27. Chapter Twenty-Six
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MARGERY
S everal days had passed since Margery had had corner time. Ethan had been in and out of the room each day. He always made sure he was there for meal times at least. Sometimes, he was there until she fell asleep at night, and sometimes, he left right after he fed her.
Yeah, he fed her every single meal. She tried to argue with him, but he told her no matter what, he was going to feed her. That she could be a good girl and sit on the bed or chair, or she could be a naughty girl and sit in a highchair.
That quieted her down. While the thought of sitting in a highchair intrigued her, she didn’t want to do it.
Margery was still struggling if she was going to try and run away. Her head was full of working out what to call him, she was in and out of calling him Daddy. She had almost said it out loud a couple of times, but she had stopped herself. She didn’t need to get used to calling him that.
But he had been so nice to her. He knew Margery was still wary about accepting things. He had been nice and allowed her to sleep on her own for who knew how long. He told her it would be a couple of weeks, but she didn’t know how much time had passed.
It was sweet of him to think of her like that. It showed that he really cared for her. Which only proved to be a dilemma for her. He kept doing and saying things that made it so much harder to leave and deny wanting him.
He was a criminal and did illegal things. He had killed for her and had stalked her.
But knowing those things turned her on even more. He did those things to protect her. To keep her safe. She loved Ethan, and her love for him was only deepening with every passing minute.
It scared her beyond belief.
Was it wrong for her to love him? There was a part of her that thought it was wrong. He had put her through things he probably shouldn’t have.
Margery looked over at Jonesy, who was sitting on the bed.
“I don’t know what to do. Is it wrong? Should I leave and move on?”
She didn’t even know if she would be allowed to leave, but maybe she could escape after a couple of weeks when he trusted her a little more.
Don’t think. Just go with your gut and feelings, Jonesy replied.
“But I can’t do that. He’s a bad person who has done bad things. I know he’s killed at least two people, and he didn’t even flinch for one of them. Didn’t even seem bothered by it. That tells me he’s done it so many times before. And then yesterday, he told me that it could take weeks or days, depending on how active the person was, for their arms to tear from their body.”
Marjory still couldn’t wrap her brain around that. She knew everything he said was true and accurate. But the way he calmly talked about it, like it didn’t bother him at all, was what threw her off.
She knew she shouldn’t be shocked, but she was. She had never been around that. and there he went, talking about it like it wasn’t gruesome and an evil thing to do.
You love him, though. You know you do. You also know he’s going to keep you safe no matter what.
Margery glared at Jonesy. “You aren’t helping. He’s a bad person. I should be running for the hills. The way he talks about things like it’s normal when it’s not. The fact that he can kill. Who knows what else he will do? And he stalked me for a long time, played mind games.”
She turned away from Jonesy and ran her hands through her hair. She knew Jonesy couldn’t actually respond to her, but she liked to believe he could. Especially when she didn’t have anybody else to talk to. Did it make her insane? Probably. But she had done it since she was a kid.
“I just want somebody to make the decision for me. I don’t want to think about it anymore. I’m tired of making the decisions. But I know no one else can make them for me!” she yelled in frustration.
She looked back at Jonesy and waited for him to say something. But he never did.
“So, you aren’t going to talk to me now. You’ve said all that you want to say.” Her hands flew in the air and then slapped her thighs. “Thank you so much for nothing. I really appreciate you trying to help me in a situation when I desperately needed it.”
She sighed and closed her eyes for a couple of seconds.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that to you, not when you have helped me in several situations. I’m just a little frustrated, and I don’t know what to do.”
Tears filled her eyes. She needed to calm down and clear her head. Maybe she should take a shower. It always seemed to help her before she started to get too overwhelmed. A nice, hot shower.
“I’ll be back, Jonesy. Don’t go anywhere. I’m counting on your helping me once I have a clear head.”
Jonesy gave her an imaginary nod. Turning around, Margery grabbed her clothes and headed toward the bathroom. Hopefully, this would be peaceful, like the first part of her cabin trip, and would allow her to think about things. She just hoped it didn’t get interrupted like that cabin trip had done.
