. You’re my beautiful, kind, loving Elena.”
She keeps shaking her head and speaking in repetitions. “Bad. Bad. Bad.”
I take her face in my hands. “This is me. It’s Cullan. Elena, look at me. It’s Cullan.”
Slowly, her eyes meet mine. Her face creases, and she starts to sob. “Oh, Cullan. You’re going to hate me when you find out what I did. I’m going to jail. I’m never going to see you or Rosie again. ”
I’m guessing the “something bad” is the dead bodies on the floor.
I smooth my thumbs over her cheeks, and ask softly, “Elena, did you put laxatives in my ex’s smoothie? Did you throw a brick through Leon’s car window?”
Looking more scared than I’ve ever seen her, she whispers, “I did.”
I already knew it because I checked the security footage when I heard that Rebecca apparently had gastro or food poisoning after being in my house. I also tracked where Elena was when Leon’s car was vandalized. I need to know if Elena will be truthful with me when I ask my next two questions.
“Elena, are these women your aunts? Did you kill them?”
Her face creases and she sobs. “They are. I did. I’m so sorry.”
Like I give a damn about a couple of dead aunts.
“It’s okay, darlin’,” I coax her. “Just tell me what happened.”
“I st-stabbed Aunt Astrid. Three times, I think. Maybe more. Aunt Frieda ran away, but she hit her head and fell down.”
That tracks with what I saw on their bodies, but what the hell happened here tonight to make my sweet Elena snap and do something so violent? “Can you tell me why you did it?” I ask gently.
But her confession has turned her white with panic. “I’m never going to see you and Rosie again. ”
“Would it matter to you, not seeing us ever again?”
Tears pour down her cheeks. “I’d feel like I were dead. It’s the worst thing I can imagine.” Elena breaks down sobbing as though the shackles are already around her wrists, the jury has convicted her, and she’s being led away to prison for the rest of her life.
I press a kiss to her forehead, and whisper, “What if I told you that you can have both of us, me and Rosie, and I will love you and protect you for the rest of my life?”
Elena stares up at me, her blue eyes filled with confusion. “What?”
“And our baby, too. You’re pregnant, aren’t you? I found the pregnancy test.”
“I am,” she confesses in a scared whisper. “I’m having your baby.”
For a sweet moment, I press my forehead to hers and close my eyes. “Darlin’, those are the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard. We’re going to be a family, the four of us. We’re going to be so happy together.”
Her eyes are red from crying and filled with fear. “But how can we? I’ve committed a horrible crime. The police are going to find out it was me who killed my aunts.”
“Are they? I don’t think so,” I say nonchalantly.
Elena stares at me in confusion.
“I’ll get rid of the bodies for you. No one will ever know.”
“Why would you do that for me? How do you even know how to do that? You’ll get into so much trouble. You’re a good man, and I can’t let you do this. ”
I take a deep breath.
It’s now or never.
I take my backpack off my shoulder and reach inside. “You were truthful with me, Elena. I’m going to be truthful with you.”
I pull something over my face and look at Elena through the eye holes. I know she’s seen the Red Mask Killer in the news. Her wide eyes run over my masked face, and her lips part.
“Are you going to run from me, darlin’?”
She thinks about this. “If I run, you’ll chase me.”
“Yes, I will. But I don’t want to. My heart will wither as I chase you, along with my dearest hope.”
Elena reaches up and touches the mask, stroking the shiny red surface with the tips of her fingers. “What’s your dearest hope?”
“That the woman I love can look upon my true face and love me back.”
She contemplates me for a long time. “The people you killed. Did they deserve it?”
I tilt my head to one side, considering my answer.
“That’s an interesting question. I’m not some kind of vigilante, if that’s what you’re hoping.
I’m not motivated by a sense of justice, but I picked people who I’ve long thought are worthless and don’t deserve to be here.
But I’m no better than they are after what I’ve done.
I’ll tell you a secret, Elena.” I lean closer, and whisper, “I haven’t felt one touch of guilt.
No remorse lives in my heart. Only pleasure.
My only regret is that I didn’t start killing sooner, but I guess I needed a good reason to start. ”
“What reason was that?”
My eyes caress her face. “You.”
I expect Elena to reel back in horror, but all that registers on her face is mild surprise. “Me?”
My lips curve in a dark smile behind the mask. “You kissed me, darlin’. Right after I killed those men in Fenton. I decided then and there that I needed you forever, and I decided I needed me, too. The real me. You gave me hope that you could love the man I really am.”
