Page 25 of Unleash Hades (Ungoverned Spaces #5)

Bellamy was right. I had never questioned. I had never searched for him. I had never looked to see if he was a decent man. For once, I had gone with how I felt: He was my dark knight.

The man who loved a married woman with no remorse, and promised to rescue me when I called his name. The god of the underworld.

“I’m working.” Was all he said, as he turned around, and stepped down the path, towards the boathouse.

“Working? Here?”

“Yes.”

“Who let you on the property?”

“The owner,” he said. “And her husband, my colleague.”

The boathouse was just an empty shack, really. Made of cedar wood and tile, that hung over the water. True to its word, it always had one boat, ready to be launched into the lake for a little joy ride. Just a simple rowboat.

“You’ve been protecting Chloe.”

“I said I would.” Hugo was a man of few words. I had forgotten how frugal he was with them.

He opened the door to the boathouse, and inside were…

computers. Computers in black cases, flipped open on a shelving unit that hadn’t been there before.

At the desk was a man with short black hair, his biceps bulging from beneath a brown t-shirt.

He looked back at Hugo and didn’t appear surprised at all.

“The hostile is on his way in, but he’s booked at a hotel with his mistress in Edinburgh.

” I recognized him. He was Leo Bonifacio.

The man who had been dressed in a carnival Victorian suit, tights and all, during Pippa’s wedding.

My new… brother-in-law? “Hi, Cali.” Then back to Hugo, “The shift is yours. I’m going out with my family.

If you need anything from the house, just text. ”

“I’ll log the shift change.” Hugo nodded.

“See you inside,” Leo said, looking at me with a nod, then walked past me. “Or not. Whatever.”

He closed the boathouse door behind him, enclosing me with Hugo.

“What’s going on?” I asked, looking around. “How do you know where Richard is?”

“We have Dick’s luggage bugged.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” He sat at the computer and pulled up his screens.

It was a series of many squares, all with different timestamps, and at different times of day.

Some were in color, some were in black and white.

Small squares followed faces that crossed his screens.

Still, other rooms were completely empty.

I squinted, as one of the images caught my eye. A familiar spread, in a four-poster bed. Then, a very familiar table. Then a living room with a view of New York’s Central Park.

“You’ve been watching me?” I gasped, looking at the cameras that he so blatantly placed up on his screens. “Why?”

I recognized every single room. My NYC penthouse, the LA house, and the London townhouse on Nottinghill were all in the cameras, the images flickering from one room to another.

“Because I told you I’d keep you safe.”

A man who had made a promise and kept it. I did not know those kinds of men existed anymore.

“You’ve been watching me… in my bedroom?” I looked at him, sitting in the chair like the devil I always imagined, my cheeks flushing with a realization that… that he’d seen… everything.

“Yes.” He stared at me with a tranquil expression, as if he hadn’t just admitted to being a fucking pervert. A peeping Tom!

“Aren’t you going to apologize?” I demanded, resisting the urge to stamp my foot.

“Why?” He genuinely looked puzzled, and tilted his head like he was a confused dog. “You were calling my name.”

Heat rushed to my cheeks, as I remembered all the times I had done just that. I had whispered his moniker into the pillow as my hand drifted into my underwear. I had grinded against my fingers, and done obscene things to myself, all in his name.

Had I imagined that he was watching? Sometimes. But more often, I imagined him with me. His stubbled jaw, his rough hands, his impassive eyes and rough mouth. I had remembered him with incredible clarity each and every time, keeping his memory alive every night like it was my prayer.

“I think you liked me watching.” His voice pulled me out of my spiraling thoughts, and he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing at his tanned throat. “As much as it tormented me to watch.”

“Tormented?” I tried to sound casual, but instead, my voice came out a weak little whisper.

“Oh, my eyes could see you.” He bit down on his lower lip, then let it slip from between his white teeth before he smirked, “But it’s your taste I want.”

He was up on his feet in a flash, the seat rolling away behind him, crashing into the conference table. He towered over me, pushing me onto his desk, and I moaned at his heat. He enveloped me in his presence.

He kissed my cheek, his lips lingering, warm and real against my skin.

“All I could think about was the memory of you on my tongue.” His fingertips lightly grazed up my side, tickling my skin, and letting warm goosebumps spread up my back, to the base of my spine.

Despite the cold, I still felt flushed and heated in his presence.

“It has been agony, to have tasted you, then been starved for almost ten years.”

My breasts felt heavy, my nipples pebbling, wishing for those warm lips again. I thought that distance had idealized my memories.

