Wretched Love

“You gonna be a good girl and wait for my cock, Countess?”

I nodded, unable to speak.

Swiss didn’t move. “Do I have to ask again?”

“I’m gonna be a good girl and wait for your cock,” I told him, my voice barely audible.

“That’s my girl,” he whispered.

Then he dove in.

Dove. Right. In.

And he did split me apart.

Took me off the face of the earth. He gave me a respite from both of our troubles. For a while, at least.

I woke up alone. It couldn’t have been that long since I first went to sleep, the darkness outside was still thick and heavy.

It had been a couple of hours at most. And Swiss was gone.

He was gone because we were back at the club, because he knew I was safe here. Because he thought that I would sleep through the night now. He was gone because of my nightmares. Because of the rasp in my voice. The bruises around my throat. The scar on my stomach.

I knew he wouldn’t leave me for anything but revenge. To feed the thing inside him that demanded blood, retribution for what had been done to me.

Preston.

They had him, somewhere.

I vaguely remembered the conversation we’d had about it.

Of course, they’d found him. And they weren’t going to hand him over to the police. Not after what was done to me.

He was going to die.

My first, primitive instinct to that was glee. Utter freaking joy.

But then reality rushed in.

The father of my child was going to die.

Violet, who loved her dad, thought he hung the moon, was going to lose him. Sally and Frank were going to lose their son. And I would have to construct some kind of narrative. I would have to lie about it. To their faces.

To my daughter’s face.

Suddenly, the room was stifling, suffocating. The place that had been my refuge was now a prison.

I pulled back the covers, crossing the room as quickly as I could with my current injuries, intent on fresh air. On relief.

I didn’t bump into Swiss on my short journey out to the back patio area of the clubhouse. I hadn’t expected to. If he truly was somewhere hurting Preston, there would be no crisp fall breeze. There would be only stale, underground air mixed with the stench of blood. Just the thought of it chilled my exposed arms.

I was wearing only Swiss’s tee and nothing else. No shoes. The stone patio was cool against my feet, and I sat down on a step that led out to a grassy area. There was a playground for the kids, a vegetable garden—Macy’s idea—and fire drums. Someone—again, likely Macy—had strung fairy lights through the trees, so the area was faintly illuminated. The sun was just starting to kiss the horizon, but it was mostly dark.

Quiet too. There wasn’t even the harmony of cicadas that I’d become used to. No birds signaling the incoming morning.

Nothing but the shriek of my thoughts.

I must’ve been on that step for a while because the sun got progressively brighter.