Page 32 of Savage Justice

I lurch to my feet and stagger to the en suite bathroom.

So what if he is boasting? It takes two and all that. It’s not the first time I’ve made bad choices in men and I daresay it won’t be the last.

I turn on the shower and drop my dishevelled clothing on the floor before stepping under the jet. Warm water cascades down my back. I turn and tip up my face to get the full impact of the flow. The feeling is exhilarating, cleansing. Liberating.

I use the fancy shower gel provided for guests and some rather nice shampoo with built-in conditioner. I don’t usually rate that stuff, but this one actually works. I finger comb my hair then rinse it, turning back and forth under the stream until my body feels refreshed.

Well, more or less. The vague tingling between my legs is a constant reminder that he was there. It’s not painful just… persistent.

I amble back into the bedroom and tip out the last couple of black bags. Somehow during our impromptu workout, they must have been tossed onto the floor. I select a nice button-up dress in a bright shade of lilac, some clean underwear, and a pair of flesh-coloured sandals. I check the mirror for any hint of a ‘just-fucked’ look and find nothing untoward. Satisfied that I’ll pass muster, I set off to do what I should have done an hour ago. I go in search of my children.

“Mummy, am I going to school today?”

I shove a handful of hair out of my eyes and drowsily force my eyelids apart. Lucy is sitting up in bed next to me, her arms wrapped around her knees.

“I’m not sure,” I mumble. “Do you want to? And how come you’re awake so early?” I peer to the foot of the bed where the borrowed cot has been placed. Baby Noah is still sleeping.

Since this mansion is just a couple of miles from our old neighbourhood, it would be perfectly feasible for Lucy to attend her usual school, but I’m not sure our self-styled guardians would agree. I share their reservations. It would be all too easy for some other hired thug to snatch her as she comes out at the end of the day. She’d have to be taken there, dropped off, then picked up again. We’d have to have a word with her teachers about never leaving her alone, and that would mean bringing yet more people into our private affairs. And however careful we were, I’d be on pins the entire time she was out of my sight.

I need to get things in perspective, I realise that. I can’t keep my daughter under lock and key, but as long as Borys is out there, waiting, watching…

“Not really,” she replies. “It’s double English today.”

I sit up next to her and drape my arm around her and resign myself to a spot of home-schooling. “Let’s give it a miss for a little while, then. We’ll do something here, together.”

She brightens. “Like what?”

I think fast. “We could make a collage.”

“Oo. Like, with cutting and sticking?”

“Yup. But we’ll make it with everything except paper. No magazines. We’ll use fabrics, and leaves from the garden, and wrappers and—”

“Wrappers are paper,” she reminds me seriously. “That’s against the rules. We’ll use pasta, and rice. And flour. We could dye it all.”

She’s clearly warming to the theme, and so am I. There’s nothing I enjoy more than doing something artsy with my kid. Well, almost nothing.

“Now you’re talking, kid. Let’s go see what we can find in the kitchen.”

I consider picking Noah up and taking him with us, but he seems perfectly content where he is. The men found my baby monitor on one of their visits to my old house, so I switch it on and tuck it in my pocket. This house is huge, I’d have no way of hearing him if he were to wake and start crying, though I suppose it’s likely someone else would. They seem to take a communal approach to childcare here, even the men.

We’ve been here for three days now, and I’m becoming resigned to the situation. Why wouldn’t I be? It’s comfortable. There’s lots of space for Lucy to roam around, and people willing to help with Noah. The other women who live here, Ruth who’s married to the one called Jack, and Jenna who lives with Tony, are both pleasant and welcoming. Jenna has a job outside the mansion, but Ruth is always here so I have someone to talk to if I fancy some company. The conversation generally revolves around babies—her little Faith is just a month younger than Noah—but it’s still sort of nice.

I may not be able to come and go as I like, but I’m not a prisoner. Not really.

Ethan has gone, back to his Hebridean island, I gather. Aaron, too, who I now realise is Ethan’s brother. The rest of the men are in and out a lot, and the place is always busy.

I haven’t caught more than a passing glance of Nico since that day. Is he avoiding me? Maybe. I’m sure as hell trying to keep out of his way. It would be too embarrassing otherwise.

No one has said anything, making me think that either he didn’t sound off to all his friends about me or he swore them to secrecy. But there have been no snide comments, no smug looks and for that, at least, I’m grateful. The last thing I want is for Lucy to become confused. I’m quite confused enough for both of us.

Lucy’s having a whale of a time. She’s become best friends with Robbie, Tony and Jenna’s foster son. The lad seems a bit odd to me, very shy and reserved, but he’s obsessed with chess, and Lucy has got the bug, too. They spend hours together in the kitchen, their heads almost touching over the chessboard. As far as I know, Lucy has never won a game, but that doesn’t seem to matter to her. Robbie is her friend, so that’s that.

Tony brought my work over from my old house. He gathered up my laptop and all the sketches from my conservatory and dumped them in the library. The room has a lovely olde worlde vibe to it. The walls are lined with bookshelves, and I reckon I’ve spotted a few first editions in among the ranks of leather-bound classics, not to mention the rather beautiful Turner watercolour hanging above the fireplace. I’m no expert but my educated guess would be that it’s worth around fifty grand.

The men prefer to congregate in one of the drawing rooms where there are arcade games and a seventy-inch television, so hardly anyone ever goes in the library. It’s a place for me to work if I want to. The light is okay, not quite as good as my own conservatory, but it’ll do. It’s the ideal spot to set to on our collage project.

We detour to the kitchen and raid the cupboards. We find half a packet of dried pasta shells, some spaghetti, rice, and breakfast cereals. On impulse, I investigate the first-aid box and discover some balls of cotton wool and a handful of those little cotton buds. We leave our stash in the library while we explore outdoors. I’m not sure who does the gardening around here, but the grounds are well tended. I wouldn’t call them pretty, exactly, the lawns and woodland are too utilitarian for that, but the landscaping is natural and attractive. We find leaves of all shapes and colours and collect them in a plastic bucket. There are wildflowers, too, primroses, violets, and plenty I can’t name. We gather samples to add to the collection, and even some tiny stones of different colours.

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