She wanted to be able to relax and let her mind go blank. Almost like resetting her brain so that when she finished, she would have a clarity.
Margery turned on the shower and started to strip. Her body craved the feeling of being under the hot water.
“Just a couple more seconds,” she mumbled to herself.
Margery didn’t know why she didn’t think of doing this earlier. Anytime she got overwhelmed with something, she always took a hot shower. Sometimes for a long time, to the point when she ran out of hot water.
She tested the water with her hand and hissed as it burned her skin. It always hurts for the first couple of seconds, but after that, it was pure bliss.
Pulling back the curtain, she stepped in and closed it behind her.
“You’re ready.”
She took a deep breath and let the water spray her back. Margery clenched her jaw and took deep breaths through her nose. The first couple of seconds were by far the hardest. It was a mental game. If she could last through this and get to the good part, she could do just about anything.
Slowly, she turned her body, allowing the water to hit new parts of her skin.
“You’ve got this,” she whispered to herself.
Once it became pure bliss, she relaxed and just let the water hit her skin. She hadn’t even thought of asking Daddy if there was a time limit for the hot water. But right now, she didn’t care. She needed this, and she was going to take it. Even if Ethan told her there was, she probably still would have taken up all the hot water.
Margery didn’t know how long she stood in the shower. At one point, she started to get lightheaded, but she didn’t want to leave. It felt so good and kept her mind off everything.
“Little one?” Daddy called out.
She stayed quiet. Maybe he would realize she was taking a shower and leave her alone. She needed to stop calling him Daddy in her mind. It was becoming more comfortable, more attached, and she hadn’t even made up her mind yet.
Or maybe she had and was struggling with her decision. Margery didn’t know, and she didn’t really want to think about it.
“Little one?” Daddy’s voice rang clearer. He was in the bathroom. “Margery? Can you answer Daddy?”
But she didn’t want to end her bliss. She wanted to continue to have a blank mind for just a little bit longer.
“It’s awfully hot and steamy in here. How long have you been in here?”
“Don’t know,” she mumbled, not caring whether he heard her or not.
Before she could register his movements, the water was turned off, and the curtain was pulled back.
“Oh, it’s a Little one,” Ethan gently said as he looked up and down. “Let’s go and take care of your skin.”
Daddy helped her out of the shower. Carefully, he wrapped a towel around her and helped her sit on the toilet seat.
“I know everything must be overwhelming for you, but you can’t do this. It’s hurting your skin.”
“Needed to clear my head,” she whispered.
Daddy ran his hands through her hair several times before he stood and grabbed a bottle of something. Was it lotion? Her eyes tracked his every movement.
“Next time you need to clear your head, you come and let me know. We’ll figure something out that won’t harm you.”
Margery shook her head, though. She didn’t want it to be taken away from her. It was the only method she knew that would help clear her head. How was he going to help her with that?
“Yes, Little one. When you need to clear your head next time, you come straight to Daddy. There are different ways to clear a person’s head that won’t harm your skin,” he worried as he started to apply lotion to her feet and legs. “Daddy’s going to take care of you right now.”
She watched him for several minutes as he took his time apply the lotion. He didn’t press too hard; his touch was delicate and soothing.
“You’re a bad person,” she whispered.
Margery didn’t know why she blurted that out. Maybe it was to see his reaction, or maybe it was because she wanted to fill the silence and didn’t know what else to say. Her mind had been on him every second of the day, trying to figure out if it was okay or not to be with him. Would she hate herself if she stayed with him, knowing he did those things?
Daddy stopped rubbing the cream into her thigh. His hands were under the towel. There he was again, being polite and not looking at her private parts.
Why couldn’t he just be a truly evil person so her decision was easier? Why did he have to be such a gentleman and say the right things?
But he wasn’t a truly evil person. He was a gentleman to her and took care of her. Right now was the perfect example.
“I am a bad person, but I’m still your Ethan, your Daddy. I’m the Ethan you knew before I faked my death,” he clarifiedd.
She shook her head. “I’m not so sure,” she mumbled.
There were still little aspects of him that reminded her of who he was before he died. But he had also changed so much.
