What the fuck am I doing?
None of this is going to plan, and I can’t find a name for whatever ‘this’ is.
It’s as confusing as the girl who’s causing the whole fucked-up change. I hate change, especially when I haven’t anticipated it. There’s nothing more irritating than being in a situation I can’t predict.
I thought I knew Cecily Knight, that I’d found her buttons and identified everything that makes her tick.
But then again, watching or going through her things might’ve been the easiest part of understanding the girl who’s now sleeping wrapped around me.
This scene happened after she announced that she’d be staying the night.
She shouldn’t want to stay the night. I was fully expecting her to run after she saw me pummel her fucking prince. I had every intention of hunting the fuck out of her if that were the case, but still, the fact that she not only didn’t run but also came here early brought about an unwelcome change.
When I felt her presence behind me, I was overtaken by a powerful emotion that was novel to me. Because instead of nursing the fucker’s wounds, she came to me.
She chose me.
Or did she?
This could be a game she plotted with that motherfucker.
I wasn’t rooting for Lan.
Those were her words from earlier, bristling and dripping with unmatched honesty.
I release a long breath, and as if feeling my distress, Cecily buries her face further into my chest, mumbling something unintelligible.
My fingers glide in her silver hair, smoothing it down, and she goes slack against me, her small hand barely touching my shoulder. Her legs tucked in my lap and her tiny body pressed against mine.
Any other person would’ve fallen into this peaceful moment, taken it for what it is, and thought about everything else afterward.
I fucking can’t.
My pragmatic nature forbids it and I can’t erase everything that I know thus far.
Such as the fact that she’s liked Landon for years or that she called his name after sex. It was only that one time, but it fucking counts. Because every time after we’re finished, I wait for her to say the fucker’s name.
And every time, I resist the urge to slam my hand over her mouth so she doesn’t.
Even now, I’m waiting for her to whisper the word and dig her own grave.
Why the fuck would she trust me enough to stay and even sleep on my lap?
I could throw her in the lake and watch as she panics and chokes on the water. Maybe I should do that, after all, to quench these chaotic feelings.
Something stops me, though.
As much as I want to punish her, to eradicate the name of that motherfucker from her vocabulary, I actually don’t want to hurt her.
Deep down, Cecily has become part of who I am. I can’t be the cause of her pain.
At least, not outside of sex.
With a sigh, I gather her in my arms bridal style and stride in the direction of the house.
Her head falls on my shoulder and she moans softly, the sound sending a signal straight to my cock.
My beast demands that I strip her bare, let her run, then fuck her. It doesn’t matter that I have her every night and more than once. The moment I’m done, I want more.
There’s this constant need to be inside her and never allow her out of my sight.
During the day, I think about the coming night and how she’ll give in to her instincts and me. During the night, I think about how a few hours are not fucking enough.
There’s no reason why I shouldn’t have her at my disposal every second of every minute of every day, however and wherever I please.
My beast wants to cage her here, lock the doors, and forbid her from leaving. She might fight at the beginning, but she’d have no choice once I erased every escape route.
But that would mean losing the fire that simmers inside her, the fight, and…the life.
She’s so full of life, despite some of her dissociating episodes that are becoming fewer and farther between.
They still happen, though. A part of her is trapped in that hotel room two years ago with the fucker who will soon lose everything.
I’ve got someone looking into him, his family, and the fucking skeletons in his closet. Once I have all the information I need, his life will be over.
As soon as we’re inside, I lay Cecily on the sofa and cover her with a light blanket. Then I sit on the chair opposite her, elbow on the armrest and chin leaning on my fist.
This is what I do whenever she falls asleep or if I’m following her from afar. I watch, think, and try to decide what I’m going to do with her.
What started as a game of twisted lust and beastly desire is turning into dangerous possessiveness and a deranged obsessiveness I can’t put a halt to.
My phone vibrates and I stand, then go outside, closing the door behind me.
I answer with, “You have something for me?”
