Page 25 of To Have and to Hold

“Welcome, gentlemen,” Rafe said, holding his palm out for us to shake. My entire body lit up with the urge to break his hand when I had to take it. The same hand that had damaged my sister, and I just had to grip it and let it go. Not rip his fingernails from each digit and shove them into his eye sockets in response to the way she’d hobbled in for breakfast the morning after their wedding.

Rafe caught my gaze and, for a split second, looked surprised at what he found, then he softened, smirked, his smile turning calculated for just a fraction of a moment.

“So, do what do we owe the pleasure of your company?” Charlie asked, sinking into one of the chairs by the large mahogany desk. Both our attention turned to the mystery man in the room, who was perched in a small chair by the wall, watching us closely.

“We have a proposition for you,” Rafe said, his smile widening. I didn’t give a shit and let my mind wander to the woman somewhere in this house. Charlie seemed excited by whatever the fuck proposition Rafe had for him, and this man watched everything with open hostility.

I wanted to leave the room, to stalk these halls until I found Violet, then fling her over my shoulder and run, take her somewhere safe and… what? Protect her? Treat her like my little sister? Innocent and familial? Deep inside me, I knew I could never do that again. Protect her, sure. But as my sister? No. She was more now.

Ihadaplan.A small one. It formed while I was ignoring the business deals my brother made with my brother-in-law and the other man, who I’d come to discover was the mayor of this town. I didn’t give a fuck. In the UK our mayors pranced about looking like twat-headed pirates with fuck all to show for it. Mayoral power counted for shit, and this man was just as much a prick as Rafe.

So I plotted. Nodded when I needed to and agreed to whatever.

I hadn’t seen Violet the entire time we were at Rafe’s, including when he gave us a more thorough tour of the place and made us stay for lunch. His wife didn’t make an appearance, and all I heard of her was Rafe making heavy-handed jokes about impregnating her, tying our families together truly by blood.

So when we were set free, Charlie already busy doing whatever he needed to for the business, calling Father, hammering away on his phone, I dropped him off at home and took his car to the local town, citing the need for a fucking break. The mayor had given me one good idea, at least. Use the facilities available to me in the nearby town.

Barging into the doctor’s office and demanding to talk to him didn’t set me off on the best foot with whom the internet had called the most-renowned doctor in town, but it sure did catch his attention. I threw my weight, my gun, and my money around, until he agreed to see me. Money talked here, in Rafe’s domain, and it took no more than ten minutes to get what I came for. The gun pointed at his head the entire time gave that extra assurance I needed that he wouldn’t blab.

“Just don’t get caught,” the doctor tried to warn me, frowning as I slipped the prescription into my pocket. He was sitting at his desk in his swivel chair, still yet to regain back his color from when the barrel of my gun first pressed into his temple. “You know he runs this town, don’t you? Not just this town, in fact.”

“Yeah,” I said, rolling my eyes, already sick of the man, all the fucking fear he caused even amongst people not under his control. “I do.”

“If he comes here and asks me about this, I will tell him the truth.” The doctor stuck his nose in the air, steeled himself like that might make me hurt him. Instead, I scoffed.

“On your own head be it, mate,” I said, yanking the door open. “Decide what’s worse, a little white lie or the boogeyman of the fucking state knowing what you did.”

I left his office with a prescription and a promise to get more every three months. The doctor sat back in his chair with an ashen face as the door slammed shut.

Rafael Delucci was not impregnating my sister. It was never happening. I would sooner sterilize her than let that happen. Sooner no children ever, than to have to allow Rafe’s cum to fester in her belly to create a child. But, for now, this would have to do.

I walked along the quiet street, my eyes grazing over the other stores as I tried to figure out a way to see her, to get five minutes alone so I could explain what was happening, what I was doing. A closed florist caught my eye, nestled between a bakery and a vacant lot, and I laughed when I realized I just wanted to buy her some fucking flowers. Some pretty little daisies like the simp I was for her.

I wanted to touch her and buy her flowers. My sister. My little fucking sister. I tensed my jaw and tried to shake away the sick sensation, the notion knocking on the edges of my brain that I was one twisted up fucker.

Even though I’d hardly seen her since fucking her on her wedding night, I was fast becoming obsessed.

Chapter 15

Violet

Thatarrivalofthestain of red on my underwear was a celebration for me. Quietly, I cheered, almost damn sobbed at the sight of my period telling me loud and clear Rafe hadn’t taken root in me. But it brought about the most brutal beating from him yet.

I’d disappointed him. The church. Everyone.

Lucy supplied me with a box of tampons when I asked, but the way her expression dropped was my first clue that it wasn’t good news for all. She was so blank, I couldn’t guess what she was thinking, but that little flicker on her usually dour face made my heart sink.

Later that day, after Rafe yanked my underwear down and found the tampon string dangling from between my legs, he attacked. Ferocious, unbidden beatings across my thighs and stomach. He screamed curses and insults as he punched and kicked and pounded against my sore flesh over and over. I didnothing but take it, curled up on the floor, whimpering with each slam of his body against mine.

He punished me. Inside and out. Over and over. Attempted to starve me further, delivering no food at all. Only water from the tap in the bathroom sustained me, and that tasted metallic, musty. He ripped the tampon from my vagina and rubbed it against my face before storming from the room, leaving his dark rage behind to fester in me.

For two days, I sat on a towel and bled onto it, my thighs stinging with each movement, my stomach cramping and my mood lower than ever. Lucy took the box of tampons she’d delivered away again, no sympathy on her expression as she swiped it and turned on her heel.

I didn’t even have it in me to be curious about her. I just waited it out.

Until, four days later, she returned, a fresh box of tampons and a bowl of porridge on a tray in her grasp.

“Please say something,” I asked her, my words a croak, throat rough from lack of use. I just needed to hear a voice, a human. Anything but the sound of my own heart and the melancholic rhythm of the house.

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