“I am. I might have changed a little, but everyone does. You’ve changed some since then, and in ten years, you’ll probably have changed some more. I might be darker than what you remember, but for you, I will always be the same loving Daddy.”
“Why?” Margery breathed.
“Why what?”
Margery didn’t know what she was really asking. “I don’t know. Just why? Why did you decide to take over? Why did you decide to do what you did all these years? Why couldn’t I have known that you were alive?”
There were so many why questions, and she didn’t know if he was going to answer them. He could decide he wasn’t going to and leave it at that. She probably wouldn’t be able to ask her questions at that point. If he was really telling the truth and had made up his mind on being the same as before, there was no changing it.
He was stubborn like that.
“It started when my mom died. You know, it was pretty hard on me. I was angry and frustrated. I needed an outlet somehow. So, I started to fight underground. You remember that sometimes you would see me with cuts on my face or bruises. It was because of that.”
She stared at him in shock. It had been a difficult time for him when his mom had died. She tried to be there as much as she could, but she couldn’t always be there for him. There were some things he didn’t tell her, and she had to be okay with that. It was hard, and so many times, she wanted to ask him if he was okay, But. she knew she couldn’t. Maybe if she had, things would have been different.
“What I didn’t realize was the person watching me. I continued to fight, and before I knew it, I was in his office. He told me I could make a lot of money, and I did. But I quickly found out that once you started with him, he owned you until you were dead. I didn’t want that. So, one day, I went in, and after a really easy fight, I killed him.”
Margery gasped.
“You know how you didn’t see me a couple of days before I died? I was laying low because his men were after me. I took over and showed everybody who was in charge now. There was a lot of killing, and I didn’t want to meet up with you and risk you getting hurt or killed. I would have never forgiven myself. So, I got in contact with somebody I knew soon after , and we planned how to fake my death.”
She was trying to wrap her brain around everything he was telling her. There was so much, and she didn’t know if she would be able to.
“I killed a lot of people in that forty-eight hours. Didn’t really have much time to process what I had done until after. By that point, I was numb. You kind of just push those feelings away until you can safely deal with them. And you safely deal with them by letting your rage out in a fight.”
He started to apply lotion to her arms, gently rubbing it in.
“I thought I would come to you after a year. I figured it would have been safer at that point, but I was wrong. The first couple of years were hard and long. There was so much to learn.”
“Do you not care?” she asked. “The innocent lives you took.”
Daddy chuckled. “None of the people I killed were innocent. They were corrupt. People who went out and terrorized women and children. People who had been in the business so long they didn’t care about right or wrong anymore. They didn’t have a conscience.”
“How are you different?” Margery blurted out.
She had seen the evidence of him killing somebody through pictures. And then she saw him kill Max with her own eyes. How was he going to explain how he was different? Give her some excuse?
“While it may not seem like I have a conscience, I do. Sure, some things are a little warped. It doesn’t bother me to kill. But me and my men don’t hurt innocent women. It was a rule I enforced and anybody who broke it in the very beginning died,” he explained. “That was a lot back then but when people realized I was serious about it, they stopped. Some of them got good at hiding it but the people I suspect were still doing it, I had some of my loyal men follow. It is not tolerated at all.”
Him saying that made her want to overlook all the bad. While he was bad and dealt with illegal things, he still had a little conscience left.
“So, you help keep women safe?”
“Not necessarily. We don’t go out searching for women in danger. It’s a rule of ours that innocent people don’t get hurt. So, when we are conducting business, we try to make sure no innocent bystanders are near.”
“Conduct business?”
“Drugs, skins, and more.”
Her eyes went wide, and she opened her mouth, getting ready to ask a question.
“I will not be telling you about any of that. ”
She quickly closed her mouth and nodded. Would she be able to live with herself if she stayed with him? He probably dealt and manufactured drugs. She didn’t know what skins was, but she had a pretty bad feeling it was something she wasn’t going to like.
“Please leave, I need some time to think,” she whispered as he finished putting the lotion on her skin.
Margery wanted time to think about everything he had just told her. It was a lot to take in. She knew she wouldn’t be able to think about any of it with him there.
“I’ll leave for now, but don’t get used to it. I won’t let you run away from things for long.”