Chapter 24
Elena
T here’s blood on both our lips, and it lays heavy on my tongue. Cullan’s cock is thrust deep inside me while the dead bodies of my aunts lie just a few feet away.
This is the worst thing I’ve ever done. I don’t feel sorry, and I can’t get enough of Cullan.
He slams into me again and again, lighting up my insides with pleasure. “Do you forgive a starving man, Elena? That’s what I am. Starving for you.”
He switched out my birth control for vitamin patches and watched his son go down on me through hidden cameras, and I can’t make myself feel anything except glad about it. I was miserable with Leon. Cullan has turned my life upside down, and I love him for it.
“I am too full of love to ever be angry with you.” I stroke my clit while he works himself deeper into me, and I moan and arch my back. “Too full of your cock as well. Oh, God, Cullan.”
“My cock,” he says raggedly, thrusting into me. “My baby.” He thrusts again. “My woman. You’re all mine, Elena. I’m never going to let you go.”
I shouldn’t love a killer as much as I love Cullan.
His dark, possessive words shouldn’t make my soul catch fire.
At long last, I don’t care what it means that he’s everything I’ve ever wanted, and that his true face is the deadliest, most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen. It only matters that he loves me.
I wrap my thighs around his hips and bite down on his shoulder as my orgasm bursts through me. I feel him follow me a moment later, climaxing with sharp thrusts of his cock, and then we lay gasping in each other’s arms.
When he sits up, I stroke my fingers through his hair. “You really don’t care why I killed my aunts?”
He shakes his head. “You can tell me if you want, but I won’t judge you. Whatever the reason, I support you, no matter what.”
“Oh, Cullan,” I manage in a choked voice. I didn’t know I needed to hear these words so badly. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too, my beautiful girl,” he whispers against my lips before kissing me .
After he pulls out and we tidy ourselves up, I tell him about my aunts’ so-called promise to tell me who my mother is if I gave them enough money, and then about tonight when they admitted it was all a lie.
Cullan’s face darkens in anger and he casts their bodies a murderous look. “If they weren’t already dead, I’d kill them. They gave you false hope all this time? Those monstrous bitches.”
They say you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, and I’m sure that counts doubly so when the dead in question are laying right there, but Cullan’s vitriol is a balm to my soul. They are monstrous bitches.
He takes my face in his hands. “You killed them because they backed you into a corner, and you couldn’t see a way out. They didn’t give you a way out. Had I known about this, I would have wrung their horrid little necks the first night I met you.”
They fooled me for years, making me hope in vain that I would someday meet my mother, and all the while they took my money, knowing it was a lie. The hope was the cruelest part.
He captures my mouth in a fierce kiss. When he breaks the kiss, he says, “I want nothing more than to take you away from here, but there are things I must do. Dawn is just before six a.m. Some people will be up at five, which means these bodies need to be taken care of and all this blood needs to be mopped up by four.”
“I’ll help you. Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it. ”
He shakes his head. “You leave. I’ll take care of everything.”
I clutch his wrists. “After the mess I’ve made here and all you’ve done for me? I’m staying. We’re doing this together.”
He regards me with a somber expression. “This place is going to get grislier and bloodier before it gets cleaner. You knew these women. You won’t like what I have to do to them. I will not think less of you if you leave now. Shouldering this task for you would be my honor.”
It’s so loving of him to offer to spare me, but I won’t walk away from situations that I’ve caused, and I don’t want to dump all this on Cullan. “We’re in this together. I’m staying.”
He kisses me. “All right. Let’s get to work.”
As we survey the kitchen, I ask him, “Are you going to make it look like the Red Mask Killer did this?”
He shakes his head as he shrugs into his shirt. “If I tried, the police wouldn’t believe it. I do things cleanly with no chance for my prey to run from me. This crime scene wasn’t controlled by the killer, and this place is a mess.”
“Damn. I wasn’t expecting the murders I committed tonight to be critiqued by a professional.”
Cullan’s lips twitch. “No offence intended. It was pretty good for a beginner.”
The black humor of the situation breaks over me, and a hysterical laugh threatens to rise up my throat. “Don’t make me laugh, or I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”
He kisses me. “No laughing. Time to get to work. Help me lay down garbage bags between here and the bathroom. We need to make sure this blood doesn’t spread. This place won’t pass a luminol test, but that doesn’t matter if no one gets suspicious.”