I had thought that I had built him up in my head to be something of legends. The memory of my one indiscretion, my one moment of joy, my single second of happiness kept me going, and became more golden with every recalling.

But here he was. As perfect, and as pristine as he had been in my head.

How was it possible?

His fingertips continued to trace up my skin until they landed on my cheek.

He didn’t cup my face, but simply waited, our breaths heavy, warming the space between us.

“You cannot pretend that you haven’t seen me,” he said, finally, pointing out the insanity of this whole situation. “I have touched you, saved you, watched you from a distance. You have seen me. You have felt me.”

I shook my head.

Yes. Yes, I had, but in my need to keep my lie real I had convinced myself that it was a hallucination. He was a figment of my imagination. This was all a dream. He was a madness that I concocted to stay sane.

“Lie to him,” he commanded, his voice a low growl. “I don’t care what you say to him. I don’t care what you call him. I don’t care that you say you love him, and call him darling.”

He sounded like he wanted to vomit those words.

He obviously did care. So did I.

I swallowed my bile each time those lies crossed my lips. Each time I had to say his name. The man who had no business in my thoughts when I was with Hugo Martin.

“But don’t lie to me.” His fingers pinched my chin, turning my face towards him, giving me no escape from his observant, golden-brown eyes.

I swallowed, feeling an ache in my chest, and a fear in my gut.

I had lied for so long. I had lied hard. I had said it with so much conviction that I didn’t know if I could speak the truth anymore.

“Remember, that I have watched it all.” His voice was gentler this time. Kinder.

I felt a tear slip down my cheek.

It had been so long since I had received kindness from more than just the boys. My defenses weren’t made for it. I had built my walls to withstand hate, and threats, but not this…

“You can tell me anything, Cali,” he said. My heart sank to my feet. “Tell me…”

My fingers trembled as I held them against my ribs, trying to keep one small shred of barrier between me and this French monster that walked around my emotional Maginot Line.

“What do you want to know?” My voice was heavy with defeat.

The strong Calissandra Davenport was so ready to give it all up just for a single moment of intimacy - for the slightest bit of tenderness.

“What has Richard done?” He said the name with such contempt that it almost burned my skin.

I didn’t know where to start. There was so much to say…

“Adelia was his mistress,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat, and trying to keep the tears from falling, but failed. “She’s… She’s the mother of my children, and… and…”

I brought a hand to my lips, trying to keep the words from spilling out.

“He killed her, I think.” Another hot tear went down my cheek.

“She disappeared when they were in Marseille. We thought - Adelia and I - that we had convinced him to leave me and marry her. She wanted that. It was better than where she had come from, even if he was awful. And it would be good for the boys.”

I felt the tears of shame fall down my cheek.

“She said that a bad man with money was better than where she’d been because…

” I took a deep breath. “She was on the Triangle Trade. She had no passport, no birth certificate. They’d taken her documents, and given her no chance of escape until Richard…

” I closed my eyes. More shame. Though this time, it was shame by proxy. “He bought her.”

My husband was a slaver. It was a phrase I had yet to say out loud, afraid that putting it to words would be what made it true. That he was capable of so much worse than just what he had done to me.

“If he married her, she’d have a name. She’d have a life, and so could her boys. And I could be free.”

I dropped my hand, knowing that the dam was broken and all the secrets would pour out in an avalanche, giving voice to the horror.

“He came home and said that he and his mistress split up, and not to concern myself. Then there were two boys that he said we would adopt.” I felt a weeping bubble in my throat, and I tried to tamp it down. “But the boys had those startling blue eyes.”

I knew in my heart who they were and who they belonged to.

“I had them tested,” Hugo said when I faltered.

“Her DNA was stored because they had to investigate the cause of her death before ruling it an accident. I took hair from the boys – don’t be angry.

” He placed a thumb on my lips. “One of my men took hair from brushes while they were at school.” He kissed my forehead.

“Of all the things you must forgive me for, this is the least of it. Adelia was their mother.”

“And he is the father.” I finished the thought. Then I added one last piece that no one knew. No one but me and Adelia. “And she was my friend.”

He let me have a moment, as more tears spilled, uncontrolled, down my face, dangling off the end of my chin until they plummeted to the floor below. He didn’t do anything but trace my arm with the barest touch. It was enough to keep me sane.

“The boys were eight when I met you,” I finally admitted. “You see, he always had more rights to the boys than I did. He could take them away if I left him. If I… threatened him somehow.”

“So you never called me,” he finally concluded. “But now the boys are eighteen.”

“Tomorrow,” I whispered. “They turn eighteen tomorrow. The day after that, I need to bring down Richard Davenport.”