Page 71

Her betrayal hurts more than my parents’.

Probably because she’s the one who actually raised me, alongside Ruby.

She came to work for my family when I was a baby and I remember thinking she was my mom, then secretly wishing she was when I was corrected.

But now she doesn’t look at me or address the fact that this is all insane.

She goes along with whatever Helene tells her to do.

She kept everything from me too. At any point throughout my teenage years, she could have sat me down and explained that this family is fucked, to run, but she didn’t.

She chose silence and servitude instead of helping me when I would do my utmost to be the outlet of my mother’s rage so that Anna was unharmed.

There’s blood staining Kane’s sweats when he turns around, seeping through the material in little dots above his crotch, but there are bloody fingerprints too.

I can’t recall a time that I’ve ever been more attracted to him.

It may be due to not actually knowing him before this moment.

I put him on a pedestal, someone innocent and incapable of harm because that’s who I needed him to be.

In return, he did the same with me. He believed I was good, deserving of peace.

We both only saw what we needed in those moments.

Now, we’re forced to see things as they are, the true depths of how fucked up the other is.

But it just adds more facets to his personality, contrasting against the lighter parts to the point that they’re even brighter.

Someone who’s kind all the time isn’t choosing to be, that’s just their baseline.

So new-Kane, who is covered in tattoos and scars with blood on his skin, was choosing to be kind.

Even when he was Ghost, he had moments where he would show little sparks of kindness.

He doesn’t mention the argument we had as he lays the garment bags on the bed then turns the lights on. Fuck. The muted light from the door didn’t show just how bloody he is, but it’s all over him. All over the sheets that I’m currently hiding behind too.

“Truce?” he asks, running his fingers through his hair.

“In front of them?” I amend.

Taking a deep breath that pushes his chest out in a way that I should not find attractive, he nods once then holds his hand out to me. I stare at it.

“Delilah, I’m just helping you up.”

I slide out from under the sheet, avoiding his hand, and stiffly nod. “I know, but I can do it alone.”

We keep space between us as we stand at the foot of the bed and open the garment bags. One has a suit, the other a long, black lace dress. There’s a note pinned to the suit and Kane tilts his head to read it instead of picking it up.

I do the same for no other reason than having something else to look at that isn’t him.

You will be collected in fifteen minutes. Be dressed and clean.

Weird freaks.

But he acts more human as he gives me a boyish smile that resembles the Kane I knew. “Blood won’t go with the suit, pretty girl. Do you think we can keep our truce while we shower?”

“We can do that separately.”

“Nope, it says fifteen minutes,” he says, tapping the note. “That’s not enough time.”

I brush past him and go into the bathroom, pull my hoodie off, then step into the shower before I’ve even turned it on.

He can get fucked if he thinks I have to touch him.

I don’t trust myself not to be weak. When he acts like my Kane, I want nothing more than to wrap myself in him, to lose myself, but the illusion isn’t worth it.

Not when he’ll change at a moment’s notice, not when I’ll lose parts of myself when he eventually pushes me away.

The icy water pelts my skin as I turn the lever for the water.

Kane steps into the shower behind me, providing a barrier as he wraps his arms around me.

He kisses my shoulder so softly that if it wasn’t for the difference in temperature between my cold skin and his warm lips, I wouldn’t feel it all.

The water slowly warms as he buries his nose into the crook of my neck and I have to lean into him to hear him whisper, “They know what happens in that room, what we talk about and what we do. The worse I treat you, the safer you are, but I do not hate you. I will not hurt you.”

“Did you lie?” I whisper back.

“Did you?” he says even lower. “Did you lie when you took the only thing I had to comfort me away? Hate me now, hate me for the rest of your life, but let me have the past where you loved me. Please, koukla mou.”

I don’t say anything and close my eyes as I wash the blood off my skin.

“I don’t need you to love me,” he whispers. “Not now or again, but I need to know that you loved me once. That all those times you would lay on my chest were true. So, I’m asking you the same thing you always asked me. I’m giving you that same power. Was it real, Delilah?”

