The door shuts behind me with more force than I intend, rattling in its frame. My shoulder grazes the wall as I push myself forward, my shined shoes dragging over polished wood. There’s a wet heat spreading across my ribs, sticky under my shirt, and when I glance down, my hand comes away red with slimy blood. The cut isn’t deep, but it’s enough to make every step sway slightly.
I catch myself on the stairwell railing, knuckles white around the banister as the room tilts. I grit my teeth, swallow the weakness, and drag myself upward. Each stair feels like it’s waiting to swallow me whole, but the thought of her—sleeping, safe in our bed—pulls me higher.
Ford is back under this roof. I secured him and hauled him out of the underground training facility they kept him in, dragged him home like some offering at her altar. He’s across the hallnow, pulling himself together and doing whatever the fuck it is he needs to do to become Ford again. I don’t care. I don’t want to tell her he’s home yet, not tonight. I didn’t do it for him.
Another wave of dizziness threatens to overwhelm me. This cut isn’t even deep, and yet the blood loss continues to try to pull me under. I clamp my palm over the wound, feel the warm pulse of blood beneath it, and force myself toward the door that matters.
I’m pleased to see she’s there—curled beneath the sheets, hair fanned over the pillow, breathing soft and steady like nothing in this goddamn world could touch her. My knees nearly give out at the sight. I stagger to her side of the bed and lower myself onto the mattress, careful not to wake her.
The wound can wait. The blood can wait. Everything else can wait.
Because the demon inside me needs a release, and her delicate little body is going to bear the brunt of it tonight.
My coat slides from my shoulders to the floor, and I loosen my tie, my gaze never leaving her. I reach for the cuff of my sleeve, rolling it back slowly, as I remove each cufflink and toss them to the floor.
My usual control is sloppy. I’d never make such a mess. I’m tired and can hardly remain standing, but my insatiably hungry beast needs to play, and there's a darling wife here who is going to pay the price.
What I’m about to do to her is cruel, and it will leave her with no doubt about who she belongs to.
The liquor in my blood hums, blending with the exhaustion clawing at my body, but neither is enough to dull the clarity of this moment. I want her to take my pain, Ineedher to wear it like armor for me.
I walk slowly to the dresser and retrieve a roll of duct tape from the top drawer.
Sloppily, I pull a piece off and slap it over my cut, knowing it will only hold back my blood loss for about thirty minutes, but at this rate, that’s all I’ll need with her.
If I were a better man, I’d let her rest. If I were a normal husband, I would come home from my day, remove my clothes, and wrap my naked body around her own.
Perhaps I’d fuck her in missionary, and the hottest thing we’d do is make eye contact while moaning each other's names. But I’ll never be that man for her, and for my sanity and hers, I’m going to remind her of that tonight.
I am not a good man, but I am hers, and whether she can handle it or not, her body is mine to worship with cruelty. She’s mine to use. And tonight, she’s my whipping post to take a bit of my pain so I don’t have to bear it all.
I stagger slightly as I walk to the bed, finding the blood loss adds a haze to my vision.
There's a soft glow coming in through the windows from the moonlight, and she hates to close the heavy drapes at night. The faint light illuminates our large bed, full of soft, white, fluffy goose-down pillows, which will soon be covered in blood.
Looking at her blonde hair covering her sleeping face, puffing in and out over her lips as she rests delicately, I become a man possessed.
Mine.
I can’t think of a single thing other thanmine.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
I walk to the bed and shove her hard to her side. Pulling her pajamas off, my eyes dilate as her expression goes from confused to soft to terrified. I fucking love the fear I see on her face.
I need her terror to feed me. I need to use her tight body and her wet holes as a vessel to forget about today.
Douglass was a piece of fucking work. After we left the mausoleum, we went straight to complete my side of thebargain. He was a slippery bastard, rolling and scrambling like a rat on the Huntington-Russell yacht. I expected resistance, but not the kind that had me tearing through endless corridors like I was playing varsity football offense. Hudson and I ran him down, the echo of our steps pounding through what felt like a hundred goddamn bedrooms, chandeliers shaking overhead, boat doors slamming in his wake. The physical strain of it bit harder than I’d calculated, sweat cutting into my eyes, lungs burning with each sprint.
Archie, meanwhile, was busy dismantling the security detail—one by one, bodies dropping out of our way so I could focus on cornering the bargaining chip for Ford's escape.
I drove Douglass to the sun deck off the primary bedroom, where the bastard was at last cornered, pressed into the rail like a trapped animal. He clutched a knife in his shaking hand, eyes darting, chest heaving. I could smell his fear.
When he realized there was no way past me, he tried to take the coward’s exit—vaulting for the ledge of the rail, ready to throw himself into the water. Hudson was quicker, hauling him back over the railing by the collar like he was nothing but dead weight. That was my opening. I lunged, slamming him down into the deck, but in the chaos, his blade slipped between us, catching me just above the waistband.
A white-hot sting tore through my side, blood seeping fast beneath my shirt. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t give him the satisfaction. My weight kept him pinned, the knife still clenched uselessly in his hand while my blood slicked between us.
After that, getting him back to the Mausoleum was a piece of fucking cake.