“No hello, how is my favorite uncle doing?” Yan says with an incredulous tone from the other end.
Not only is he one of my father’s closest guards, but he’s also been my mother’s best friend for as long as I’ve been alive. A fact Dad isn’t so keen on.
“I suppose you wouldn’t call if you didn’t have information for me,” I say in a businesslike tone.
“You are so much like your father, it’s revolting.” He speaks in a Russian-accented voice, then sighs. “And here I thought the years we spent together would enable you to pick up my superior character.”
“Yan.”
“Fine, fine. Though I’m not sure what your beef is with a preppy kid, I was able to identify and locate the motherfucker. It was a lot easier than you advertised, which is also another word for boring.”
I slide my forefinger against my thigh, back and forth. “Send me everything you have.”
“No thank you, Yan. I’ll get you a souvenir from England?”
“Thanks. I owe you one.”
“That’s more like it.” He pauses. “I’m sure I don’t need to worry about you, but you’re not getting yourself in trouble, are you? And if you do end up in trouble, you’ll be sure to let me know so I can join, right?”
“This is my fight. Nothing you should concern yourself with.”
“That’s my boy. But don’t get yourself hurt. Your mother is worried, thinking that you’re growing up into this heartless man who’s like a younger version of your father. Spoiler alert, she wasn’t his biggest fan back then.”
I know all about it.
Just because I was a kid, my parents and even Yan think that I don’t remember things, that I was too happy-go-lucky to notice how my mother’s ghosts ate her from the inside out and left nothing for Dad and me.
How, instead of sleeping, I did everything I could to sneak into their bedroom and lie beside my unmoving mother’s side.
Sometimes, she didn’t even know I was there.
Other times, she looked at me and didn’t see me.
Oftentimes, she forgot about me.
“Tell her all is well and that she doesn’t need to worry. I have everything under control.”
“Don’t say that. It’s a sure way for everything to spiral out of control. Promise to be careful, kid.”
“I will. Thanks again.”
I end the call with Yan and go through the files he sent me. My father has the best intelligence, not only in the Bratva but in all criminal organizations. He has a web of hackers and informants that he uses to make himself untouchable and maintain the Bratva as a force to be reckoned with in New York.
Yes, I could’ve found the fucker myself, but that would’ve taken longer considering that Cecily erased every trace of him from her electronic devices and social media and vehemently refuses to talk about the experience after that Russian roulette game.
I could’ve interrogated her friends, but the chances that she’s disclosed anything is slim to none and they’d also grow suspicious. Despite my utter annoyance with the lack of information, I respect her need to tell them in her own time. That is, if she does choose to divulge that part about her past.
There’s also Annika, but when I tested the waters and veered a conversation toward her friends’ exes, she admitted that she doesn’t even know if Cecily has a boyfriend, and if she does, she never talks about it.
So asking Yan for help was the most efficient way to go about this.
I scroll through every picture, every file, every folder. I study the motherfucker for what seems like hours, until I feel him materializing right in front of me. I learn every tick, every rotten memory of his past. Every weakness.
I’m going to make his life hell. It won’t be easy or fast. It won’t end with torture or fucking death.
It’ll be slow and infinite, until he loses his damn mind.
After planning what I’ll do with him, I step into the house. The first thing my eyes track is the unmoving, rigid body on the sofa.
Fuck.
I stride to where Cecily sleeps, and when I touch her shoulder, sure enough, it’s as stiff and heavy as stone.
Her face is pale and tense, but her features look neutral. From the outside looking in, this might appear normal, but I know better.
I crouch beside her and grab her heavy hand that barely moves.
Calling her name is futile. She doesn’t hear me when she’s in this state. Probably caught in the nightmare from the past. The one she can’t get over, no matter how much she tries.
And she does try.
In her journal, she often has entries about how she wants to get past that version of herself. How much she hates it. How weak she feels for not being able to erase it.
In one entry, she wrote ‘Get over it, Cecily’ a hundred times, and those words were splashed with tear marks.
