Theo nodded, his nose nudging mine. “I want to end him. End this.”
“We will,” I said with a smile, giving him a kiss on the lips. “But we’re not making it easy on him.”
Rafael was not getting a kind death like his closest guard. He had a long, long life of torture ahead of him before he finally snuffed out. I wasn’t sure if I would ever kill him. I thought I needed to, that as long as he existed, I would never be able to move on. We were still married, after all. But watching him with the roles reversed, well, there was nothing quite like it.
“Maybe we should keep him as a fucked up version of a pet, make him fully aware of how long his horrible life is going to be.”
Theo’s hands grasped my hips and moved up my back, under my shirt as he pulled me in closer. Skin to skin, I hummed at the feel of his fingertips stroking my hips.
“I don’t want a second of his life to ever be easy again after all he put you through.” Theo kissed my neck as I fell further into him. “And I don’t want a second of your life to ever be hard.”
“It won’t be with you at my side, Theo,” I murmured. “If you’ll have me for good…”
He laughed, one of those big, loud, booming laughs that echoed around the room. “If? Baby, if?” He looked incredulous. “The fact that you even suspect I wouldn’t cherish you forever means I’ve done something very fucking wrong.”
I smiled and tried to wrap myself up in him again, but he grabbed my chin and pointed it up, so I was staring him in the eyes.
“What can I do to prove it to you, beautiful?”
Our eyes spoke a million words, stories and promises.
“Just love me, Theo.” I kissed his cheek. “Just love me.”
Thirty-Six
Theo
TheruinofRafaelDelucci began with moving him from the chair.
I knocked him unconscious with the whack of a two by four round the back of his head, then tied him to a foldout bed I’d found in a cupboard, the mattress thin and littered with broken springs poking through. I made sure I was rough, that each of his limbs smacked into concrete as I moved him.
That was followed by the removal of all his clothes, all his dignity as I ripped every cloth from his body then positioned him so that he was fucking exposed. I tied his legs up so even his hairy asshole was visible to anyone walking down the stairs.
And there was nothing he could do to stop it. He was restrained so tight his skin turned purple fast.
When he woke up groggy and disorientated, he tried to squirm. Fuck, it was satisfying to see he couldn’t move a damned inch. I tipped a few gulps of tepid water through his gag and left him there to rot, exposed, scared, confused. No explanation.
Let him come up with a million awful scenarios while he stared into space.
Violet had been happy to let me take the lead for now, trusting me while she healed up. We’d spent a long night talking everything through, about our family, how to move forward as the only ones left. We didn’t miss them, at least I didn’t, but there was a lot up in the air now. Shit to unpack, to solve, people to answer.
Money. Property. Investments and shit. Nothing I wanted, but would use to better Violet’s life.
Our father wasn’t just a sicko with a fetish for handing his kids over to criminals; he had a very successful business. And the responsibility for that now fell on us. Sucking it up, I’d called the VP only a few hours ago and told him to deal with everything for the time being. Informed him that everyone was dead.
That after a huge family tragedy, an unexpected fire wiping out so many of the Lewis’s at once, leaving Violet and me reeling, suffering. We needed time to grieve.
The heaviness in my voice was only for my sisters, but it worked. The VP spluttered, held back a cry of anguish and hung up the phone, telling me he’d take care of everything.
I contemplated the idea of coping with the grief of it as I sought my sister out, following the sounds of her singing somewhere on the property. Was it something I even needed to do? Everyone was gone, gone together, no more. The Lewis bloodline would end with us because we sure as shit wouldn’t be making any babies.
But grieving, for the life we could have had maybe. But not for anything else.
Violet was outside on the back porch, a blanket over her shoulders and a glass of wine in her hands, watching the world drift by. The trees that backed the property weren’t too dense, so it was possible to catch the occasional animal moving through. As it was late afternoon, the sun was still high in the sky, but on its descent, casting long shadows across the greenery.
She stopped singing when I sank down next to her, humming in pleasure instead. Without a word between us, we shuffled so her legs fell over mine, and my arm curled around her shoulders. How we should be. Connected.
“I was just hoping to catch sight of an animal,” she murmured, stroking a hand along my thigh.