My heart beats erratically, adding more sounds to drown us out as I lie, “No.”

He stills at my back, his fingers trembling against my hip.

The water is bearable now, unlike the man behind me.

Why the fuck do I care about his feelings when he didn’t care about mine?

If he loved me, truly loved me, he would never have thought of hurting me.

No lies would make a difference, no manipulation or time apart either.

Yet he did. He used that time to plan an elaborate scheme with only one goal in mind—causing me as much pain as possible.

Kane takes over, lathering shower gel over my hands, scrubbing his blood off my fingertips and hiding his promises beneath the sound of the spray like I didn’t just crush us both.

“As soon as we can run, we’re going. I’ll get you out of here even if it kills me.

Then you’ll be happy and I’ll come back, find out what happened to your baby, and find you again.

” He washes up my arms, down my chest, then flattens his palm on my stomach, repeating, “I’ll find out what happened.

We’ll be a family and I’ll keep you both safe.

” I wash his forearms so I don’t hold his hand, but he keeps whispering, “In a perfect world, you’d both be mine. ”

Peeling his arms off me, I press my shoulder to the glass shower panel and follow it out so I don’t have to listen to his shit. I can’t do it again, not when it took everything I had to drag myself out of that mental pit of missing a part of myself when everyone said it didn’t exist.

Would I be a good parent? Abso-fucking-lutely not.

That doesn’t give anyone the right to take my baby from me. Not only take, but make me think it never happened and lock me away, drugged up and confused, so I can’t even remember.

Maybe I could have been a good parent if I was left alone. If I was allowed to know if my child existed, I could have been better than what I was given. I wouldn’t have this inky pit of loss and grief without any reason for it.

I go into the bedroom, water still dripping down my body, and carelessly pull the dress out of the bag as the shower turns off. Kane soon turns up like a bad fucking smell behind me with a towel wrapped around his hips, with another in his hand that he uses to dry me.

He doesn’t speak to me or prepare me as he drops the towel then begins twisting my hair.

I don’t need a mirror to know it’s the same hairstyle I forced him to learn after my sisters were no longer there to do it for me.

He was the only person who patiently sat with me on his bed and braided my hair, so it formed a crown at the front of my head and the rest was left to flow down my back.

“It’s not as neat,” he whispers, almost apologetically, which is another way for him to trick me. “I’m out of practice.”

Why the fuck didn’t he talk to me instead of playing some mind game as revenge?

I think I hate him more when he’s kind. It just proves that he ruined everything and that I’ll never be able to have that kindness again. I will never trust him. I can’t trust him.

So I step to the side and dress myself, giving him my back as he does the same.

The soft lace dress trails behind me, along with the sleeves that cover my hands.

The long slit isn’t uncomfortable either because the seams overlap, covering everything I need it to considering I don’t have any panties.

Something thuds behind me and I turn, instantly fucking regretting it because Kane dressed faster than me in a black shirt and black slacks. The belt is black too but I stare at the buckle. A brass lion’s head with serpents weaving through its mane. It’s pretty and creepy at the same time.

“Put your shoes on.” He points at a pair of stilettos positioned by my feet on the floor.

The seven-inch, thin but sharp point doesn’t look steady without me in them, never mind once I have them on.

It doesn’t have the platform at the front that would make it easier to walk.

Even my mom would pick shoes that had a hidden platform under the toes, so I didn’t fall, and interacting with her is as comfortable as taking a cactus up the ass.

Kane holds his hand out again, but he doesn’t look at me this time, so I take it as I slip my foot into each stilt.

The heel wobbles straight away and I have to walk on my toes to steady myself.

Which the conniving bastard uses as an excuse to smoothly hook his arm through mine, keeping my hand hostage on his forearm, and guiding me out of the room.

I’m not stupid. If I push him away, I’ll fall flat on my face, so it becomes an excuse for me too as I thread my fingers through his.

