LEROI
Seraphine is not the same woman I pulled out of that basement. Her eyes are alight with excitement at the prospect of the toys, and she even welcomes the red-haired store clerk’s help. I stand back, observing the two women giggle and chat about toys, not believing that she just stabbed Monica with a letter opener for getting too close.
The taller woman places a hand on Seraphine’s shoulder, and Seraphine doesn’t even flinch. Instead, her smile is brighter than the sun. She seems mesmerized by the clerk’s knowledge of kink.
Seraphine is mercurial–unlike anyone I’ve ever known.
For the next half hour, I lean against a blank patch of wall, volleying texts between Miko and my cousins, Benito and Cesare. Miko is tearing through the hard drives, trying to find the information needed to pull Roman from death row. Cesare is certain that Capello held something over the district attorney who presided over Roman’s murder trial, but I want Miko to cast his net wider. Capello would have had dirt on politicians, judges, and the chief of police. We just need to find it.
Giggles erupt from the other side of the store, and I look up from my phone. Seraphine is holding out her forearm, while the store clerk runs the tips of a small flogger over her skin.
The sight of two beautiful women together should be arousing, but my gut twists with a surge of possessiveness. If anyone’s going to tease Seraphine, even in jest, then that person is going to be me.
I push off the wall, slip the phone in my pocket, and walk over to the rack of whips and floggers.
Seraphine turns to me, her eyes bright. “Can we get this one?”
I grab her arm and pull her close, my gaze holding hers. “Anything you want, angel.”
Her cheeks bloom a delicate shade of pink. She dips her head and gazes up at me through her lashes, making my heart skip. The look is so coy and innocent that I almost forget she’s an untamed killer until I notice the tiny flecks of Monica’s blood on her fingers.
I have to remind myself that she’s off-limits. Seraphine has suffered enough and doesn’t need to get involved with another killer, especially one also trained by Anton. Anton twisted and corrupted an inexperienced young girl until her knee-jerk reaction to stress became murder.
Taming Seraphine won’t be as easy as giving Miko a place to stay. There’s a darkness in her that calls to mine, not to mention this unwanted attraction. I like tall, kinky brunettes who don’t form attachments, not tiny, angelic blondes.
Once she’s learned to control her killer instincts and is reunited with her brother, I don’t plan on letting her stick around.
“Anything else?” I gesture at the overflowing basket.
She rushes to a bookshelf, extracts a coloring book along with a notepad covered in pink fur along with a pack of felt-tip pens. “Let’s go home.”
Home.
She’s been in my presence for less than two days, and she’s already claiming ownership of my apartment. My cock stirs at the reminder of her deadly wake up call. Seraphine is the first woman who wouldn’t recoil at what I do for a living. Not that it matters because I’m not seeking romantic attachments.
After purchasing two baskets of items, I take Seraphine to a department store to pick out some clothes in her size. I’m not surprised to find that everything she chooses is a shade of baby blue or pink, but I’m taken aback that all she selects is loungewear. Perhaps she’s sick of wearing the pretty dresses associated with her former job.
The apartment is pristine, with only a hint of bleach in the air when we return later. A testament to the proficiency of Don and his clean-up crew. At the dining table, we unload the bags from our shopping spree, and Seraphine doesn’t wait even a heartbeat to bring up her training.
“Are we going to use the toys?” Seraphine asks, her eyes sparkling.
“You haven’t done anything to warrant a reward or punishment,” I say.
Her brows pull together. “What do you mean?”
“You asked for help with taming your compulsions,” I reply. “I need to understand what went through your mind when you killed Billy Blue.”
Her features darken, and all traces of the excited girl fade away, leaving her sullen and cold. “Nothing.”
I wait for her to elaborate, but she falls silent.
“Did you black out?” I ask.
“No.”
“Then how do you explain what happened?”
“I was protecting myself.”
Familiar pressure builds up behind my eyes, and I rub the spot between my brows. She’s determined to make me work for answers.
“Stabbing a man who’s attacking you is self-defense. Why did you keep going? Why go so far as to cut off his dick?”
“Actually, that was the first place I attacked.” She looks away and points her pert nose in the air.
“A blow like that would incapacitate any man. Why didn’t you wake me?”
Her head whips around, and she glares at me, her eyes blazing with blue fire. “Are you on his side?”
