Page 47

KANE

W hat’s worse than guilt?

Remorse?

There has to be something that’s deeper and agonizing to the soul to describe hurting the wrong person.

I want to go back to hating her, to be vindicated and know that I was blaming the correct person.

But as much as her actions led her to fuck my life up, she did it to protect herself. To protect her own baby.

A baby that wasn’t mine.

My thoughts swirl together, forming new reasons to hate her to paint me as innocent. Would she have told me she was pregnant? Would I have even fucking cared? Would it all be different if her fucking father wasn’t a sick little bastard?

I don’t have enough mental bandwidth to deal with that while we’re on this strange island.

So I keep Delilah tucked behind me as we walk through the hallway and I crane my neck to look over the spiral staircase down to the atrium.

The entire space is free of human life and it’s even duller since being outside on the window ledge.

Once I’m sure I can’t hear anyone, I gently squeeze Delilah’s hand for her to walk directly behind me.

The metal railing rattles as soon as she places her hand on it to steady herself.

It doesn’t get any better when we’re both on the staircase, but we slowly make our way down.

The property would be luxurious if any care was shown to it.

The first time we walked through the atrium, I wasn’t taking in the features or the view, but now that we’re aware of where we’re going, I take the time to do just that.

One side looks out to the island and the greenery; the other has a view of the water.

There’s a patch of rock where the island has weathered.

Large gates are the only part left of that portion of the property.

The vines, roots, and debris have been washed away from it, leaving the gates to just sit there on that patch of beaten rock, stretching out to sea like they’re trying to escape this place too.

Delilah squeezes my hand and holds the back of my t-shirt as she whispers, “It’s kind of beautiful.” She looks up with a soft smile. “That it managed to survive even though everything else around it perished, but they didn’t. That’s kind of beautiful poetry.”

I nod, unconvincingly, and increase my pace. The kitchen should have food, and hopefully they’re organized cannibals who label which products are human and which aren’t. If not, I’ll push any fruit or vegetable I find down her throat.

Murmured voices come through the door as we get closer, and we freeze.

I push Delilah further behind me, so she’s stuck between the wall and my back.

The dust-coated glass panel makes the kitchen look even darker, but I can see enough as Helene walks into the kitchen without her stick, her butler submissively following behind her.

She’s finally taken off her ridiculous coat as she takes a seat at the large butcher block table.

There’s no panther hugging her, so she almost looks normal in the cigarette pants and blouse.

It’s something that my mother would have worn, even down to the muted neutral colors.

She holds up two fingers then moves them in a downwards motion, gesturing to the floor beside her feet.

Her butler instantly drops to his knees as her chair scrapes against the tile.

She widens her thighs. He crawls forward, fitting his body between her spread legs, before laying his cheek on her thigh.

Delilah wriggles behind me, but I press my weight back because I don’t know what the fuck is going to happen. She doesn’t speak and goes up on her toes to look over my shoulder.

We both watch in stunned, confused silence as Helene strokes the butler’s hair like a mother would. “You know why I must do this, don’t you?” Her coo travels through the small crack in the door.

The butler nods. I take a small step closer.

“You tried to talk to them, and that isn’t allowed now, is it?”

He mumbles through his bars, and they must be able to extend because he opens his mouth wider than he did when attempting to give me a warning.

Helene continues to stroke his hair as she reaches over him to open a drawer at the edge of the table. Her body blocks it from my view, but I tilt my head like that will help. She sits back, sighing, “Once I do this, it will make you useless to me.”

The butler murmurs even louder, panicked as he thrusts his hands in the air.

It doesn’t look like he’s speaking sign language because he doesn’t move his fingers.

He just pushes his hands up with his fingers spread.

Delilah holds my shoulder and I bend my knees to take the strain out of her legs since she’s hellbent on witnessing whatever fucked up shit is happening.

“Oh, sweet boy, your talents are in your mouth, not your fingers,” Helene softly says. I nearly fucking throw up.