As we approach the staircase, he tightens his hold. I place my hand on the railing for support, but I’m abruptly lifted into his arms. I have to tuck my feet in to stop them hitting the handrail and he doesn’t look at the steps to make sure we don’t fall. Instead, he stares at me.

In another lifetime, this would be nice.

In another lifetime, we’d be together, and this could be a date night where the love of my life is sweet. We’d have spent our entire lives together but he’d still lift me into his arms to carry me.

In another lifetime, he wouldn’t be carrying me into a kitchen where his creepy grandmother stands in front of my parents. Her stick is directly in the middle of her feet with both hands propped on them. The mirrored masks that served our food are dragging in wooden caskets.

Kane slowly lowers me to my feet and keeps his shoulder pressed to mine. He doesn’t hold my hand or look at me though, which fucking hurts. It hurts that he can easily switch from hugging me in the shower and offering me empty promises, to ignoring me.

My parents aren’t holding hands either.

I want to ask them if this is why they were so cold.

They couldn’t have had an influence in their lives that dictated how they could be with each other.

I mean, it wasn’t exactly a secret that they cheated on each other or only had conversations when people were watching them.

But they held hands earlier. The silly girl that they always knew I was is even dumber for wanting to witness it again.

It could be some stupid childish dream of having loving parents that makes me wish their hands were still clasped together, but that’s not the real reason.

No, I want to see them be human. I want the confusion of knowing they possess emotions that are buried so deep down that they hold hands out of fear.

Then it might sink into my thick skull that this was their choice.

All the pain, agony, and deception is who they are.

The masked helpers lift the caskets so they’re standing up and there’s a small window at the front. My eyes widen when they open each door, revealing thick metal spikes lining the door in a grid-like pattern.

Helene nods to the caskets. “Get in.”

At least I know that Kane’s method of torture is hereditary. Fucking freak.

My passiveness must be too, because my parents get into them without a complaint or murmur.

The first sign of discomfort comes as the door closes and my dad winces.

My mom is better at keeping a straight face as she stares through the window.

But Helene turns like they’re not right in front of us and smiles warmly.

“Very well. You look like the perfect couple. Come.”

I hold the back of Kane’s belt as he follows her. The heels are awful, but they don’t make a sound because I’m forced to walk on my toes to prevent myself from falling as she leads us into the lounge that has more furniture than when we were last in here.

Five leather armchairs are empty and the one with its back to us has a man seated in it.

He has a suit on and a hat, but he doesn’t turn or stand when we enter.

The smell wafting off him is strong. I can’t place it.

It’s like bathroom cleaner mixed with something putrid, stinging my eyes as we pass him.

It’s not until I’m sitting beside the man that I notice what the fuck it is.

Just like the walls, he’s dead.

A stuffed person with glassy, unseeing eyes is sitting next to me.

Kane is slower than me at realizing, but I can’t get his attention when Helene has it.

“Would you like something to drink, sweet boy?” She stops at the bar, pours herself a glass of wine from the crystal decanter, then pauses for him to answer.

“I’m fine, it’s late.”

She nods, swirling the deep red wine around her glass as she walks over to us, then takes the seat opposite me. Kane remains standing behind me and she has to tell him to sit for him to move away. When he does, his eyes briefly widen as he finally notices the taxidermied human.

I don’t know how he manages to blink it away, or if he’s accustomed to the freaks of his family, but he does.

“Meet your grandfather,” Helene says, gesturing to the dead man. “He’s a lot more interesting now than he was in life.” She elegantly sips her thick wine as she assesses her dead partner.

I hold the armrest of the chair as I look at him without moving my head. He doesn’t look as old as Helene, maybe in his early forties, and he doesn’t have any gray hairs. But I don’t know how to tell how long he’s been dead for when he’s been stuffed.

Kane doesn’t react or look at his grandfather. He stares at his freak of a grandmother, managing to keep his tone even as he asks, “Why are we here?”