Page 6

six

Damien

“Oh, for fucks sake!” I shout, jerking my foot away from the spray of vomit that leaves Lucille’s mouth and lands directly on my leg, ruining my pants.

She places her small hand over her mouth, her nostrils flaring as she takes deep, heaving breaths.

I’ve made many women react in many different ways, but I’ve not made them do that.

“Get a hold of yourself, girl,” I hiss as I stand and hobble over to the counter to grab the roll of paper towels.

I clean my pants in disgust, wondering why I’ve even decided to go through with this plan to begin with.

Because the senator wants you behind bars. And you want to use his outcast daughter against him. Because you need to buy yourself some time before you can migrate this business to Mexico and stay the fuck away from America.

“Oh my god. You can’t actually be serious!” Lucille cries as she wipes the remaining bits of vomit from her mouth and rubs at her forehead with the other.

“I was serious a minute ago. Now I’m debating throwing you into one of my warehouses and forging your signature on the marriage license,” I growl in her direction, shooting an evil glance her way as her full, bottom lip wobbles in fear.

Has she always been this bratty? This much of a giant baby?

“I don’t know what you don’t get here, Damien.” She sighs, pushing through her fear even though her eyes are still filled with it as she stares at me in shock.

“They don’t want me. They banished me from the family and threw me out on the streets. They won’t care if you marry me. They don’t care about…me,” she says, those large, blue eyes filling with tears.

I don’t care about those tears, Lucille.

So, why do they hit something in me? Why do they make me pause?

“Why did they throw you out, Lucille? Did you steal from them or something?” I ask as I toss the paper towels into the trash can and scrub my hands in the sink.

She’s quiet. Too quiet actually. Her silence stretches on for minutes and I grow sick of it and bark at her.

“Lucille-” I start, and she stands abruptly when I spit her name at her.

“Because I got pregnant, okay? Is that what you wanted to know so badly? The heartless truth about why my family discarded me like trash?” she shouts, her small hands balled into fists at her sides.

For the first time in a while, I am stunned into silence.

But she doesn’t let up.

“Because that attack you saved me from. That monster didn’t just defile and traumatize me, he ruined my entire life. My entire future. And my family resents me for it,” she cries, those tears that welled up in her brilliant eyes now spilling down her flushed cheeks.

When she mentions that night, mentions that man that I found her with in the alleyway, my vision turns red.

I try not to think about it much. It’s not the first time I’ve caught a piece of shit in an act of monstrosity and punished him for it. But it was the first time I…cared. Because it happened to an innocent. Because it happened to her .

“Lucille-” I try again, but she cuts me off once more.

I usually do not let a woman do that. Hell, I don’t let anyone do that.

But this woman is on the verge of hysteria and she’s unstoppable.

“Oh, but don’t worry. I don’t have a child, Damien. You don’t have to worry about a kidnapping on top of an abduction or trafficking situation.” She seethes, her full lips puffy from her anger and tears.

“I lost the baby shortly after I found out. I had a miscarriage in a cheap motel in Brooklyn,” she hisses, her eyes dropping to the floor as she tries to sniff back her sobs.

“I had no money. No job. I didn’t get to finish college. I had nothing. I didn’t even get to have my baby,” she says, her voice cracking when she mentions her child.

“Thankfully Jenni took me in. But now…now I don’t even have a random couch in a shitty downtown apartment because she still has a chance at a future. And it doesn’t involve me sitting in her living room. Now, I have nothing once more. After years of working my ass off, I still have nothing to show for myself.”

I think that if I were to have a heart, maybe some of it would break for this girl. This girl who had to become a woman way too quickly.

But I don’t. I lost that heart long ago when my father shred my life apart. When I watched my men die in war. When I watched innocent people get bombed and slaughtered.

I haven’t had a heart in a very long time.

Which is why instead of sympathizing for the broken woman before me, I hear her words as more of an opportunity.

“Is she kicking you out?” I ask, my head tilted at her as I eye her shaking body that’s clad in that cheap, disgusting outfit.

“Not entirely. She’s moving in two weeks. Got engaged. I don’t have enough time or money to get my own place. I’ve been busy paying off my student loans and hospital bills.” She sniffles, wiping her tears away.

“So…you’re homeless,” I say, and her head snaps up in my direction, anger fuming in her bright eyes.

“Jesus, Damien. Do I need to spell it out for you?” she growls, and I narrow my eyes at her, shooting her an evil glare so that she backs down.

Which she does. She snaps her mouth shut and submits quickly.

Good girl.

“Sounds to me like this is the perfect time for your own engagement then, huh?” I ask, a smirk lifting the corner of my mouth as she glares at me.

I walk towards her then, keeping some distance in case she decides to pull the sick card and throw up all over the rest of my suit.

“Sounds to me like you need a warm bed. A place you don’t have to pay for. So you can go to school. So you can build your life again. Without your family or friends’ involvement,” I say, trying to bargain with her, but she doesn’t take the bait.

“It’s not that simple. I know you won’t make it that simple,” she breathes, and I shake my head at her and click my tongue.

“Ah, but you don’t. You barely know me Lucille. You were just a girl when you met me. You have no idea who I am or what I’m capable of,” I say, my words sounding more like a threat as I speak.

I’m a heartless bastard and she knows it, but she doesn’t cower.

“Like beating a man black and blue in a college campus alleyway?” she whispers and when she mentions that night again, my anger rises.

Something inside of me tries to surface, but I shove it right back down.

“We’re not talking about that night,” I bite, and she shakes her head at me with a scoff.

“But why? Why do you refuse to address or acknowledge it-”

“Enough!” I shout, that darkness swirling in me like a tornado.

She quiets instantly.

I sigh and look at the ceiling, trying to shove the memories down.

