Epilogue One Thalia
Six Months Later September 16 th
“Lucy, I’m home,” I hear from down the stairs. It was Silas’s clever way of greeting Lucia. She is too young to know Ricky Ricardo. I let his greeting fall flat to the silence of the house. I didn’t tell him Lucia was spending the night with Luca and Olivia tonight. I wanted to surprise him for our anniversary.
I smile wide and grab my black silk robe. We are still adjusting to our new home on Patricio’s estate. My uncle had built two homes—one for Adrian, and one for me. It was his way of giving back to us after the hell our father put us through.
Silas and I made a plan to split our time between Houston and Tamaulipas. I want Lucia to know the land and the animals. I want her to see the house I fell in love with. That’s where my heart is, but I can’t be far from my family for long. Olivia and I didn’t want to adhere to any strict schedule when it came to how we divided our time with the kids. They have their rooms here, they have their rooms in Tamaulipas, and their own space at the penthouse with Olivia. We are letting them decide. It is unconventional, but they are together and they are happy. That’s all Olivia and I care about.
“Diablita,” Silas says, watching me descend the staircase. He takes me in. I delight in the way his demon-possessed eyes take in my bare legs and the silk robe. By now, he’s figured out that the kids are gone. I filled the entire house with white lily petals, and candles light the dark house.
“Happy anniversary,” I say, making my way down to him. He pulls me into him and presses his lips to mine. I arch my back and give into his desperation. I open my mouth and devour his sweet taste. When I pull away, he groans.
“Did you forget our anniversary?” I ask.
“Never. Your gift is in the basement.”
I arch my brows, and he laughs. He grabs my hand and leads me down the hallway. He takes out a key from his back pocket and opens the door. I peer down the dark stairway. He looks back at me, and I catch the playful smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. He leads me down into the basement, hand in hand. It’s dark, and Silas doesn’t bother turning on a light. When we reach the bottom of the staircase, I’m able to make out a hospital bed in the far corner. I look at the woman lying there, strapped to the bed, and squeeze Silas’s hand tight in mine. The closer I get, the more I recognize the features. I freeze and stare at her.
“She’s been in a coma. She just woke up last month,” Silas whispers.
I can hear the roaring in my ears as my bare feet slide across the cold cement beneath me.
“Hello, Claudia,” I say when I reach her. She looks like she’s resting, but the moment she registers my voice, she sits up. Her eyes widen when she sees me.
“Where the fuck am I?” she yells, pulling on the straps.
Silas pulls on the cord in the center of the room, and Claudia winces at the bright light. I look around to find weapons surrounding us. Knives, guns, chainsaws, and other various torture devices hang on the wall. I place my hand on my heart and look at him.
“You made me my very own torture chamber?” I ask, and he smiles.
“And I brought you your very first victim,” he says with a wink.
“Fuck you both!” Claudia screams, and I send my fist into her face.
I hit her so hard my fist hurts. She begins to sob, and I look at Silas.
I had assumed Claudia was dead. That’s what Silas had led me to believe. I had been too focused on making sure Ricky recovered and my family healed in the aftermath to worry about anything else.
“How?” I ask.
“Mireya kept her alive. She was in a coma for the first three months, and we kept her alive and sedated for you.”
One of many benefits to having a sister-in-law for a nurse was her ability to play assistant to God. Mireya worked with the cartel doctor to revive Ricky and remove the bullet from his stomach. Despite Adrian’s jealous protests, she even made sure to check on Ricky while he recovered. But this… I had no idea she was capable of this. Maybe she is adjusting to our twisted world after all.
As much as I’d like to think she did this for me, I know she did it for Adrian. We found out through Rosalinda that Claudia was heavily involved with human trafficking. Adrian’s biological mother had been one of Claudia’s victims. I had gone into one of Claudia’s properties with Adrian to look for his mother, and I still have nightmares about the things I saw there. I could still see the little girls chained in the basement like dogs. I can still hear Rosalinda’s confessions to me about her time with Claudia. She was being groomed to one day be used and manipulated by this woman. I stare at Claudia crying and begging on the bed. I don’t feel sorry for her. Not when all the rage is coursing through me at the thought of what she would have done to Lucia.
“What do you want to do, diablita?” Silas asks.
I let my eyes go over all the weapons surrounding me. Death seems too easy for this woman. Not with her history, the damage she caused to Silas, and the torture she put me through. I walk over to the chainsaw and pick it up.
“Can we use this?” I ask, and Silas shrugs. I put it back and turn to face him.
“I don’t want to kill her today,” I say, and he arches a brow.
“What did you want to do?”