That fucker will cry tears of blood instead.
I stroke the back of her hand once, twice, and while that doesn’t dissipate the stiffness, it makes her arm less heavy.
It’s not much, but it’s a start.
I caress her arm, her collarbone, and then her throat, pausing at the fading mark at the side. Note to self: make a new one.
No matter how much I massage her skin and touch her gently, she barely shows any response. I know she’s in there somewhere, and I need to pull her out of whatever nightmare she’s trapped in.
Usually, I’d eat her pussy, and the orgasm would be enough to snap her out of this state. And while I’m game for that, I want to find other methods that I can use in public.
My fingers glide over her jaw, throat, and other pressure points. She shudders when I squeeze the back of her neck.
So I do it again. “Cecily?”
Her eyes slowly blink open, but she’s staring at an invisible point behind me.
I press yet again. “Cecily, can you hear me?”
“Jeremy,” she whispers, and then tears cascade down her cheeks as her attention zooms in on me.
My thumb skims back and forth on the sensitive skin on her nape in a gentle rhythm I’m not used to. It’s experimental at best, but since she leans into my touch, I don’t stop.
“Jeremy,” she repeats, blinking away the moisture gathered in her lids.
“I’m right here.”
“I know.” She sits up and fists her hand in my shirt. “I felt you. When I was being swarmed away, I felt you. I heard your voice and even smelled you. Usually, no one hears me screaming for help in my head, but you did.”
Still grabbing onto me with a desperate hold and a shaky frame, she smiles through her tears.
Hope amidst ruin.
This is the most beautiful fucking sight I’ve ever seen.
Usually, I do anything to kill any hint of softness or humanity she tries to see in me, but right now, I can’t.
All I can do is stop and stare as she whispers, “Thank you.”
Fuck.
Why is a simple thank-you enough to tilt everything off its axis? Why is this infuriating girl looking at me in this trusting way?
I’m tempted to crush that trust, to show her exactly why I’m the last person she should give this power to.
However, I find myself asking, “What do you dream of in that state?”
She sniffles and slowly releases me to wipe the tears off her face. I expect her not to answer, but then her soft voice carries in the small living room.
“Sometimes, it’s blurry images and faceless monsters. But often, I relive what happened back then, or at least, the helplessness of the situation and how desperately I wanted to stop it but couldn’t.”
That motherfucker will wish for death when I get my hands on him.
“Other times”—her voice tightens with emotion—“I dream of Mum’s and Papa’s devastated faces, especially Mum’s. When I started going out with him, Mum didn’t like him, and that dislike grew once she met him. She said he gave her a bad feeling that she couldn’t put a finger on, but I told her she was overreacting and that I was lucky to have him as a boyfriend. Can you believe I actually used that word? Lucky?”
She laughs to herself, the sound choked and uncomfortable, like her entire posture.
“He was popular, well-mannered, and good-looking, so I couldn’t figure out what exactly Mum found so wrong about him. Every time I talked about him, she’d get this weird expression on her face and try to convince me to find someone else. She’d tell me that I’m pretty and smart, and I could have anyone I want. But I refused and even disliked her for misjudging him. Little did I know that her feelings were spot on.” She sniffles. “After I got back home, I couldn’t face her and kind of fled to stay with my grandfathers. I still can’t face her sometimes. I keep wondering if everything would’ve been all right if I’d just listened to her instead of being stubborn. And somehow, I created some sort of a rift between us that I can’t mend.”
“You didn’t know.”
“But she did.”
“No, she didn’t. She only had a feeling, that’s all.”
“But I should’ve listened to her.”
“You. Didn’t. Know.” I enunciate every word. “Don’t blame yourself for something you can’t control. That’s where vicious ghosts lurk.”
She swallows, then clenches her hands in her lap. “I just feel bad for the feelings I had toward Mum at the time. She’s done nothing but support me in everything I’ve ever done. And I guess—I guess…I’ve been holding an inexplicable grudge against her all these years because of how absent she was sometimes.”