I slowly look at Delilah and disgust pinches her features, and she mouths, “Does she make him…on her?”

A shiver works up my spine and I twist my shoulders to get it away.

The discomfort intensifies as she uses her thumb and forefinger to hold his lips open.

She pinches each metal bar with the tips of dark-edged pliers.

His screams are dulled because she is literally sealing his mouth shut.

Blood drips from the edges of the metal bars embedded into his gums and she softly says, “You knew the rules, yet you chose to disobey them. What choice did you leave me with?”

Her movements turn rougher when she reaches the next bar at the corner of his mouth. She loses the sinister, motherly tone. “You think this is painful for you?” She tightens her fist around the plier handles and slowly twists.

Delilah sucks in a breath, hiding her face at the gruesome sight of the metal rod being torn out of his gums.

“How must I feel, now that I’m tasked with training someone new?”

I bring my hand up and cover Delilah’s eyes as she presses her face against the back of my shoulder. Her lashes tickle my hand. I tense as the bloody screams pour from the butler.

Helene doesn’t stop there. No, she moves through the rods and works in a pattern of tightening one bar then removing the next.

Each removal is bloody, allowing more of his screams to be freed.

But each scream pulls the other bars and more blood pours from his gums. It’s fucking torture.

Torture while he lays in her lap, allowing her to do it.

I turn and hug Delilah to my chest. I hold the back of her head and close my eyes as I rest my cheek on her crown.

The blood is still there, and his screams get louder with each snip of the pliers clacking against the metal bars.

They slowly taper off and the sick cunt doesn’t stop if the sound of the bar tinkling against the tiled floor is anything to go by.

Instead, she extends her voice and says, “You may enter. After all, this is now your life too.”

Delilah trembles against me, clinging to the front of my t-shirt. I squeeze her hand and take a steadying breath, knowing we’re caught. There’s nowhere for us to run and I’m not keen on having metal bars instead of teeth.

I peel her fingers off my t-shirt and soundlessly press my lips to her forehead, so she knows I’m not going to leave her.

Hiding our clasped hands behind my thigh, I turn and ignore how cold her hand is in mine as I open the door.

Helene holds the unconscious butler’s hair in her fist as she carelessly digs the pliers into his mouth.

Blood coats his chin, soaking into his shirt, then something squelches.

My steps pause as she forcefully pulls her arm back, pink flesh caught between the teeth of the pliers.

Silver glints on the edge and the crazy cunt drops the piece of his gums to the floor.

The edges of the bar show fine spirals at each tip.

They were screwed into his mouth like some Dr. Frankenstein of dentistry decided to experiment on him.

She doesn’t react to the blood coating her leg or pooling between her feet. Instead, she pushes the pliers through the small gap of his lips again and easily says, “I understand you may be hungry after losing your appetite at your banquet. You are permitted to eat what you wish.”

I’d rather fucking not. God knows what’s going to be stocked in her pantry. Pickled eyeballs and fucking arsenic sound like a good assumption.

Helene lifts her head from her torture and looks down at my thigh. Her lips lift into an unassuming smile as she pulls the pliers back out of the butler’s mouth. Drops of blood flick off the piece of his gums held in it as she shakes them at me with her smile widening.

“There is a collar in the drawer to your left. You may use it freely to train your wife.”

Delilah’s shaking intensifies and my voice comes out harsh, disgusted. “She’s not a dog. She’s my wife, and Delilah has a name.”

Helene raises her brows, sweeping her gaze up the length of me in a way a grandmother should never do to their grandchild. “You’re a pleasant surprise, sweet boy. I understood from Asher that you were weak and that you had the mannerisms of a wounded dog. It appears I was led to believe a lie.”

A bellowing laugh erupts from the creepy entrance hall, pulling Helene’s attention to it.

Delilah’s grandparents are still fucking here.

Her grandfather’s voice is deep, vibrating through the hallway as he says, “You may play, but not for me.” His voice softens like he’s speaking to a child, and I step closer to look through the open doorway. “My wife will like you.”

The freak show gets worse.