“I want seven years from her. I want to torture her every day for seven years. I want to make little cuts all over her body and put her into a bath full of lime juice. I want to break her bones and let them heal, then break them all over again. I want her to shit and piss all over herself. To live enough to think she has hope, just to show up days later to remind her she has nothing left. I want her to cry and beg for death. I want every day of her life to be as miserable as the seven years I had to live without you.”
Silas looks at me, and his eyes darken. I love his darkness because it matches mine. To anyone else, my murderous desires would sound insane, but to Silas, it’s poetry.
“That’s the sexiest thing you’ve ever said to me,” he whispers and pulls me into him.
Claudia cusses and screams for help, but I tune her out. I kiss my husband and devour all he has to offer. He pulls back and releases me.
“I have one more surprise for you,” he says, walking to a large toolbox.
He pulls out a clown mask, and I stare at it. This is our new favorite game. Silas slowly puts the mask on and stares at me. I swallow and feel the fire igniting in my core. He has conditioned my body to respond like this. He has unlocked all my depravities. I stand and stare at him, waiting for him to start the countdown.
“Three… two… one,” he says.
Instantly, I’m running up the flight of stairs. The adrenaline propels me forward as I run through the kitchen and up another set of stairs. I can hear his footsteps behind me. I keep running until I make my way to his office. I hide under the desk and press my hand to my mouth. I can hear his footsteps slowly making their way down the hall. He opens several doors before he reaches the office.
I watch as his black boots inch toward the desk. I can feel arousal building in anticipation. Silas crouches down, and I scream. A sharp pain erupts at the base of my neck when he uses my hair to pull me up from under the desk. He stays in character, refusing to offer me a single word before pushing me into his desk. The pain courses through me but it's soon forgotten with the touch of his hand making its way up the bottom of my robe. I’m completely naked under the silk fabric. He rubs and kneads my ass with one hand, teasing me with his touch.
“Silas,” I beg him.
I untie the robe and let it fall down my shoulders and over my legs. It falls to the floor, and my naked body meets the cold air. My nipples harden, and I feel his erection behind me before he pulls away. He pushes my breasts to the flat surface of the desk, bending me forward. He slides two fingers into my pussy where I’m warm, awaiting his depravity. He thrusts his finger in slowly, gathering my arousal and bringing it to my back hole.
He continues to smear my arousal over my back hole, lubricating the tight entrance. His touch is gentle when he spreads my cheeks. Hot air from his mouth hits my lower back before he spits on my hole. Shivers make their way down my spine. He thrusts a finger in, and I loosen my body to prepare for him. Another finger joins the first and my pussy clenches as my body rocks into him.
When he finally speaks, it’s low and husky.
“Do you want Daddy to take this tight ass?” he asks. The question unlocks my savage need to be fucked over his desk. Fucked good like his little slut. I listen as he unbuckles his belt, and then I feel his engorged cock on my ass. I push back into him impatiently.
“Tell Daddy what you want,” he says, bringing his mouth to my ear, the weight of him pushing my hard nipples into the desk.
“Fuck me hard in the ass,” I cry out, and he growls. He shoves his dick into me hard, and I cry out at the pain. The masochist in me begs for him to dominate me. To shatter me like glass. I don’t want him to be gentle. I want all the pain and pleasure. I want the toxicity of him and everything that comes with it. I can never get enough of this man.
He pulls all the way out before thrusting in again. My body rocks, causing my hardened nipples to chafe against the desk below me. It’s pleasure and pain, and I want more. I reach my hands in front of me and hold on to the front of the desk as Silas pounds into me. His pace picks up when I call out his name.
I meet every one of his animalistic thrusts until I reach the edge of my orgasm. Stars appear and pleasure courses through me as I surrender myself to it. Cum leaks down my legs. He grabs my hips and drives into me full force. I feel his muscles tighten, and his warm cum spills into me. My body softens beneath him.
“This is mine,” he growls, rubbing his hand gently over my cheeks. I whimper when he removes himself from inside me. Slowly, he turns me over, and I look up at him. My fingers reach under the mask, and I pull it off so I can see him. Sweat glistens from his brow. I reach up and tuck a loose strand of hair behind his ear. He leans down and peppers kisses up my legs and over my soaked core.
“This is mine,” he whispers against the folds before kissing up my stomach and over my aching breasts.
“These are mine,” he says, gently biting on my nipple before kissing his way up. He stops in the center of my chest where my heart sits.
“Is this mine?” he asks. My breathing is still shallow. When I look into his eyes, I can see through the depths of him. He doesn’t just want my body, he wants the very key to my heart.
“It’s yours,” I whisper. And it is. It always has been. From the moment I met him, I knew it. He is the love of my life.