Her lying there in the alleyway, her clothes torn as her numb eyes stared at the night sky. That sick, drunken frat boy zipping his pants up before I grabbed him and slammed him against the dumpster. Megan screaming for me to stop instead of rushing to her sister’s side.

Megan walking away when I wouldn’t stop beating him.

Lucille was all alone on the ground while I beat a man to death and her family left her alone. Nobody helped her. Nobody cared. I was the one that drove her to the hospital. And then, I left her too. I never once checked on her while she was there.

I don’t have time to think about this now.

I can’t.

“How do you think this could actually work, Damien? If they’ve been worried about your…activity, then why do you think I could stall them?” she asks, shattering those memories so I can grab them and shove them into that place I refuse to visit.

I look at her, her eyes so filled with defeat and uncertainty.

Has anyone shown this girl compassion? Has anyone cut her some slack or held her when she needed it?

No.

Which makes her more like me than I care to admit.

Which is why I am not the one to give her those things.

But I can give her a place to stay while I use her for security and distraction. She can at least not wander the streets or bartend at some sex club downtown.

And when I’m done with her, when I finally get myself far away from here and away from these bastards that are determined to ruin me, I will let her go.

If she’s not ruined in the process.

“Because you’re my reason for the suspicious activity,” I say as I eye her intently, confusion filling her blue gaze.

She really does look nothing like them. Which is why she’s been cast out. Because her real mother isn’t a Fairchild. Because she really isn’t much of family at all.

Which is why my ploy is the perfect, most believable ploy there is.

“Because I wasn’t involved in crime or anything of the sort. I was hiding away because I was having an affair with you,” I smile, my mouth snaking up in a curve as she stares at me in horror.

“No-”

“But yes. Don’t you get it? Megan got suspicious of me as soon as you went away to college. I wasn’t around much. I was always on my phone. A phone she was never allowed to see. I didn’t spend my nights with her. Because you and I were here, in this penthouse, fucking and falling in love,” I say, baiting her like the devil I am.

She shakes her head at me, refusing to go along with this even though this could keep her off the streets.

“I can’t lie to her like that. She wants to be district attorney. If this gets out, it will taint her reputation,” she says.

“And why are you so concerned with her reputation? She wants nothing to do with you. She left you in an alleyway, Lucille. She let your family throw you out and never once took you in. Correct?” I growl, the truth pissing me off as soon as it’s aired out.

“Yes, but…I can’t let her think that I betrayed her like that…” she whispers, and I can’t help but laugh at her.

“She’s betrayed you your entire life. What makes you think she wasn’t fucking around on me? She hated me. This is only hypothetical in our world. It’s just a lie that will serve you and I both,” I say, knowing damn well that I slept around on Megan too.

She just never found out about it.

Because she never knew how often I was in Mexico.

She had no knowledge of my other life.

And even though she got suspicious before the divorce, now I have the perfect fucking reason.

And it’s this little, blue-eyed brunette standing before me, eyes wide with both fear and curiosity.

“And what if I don’t go along with this?” she asks, twisting her hands in a knot in front of that stupid, cropped shirt that I want to set on fire.

“What if I say no?” she asks as she meets my gaze, which doesn’t just turn serious.

It turns deadly.

“Then you die,” I say simply, shrugging my shoulders as if it’s a fact she should already know.

Because she should know this. She knows I’m a careless son of a bitch.

I’m only doing this to save myself and my family.

I don’t give a shit about her or her half family that hates her.

Even if she’s innocent. Even if she’s been abused. I’ve seen much worse.

Lucille Fairchild has zero effect on me.

Then why does the memory of her pain bother me so much?

The distant thought flutters through my mind and I wipe it away as quickly as it appeared. Because I don’t have time to think about another person’s bullshit. It’s got nothing to do with feeling anything for her.

It’s about me and my focus.

“You won’t kill me,” she scoffs, and I know she’s only saying it because she’s trying to make me into a decent person.

Because as much as I don’t care, I still saved her.

No matter what I show her, no matter what she sees or what I’ve done or have yet to do, I am still a savior in her eyes.

And I can’t wait to shatter that illusion into a million little pieces.

I stalk toward her then, coming up on her in an instant. Her eyes widen as my hand wraps around her throat. I squeeze hard, restricting her air as my thumb presses against her thumping pulse. Her face reddens and those blue eyes bulge as her hands try to claw at mine.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Lucille. I’ve killed many people in my life. If they get in my way, I wipe them from existence. Plain and simple,” I growl, my face barely a breath away from hers.

She makes small, choking sounds and I know that I should stop, I should let go.

I should allow her to run out of this room and never look back.

But I won’t.

Because I am no savior.

I’m the devil reincarnated.

“Now, are you with me or against me? Make your choice,” I seethe, my lips close to hers as small bits of air try to escape her trembling mouth.

She lets me hold her like this only for a moment. Only until she has no choice but to slowly nod her head at me.

I release her instantly.

“Good girl,” I say with an empty, small smile.

I throw her down on the chaise and she whimpers as she hits the velvet green seat. She turns both her head and body away from me, refusing to meet my eyes as she tries to stifle her sobs while I grab a pen and paper from my desk and walk it over to her.

Good. Let her see me as the monster that I am.

Let her see me as anything but a savior.

I slap the pen and paper on the coffee table and she jumps, quieting her little cries as she wipes her tears and keeps her eyes away.

“Let’s write our first letter then, shall we?” I growl as she bites her lips and turns towards the coffee table.

She stares long and hard at the pen and paper before she slowly lifts those big, blue eyes to me.

And when we lock eyes, when I hold her soft, sky-like gaze, I see her resolve.

I see her submission.

And for some stupid, fucking irrational reason, it pleases me.