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A fucking handprint.

I always felt handprints were the worst. Much more unpleasant to see than welts from a whip or a belt. They’re morepersonal. They come from someone who wanted to feel the sting of your skin against their own.

“I’ll kill him,” I mutter, flinching afterward.

Why the fuck did I say that? My dad didn’t hit her.

And I don’t even care anymore about my dad’s archaic methods of punishment. He never touched Lucy—or I really might have killed him—and I know everything he did made me stronger.

Ava’s eyes flash. “No, you won’t. If anyone gets killed, I’m going straight to the police.”

I burst into breathless laughter. She keeps making this police threat. Like the local San Aurelia PD is anything more than a handful of underpaid guys who spend most of their shift parked outside In-N-Out.

Does she think they’d actually do something? That she could walk into that sad little station, file a report, and suddenly Thornecroft would crumble?

“You do that, little doll.” I rub my thumb along the edge of her jaw. “Anything to make you feel better.”

Lucy snorts. “Ava, I hope you don’t really think my brother is a murderer. I promise you he’s just your average entitled nepo baby.”

Her defense of me is sweet, but it must be grating to Ava. I’ve kept Lucy in the dark about so much over the years. In many ways, Ava knows my true character better than Lucy.

I do kill, but not in a rage. The killing I do is merciful—a silenced bullet to the back of the head or an injection to the neck in the dark of the night.

“Lucy, who hit Ava?”

She sighs. “Coraline.”

Shock vibrates through my veins. What the fuck?

Ava’s eyes grow huge. “Lucy!”

Lucy throws her hands in the air. “We can’t hide it from him now. It’s not like he’s going to hurt her. He’ll just…make her clean something, probably.”

Rage is simmering in my veins. Coraline. She doesn’t like that I haven’t fucked her over a month, or any of my other consorts. She’s terrified of losing her power.

“Lucy,” I clip out. “Go get Coraline.”

She nods and walks out of the room. When Ava opens her mouth, I set my finger on her lips, enjoying the warmth and softness. “I don’t hit women, but I won’t make you take my word for it. I’ll show you.”

She sets her hand at the center of her chest as she pulls away from my touch. “Oh, you don’t hitwomen? You’re truly magnanimous, my king.”

Warmth rushes through my chest. A laugh—real, unrestrained—rumbles out of me, shaking something loose in my ribs, something that’s been wound too tightly for too long.

I don’t think I’ve laughed as much in my entire life as I have since I met my precious girl.

Precious girl.

What the fuck am I thinking? She’s my doll. My prize.

Lucy and Coraline appear in the doorway, pulling me out of my head. Coraline’s expression is hesitant, but she steps forward. “You wanted to see me?”

“Tell me what happened.”

She gulps audibly. “I hit her. I regretted it immediately.”

“Regret won’t take that mark off her face.”

“I know. How are you going to punish me?”