Page 66 of Worse Than Wicked
“Well, you must be remembering wrong,” he says, like it’s the end of the discussion.
“You threw her baby in the vat of fryer oil,” I say. “Does that ring any bells?”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” he says. “You always had quite an imagination, I’ll give you that. I can’t even imagine what else she’s told you.”
He looks at Baron for this, like he thinks Baron will believe him over me. For one sickening moment, I consider what will happen if he does. If he’ll say I never told him this, and I made it all up, and Dahlia too, and all the dates we went on, everything we ever said and did. He’ll say there’s no Jane, there never was a Jane; there’s no baby, there’s no us. There’s not evena Duke. There’s only one of them, and he barely knows me. My heart starts skipping and I have to grip my chest at the stab of pain there.
But he’s on his feet, hauling my grandfather up by the front of his shirt.
“Mabel doesn’t lie,” he growls, and then he shoves Grandpa back, hard.
Everything happens slow, and then fast.
His arms pinwheel. He stumbles backwards. He trips over a potted plant.
Glass shatters. And then he’s gone.
He screams, but he doesn’t even get to finish before there’s a solid, gruesome thud.
Glass shards are still raining around us, cascading over the furniture.
The door flies open, and Preston is standing there, his gun drawn.
“What happened?” he demands, scanning the room. “Where’s Grandpa?”
“He seems to have had a little accident,” Baron says. “Stumbled right into the window.”
Preston looks from me, to Baron, and back.
“Oops,” I say with a shrug.
“You’re not hurt?” Preston asks me. “You’re okay?”
“Never better,” I say. “But you might want to call down and tell the maid we only need two glasses of iced tea now.”
“Better yet, tell her we’ll come down and get it,” Baron says. “We need a moment to grieve. But you might check on that body. If it’s still breathing, I trust you’ll take care of that.”
Preston mutters a few curses and turns on his heel, disappearing out the door as suddenly as he came.
A hiccup of a laugh bubbles up inside me and bursts forth, high and slightly hysterical. Baron looks at me and grins, thenpicks me up and drops into the furthest armchair, pulling me astride his lap. His eyes blaze with a hunger I rarely see there.
“You sick little monster,” he says, raking his hands up my thighs, pushing my dress to my hips, his fingers ghosting over scars. “Ride me while he’s dead on the ground outside.”
“Preston might hear,” I point out, trying to squirm away. “He’ll shoot you.”
“Then save your screams until we get home,” he says, undoing his pants and dragging his cock out. “I’ll savor them even more after what we just did. But right now, I want that tight cunt showing me just how much it appreciates what I just did for you.”
I swallow hard and nod, lifting up. Biting my lip, I fit him to my entrance, forcing myself down onto him. The sting of him entering me when I’m so completely unaroused has tears dripping down my cheeks, and he growls his approval, lifting his hips to force himself in further. His girth stretches me, and I choke on a cry as he starts dragging himself out and then tearing into my dry opening.
I hold in the sound, swallowing it like I did so many nights in this house, sealing the horror and pain and shame up tight inside the seamless blank of a doll. I let him play with me the way he likes, because I’m his doll now. I made a bargain with the devil, and these are the terms. He hurts me because that’s what he needs, but he will make sure that no one else ever does. And because I give him this, he gives me his loyalty, and the promise that he won’t hurt anyone else.
Just me. I’m his special little monster. And he is mine.
seventeen
Duke Dolce
Baron and Mabel have been gone for hours. They don’t even bother checking in, and they have my car, so I can’t leave. After a while, I start to wonder if they’re coming back. They could just leave me in Faulkner and go, say it’s for my own good. After all, I don’t have classes to return to, a degree to earn. They could ditch me and disappear. They wouldn’t even have to give me a cut. What am I going to do, go to the police and tell them I got stiffed the money I’m owed for cooking drugs for a year?
