SERAPHINE
I sit on my heels in my bedroom with felt-tip pens spread all over the desk. The picture I drew of Leroi needs more red. I draw gashes down his neck and two down the lines of his chest. His mouth is open in a silent scream as blood pours over the bed and stains the sheets.
Slicing him open in picture form isn’t enough. I need him to bleed.
Leroi made me feel so alive this morning when he fucked me with Pietro’s dagger. For those blissful moments, I felt loved, protected, pleasured. He gave me my first orgasm, then another so powerful that my vision went black.
And when he pulled me into his chest, my mind fell quiet. I was finally at peace and where I belonged.
Then he pulled away.
All the way back. Leaving me in a void of silence.
It’s been years since I felt so rejected. Discarded.
He led me out of Pietro’s house without a word, as though what we’d done together had been a mistake. Maybe he hadn’t meant to kill Pietro in a murderous rage for hurting me, or he was having regrets. Regrets about getting close to a girl he thinks is tainted.
Leroi barely spoke to me at the firing range. My vision was so clouded with rage that I couldn’t hit the target. He stayed huddled close to Miko, looking like they were plotting how to send me away.
My fingers grip the felt-tip pen so tightly the plastic snaps. This feels like Dad all over again. One minute, I’m his angel. The next, I’m nothing more than a disposable toy. Leroi’s compliments and praise ring through my ears like an alarm that won’t stop, no matter how many red slashes I make across his lying mouth.
I squeeze my eyes shut and toss the notebook to the headboard, where it lands with a soft thud. Drawing his demise won’t calm my mind and neither will moping in this room.
Replacing the broken felt-tip pen for the knife I took from Pietro’s kitchen. I slide off the chair and walk out into the apartment.
I’ll just have to slice something open and imagine it’s Leroi.
By now, the sun has set, casting the living room in gloom. I walk past the floor-to-ceiling windows, taking in the nighttime view of Beaumont city.
Leroi is out there, probably wining and dining a tall brunette. If it’s not Rosalind with her fake pregnancy, then it will be Monica, the nosey therapist. If he’s stupid enough to bring her back to our apartment, he’ll wake up on a mattress soaked with her blood and a knife to his throat.
I fling open the kitchen door, turn on the light, and glance at the counter. The block of knives is still missing. I shrug at his attempt to keep them from me, it doesn’t matter since I took another from Pietro’s kitchen after Leroi turned cold and pretended I didn’t exist.
The refrigerator has been restocked with enough vegetables to last a month. I gather an armful and set them on the counter, then return to select a pack of steak.
I slice the meat into tiny strips, imagining them as Leroi’s misshapen heart. It’s cold and dry with only the tiniest bit of moisture, but the real thing would stain my fingers with blood.
Once I’ve cut through the steak, I move onto a cabbage the size of his head. The satisfying crunch of the knife slicing through its thick leaves feels like carving his skull.
It wasn’t always like this. Before Dad turned into a backstabbing psychopath, I used to help our cook, Bianca, in the kitchen. She taught me how to hold a knife, to cut vegetables without slicing my fingers, and a host of useful kitchen skills. Looking back at my childhood, it seems the only real parental love I received was from the domestic staff.
I hope Dad didn’t kill our driver, Felix, for taking me to Nanna’s house or Bianca for being his wife. All they ever tried to do was help, but if he could so easily order those men to violate Mom before snuffing out her life, imprison Gabriel, and turn me into an assassin, then he could murder an innocent old couple.
At the click of a door opening, I stiffen, my hackles rising. It snicks shut, but only one set of footsteps approaches. I slide the knife under a kitchen towel and turn my back to the counter.
Leroi leans against the doorway, his arm resting on the top of the frame. He gazes down at me through half-lidded eyes, reminding me of a predator who’s already eaten his fill.
“You’re still up,” he says, his voice low.
My fingers twitch toward the knife. “Where have you been?”
“Following an interesting lead,” he says.
A breath catches in my throat. “About Gabriel?”
He nods.
All traces of rejection and resentment fade into the background at the thought of getting closer to finding my brother. I push off the counter and close the distance between us. “Why didn’t you bring me along?”
“It was too dangerous,” he says.
“I can take care of myself,” I reply.