“I want to understand why you took it so far,” I say.
Her breath quickens, and she growls, her lips tightening into a grimace. “Because he deserved it.”
“He did.” I keep my tone measured. “But you still haven’t explained your thought processes.”
Her hands curl into fists on the tabletop, and her tiny frame trembles with a banked fury that can only come from years of pain.
What the hell did those people do to this girl?
My protective instincts rear to the forefront, urging me to give Seraphine a break. She doesn’t need a refresher of what she suffered—it has to be unimaginable. Still, I can’t work in the dark, and she can’t continue to lash out and get herself in trouble. I won’t allow it.
Silence continues until I remind her I need answers with a sharp, “Seraphine.”
“I wasn’t thinking anything,” she says from between clenched teeth. “All I saw were their faces.”
“Whose?” I ask, imagining her captors.
“The men Dad used to punish Mom.”
“By Dad you mean Frederic Capello?”
Her face contorts. “He’s not my father. He’s a monster.”
“But you call him Dad.”
Deflating, she bows her head, hiding her face with a curtain of hair. “That’s what I called him all my life. He used to be a normal dad, living with us in a house on the hills with Gabriel and Mom.”
“What changed?”
“One night, I heard noises. My dad was supposed to be away on business. When I went to wake Mom, the bed was empty, so I took a bat and crept down the stairs.”
Her breath quickens, and the fists on the table pull into her chest. I want to reach out across to place a hand on her shoulder, to offer some strength, but I don’t want to risk interrupting her.
“The noises were coming from Dad’s office,” she rasps. “I peeked inside. Dad was there with his bodyguards, and they had Mom bent over his desk.”
Silence stretches out for several seconds, punctuated only by Seraphine’s rapid breaths. “They were taking turns with her. She was screaming, begging them to stop, but Dad said she was getting what she deserved.”
My breath stills.
“How old were you?” I ask.
“I’d just turned sixteen,” she whispers. “I didn’t know what to do or how to help, and I froze. I was so scared that the men would turn on me.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran upstairs.” Her voice breaks. “I picked up the phone, called the police, and begged them to send help.”
“You couldn’t fight them,” I tell her.
“The woman on the other line said she would send a squad car. She told me not to approach the men and to find somewhere to hide, but nobody came.”
“The noises… they just got worse and worse, so I went back upstairs to fetch a gun.” She pauses for several seconds, catching her breath. “I meant to go in and shoot the men hurting her, but I found one of them on the floor with his throat slit. There was blood everywhere, and I panicked.”
Did Seraphine’s mother have an affair with the dead man?
“What did you do next?” I ask.
“I left the house and ran across the grounds to where Felix lived.”
“Who is Felix?”
“Our driver.”
“Did he help you?”
She shakes her head. “Felix said the cops wouldn’t come because Dad was too powerful. He said if I wanted to leave, he would take me anywhere.”
In frustration, she fists handfuls of her hair, trying to tear it out by the roots. “I should have stayed. I should have shot the men and gotten my throat slit.”
“Seraphine.” I grab her hands and squeeze them until her fingers straighten and she releases her grip on her hair. Her skin is clammy and hot, as though she’s reliving the moment. “You were a child. Nothing you could have done would have saved her.”
The second she lets go of her hair, she slams her head into the table with a force that makes me flinch.
Shit.
I rush to my feet and pull her into my arms. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
Seraphine lashes out with her fists, trying to fight me off, but I hold tighter, letting her fight and rage until her punches slow and her body collapses.
My lungs deflate with a sigh. I understand these feelings all too well. Powerlessness, guilt, and rage. Three poisonous emotions that she’s held in her soul for half a decade. She’s probably just replayed that night over and over, cursing herself for not acting differently. It’s no surprise that she killed Billy Blue and moved onto all the others. Her anger wasn’t toward a lone assailant or even a trio. It was toward an entire group of men.
“Don’t blame yourself. You did what you had to do to survive,” I murmur into her hair.
“No, you don’t understand. I asked Felix to take me to Nanna, and then Dad…” She exhales an anguished cry that makes the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “Dad came the next morning with those men and took us both. Now, Nanna and Mom are dead because of me.”
My breath hitches.
Seraphine pulls back, her eyes bloodshot. “Let go of me. I want to go to bed.”
