Page 98 of Deviant Illusions

Without argument, she places her hands flat on the floor. I stand behind her to cover her ass while she crawls in front of me with her hair wrapped around my hand. My blood coats the strands, turning them pink then red as I drag her to the bag I filled up with food and water.

Hate me. Hate me. Hate me.

“Eat,” I order, hating myself now too.

She sits up on her knees and I clench my teeth as she takes out a bruised apple. Fuck, I shouldn’t have been careless when I dropped the bag. But she eats it without complaint as I continue twisting her hair around my fist to inflict more pain on myself while silently promising,“I’ll get you away from these cunts, then I’ll kill them all for taking everything from us. When they’re dead, I’ll beg at your feet for you to forgive me.”

She doesn’t say anything as she blindly thrusts a piece of bread at me.

“Eat,” I snap. “I don’t want anything your filthy fucking hands have touched.”

I don’t want to take it off you.

The tap of Helene’s stick makes her freeze. I pull her back as I step around her to kick the bag behind the drapes. Helene doesn’t knock on the door, she just walks the fuck inside with a smug smile on her horrid fucking face.

“Get the fuck out,” I bark. “Do not enter this room while I’m with my wife.”

Her eyes slowly glide over my shoulder, to the lashes crawling over my skin, then down my arm to my hand in Delilah’s hair. She looks back up and says, “I’m glad youlistened. Now bring her downstairs. I won’t allow you to hide away while we have guests.”

I drag my pretty girl to stand, making sure the hoodie falls to cover her as I wrap my fingers around her nape. She has to fucking fight me now and drags her feet as I force her out of the room. Maybe this way I can steal a moment to explain to her that she’s safe, that this isn’t the real me. All we need is a second away from Helene’s surveillance in this room for me to tell her that I fucking adore her, that I’ll never intentionally hurt her. Then she’ll understand me, she’ll wait for this to be over.

The cold tiles will hurt her feet, so I wrap my arm around her waist when we reach the staircase and carry her down. She’s fully enraptured in her hate and digs her nails into my forearm, but it’s good. Hate is an emotion. If she hates me, I can make her love me again. If she feels nothing, then I’ve lost her.

Thankfully, Helene’s attendant isn’t in the kitchen or tied up anywhere, but Anna is standing in the corner of the hallway with wide eyes. She doesn’t even blink as we approach. My steps slow at the rope tied around her ponytail.

It was fuckingher.

Whatever she experienced has made her a statue. She doesn’t even react to Delilah glaring at her. Or the voices of her old employers coming from the lounge. That makes Delilah stiffen in my arms. Her fire comes back when we enter the lounge as her parents continue laughing with her grandparents. She screams, “Fuck you!”

Her parents briefly pause their conversation to look at her, then start talking amongst themselves about the fucking décor of all things.

“Helene, you’ve outdone yourself with this room since the last time I was here,” Mrs. Leroux says, sipping from her wine glass and examining the literal death nailed to the walls.

My girl twists with more energy than she’s had previously, so I let her go to cause damage to her monsters. She runs before her feet are even touching the ground and I smile when she pulls her arm back, fingers tucked into a fist, and firmly connects with her father’s jaw.That’s my fucking wife.

She’s perfect.

Her father isn’t though. He’s a prick who raises his fucking hand towards my wife. I grab the back of her hoodie to pull her away from his hand. My voice comes out as steel as I push her behind me to make sure she’s out of harm’s way. “Put your hand down, Harkin.”

Helene decides to be useful as she stands beside me, giving her own order. “You are in my home. Do not forget your place.”

She must be suffering from some psychosis that makes her a loyal whatever the fuck she is. I don’t know if she’s my grandmother, my biological mother, or some creep that’s lying to me. Lennox will be able to tell me the truth, but my head hurts as I try to work out if he would be my uncle or my brother.

So I don’t focus on it. I don’t even allow it to occupy space in my mind; instead my mental faculties are honed on Harkin as his face turns red and he slowly lowers his fucking hand. The weak little cunt was going to slap Delilah when she punched him. Pathetic fuck.

One day I’ll walk with her, hand in hand, directly to her father and she can take out every bit of pain he caused her. Today is not that day. She crumbles as her grandparents enter the room, flattening against my back, her cheek pressing against the lashes. Her father is a monster, a rapist, yet she kept her anger in front of him. Whatever her grandparents have done is worse—worse than rape and neglect, worse than taking her baby away from her.

Tremors work through her entire body when her grandfather stops beside me and he smiles down at her. “Mon biquet, haveyou finally learnt how to be obedient?” He lifts his hand to stroke her hair.

I pull her with me as I turn, keeping her behind me. “Delilah belongs to me now.” I meet each of their eyes. “No one will touch her, speak to her, or look at her without my permission. She is an animal that you gave to me, and animals do not require interaction.”

These twisted cunts aren’t going to die of natural causes. I don’t care what it takes, I’m going to make sure it’s painful. They add more reason as her grandfather says, “We all have our techniques to break the ones we’re given.”

Bite your fucking tongue.

Helene continues being useful as she calls out, “You may serve us now.”

It brings the conversation to an end. Whether that’s good or bad isn’t obvious until Anna stands at the door and we follow her through the house to another room. There’s no padlock on this time as she slides them open easily, unveiling a large banquet table with more people I’ve never seen before.

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