He places both hands on my shoulders and stares down at me with those impossibly dark eyes. “You’re impulsive. You lack control. We were supposed to place a tracker on Fiori’s car and leave. Instead, you charged at him, and we had to improvise.”
“That’s why you’re shutting me out?” I step out of his grasp.
He sighs as though he finds our conversation tiresome. “Tonight’s mission required zero margin for error. If anything went wrong, we’d have two targets on our backs.”
“But—”
“Seraphine,” he says, his voice sharper than any knife. “You don’t see what I see.”
“And what’s that?”
“The bigger picture, and that’s not your fault. For the past five years, your world was narrowed into captivity, killing, and abuse.”
His honesty makes my throat tighten and the backs of my eyes sting. “There’s no need to be so rude.”
“You’re the strongest young woman I know, but the things that happened to you have stunted your maturity and given you a deep distrust of men.”
I part my lips to protest, but he speaks first.
“Including me, but I understand.”
Resentment simmers in my belly, building up in intensity until I’m on the verge of slicing him open and painting the kitchen floor with his insides. He’s so uptight and always in control. Control over information, control his emotions, control over every aspect of my quest to save my brother and avenge Mom. Pushing my resentment aside, I make a mental note to draw this image in my notebook.
“What did you find out about Gabriel?” I ask.
He glances away.
My heart plummets to my stomach. “What is it?”
“Your brother was…” He inhales a deep breath as though trying to find the right words. “He was hospitalized two years ago, but he made a fast recovery.”
“What happened? Where is he now?”
He shakes his head. “It was a routine procedure. Miko is checking through the records of every hospital in and within driving distance of New Alderney. We’ll find him.”
Hope flickers in my chest, but it’s only a tiny spark which fades. Leroi is planning on getting rid of me after he’s found Gabriel. He admitted as much the night we’d buried that bastard I castrated in the woods, but I don’t want to replace Leroi with my brother. I don’t want to have to choose between them. I want them both.
“Do you promise?”
He cups the side of my face, his eyes softening. “I promise.”
Some of the tension leaves my shoulders, and I lean into his touch. “You’ll like Gabriel,” I murmur. “He’s just like Miko.”
Leroi strokes my hair, sending pleasant shivers down my scalp. “It’s late. You should go to bed.”
“Can I sleep with you? Pietro died, and I can’t be in that room alone.”
Leroi’s face stills. “You slept well enough in there after you killed Billy Blue and all the others. Why would Fiori’s death make a difference?”
“Because I witnessed his murder,” I whisper. “They don’t count when I do it.”
He studies my expression for a few long seconds, his jaw clenching. “Go to bed.”
“But—”
“Now.”
I dig my heels into the floor.
His eyes darken, and he steps so close that the air between us crackles with electricity. “Go. To. Bed.”
Maybe what I said about being too traumatized to sleep was bullshit, but there’s still something between us that’s keeping me awake. I take a step backward toward the counter, my skin tingling. “If you want me to leave the kitchen, you’ll apologize.”
He raises a brow. “Explain.”
“You paid that bucket of bleach more attention than me. You walked away from me at Pietro’s house. Then you acted like it was my fault that Dad’s driver’s cousin was dead—”
“Because you killed him—”
“And then you ignored me in the shooting range and spent all your time with Miko,” I say, my voice rising.
He rubs the spot between his brows. I know by now it’s his way of saying he’s tired of dealing with me. “Seraphine,” he says, his voice measured. “Miko and I were planning tonight’s mission.”
My jaw tenses. We could have planned it together, but he left me out on purpose, and I know why. We were getting along perfectly until he fucked me with that knife and then gave me that second orgasm. My back stiffens at the memory of him gazing down at his wet fingers, his face a blank mask, his erection strained through his pants. His body wants me, but he doesn’t want to get involved with someone so tainted by abuse.
“I didn’t think you were the kind of man who got squeamish after giving a girl an orgasm.” Taking another step backward toward the counter, I seek comfort from my new knife. Leroi stalks after me, his irises turning black.
I’m trapped between his much larger body and a hard surface, and the pulse between my legs won’t stop throbbing. Leroi cages me with both hands on the counter and leans in.
“Don’t test me, little Seraphine,” he growls.
“What are you going to do?” I ask, my heart pounding. “Spank me?”
His eyes flash. “Lose the sass before I do something you’ll regret.”
My breath hitches.
I can’t wait to see what he’ll do next.
