Page 9 of Reckoning

Because it’s my nature.

Because I don’t know any other way.

“Come on. I need to show you something.”

“Can I eat first?”

As if on cue, her stomach grumbled. Looking down, I remembered I was still in my sweaty clothes. “Fine.” I grabbed her arm and dragged her down the hallway to the kitchen, where Joshua sat playing on his phone. I didn’t keep any staff besides him, knowing anyone I let into my house would really be on my father’s dime instead of mine. Even though I paid Joshua triple the normal rate for his services as bodyguard and general attendant, I knew he still wasn’t fully insulated from Conrad’s influence. “Make her some food.”

“I can feed myself.” She jerked her arm out of my grasp, but I grabbed her chin and backed her up against the wall. She gasped as fresh tears sprung to her eyes.

“Stop. Testing. Me.” God, I was fucking sick of this attitude. How could someone get kicked so many times while she was down and still be so insolent? “If I leave, you will starve. You only live as long as I will it. Do you understand?”

Tears clung to her lashes, constellations falling to the earth as she nodded. I thought about how they’d look with the addition of my cock in her mouth, on her knees in front of me, and I had to step back quickly to keep from bringing that fantasy to life. I turned to look at Joshua as I strode out of the kitchen. “Feed her.”

I showered and changed quickly, donning khaki shorts and a striped red polo. When I came back to the kitchen with my hair still damp, Madeline was finishing what looked like a grilled cheese sandwich. Her eyes were still slightly red, but she wasn’t sniffling anymore, and her voice was clear when she spoke.

“Thank you, Joshua,” she said. “That was delicious.”

He nodded. “My pleasure.”

I scowled. No need for her to be friendly with the help. “Let’s go.”

“Don’t you need to eat?”

My glare hardened. “You’re not getting out of this.”

“But you are hungry, right?” She raised her eyebrows at me.

Damn, she was right, and it pissed me off. “I’ll have a granola bar.” I grabbed one out of the pantry and grabbed her arm, pulling her out into the sunlight. She squinted her eyes tight against the sun.

“Enjoy the sunlight. You’re not going to see much of it from now on.”

“What do you mean? You can’t keep me locked up.”

“You keep saying that. ‘You can’t, you can’t.’ But I can, Madeline, and I am. The sooner you accept that, the easier things will be for you.” The wind whipped her hair into my face. I gathered it in one hand and pulled it behind her head. In the bright light, her skin appeared even more pale and the bruises redder. Her eye was still swollen nearly shut, but the cut from Conrad’s ring didn’t look infected. I raised my hand to brush the backs of my fingers against her face. “This is important. You need to pay attention to what I’m about to tell you. It’s not going to be pretty, but it’ll help you understand why I’m acting the way I am.”

“Like an insufferable ass?”

I squeezed my fist tighter, tilting her head back. “Believe it or not, I don’t like treating you like this. I’d much rather pull your hair while I ride your ass in bed. But if you keep undermining me in front of everyone and when we’re alone, I will make things very painful for you.” Releasing her, I turned her around and shoved her in the direction of my backyard. “Walk.”

She dug her heels into the dirt. “I’m not letting you take me out there.” All flippancy was gone from her voice; she finally sounded properly afraid. “You’ll put a bullet into my head.”

“Not yet.” I pushed again, and she finally stumbled forward toward the trees. She glanced back at me occasionally as we walked, but I gestured her forward every time. She folded her arms and hunched her shoulders, though it must have hurt her to bend like that, pulling her shirt so tight across her back that the purple bruises showed through the light fabric. When we reached the clearing, she stopped dead, staring at the cross in the center of the open space with trepidation.

“Not a human grave, if that’s what you’re worried about.” I pushed her forward a few more steps. “Though the cross is a little bizarre.”

“Bizarre because you think the only higher power is money?”

I shrugged without offense. “Something like that. I think I only put it there because I saw it on TV.”

She tentatively stepped forward to the front of the grave marker and crouched in front of it. “Daisy,” she read. She twisted to look at me. “You brought me to your dog’s grave?” Standing, she stepped to the side and away from me. I matched her step for step. “What the fuck out of a Stephen King novel is this?”

“I wanted to show you the first thing I ever killed.”

Her eyes went wide as she stumbled backward. “Wh-what do you mean?”

I pulled her back to stand in front of the marker. “Your mother got me Daisy.”

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