She thinks about this for a long time. “Are you going to ask me if my aunts deserved to die?”
I shake my head. “I’m sure you had your reasons.”
“Ask me.”
“If that’s what you want. Your aunts. Did they deserve to die?”
“They didn’t. Ask me if I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care if you’re sorry.”
“Ask me,” she insists, reaching up to grip my shoulders.
“Are you sorry they’re dead?”
“I’m not.” She laughs, a breathless, astonished kind of laugh.
“What a relief it is to say that. I would have pretended to be sorry if a neighbor came in here tonight and found me, or the cops, or a friend. If it were anyone else, I would have wept tears of remorse, but those tears would have been a lie. I wouldn’t be sorry that they’re dead.
I’d only be sorry that I lost you and Rosie.
Those were the tears I shed just now. For you and Rosie. ”
I take her face in my hands. “We’re the same, you and me. We’re meant to be.”
She grasps the chin of the mask and pushes it atop my head. As soon as she uncovers my mouth, she kisses me. She moans against my lips and wraps her bloodstained arms around my neck.
I don’t care if the room is red and dripping or the bodies of her dead aunts are lying nearby. I love Elena so much.
“Yours is the only heart that matters to me,” I say between kisses, taking her face in my hands as I devour her mouth. “Yours, Rosie’s, and our baby’s. I will do anything to keep you. I have done so many insane things already to keep you that you don’t know about.”
“Like what?” she asks breathlessly.
“Your contraceptives are vitamin patches. I’ve been trying to get you pregnant this whole time.”
Her mouth drops open in surprise. “Cullan!”
“Do you think I could sleep at night knowing your beautiful body was full of hormones that blocked your fertility? I had to make you mine, and this was the fastest way I could think of. Besides, I want a family with you, and I hate waiting for what I want.”
She twines her fingers through my hair, curiosity glimmering in her eyes. “What else have you done to keep me?” There’s a purr in her voice. I’ve been insane for her, and she’s not afraid. She likes it.
I smile wickedly. “Can you guess?”
Elena thinks for a moment. “My life has been so happy. Suspiciously happy. You’ve done things to make it that way, haven’t you?”
“One or two things.”
Her nails dig into my shoulders and her eyes darken with desire. “Tell me every crazy thing you’ve done. Make this your love confession. Tell me all the ways I’ve made you insane.”
I press my mouth over hers and stroke her with my tongue.
Elena unfastens my shirt and opens it. “I ruined your life. I ripped it apart and put it back together again just how I wanted it, and I took great pleasure in doing it. I destroyed your apartment. Shut down the diner. Broke up you and Leon by sending you all those texts. Moved you in with me.”
“You beast,” she breathes, scratching her nails down my chest, hard enough to leave marks.
I pick her up in my arms and carry her through to the living room. “I’d do it all again. No hesitation.”
On the rug, we rip at each other’s clothes until we’re both naked enough that her nipples are bare to my mouth, and my cock can sink into her slick heat. Elena cries out and scratches her nails over me again.
“I thought of you as I killed,” I confess as I hammer my cock into her.
“As the euphoria washed over me, I imagined sinking my cock into you so deep. Pushing my hand against your belly and feeling you from the outside.” I do exactly that, pressing so hard on her stomach that I feel the outline of my cock in her belly.
Pleasure tightens my lungs, Fuck, I need this woman .
“You’re everything I was warned about and worse,” Elena says, moving her hand down between us to encircle my thrusting cock and then caress her clit.
“I’ve been watching you. I’ve been tracking you. There are cameras all over my house. Not just in the nursery.”
“You watched me while I was in the shower? Getting changed? Sleeping?”
“Often while you were sleeping. I never watched you while you were naked or showering. I tortured myself by switching off the cameras.”
She smirks at me. “Cullan, I thought we weren’t lying to each other.”
“I swear it. After all I’ve confessed, I wouldn’t start lying now. I didn’t look at you, but I listened. The sound of you showering is etched into my brain. How I wanted to be those water droplets running over your skin.”
“You never saw me naked until the night in the walled garden?”
“There was one time…”
“I knew it.”
“I couldn’t help myself. I watched my son ineffectually going down on you, making you feel inadequate.
Turning what should be a beautiful experience for you into an ordeal.
My willpower snapped. I locked him out of the house, and as you know, I went down on you myself.
I was so jealous. I was so hungry for you.
I would do it all again.” I take her jaw in my hand and whisper against her lips, “Do you forgive me for my terrible crimes?”