Incendiary (Inferno 4)

Chapter Nine

I left Richter downstairs working on Skylar with the strict instruction to not fuck her yet.

Not that I think he has it in him because I’m fairly certain that he shot his load the moment he started licking her like a feral cat, but he needs to be guided for now and it’s not time for that yet.

Running a hand back through my hair, I walk over to my bedroom window and push the curtain aside. I grip the windowsill tightly as I lean out and inhale the crisp, night air before my eyes fall on the oubliette.

Fucking idiot girl.

She didn’t put the damn gate back over the entrance when she was done failing at her chores. It makes me wonder if she needs to go back down there and spend more time with Darby.

Darby.

Sometimes I think about her.

How for the slightest moment she convinced me that she loved me only to turn on me and try to throw me into the darkness where she found herself.

That’s part of the reason I decided that love is a weak emotion. I almost died because she toyed with me and made me believe her lie.

I’ve changed since then, but not without some sleepless nights over what was done.

She should still be here.

She had more to do as my wife, more needs to take care of, and to keep these fucking children preoccupied so I wouldn’t have to deal with them.

I sigh as I run a hand over my face.

The luck of the draw has never been something I was good at.

From Taylee down to these bastards now, I’ve never had much to be proud of.

Except for her, I think as my eyes go back to the oubliette.

I guess, in a weird way, I miss her.

Not because she took care of her womanly duties, but because she was the only one that understood how a family should be run.

No matter how much she tried to fight it; Darby knew that the only way to have a stable home was to live the life I had set the path for.

And for a time, she was good at it.

Until I took the slow one and dumped her somewhere.

That was when she decided she was going to be a mother.

She always had a soft spot for that little shit, and it ruined what we had.

But things ended as they should have even if it was prematurely.

I’m so lost in my own thoughts of the bitch rotting at the bottom of the well, that I didn’t hear anyone come up the stairs. And with as thin as these walls are, I shouldn’t be as caught off guard as I am when I hear a knock at my bedroom door.

I glare over my shoulder as the sound comes again.

These kids know the fucking rules.

No one is allowed up here unless I bring them up here.

The second floor is for true Greene men and women.