I tilt my head to the side. “Absent how?”
“She has depression and sometimes, maybe once every few months, she’d feel distant. Not that she’d push me away or anything, but I’d feel like I couldn’t reach her. I don’t know how to explain it. Papa would always tell me that she needed time, and usually, she’d come around in a day or two, but I hated how she had to deal with it on her own and I wasn’t part of the process.” She pauses and smiles awkwardly. “Saying that out loud makes me sound like a spoiled brat.”
A familiar pain I thought I was long over tightens in my chest. “No. You just didn’t like being pushed aside by your mother.”
“Right! I felt worthless and I couldn’t…couldn’t…”
“Do anything to help when she retreated into her own head. It was like she was dead yet looked alive.”
I regret saying the words as soon as they’re out, because Cecily looks at me differently. With tears clinging to her lids as if she’s about to cry again.
But she doesn’t.
She’s watches me intently, without blinking, as if she’s seeing a part of me she never thought existed before.
And because she’s an infuriating, smart little shit, she manages to put the pieces together. “Was…your mother like that, too?”
My jaw clenches, but I say nothing.
“Anni said your parents had issues before she was born and you were the one who brought them together. But did that happen at the expense of witnessing her deteriorating mental state?”
That big mouth Annika.
I stand up. “Go back to sleep.”
A small hand wraps around my wrist and she blurts, “Okay, okay. I won’t pry if you don’t like it, but can you stay until I fall back asleep?”
“You’re not a baby.” I’m about to wrench my hand from hers.
But the fucking girl sinks her nails into my skin. “I haven’t been able to sleep properly in months, because I didn’t feel safe, but if you’re here, I’ll be able to.”
I stare down at her small frame on the sofa, at the desperation written all over her face.
She said she’d get to know me, and I told her that wouldn’t be possible, but she’s throwing her whole weight behind this.
If I didn’t know she was an awkward human being who barely knows how to communicate with anyone who’s outside of her closest circle, I’d swear she was acting.
Acting or not, though, her state shouldn’t be able to affect me. Not even a little.
Not anywhere close.
But as I stare into the glittery green of her eyes, a myriad of unknown emotions fester in my chest.
“I’m the last person you should feel safe around, Cecily.”
“But I do.”
“Despite everything I do to you?”
“I wanted that. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have come here every day.”
I thought she did it because of the threats.
Well, fuck me.
She came because she wanted to? And she’s actually admitting to that?
“I’ll stay if you answer my question.”
She nods twice.
I know I’m going to sound illogical and I’m pushing it, but I need to confirm this once and for all.
“Would you have preferred to have this arrangement with Landon?”
She blinks, probably not expecting this question, but then she seems to mull over her words.
“In the beginning, I admit that I wanted it to be Landon. I had a crush on him long before I had a boyfriend, so he was like an unreachable god to me. One I would’ve done anything to stay close to.”
I should’ve killed the motherfucker earlier today.
Maybe if I hunt him down now, I can finish what I started.
My murderous thoughts come to a halt when Cecily squeezes my hand. “I started having this twisted fantasy about being ravaged soon after I hit puberty and kept it to myself, thinking something was wrong with me. Those feelings were more prominent after that incident with my ex, and I thought I was being punished for having the fantasy. I didn’t dare act on it until this year, and I’m glad it wasn’t Lan who made it come true, because I realize just how shallow my feelings for him were and how much he wouldn’t have cared.”
Were.
Her feelings for him are a ‘were.’
She’s glad it wasn’t him who made the fantasy come true, which means she’s glad it’s me.
Well, she didn’t say it like that exactly, but I choose to believe that.
“And you think I do care?” I ask like a dick.
She rubs the side of her nose with her index finger. Fucking adorable.
“Sometimes.”
Sometimes is enough.
For now.
I was so intent on leaving earlier, but instead, I do something I’ve never done before.
I stay.