“Luminol?” I ask.
“It luminesces in contact with even tiny traces of blood. We can fool the naked eye, but not a luminol test. We’re going to make sure that no one ever thinks of doing one.”
After the bags are laid down, Cullan goes out to his truck and comes back with a hand saw and several spare serrated blades. One by one, he carries my aunts’ bodies over the plastic bags and through to the bathroom.
With Aunt Astrid in the tub, Cullan ties the shower curtain around himself like an apron and picks up the saw. “You don’t have to watch this.”
“I won’t. I’m going to clean the kitchen.” But I linger just long enough to see him get to work sawing through Aunt Astrid’s thigh bone. He works methodically, the tool slicing quickly through her flesh and then more slowly through her thigh bone.
“Could you please bring me any luggage that the women have and line the bags with plastic?” he calls over his shoulder. “And lay out two or three days’ worth of clothes and toiletries on the bed, along with their handbags and IDs.”
“You got it,” I tell him, going through to the bed to get to work. I have an inkling that I won’t be seeing my aunts’ murders on the news.
I fetch the luggage and lay out the belongings that Cullan asked for, and then I get to work cleaning the kitchen, starting with the cabinet doors and kitchen table, and then moving on to the puddles and streaks of blood on the floor.
It takes a lot of mopping and several buckets of hot, sudsy water before the floor, walls, and cabinets are clean.
I feel no remorse as I wring bloody water from the washcloth.
My only concerns are that I do a good enough job cleaning so that I get away with murder, and I don’t drag Cullan down with me.
When I’m certain that the kitchen is spotless, I go through to the bathroom. Cullan is zipping up the last of three large suitcases, and there’s not even one spot of blood in the tub. I glance into the bedroom and see that there’s nothing on the bed.
“Where are their belongings?” I ask.
“Inside the cases. Your dear aunts are going on vacation.”
Now I understand Cullan’s plan. Anyone who comes in here will see a normal but empty house. “Do you think I’m going to get away with what I did?”
Cullan smiles and kisses me. “That’s the plan, my partner in crime. Help me with these cases.”
It’s five minutes to four in the morning as we quietly load the suitcases into the back of Cullan’s truck. The street is dark and there are no passersby, and thankfully there’s a demolished lot across the street. No witnesses to what we’re doing.
“I’ll come back for their car later,” Cullan tells me. “ Who would your aunts tell if they were going away for a little while?”
I consider this as we get into the truck and drive away. “Just Father Connell at the church.”
“I’ll handle him. In about six weeks, there’s going to be an accidental fire that destroys your aunts’ house, and then you’re going to report your aunts missing. You’ll have to speak with the police. I wish there was a way around that. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll be okay,” I promise him. I take a deep breath and examine my feelings. I really think I will be okay. I feel no regret or remorse over what I’ve done.
He kisses my knuckles as he drives.
At home, Cullan takes me inside through the garage door and into the kitchen. “I need you to take a nap for me. I know it’s probably the last thing you want to do right now, but when you wake up, Rosie will be here, and she’ll need you.”
“I’ll try my best,” I promise. “What about you?”
“I’ll sleep later. After I fetch Rosie, there are some things I need to do. Don’t worry about me, I’m used to dangerous, sleepless nights.” He kisses me. “But you’re pregnant with my baby, so I need you to rest. Promise me you’ll try?”
I feel very warm and protected hearing him say that.
“I promise. And thank you,” I tell him, seizing his hands.
“Words can’t explain how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for me.
” From tying my shoelace in Archer’s Diner the first day I met him, to saving my life in Fenton, to helping me cover up my aunts’ murders.
“Elena, my heart is full of nothing but love for you. Let’s get you to bed.”
I don’t expect I’ll be able to sleep very much as Cullan tucks me into bed wearing one of his T-shirts, which is soft from going many times through the wash, but as soon as he switches the light off, exhaustion overwhelms me.
I wake sometime later to the sound of Rosie’s happy chattering and Cullan’s deep, amused voice answering her.
The sound of their voices soothes me. Maybe now things can get back to normal, or rather, we can begin a new normal where I’m free from my aunts, living a life where Cullan and I are finally allowed to plan our future.
Cullan comes into the room, sees I’m awake, and kisses me. “Good morning, darlin’.” Then he moves to the wardrobe and takes down two overnight bags.
“Why are you packing?” I murmur sleepily.