He pulled away and crouched so that he was nearly level with my knees, placing his hands beneath the hem of my maxi dress to rest on my thighs.
“Who do you think talks more than two bitter fuck buddies? Your mother knows him very well. She was the one who first reached out to me, she wanted money.”
That sadly sounded just like her. My mother was ravenous for a lifestyle never offered to her.
“I made her give me something invaluable before she got a dime.”
Me.
He was talking about me.
“I’m collateral?”
“No.” He rose back up and took hold of my face. “You are mine.”
I blinked to halt a wave of tears threatening to break free from a damn. I shouldn’t have been hurt by this. My mother was going to get what she wanted one way or another, I just hated I had to be the steppingstone.
“You really are all I have.”
“I’ll always be yours, Cat.” He took hold of my hands and gently pulled me to my feet. “If it makes you feel any better you have an extended family through me. Your friend too…she’s safe.”
I followed him into the kitchen.
“Chloe?”
“She’s staying with my brother right now.”
I stared at the back of his dark-colored head. “Why did you pretend like you never knew she existed?”
“I didn’t do anything of the sort. I said I had no idea who she was because you never mentioned her. That’s not a lie. I don’t know her.”
“You could’ve told me where she was.”
“You never asked,” he retorted.
He stepped through the basement doorway and tightened his grip on my hand. “Shut the door behind you.”
I did as he said, glaring at his back and following him down the steps without really thinking about what I was doing until I had to step over the unconscious body of Johnathon Penn. There was a gash on the left side of his head and a syringe sticking out of his neck.
The bookshelves were slid back already, revealing the OR room. I wanted to ask how this worked, but first I needed to know what he was doing.
“What are you going to do to him?”
He reached down and lifted the man like he was a log of rolled carpet. “I don’t have any use for him he just needs to disappear.”
“Okay…how?”
“Now you’re asking the important questions.”
A loud echo reverberated through the room when he dropped John onto one of the metal operating tables.
“We can let him deteriorate alive. Or you can grab a smock and a scalpel to take him apart.”
Taking someone apart…
I had a memory of doing that, only it was with a woman.
“You should practice both. Your mother will be coming for dinner eventually,” he added as almost an afterthought.
I stared at him with wide eyes.
He all but just told me he was intending to kill her.
“You can’t get rid of my mom.”
“Why? Is she doing anything to add value to your life? Has she ever? From what I’ve seen, heard, and know, she’s a money-hungry bitch who used her pussy to try and secure it. Failed, of course, because pussy doesn’t keep a man. You were her bank balance baby, correct?”
He put the truth so bluntly out in the open. Not in a malicious way, but more of a matter-of-fact. Nothing he’d just said was wrong. I stood a little way back watching him strap Jonathan’s body down with three restraints. Unlike this total stranger on the table, I did care about my mother.
“If you get rid of my mom…”
“If I get rid of your mother all her assets will go to me, which in turn, go to you. No one will ever interfere in your life again or put you down for being who you are. We don’t need people like that around.”
She gave him her assets and not me? Just how desperate was she to secure temporary happiness?
“When is she coming?”
He finished buckling his last strap and regarded me with a studious expression, sweeping his eyes up and down my body.
“Once your medicine starts working.”
“My medicine?”
“Choose one,” he urged, ignoring my question. “Scalpel or Sulfuric.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek, considering everything he just said. “Why not both?”
He smiled at me wickedly. “Best choice you could’ve made.”
EPILOGUE
I stared at the cake.
Half was chocolate.
Half was lemon.
It was always the exact same.
Unlike my life this past year. I didn’t mind it as much but sometimes it could be overwhelming. Things would be changing even more for me come spring.
I stared at the dessert tray from across the kitchen, absentmindedly smoothing my thumb over the diamond on my engagement ring.
Laughter spilled from the dining room. My mother was in there waiting for cake. Chloe and Niklaus too, but at least they were going to be going home with the memory of enjoying it. I’d come to terms with this a while ago. Alaric was adamant about ridding our lives of anyone not good for us or our growing family. I could hardly disagree.